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To: Mrs. Don-o
Funny how the Christians who actually spoke Greek as their native language all their lives, and who studied the Greek Scriptures in the original, for 1500 years agreed with the Biblical doctrine that Mary is the "Panagia" --- based on "Kecharitomene."

Not 1500 years.  The first hint of panagia as a Marian title came in Origen's work, middle of the third century, and wasn't adopted in any official sense until about the eighth century.  Thus, like so many of Rome's theological innovations, it cannot be traced to the First Century, but must first show up in some flamboyant author's work, catch on, and eventually become "that's the way it always was," even if it wasn't. I mean really. Origen?  Did it have to be him?

Anyway, as has been much argued already in this forum, kecaritomene is nothing special in itself. It's built as a perfect passive participle inflection of caritow, "grace," and if appearing in a less controversial setting, would only mean "[one] having been [definitely] graced." And the same root is used of all believers in Ephesians 1:6, in which the inflected form is ecaritosen, being active, not passive, aorist and not perfect, first person plural and not second person singular.  To take all the effects into account, the difference in translation would come down to this:  To Mary:   "[one] having been [definitely] graced.", To all believers; "[he] graced us" The "definitely" is added to capture the certainty of the perfect. But it's the same grace. No difference in quantity. Whatever is said about Mary using that term must be applied to all believers as well.  So favor works equally well here.  eulogemanoi in Matthew 25:34 has the same perfect participle and accomplished the same emphasis of certainty, "Come [all of you] having been [definitely] blessed of my father ..."

So we see the grammatical perfect here speaks not to grace as a quantity, but to the certainty of the past action.  This is not fancy Greek.  This is basic knowledge of how the perfect operates grammatically.  It is egregious that certain apologists have tried to spin "perfect" into a theological meaning well beyond the limits of the grammar, but such a tactic cannot be effective with any but those who don't know the grammatical use of the term.  

And as for pardoning you, sure, but what did you do?  :)

And yes, I "speak" a wee bit of Koine, but modern Greek ain't the same animal, so no, none of that. Though I'm not against it. Just a time and activity problem.

Peace,

SR


1,020 posted on 10/12/2014 8:29:14 AM PDT by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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To: Springfield Reformer
"The first hint of panagia as a Marian title came in Origen's work, middle of the third century, and wasn't adopted in any official sense until about the eighth century. "

I think a weakness of this "first hint, whoa, the third century, must be an innovation!" reaction is the assumption that if the first writings we have in print are from 250 AD, it must have been invented by the writer in 250 AD.

That is dubious on the face of it. Consider that the term "Trinity" wasn't used until about that time ---- mid-third century, Tertullian --- and the term "Incarnation" with its precise definition wasn't hammered out officially until 100 years after that, at Nicaea, and was still being refined as late as the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

The art and inscriptions concerning Mary found in the Catacombs of Priscilla date, as well, from the mid-third century They show what the Christian martyrs in the Coliseum held dear and certain, what they were willing to die for. This tells us, not only Christian doctrine, but Christian culture.

It would be foolish to say that the earliest Christians did not, on the basis of Apostolic testimony, believe in the Trinity or in the Incarnation. As you surely know, the spark-plugs of conflict and controversy are historically instrumental in getting the engine of definition and doctrine moving: one does not define a commonly-accepted doctrine with elaborate precision unless somebody has been challenging or denying it. The challenger raises his arguments, and then the Church is forced by the crisis of the situation to refine its terms to defend the Truth which was first received centuries earlier, and preserve the Unity of the Church.

Second, Origin was writing at a time of blistering controversy, in which anything that seemed dicey would have been grist for the polemical mill. If anybody thought "Panagia" was heretical, I'm sure Jerome, Ambrose, Eusebius, Demetrius of Alexandria, or any of his other Alexandrian or Cappadocian critics would have blown the whistle on him. But they didn't.

This is not the say that everything Origen wrote was orthodox. Not at all. It IS to say that we can get a pretty good idea of what was serenely received as unexceptionable, and what was not. A sheer innovation would never have been considered "unexceptionable" if it created some sort of interference pattern with the sensus fidelium (if you will permit me a physics analogy) -- not when there were so many there to debate it.

1,053 posted on 10/12/2014 10:29:00 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” - Flannery O'Connor)
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To: Springfield Reformer; Mrs. Don-o
And yes, I "speak" a wee bit of Koine, but modern Greek ain't the same animal, so no, none of that. Though I'm not against it. Just a time and activity problem.

I know a little Greek, too. He runs a gyro shop on Main Street. ;o)

You mentioned an important point to remember in discussing translations. Words evolve. Their meaning over time can change. We see this even in our own founding documents and the different way English is spoken and written in only a few hundred years. Considering Koine Greek is THOUSANDS of years old, it's no wonder that translations have to keep up.

I remember in Bible college when I learned about tenses in Greek and how a single English word translated from the Greek really had a much deeper meaning than the English word could convey. An example was the word "never" as it was used in John 10:28. Jesus said "they shall never perish". That one word in the Greek actually meant, "no, not, never; at any time, at any place, for any reason; whether male, female or neuter; perpetually, eternally" perish. WOW! It was enlightening to say the least. Some theologians devote their lives to textual criticism and translations. There is enough of a peer review process that I don't think anyone would get away with skewing Divine revelation for very long.

1,186 posted on 10/12/2014 5:09:33 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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