A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research

1529 Pages·2016·47.37 MB·English

by  Robertson A.T.

GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW
TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF
HISTORICAL RESEARCH

BY
A. T. ROBERTSON, M.A., D.D., LL.D., LITT.D.
Professor of Interpretation of the New Testament in the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, Ky.

Digitized by Ted Hildebrandt at Gordon College, Wenham, MA
March 2006
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Composition, Electrotyping, and Presswork:
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO

THE MEMORY OF

John A. Broadus

SCHOLAR TEACHER PREACHER
PREFACE

IT is with mingled feelings of gratitude and regret that I let
this book go to the public. I am grateful for God's sustaining
grace through so many years of intense work and am fully con-
scious of the inevitable imperfections that still remain. For a
dozen years this Grammar has been the chief task of my life. I
have given to it sedulously what time was mine outside of my
teaching. But it was twenty-six years ago that my great prede-
cessor in the chair of New Testament Interpretation proposed to
his young assistant that they together get out a revised edition
of Winer. The manifest demand for a new grammar of the New
Testament is voiced by Thayer, the translator of the American
edition of Winer's Grammar, in his article on "Language of the
New Testament" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.
I actually began the work and prepared the sheets for the first
hundred pages, but I soon became convinced that it was not
possible to revise Winer's Grammar as it ought to be done without
making a new grammar on a new plan. So much progress
had been made in comparative philology and historical grammar
since Winer wrote his great book that it seemed useless to go on
with it. Then Dr. Broadus said to me that he was out of it by
reason of his age, and that it was my task. He reluctantly gave
it up and pressed me to go on. From that day it was in my
thoughts and plans and I was gathering material for the great
undertaking. If Schmiedel had pushed through his work, I
might have stopped. By the time that Dr. James Hope Moulton
announced his new grammar, I was too deep into the enterprise
to draw back. And so I have held to the titanic task somehow
till the end has come. There were many discouragements and I
was often tempted to give it up at all costs. No one who has
not done similar work can understand the amount of research,
the mass of detail and the reflection required in a book of this
nature. The mere physical effort of writing was a joy of expres-
sion in comparison with the rest. The title of Cauer's brilliant
book, Grammatica Militans (now in the third edition), aptly
describes the spirit of the grammarian who to-day attacks the
vii
viii A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

problems of the language of the New Testament in the light of
historical research.
From one point of view a grammar of the Greek New Testa-
ment is an impossible task, if one has to be a specialist in the
whole Greek language, in Latin, in Sanskrit, in Hebrew and the
other Semitic tongues, in Church History, in the Talmud, in
1
English, in psychology, in exegesis. I certainly lay no claim to
omniscience. I am a linguist by profession and by love also, but
I am not a specialist in the Semitic tongues, though I have a
working knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, but not of Syriac
and Arabic. The Coptic and the Sanskrit I can use. The Latin
and the Greek, the French and German and Anglo-Saxon com-
plete my modest linguistic equipment. I have, besides, a smat-
tering of Assyrian, Dutch, Gothic and Italian.
I have explained how I inherited the task of this Grammar
from Broadus: He was a disciple of Gessner Harrison, of the
University of Virginia, who was the first scholar in America to
make use of Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik. Broadus' views
of grammar were thus for long considered queer by the students
who came to him trained in the traditional grammars and unused
to the historical method; but he held to his position to the end.
This Grammar aims to keep in touch at salient points with the
results of comparative philology and historical grammar as the
true linguistic science. In theory one should be allowed to as-
sume all this in a grammar of the Greek N. T., but in fact that
cannot be done unless the book is confined in use to a few tech-
nical scholars. I have tried not to inject too much of general
grammar into the work, but one hardly knows what is best when
the demands are so varied. So many men now get no Greek
except in the theological seminary that one has to interpret for
them the language of modern philology. I have simply sought
in a modest way to keep the Greek of the N. T. out in the middle
of the linguistic stream as far as it is proper to do so. In actual
class use some teachers will skip certain chapters.
2
Alfred Gudemann, of Munich, says of American classical
scholars: "Not a single contribution marking genuine progress,
no work on an extensive scale, opening up a new perspective or
breaking entirely new ground, nothing, in fact, of the slightest
scientific value can be placed to their credit." That is a serious
charge, to be sure, but then originality is a relative matter. The

1
Cf. Dr. James Moffatt's remarks in The Expositor, Oct., 1910, p. 383 f.
2
The Cl. Rev., .June, 1909, p. 116.
PREFACE ix

true scholar is only too glad to stand upon the shoulders of his
predecessors and give full credit at every turn. Who could make
any progress in human knowledge but for the ceaseless toil of
1 2
those who have gone before? Prof. Paul Shorey, of the Uni-
versity of Chicago, has a sharp answer to Prof. Gudemann. He
speaks of "the need of rescuing scholarship itself from the
German yoke." He does not mean "German pedantry and
superfluous accuracy in insignificant research — but . . . in all
seriousness from German inaccuracy." He continues about "the
disease of German scholarship" that "insists on 'sweat-boxing'
the evidence and straining after 'vigorous and rigorous' demon-
stration of things that do not admit of proof." There probably
are German scholars guilty of this grammatical vice (are Amer-
ican and British scholars wholly free?). But I wish to record my
conviction that my own work, such as it is, would have been im-
possible but for the painstaking and scientific investigation of the
Germans at every turn. The republic of letters is cosmopolitan.
In common with all modern linguists I have leaned upon Brug-
mann and Delbrtick as masters in linguistic learning.
I cannot here recite my indebtedness to all the scholars whose
books and writings have helped me. But, besides Broadus, I
must mention Gildersleeve as the American Hellenist whose wit
and wisdom have helped me over many a hard place. Gilder-
sleeve has spent much of his life in puncturing grammatical
bubbles blown by other grammarians. He exercises a sort of
grammatical censorship. "At least whole grammars have been
3
constructed about one emptiness." It is possible to be "grammar
4
mad," to use The Independent's phrase. It is easy to scout all
5
grammar and say: "Grammar to the Wolves." Browning sings
in A Grammarian's Funeral:
"He settled Hoti's business — let it be!
Properly based Oun
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down."

1
F. H. Colson, in an article entitled "The Grammatical Chapters in Quin-
tilian," I, 4–8 (The Cl. Quarterly, Jan., 1914, p. 33), says: "The five chapters
which Quintilian devotes to ‘Grammatica’ are in many ways the most valuable
discussion of the subject which we possess," though he divides "grammatica"
into "grammar" and "literature," and (p. 37) "the whole of this chapter is
largely directed to meet the objection that grammar is ‘tenuis et jejuna.’"
2
The Cl. Weekly, May 27, 1911, p. 229.
3 4
Gildersleeve, Am. Jour. of Philol., July, 1909, p. 229. 1911, 717.
5
Article by F. A. W. Henderson, Blackwood for May, 1906.
x A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

Perhaps those who pity the grammarian do not know that he
finds joy in his task and is sustained by the conviction that his
work is necessary. Prof. C. F. Smith (The Classical Weekly,
1912, p. 150) tells of the joy of the professor of Greek at Bonn
when he received a copy of the first volume of Gildersleeve's
Syntax of Classical Greek. The professor brought it to the Semi-
nar and "clasped and hugged it as though it were a most precious
1
darling (Liebling)." Dr. A. M. Fairbairn once said: "No man
can be a theologian who is not a philologian. He who is no
grammarian is no divine." Let Alexander McLaren serve as a
good illustration of that dictum. His matchless discourses are
the fruit of the most exact scholarship and spiritual enthusiasm.
I venture to quote another defence of the study of Greek which
will, I trust, yet come back to its true place in modern education.
2
Prof. G. A. Williams, of Kalamazoo College, says : "Greek yet
remains the very best means we have for plowing up and wrink-
ling the human brain and developing its gray matter, and wrinkles
and gray matter are still the most valuable assets a student can
set down on the credit side of his ledger."
Dr. J. H. Moulton has shown that it is possible to make gram-
mar interesting, as Gildersleeve had done before him. Moulton
3
protests against the notion that grammar is dull: "And yet there
is no subject which can be made more interesting than grammar,
a science which deals not with dead rocks or mindless vegetables,
but with the ever changing expression of human thought." I
wish to acknowledge here my very great indebtedness to Dr.
Moulton for his brilliant use of the Egyptian papyri in proof of
the fact that the New Testament was written in the vernacular
koinh<. Deissmann is the pioneer in this field and is still the
leader in it. It is hard to overestimate the debt of modern New
Testament scholarship to his work. Dr. D. S. Margoliouth, it is
true, is rather pessimistic as to the value of the papyri: "Not one
per cent. of those which are deciphered and edited with so much
4
care tell us anything worth knowing." Certainly that is too

1
Address before the Baptist Theological College at Glasgow, reported in
The British Weekly, April 26, 1906.
2
The Cl. Weekly, April 16, 1910.
3
London Quarterly Review, 1908, p. 214. Moulton and Deissmann also
disprove the pessimism of Hatch (Essays in Biblical Greek, p. 1): "The lan-
guage of the New Testament, on the other hand, has not yet attracted the
special attention of any considerable scholar. There is no good lexicon.
There is no good philological commentary. There is no adequate grammar."
4
The Expositor, Jan., 1912, p. 73.
PREFACE xi

gloomy a statement. Apart from the linguistic value of the
papyri and the ostraca which has been demonstrated, these
letters and receipts have interest as human documents. They
give us real glimpses of the actual life of the common people in
the first Christian centuries, their joys and their sorrows, the
little things that go so far to make life what it is for us all. But
the student of the Greek New Testament finds a joy all his own
in seeing so many words in common use that were hitherto found
almost or quite alone in the New Testament or LXX. But the
grammar of the N. T. has also had a flood of light thrown on it
from the papyri, ostraca and inscriptions as a result of the work
of Deissmann; Mayser, Milligan, Moulton, Radermacher, Thumb,
Volker, Wilcken and others. I have gratefully availed myself of
the work of these scholars and have worked in this rich field for
other pertinent illustrations of the New Testament idiom. The
material is almost exhaustless and the temptation was constant
to use too much of it. I have not thought it best to use so much
of it in proportion as Radermacher has done, for the case is now
proven and what Moulton and Radermacher did does not have
to be repeated. As large as my book is, the space is precious for
the New Testament itself. But I have used the new material
freely. The book has grown so that in terror I often hold
back. It is a long step from Winer, three generations ago, to
the present time. We shall never go back again to that stand-
point. Winer was himself a great emancipator in the gram-
matical field. But the battles that he fought are now ancient
history.
It is proper to state that the purpose of this Grammar is not
that of the author's Short Grammar which is now in use in various
modern languages of America and Europe. That book has its
own place. The present volume is designed for advanced stu-
dents in theological schools, for the use of teachers, for scholarly
pastors who wish a comprehensive grammar of the Greek New
Testament on the desk for constant use, for all who make a
thorough study of the New Testament or who are interested in
the study of language, and for libraries. If new editions come,
as I hope, I shall endeavour to make improvements and correc-
tions. Errata are sure to exist in a book of this nature. Occa-
sionally (cf. Accusative with Infinitive) the same subject is
treated more than once for the purpose of fulness at special
points. Some repetition is necessary in teaching. Some needless
repetition can be eliminated later. I may explain also that the
xii A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

works used by me in the Bodleian Library and the British Mu-
seum had the citations copied twice with double opportunity for
errors of reference, but I have guarded that point to the best of
my ability. I have been careful to give credit in detail to the
many works consulted.
But, after all is said, I am reluctant to let my book slip away
from my hands. There is so much yet to learn. I had hoped
that Mayser's Syntax der griechischen Papyri could have ap-
peared so that I could have used it, but he sorrowfully writes me
that illness has held him back. Neither Helbing nor Thackeray
has finished his Syntax of the LXX. The N. T. Vocabulary of
Moulton and Milligan, though announced, has not yet appeared.
Deissmann's Lexicon is still in the future. Thumb's revision of
Brugmann's Griechische Grammatik appeared after my book had
1
gone to the press. I could use it only here and there. The same
thing is true of Debrunner's revision of Blass' Grammatik des
neatest. Griechisch. New light will continue to be turned on the
Greek Of the N. T. Prof. J. Rendel Harris (The Expository Times,
Nov., 1913, p. 54 f.) points out, what had not been recently no-
ticed, that Prof. Masson, in his first edition of Winer in 1859,
p. vii, had said: "The diction of the New Testament is the plain
and unaffected Hellenic of the Apostolic Age, as employed by
Greek-speaking Christians when discoursing on religious sub-
jects . . . Apart from the Hebraisms — the number of which
has, for the most part, been grossly exaggerated — the New
Testament may be considered as exhibiting the only genuine
fac-simile of the colloquial diction employed by unsophisticated
Grecian gentlemen of the first century, who spoke without
pedantry — as id] iw?tai and not as sofistai<." The papyri have
simply confirmed the insight of Masson in 1859 and of Lightfoot
in 1863 (Moulton, Prol., p. 242). One's mind lingers with fas-
cination over the words of the New Testament as they meet
him in unexpected contexts in the papyri, as when ar] eth < (cf.
1 Pet. 2 : 9) occurs in the sense of 'Thy Excellency,'