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Ambiguity, Ancient Semantics, and Faith*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

F. Gerald Downing
F. Gerald Downing
Affiliation:
Centre for Biblical Studies, University of Manchester, and 33 Westhoughton Rd, Adlington, Chorley, Lancashire, PR7 4EU, UK. email: [email protected]
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Abstract

While allowing for polysemy, scholars seem mostly averse to ambiguity, as in the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate; but, it would seem, without engaging with ancient semantic theory. There the model of ‘naming’ and so of evoking an otherwise unspecified mental impression, predominates. Meaning is taken to lie in the mind, not in the word or words that are hoped to evoke it, as is also shown in ancient discussions of metaphor, allegory, and paraphrase. Connotations of individual words are rarely distinguished, rarely if ever purged. We are not justified in expecting verbal precision where our ancient authors will neither have attempted it nor will their hearers have expected it; nor, indeed, do modern psycholinguists appear to find space for it.

Keywords

Ambiguitypolysemyimprecisionπίστις Χριστοῦancient semantic theory‘naming’μεταϕοράtranslatiopsycholinguistics
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 139 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Jewett, R., Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 277–8Google Scholar. In what follows ‘ambiguity’ is used, as Jewett does here, for any imprecision, not just uncertainty between two meanings (each possibly precise).

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7 R. B. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Theology’, Pauline Theology IV (ed. Johnson and May) 35–60, citing 59, strongly supported, more recently, by Southall, David J., Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personified dikaiosunê within Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings (WUNT 2/240; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008)Google Scholar; Achtemeier, ‘Faith in or of Jesus Christ’, 92.

8 ‘Polyvalence’ (better, ‘multivalence’) may even more strongly suggest distinct ‘valences’, if the metaphor from atomic physics is pressed.

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11 Ulrichs, Christusglaube, 23–5, 45–52.

12 Ulrichs, Christusglaube, 104; cf. 107, ‘hätte Paulus diesen nicht deutlich(er) markieren müssen?’; 168, ‘die (den Paulus nicht kennenden und dem Paulus unbekannten) Adressaten diese kaum hätte erschließen können’.

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16 Cf. Matlock, ‘Detheologizing’, 5–13; and Ulrichs, Christusglaube, 23–5.

17 Collison, R. L., A History of Foreign Language Dictionaries (London: Deutsch, 1982)Google Scholar Chapter 9, ‘Emulation and Achievement’, 100–110, citing Jean Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, who ‘allowed for a far greater amount of information about each word than any dictionary had so far supplied’, p. 101; cf. also, Green, J., Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-makers and the Dictionaries They Made (London: Cape, 1996) 39–54 and 210–34Google Scholar, esp. 217 and 224.

18 Collinson, History, 25–44.

19 Diogenes Laertius Lives 6.40.

20 E.g., Quintilian Inst. 5.10, in discussion with Cicero and Caecilius; see further below.

21 Nor is any hard denotation/connotation disjunction here implied.

22 On PinborgAristotle, J. Aristotle, J., ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, Current Trends in Linguistics, 13: Historiography of Linguistics (ed. Sebeok, T. A.; The Hague: Mouton, 1975) 69–126Google Scholar, here referring to 76 and 98; Atherton, C., The Stoics on Ambiguity (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993) 99–103Google Scholar.

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24 E.g. Epictetus Diss. 1.7.1 and Diogenes Laertius Lives 7.62; and cf. Atherton, The Stoics on Ambiguity, passim, but esp. 59–64, 92–94, 175–91; and the classifications in Galen On Linguistic Sophisms [Gabler, 12.10–14.5] and Theon Progymnasmata 81.25–82.30, in Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata (ed. and trans. M. Patillon and G. Bolognesi; Paris: Belles Lettres, 1997).

25 Cf. Hankinson, R. J., ‘Usage and Abusage: Galen on Language’, Language (ed. Everson, S.; Companions to Ancient Thought 3; Oxford: Oxford University, 1994) 166–87Google Scholar.

26 Philo De agr. 136, LCL; cf. Dio Discourse 4.36–38; Quintilian Inst. 6.9.4; 8.20–24.

27 Given, Paul's True Rhetoric. Given's ancient references are mainly to Plato and Aristotle, but he also engages with recent discussions of discernible Socratic motifs in Acts and in Paul, and I have adduced the first-century CE passages in the previous note in support.

28 One may compare Musonius and Epictetus in their practice; cf. Atherton, The Stoics on Ambiguity, 457; Pinborg, ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, 98.

29 Quintilian Inst. 7.9.1

30 Aulus Gellius noct. att. 11.12.1, as presented in Atherton, The Stoics, 298–301, suggesting ὄνομα as Chrysippus's likely original; see further below, and cf. Given, Paul's True Rhetoric, 68 n. 123; but, as noted, he does not pursue this line.

31 Cooper, J. M., ‘Cratylus’, Plato: Complete Works (ed. Cooper, J. M. and Hutchinson, D. S.; Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1997) 101–2Google Scholar, citing 101; and in ‘Sophist’, 235–6, citing 236.

32 Eudorus in Stobaeus (ed. C. Wachsmuth and O. Hense), Anthologium (Berlin: Weidmannos, 1884) 49–50, cited and translated by van Kooten, G. H., Paul's Anthropology in Context, the Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity (WUNT 2/232; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 146Google Scholar.

33 For a detailed example, Downing, F. G., ‘On Avoiding Bothersome Busyness: Q/Lk 12.22–31 in its Graeco-Roman Context’, God with Everything: The Divine in the Discourse of the First Christian Century (SWBA 2/2; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2008) 91–114Google Scholar, discussing Seneca and Plutarch and others on tranquillity.

34 At Rom 4.1–25, in his exegesis, Paul might just possibly be thought to be stipulatively defining λογίζομαι when deployed in the absence of overt reference to ‘work’ as specifically denoting an act of grace.

35 Encountering ‘polysemiophobia’ one is tempted to suspect a heritage of late mediaeval nominalism in modern theological unease with connotations, suggesting the tacit assumption that nothing in common should be taken to be indicated by a shared term other than the sharing of the term itself.

36 The reader may work with a sense/reference dichotomy, where names have reference, not sense. In this terminology, the ancient view is concerned with ‘the sense’ to which the ‘name’ (word) refers.

37 Kennedy, G. A., A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1994)Google Scholar; Lausberg, H., Handbook of Literary Rhetoric (ed. Orton, D. E. and Anderson, R. D.; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1998Google Scholar [German original, München: Hüber, 1960]); Porter, S. E., ed., Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1997)Google Scholar; but see also Downing, F. G., ‘Words and Meanings’, Doing Things with Words in the First Christian Century (JSNTSup 200; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000) 57–74Google Scholar.

38 Dio Chrysostom Discourse 12.65 (LCL, lightly adapted); cf. 12.28, and brief comment in Klauck, H.-J. and Bäbler, B., Dion von Prusa, Olympischer Rede (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000) 146 n. 323Google Scholar; and cf. Inowlocki, S., ‘“Neither Adding nor Omitting Anything”: Josephus' Promise not to Modify the Scriptures in Greek and Latin Context’, JJS 56 (2005) 48–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See, e.g., D. Bostock, ‘Plato on Understanding Language’, in Language (ed. Everson) 10–27; and D. Charles, ‘Aristotle on Names and their Signification’, in Language (ed. Everson) 37–73, and other articles in Evason, ed., Language; and Pinborg, ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, 69–126.

40 Pinborg, ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, 71–7, citing Plato Soph. 262A, and Aristotle Int. 1–2 but cf. also Rhet. 3.2.5; and cf. Bostock, ‘Plato’, and Charles, ‘Aristotle’; but also Quintilian Inst. 1.4.18–20.

41 Pinborg, ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, 76. More recently J. Barnes has noted, ‘no ancient text hints at an answer’ as to how ‘names and the like signify’ λεκτά, and can himself only ‘guess’: in Schenkefeld, D. M. and Barnes, J., ‘Language’, The Cambridge History of Ancient Philosophy (ed. Algra, K.et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2005) 177–225Google Scholar, citing 208.

42 Aristotle Int. 1.4–8, in Cooke, H. P. and Tredennick, H., ed. and trans., Aristotle: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University; London: Heinemann, 1905)Google Scholar adapted.

43 Philo Mos. 2.38, F. H. Colson, ed. and trans. (LCL; Cambridge MA/London: Harvard University /Heinemann, 1935) adapted, using Colson's alternative rendering. The ‘idea’ of each and every thing can potentially be evoked by name; only God can not: God permits address, but remains incomprehensible, inconceivable, and so (alone) not in a proper sense ‘nameable’ at all: De mut. nom. 7–15.

44 Long, A. A., ‘Language and Thought in Stoicism’, Problems in Stoicism (ed. Long, A. A.; London: Athlone, 1971) 75–113Google Scholar, citing 85; also quoted by Pinborg, ‘Classical Antiquity: Greece’, 79.

45 Cf. also Diogenes Laertius Lives 7.60–61.

46 Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953) 1–13Google Scholaret passim.

47 Augustine Conf. 12.18.27 and 12.31.42; from M. Skutella (Teubner), in Solignac, A.et al., Les Confessions VIII–XIII (Brussels: Desclée de Brouwer, 1962)Google Scholar.

48 Quintilian Inst. 8.6.4–6.

49 Demetrius On Style 4.191–92; Theon Progymnasmata 70.20–30, 101.1–9; Quintilian Inst. 1.5.1, 71, 8.2.14–15, 22.

50 Demetrius On Style 2.82, LCL.

51 Aristotle Poet. 21–22 and Rhet. 3.2.6–7, 3.3.3 (of ones of which he disapproves), and 3.10.7; Cicero, e.g., Orator 24.80–92; 27.92–93; Ad Herrenium 4.34.

52 Soskice, J. M., Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 15 and 93–6Google Scholar; compare the more recent discussion in Kuschnerus, B., Die Gemeinde als Brief Christi. Die kommunikative Funktion der Metapher bei Paulus am Beispiel von 2 Kor 2–5 (FRLANT 197; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000)Google Scholar. Although both Quintilian and Aristotle on the ‘transfer of names’ are cited by Kuschnerus (16, 21, 28), the wider implications of ‘naming’ are neglected.

53 Kohl, Katrin, Metapher (Sammlung Metzler B. 352; Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2007) 119–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Extensive attention is accorded to Cicero, Quintilian, and Aristotle. Although noting in Quintilian the idea of words as ‘naming’, unfortunately this is overlooked in the discussion of Aristotle (108–11), where ὄνομα is rendered by ‘Wort’, just as it is, conventionally, by ‘word’ in modernising English translations, and, arguably, the full force of Aristotle's account is therefore also missed.

54 On ‘hard-wiring’, Carruthers, P., ‘Thinking in Language: Evolution and a Modularist Possibility’, Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary Themes (ed. Carruthers, P. and Boucher, J.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998) 94–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and cf. Mind and Language 21/3 (June 2006), the whole issue devoted to metaphor and psycholinguistics.

55 Cf. Quintilian Inst. 1.5.1–17; and 8 Pr. 13–33; Plutarch Quomodo adolescens, Mor. 22F–25B; Philo Congr. 15, 148; Lucian Mistaken Critic 11–12; Teacher of Rhetoric 16–17.

56 I refer to Jacques Derrida's concern over endlessly ‘deferred meaning’, which I would counter with Wittgenstein's confident pointer to the fact that language actually works because it is open; Derrida, J., L'écriture et la différence (Paris: Seuil, 1967)Google Scholar; and, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1974); Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations.

57 Cicero Orator 27.94, LCL lightly adapted.

58 Ad Herrenium 4.24.46.

59 Quintilian Inst. 8.6.4, 44–57

60 Philo Virt. 155–60; Leg. 1.52; Plant. 104–116; cf. Long, A. A., ‘Allegory in Philo and Etymology in Stoicism’, StudPhilAnn 9 (1997) 192–210Google Scholar; cf. Cicero Nat. D. 1.36–41; 2.59–72; Plutarch Iside et Osiride, Mor. 363D, 367C; Diogenes Laertius Lives 7.147, 187.

61 As translated by Newsom, C., The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (STDJ 52; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004) 227Google Scholar.

62 See Neusner, J., What is Midrash? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)Google Scholar; Alexander, P. S., ‘Midrash and Gospels’, Synoptic Studies (ed. Tuckett, C. M.Sheffield; Sheffield Academic, 1984) 1–18Google Scholar; and cf. Downing, ‘Words and Meanings’, 61–9.

63 Quintilian Inst. 1.9.2, LCL, lightly adapted; cf. 2.4.1215; Theon Progymnasmata 3.12 (Walz p. 175, 1–10); cf. B. L. Mack, ‘Elaboration of the Chreia in the Hellenistic School’, Mack, B. L. and Robbins, V. K., Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sunoma, CA: Polebridge, 1989) 31–68Google Scholar, and especially 33–41, on Theon. There is a fine example in Philostatus Lives of the Sophists 572, where a rhetor (Alexander) is said to have recast a whole speech ‘with different words and different rhythms’ and without any apparent repetition (cited in van Kooten, Paul's Anthropology, 332).

64 See, of course, Austin, J. L., How to do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962)Google Scholar; and, e.g., Hartin, P. J. and Petzer, J. H. eds., Text and Interpretation: New Approaches in the Criticism of the New Testament (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1991)Google Scholar; Carston, R., Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; F. G. Downing, ‘Words as Deeds and Deeds as Words’, Doing Things with Words, 41–56; Cruse, Meaning in Language, 313–94.

65 See, e.g., Charlton, W., Aesthetics (London: Hutchinson, 1970) 109–11Google Scholar, referring to W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley.

66 Significant markers would be Betz, H. D., Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979)Google Scholar; Berger, K., Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1984)Google Scholar with his more recent Formen und Gattungen im Neuen Testament (UTB 2532; Tübingen: Francke, 2004); on earlier discussions, Dortmeyer, D., The New Testament among the Writings of Antiquity (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998; German original Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993) 19–25Google Scholar.

67 Quine, W. V. O, From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1953)Google Scholar; and Word and Object (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1960), argued for the possibility of systematically coherent but distinct interpretations as a real possibility; from a different starting point, J. Derrida, L'écriture et la différence, and Of Grammatology, again.

68 On ‘family resemblance’, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 32e.

69 R. Bultmann, πιστεύω etc., TDNT 6.174–228, in particular illustrates amply the semantic richness, while insisting that numerous distinct meanings (suiting his own Lutheran take on Martin Heidegger's existentialism) are nonetheless discernible. On semantic richness, see again Still, ‘Christos as Pistos’.

70 Much is made of this usage by Kinneavy, J. L., Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith: An Inquiry (Oxford: Oxford University, 1987)Google Scholar.

71 Aristotle Rhet. 1.2.2–4 (1355b–1356a) LCL, adapted; ‘in so far as it demonstrates, or at least seems to’ substantiates my point that ‘proof’, absolute, is not an appropriate contemporary translation.

72 For Paul's usage, often making explicit the trustworthy persuader who has convinced, see Rom 8.38 (God, Christ, 8.33–34), 14.14 (the Lord Jesus), 15.14; 2 Cor 1.9 (God, implicit), 2.3 (his addressees themselves), 5.11 (the Lord to back the attempt to persuade), 10.7; Gal 1.10, not by ordinary human means; 5.8, human, not God, 5.10, the Lord; Phil 1.6, God (implicit), 1.14, Paul's example, 1.25, his sense of divine mission, 2.24, the Lord, 3.3–4, Christ, not humans; 2 Thess 3.4, the Lord.

73 Ad Herennium 1.4.8; 1.10.18; Cicero Orator 1.19.87; 2.27.116–118.

74 Quintilian Inst. 5.10.8, again.

75 Quintilian Inst. 6.2.18; cf. all of 6.2.8–19.

76 Philo Abr. 268–73, LCL, present writer's emphasis.

77 Much the same, a lived trust in the trustworthy, is true of other passages from Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian writings cited in BAGD, such as Sir 1.14, Ps 100.6, Herm. Man. 11. On the other hand, at John 20.27, belief and trust are indeed the focus of ‘μὴ γίνου ἄπιστος ἀλλα πιστός’ even though ‘my Lord and my God’ then constitutes a commitment to renewed faithfulness (cf. John 11.16).

78 It is intriguing to find that the LXX in the Psalms prefers ἐλπίζω for בטח, where English translators prefer ‘trust’ etc. God inspires (or should inspire) hopeful confidence, not just faithful commitment.

79 Although the LXX does not support the AV translation of Job 13.15, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him’, it was so interpreted before the AV, as in m. Sot. 5.5. However, this is explicitly exceptional: trust normally presupposes trustworthiness.

80 Betz, H. D., Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 143Google Scholar; cf. Longenecker, R. N., Galatians (WBC; Dallas, TX: Word, 1990) 116Google Scholar. Dunn, J. D. G., The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993) 167Google Scholar, allows ‘faithful’ while evincing some surprise at Paul's ‘boldness’.

81 On ‘entrust’ and ‘trusting’, being trusted, trustworthiness, see Dio Chrysostom On Trust, Discourse 73.

82 Given, Paul's True Rhetoric, 162–73, sketches possible alternative ‘readings’ of Romans, Jewish-Christian and Marcionite. Paul shows no awareness of any likelihood of having to face such analytic ‘deconstruction’. Given's Paul, I suggest, could have slipped between usages because neither his hearers nor he expected verbal precision.

83 Matlock, ‘Rhetoric of πίστις’.

84 Particularly noteworthy, on ‘freedom’ is Coppins's, W. recent The Interpretation of Freedom in the Letters of Paul—with Special Reference to the ‘German’ Tradition (WUNT 2/261; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009)Google Scholar, arguing that Paul evinces for us no coherent ‘concept’ of freedom (although he may provoke us to articulations for which we have then to accept our own responsibility).

85 This is to allow that ‘language’ includes more than words and sequences of words spoken/heard, written/read . For a wide survey of the field, Dietrich, R., Psycholinguistik. 2. actualisierte und erweitere Auflage (Sammlung Metzler 342; Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or Crystal, D., How Language Works (London: Penguin, 2005)Google Scholar.

86 Aitcheson, Jean, Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) 215Google Scholar.

87 Dietrich, Psycholinguistik, esp. 2.2, ‘Das mentale Lexikon’, 29–55, and 4.3.5–8, 182–208, on the mental lexicon and self-monitoring and self-correction.

88 This paper has focused attention on the Graeco-Roman period. It belatedly occurs to me that a very similar understanding of how words work is evinced in Hebrew (and other) ‘poetic parallelism’: see, e.g., Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism. Revised and Expanded (Grand Rapids MI and Cambridge, UK; and Dearborn MI: Eerdmans and Dove Booksellers, 2008), especially 96–102, ‘Disambiguation and Ambiguity’. Relevant to the main thrust of this paper is also Jane Heath, ‘Absent presences of Paul and Christ: Enargeia in 1 Thessalonians 1–3’, JSNT 32.1 (2009), 3–38: ‘Paul formulates things vaguely and suggestively rather than precisely’ (7), to evoke an image, a sense of presence expected to be clear and vivid.

89 In 1971 Christopher Evans posed the factual-and-evaluative question, ‘What kind of certainty does it [Christianity] have and what kind of ambiguity?’ and left the question open. Perhaps this present essay may contribute something towards at least keeping the issue open; Evans, C. F., concluding the title Chapter 2, in his Is ‘Holy Scripture’ Christian? (London: SCM, 1971) 21–36Google Scholar, citing 36.