In the previous chapters, it was seen that several prepositions, primarily ablatival in sense, competed with ὑπό as means of marking the agent. While ὑπό was clearly the dominant preposition in Attic authors like Plato, Xenophon, or Demosthenes, its position was not particularly stable: especially in Demosthenes, παρά sometimes alternates with ὑπό in apparent free variation. These other prepositions were thus situated in a place from which they could potentially oust ὑπό from its role as the agent marker. And ὑπό did indeed fall out of use in the end. As can be seen from modern Greek, it was ἀπό that eventually replaced ὑπό as the grammaticalized means of marking the agent. Scholarship on this development is scanty. For the most part, it is summarily stated that ἀπό simply took over from ὑπό, primarily on the basis of its occurrence in the Septuagint (LXX) and New Testament (NT). A fuller examination of the evidence, however, suggests that the development was not so straightforward. Although ἀπό does occur suggestively early in the LXX and NT, it is not the dominant agentive preposition in the papyri of late antiquity or the lower-register texts of the Byzantine period. It appears rather that παρά+G was the immediate successor of ὑπό, and that ἀπό was not the primary agentive preposition until after the twelfth century AD. Because texts not influenced by classical language are so rare in the relevant period, the details of this change will remain obscure.

Beginning students of Ancient Greek soon learn that the agent of a passive verb is marked with the preposition ὑπό followed by the genitive. Then, of course, the exceptions come to light. The most common of these is the dative of agent, which, for the beginner at least, may be explained away as occurring with perfect passives and -τέος verbals. Later, however, one comes across other irregularities, notably the use of prepositions other than ὑπό+G. The conditions that motivate these apparently anomalous agent markers have not yet been satisfactorily explained. The aim of this book is to do so.

I begin with an introductory chapter that lays a theoretical foundation for the work and discusses the reasons why these passive-with-agent constructions (PACs) occur in the first place. In Chapter 2, I move on to Homer, as the Iliad and Odyssey represent the earliest texts that are syntactically complex enough to have PACs. Because the Homeric data are so different from the later evidence – in particular, these constructions are far less common in Homer – they are best dealt with separately. Next, in Chapter 3, I look at the dative of agent.

While ὑπό is by far the most common agent marker in classical Greek prose, other prepositions do occur in its place. In this chapter, I will explore the linguistic motivation for these non-standard agent markers. Generally speaking, there are two factors that affect the selection of agent markers. The more important is the semantic field to which the verb belongs: verbs of sending and giving often use an ablatival preposition like ἐκ or παρά+G; verbs of thinking often use a locatival preposition like πρός or παρά+D. The second, lesser factor concerns the syntax of the verb: participles sometimes take different agent markers than would finite verbs. The body of this chapter will examine the works of six major prose authors in turn (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Lysias, Plato, and Demosthenes) to demonstrate how these two factors affect the expression of the agent.

Survey of earlier literature

Scholarship on this question has been surprisingly scarce. Aside from the section in Kühner–Gerth (1898) on the uses of prepositions generally, the chief existing studies are Schwyzer’s lengthy article on agent constructions (1943) and a brief article on agenthood by Luraghi (2000). Both Kühner–Gerth and Schwyzer suffer from a failure to address the conditions under which non-standard agent markers are used. They merely offer lists of examples, and vague statements as to their distribution in the various authors.

Example 1

In Chapter 7, section 7.4 we learnt the basics of participles:

Luke 18.22: ἀκουσας δε ὁ Ἰησους εἰπεν αὐτῳ Ἐτι ἑν σοι λειπει

1. – having heard Jesus said to him, ‘One thing still remains for you…’

2. – when Jesus heard (this) he said to him, ‘You still lack one thing…’

ἀκουσας is a participle from ἀκουω. It agrees with ὀ Ἰησους (nom. masc. sing.), which tells us that it is Jesus who is doing the hearing. It is in the Aorist to convey the ‘sequence’ meaning (present would be ‘simultaneous’), i.e the action in the participle is happening before that in the main verb: first Jesus hears, then he speaks.

Example 2

Luke 7.9: ἀκουσας δε ταυτα ὁ Ἰησους ἐθαυμασεν αὐτον.

1. – when he heard these things Jesus was amazed at him.

Once again, ἀκουσας is a participle, but this time it has its own object ταυτα – these things.

Thus the participle has some of the features of a verb, and some of an adjective (grammarians call it a ‘verbal adjective’).

Like adjectives:

Like verbs:

Up to now, we have only dealt with participles that are in the nominative – qualifying the subject. However, participles can qualify any noun.

KEY GRAMMAR

Participles must agree with the noun they qualify in gender, case and number

KEY GRAMMAR

Participles have a tense (Present or Aorist) and may have an object

This book has a single aim:

To help you learn enough Greek to read the New Testament.

This might seem obvious for a book entitled The Elements of New Testament Greek. However, there are many books designed for those beginning to study New Testament Greek that do not focus exclusively on this aim. The point will become clearer if I highlight certain things that this book does not aim at.

This book does not set out to present my understanding of New Testament Greek. It is a book for you, not for me. If I want to impress my colleagues with my Greek expertise, I will do that elsewhere. You deserve a book written to help you. In the same way it is not a ‘Greek Grammar’, as if my work was merely to set out Greek grammar, and it is then up to you to understand it and learn it. This is a textbook, written to help you in the process of learning.

This book does not try to teach you Christianity. It assumes that you want to read the New Testament in Greek in order to understand the New Testament better. For many the reason for wanting to understand it better will be a religious motivation, and that is great – I personally share that motivation. But for others it will be different. You may be unsure about Christianity, or indeed negative towards it.