38 Paul Danove in which God is the specified referent of the Goal of the same verb.17 Typically, the previous statements in 9,14.25 that Christ offered himself would recommend the retrieval of Christ as the referent of the unrealized Agent in 9,28 and the interpretation of the verb with a passive usage of transference. However, the change to the passivized active usage after two clear assertions of the referent of the Agent with the same verb is unprecedented in Hebrews and may be interpreted to have the stylistic motivation of introducing the possibility of an alternative referent for the Agent. Unfortunately, Hebrews directly identifies no likely alternative re- ferent. A theological passive interpretation has no direct support because Hebrews elsewhere never identifies God as the referent of the Agent that offers or otherwise transfers Christ. In fact, God never transfers anyone or anything to God elsewhere in Hebrews. Two considerations, however, offer indirect support for a theological passive interpretation. First, God is the most frequent referent of the Agent that acts on Jesus as a semantic Patient (the entity undergoing an action), which establishes that God acts as Agent in relation to Jesus.18 Second, the only other occurrence of the verb with a human being as Theme, “Abraham offered Isaac” (11,17), establishes a possible parallel to the action in 9,28. However, Hebrews el- sewhere draws no explicit parallel between actions of God and Abraham. The support for the interpretation of another human being as the referent of the Agent is even more tenuous. In Hebrews, only priests according to the law (5,1, 3; 8,3.4; 9,7.9; 10,1.2.8.11), Christ (5,7; 9,14.25; 10,12), Abel (11,4), and Abraham (11,17) are attributed with offering something to God. The contextual contrast between the inefficacious agency of the priests and the efficacious agency of Christ in 9,11-10,10 disqualifies the priests as the referent of the Agent in 9,28; and the actions of Abel and Abraham are relegated to the past. Although the interpretation with a passivized active usage always is viable, thematic and grammatical con- A discussion of the grammatical rules governing the retrieval of the referent of 17 required complements with definite referents appears in C.J. Fillmore, “Topics in Lexical Semantics”, in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (ed. R.W. Cole; Bloomington 1977) 96- 97; cf. A. Mittwoch, “Idioms and Unspecified N[oun] P[hrase] Deletion”, Linguistic Inquiry 2 (1971) 255-59; P. Matthews, Syntax (Cambridge 1981) 125-26; and D.J. Allerton, Valency and the English Verb (New York 1982) 34, 68-70. God acts on Jesus as the referent of the Patient on thirteen occasions with eleven verbs: 18 appoint (τίθημι, 1,2); beget (γεννάω, 1,5; 5,5); anoint (χρίω, 1,9); make less (ἐλαττάω, 2,9); crown (στεφανόω, 2,9); perfect (τελειόω, 2,10; 7:28); make (ποιέω, 3,2); make worthy (ἀξιόω, 3,3); save (σῴζω, 5,7); designate (προσαγορεύω, 5,10); bring up (ἀνάγω, 13,20). In the remaining seven occurrences, the Agent that acts on Jesus as Patient has other referents: people with crucify again (ἀνασταυρόω, 6,6), punish publicly (παραδειγματίζω, 6,6), and oppress (καταπατέω, 10,29; Jesus with not glorify (δοξάζω, 5,5), bring up (ἀναφέρω, 7,27), and make known (φανερόω, 9,26); and the word of the promise with perfects (τελειόω, 7,28).