Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

spin wrote:Anyone able to explain why, necessarily, υπο should be translated as indicative of agency in

σωθησονται [υπο] αυτου του {καταθεματος}
saved [from under/by] the {cursed thing} itself

and not "from [some consequence]" or "from under [some power]", which the context suggests to me?

Can anyone give other contexts for καταθεμα (beside Rev 22:3)? or is it basically a hapax legomenon, used here and nowhere else? I'm intrigued how L&S came to give καταθεμα as simply "cursed thing".

Rev 22:3
και παν [καταθεμα] ουκ εσται εκει
and all [cursed thing] will not be there

The word obviously had a life beyond what we can see, given the verb constructed from it, καταθεματιζω (translated "to curse"), used only in Mt 26:74, where Peter protests he doesn't know Jesus, accompanied by the verb "swear" (as in "solemnly swear").

I guess that it is seen as a parallel to αναθεμα (anathema), but the life of this word is also problematic. LXX Lev 27:28 bears the early meaning of "dedicated thing" (to the Lord), but elsewhere in the LXX it seems more negative. Israel's enemies in Joshua 7:12 were anathema.

Was thinking about that the other day myself. Has anyone brought up θεμα, ατος, το (a deposit, specifically prize money offered contestants in a sacred game)? This word, unlike its compound καταθεμα, is quite common.

I was thinking I had seen something along this line in Ignatius but couldn't quite place it, but the B.A.G. Greek-English lexicon I bought for Greek class in 1977 identifies it as Ignatius, Polycarp 2:3

"Be sober as an athlete of God: the prize set before thee is immortality and eternal life"
νῆφε ὡς θεοῦ ἀθλητής τὸ θέμα ἀφθαρσία καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

Then salvation comes by means of the deposited prize. Thus Didache 16:5 "but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself." = "but they that endure (a technical term used in competition) in their faith shall be saved by agency of the very prize they competed for."

DCH

DCHindley wrote:

spin wrote:...καταθεμα...

Was thinking about that the other day myself. Has anyone brought up θεμα, ατος, το (a deposit, specifically prize money offered contestants in a sacred game)? This word, unlike its compound καταθεμα, is quite common.

When you go back to θεμα it leads to the verb τιθημι (to set, put, place), hence the idea of "prize" being "something placed", but it is not a common usage, so without an appropriate context, I'd wonder if anyone would think of it. However, the noun/verb relationship also brings us from καταθεμα to κατατιθημι, which FranzJVermeiren mentions:

FranzJVermeiren wrote:In La Didachè – Instructions des Apôtres Jean-Paul Audet derives κατάθεμα from κατατίθημι and through κατάθεσις (deposition) he continues to ‘the deposited corpse’ and finally ends at ‘tomb’.

The verb obviously related to τιθημι is used to indicate "to put down" hence "to deposit" and "to put down (1 as a prize, or 2 as a payment)", as well as "put down (a body)" = "bury".

DCHindley wrote:I was thinking I had seen something along this line in Ignatius but couldn't quite place it, but the B.A.G. Greek-English lexicon I bought for Greek class in 1977 identifies it as Ignatius, Polycarp 2:3

"Be sober as an athlete of God: the prize set before thee is immortality and eternal life"
νῆφε ὡς θεοῦ ἀθλητής τὸ θέμα ἀφθαρσία καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

Then salvation comes by means of the deposited prize. Thus Didache 16:5 "but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself." = "but they that endure (a technical term used in competition) in their faith shall be saved by agency of the very prize they competed for."

Nice try with the "endure (a technical term used in competition)", but I don't see any evidence of that in the verb. It's "endure" as in "hang in there!"

DCHindley, spin, Ben C. Smith

Thank you for your discussion of κατάθεμα. I think I'll have to study my Greek again.

(part 9)

Conclusion

At the start of the conclusion of my discussion of Didache XVI, I want to thank DCHindley for his topic ‘RBL review of The Didache: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle’, which not only triggered me to work out the discussion of Didache XVI above, but also provided supplementary reading material. In my book on the chronology of the origins of Christianity I discussed important apocalyptic texts of the NT (the Synoptic Apocalypse and Revelation 11 in particular), but I did not elaborate the final, apocalyptic chapter of the Didache. Renewed intense reading showed me that this text may be even more revealing than the other two.

I believe that the Synoptic Apocalypse and Revelation 11, both in their own specific apocalyptic wording, talk about the real chronology of the origins of Christianity.
The Synoptic Apocalypse starts with Jesus in Jerusalem under immediate Roman threat (“There will not be left here one stone upon another”) followed by a general description of the wars and other calamities of the last days, then a veiled but concrete description of the culminating events of the war, and finally the arrival of the messiah simultaneously with these culminating events.
Revelation 11 introduces two witnesses, being Jesus the messiah in his double royal and priestly role, during the war (three and a half years), describes war events afterwards and combines these war events with the story of the witnesses' rising after three days and a half, while many die and Jerusalem is destroyed. Then the everlasting rule of God and his messiah starts (11:15).

The supplementary power of Didache XVI lies in its use of the inclusio technique: the coming of the Lord messiah is discussed in the first verse as well as in the last one. And what is of utmost importance: this inclusio yields chronological information, as in the first verse the messiah has not yet come, and in the last one he arrives. The first verse explicitly combines the messiah-who-has-not-yet-come with a warlike atmosphere of mortal danger and military watchfulness. So the messiah was still to be expected at the beginning or in the first phase of the war.
Verse 4 speaks of widespread enmity and hatred, and contains the first τοτε (then, at that time, simultaneously) of this chapter, which will be used four times throughout verse 4 to 8, indicating that all the events described in these verses belong together chronologically:
• the arrival of Titus
• the burning of the Temple and the city, the many victims and Jesus’ activity
• three important war signs (enormous smoke production, announcement of the Roman victory, escape of the moribund)
• and finally the arrival of the messiah.
So all in all Didache XVI forms a solid unity that supports the arrival of the messiah, and so the beginning of Christianity, at the end of the war of the Jews against the Romans.

Indirectly Didache XVI shows when and why Jesus became the messiah. He was not yet proclaimed messiah at the beginning of the war, he only ‘arrived’ as messiah through what happened to him in the very last days of the war, at the paradigmatic time and place of the day of the Lord. He survived a certain death and that way he became a sign of hope for national recovery at the moment the nation faced annihilation.