Paul Danove, «The 'aiteo' / 'aiteomai' Distinction in the New Testament: A Proposal.», Vol. 25 (2012) 101-118
This article investigates the seventy New Testament occurrences of aiteo to determine the motivation for and distinctive implications of the verb’s active and middle forms. The introductory discussion specifies the semantic and syntactic characteristics of aiteo and develops two features that have implications for distinguishing verbal usages. The discussion then proposes the distinction between active and middle forms and demonstrates this distinction in occurrences of the verb.
106 Paul Danove
καί τις ἀνὴρ χωλὸς ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχων ἐβαστάζετο, ὃν
ἐτίθουν καθ’ ἡμέραν πρὸς τὴν θύραν τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὴν λεγομένην ῾Ωραίαν τοῦ
αἰτεῖν ἐλεημοσύνην παρὰ τῶν εἰσπορευομένων εἰς τὸ ἱερόν (Acts 3:2)
And a certain man, lame from his mother’s womb, was being carried in,
whom they used to place every day at the gate of the Temple called “Beautiful”
to ask alms of the ones entering the Temple.
In Acts 9:2 Saul’s action imposes on him the unfulfilled constraint to
act as specified in the following purpose clause. This discussion assumes
that Agents that make statements imposing on themselves unfulfilled
constraints recognize these constraints. Thus the verb form is middle.
ᾐτήσατο παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐπιστολὰς εἰς Δαμασκὸν πρὸς τὰς συναγωγάς,
ὅπως ἐάν τινας εὕρῃ τῆς ὁδοῦ ὄντας, ἄνδρας τε καὶ γυναῖκας, δεδεμένους
ἀγάγῃ εἰς ᾿Ιερουσαλήμ (Acts 9:2)
He [with affect] asked of him letters for Damascus to the synagogues so
that, if he found those being of the Way, both men and women, he might
bring them bound to Jerusalem.
In the remaining five isolated occurrences, a character speaks about
the Agent’s action. In John 4:9 the Samaritan woman formulates the ques-
tion in which Jesus is the Agent. Although the presence of a Samaritan
woman might be expected to prohibit Jesus’ request, he said to her, “Give
me [something] to drink” (cf. 4:7).8 The woman’s statement reflects Jesus’
non-recognition of constraints by using an active verb form even as her
question inquires about Jesus’ failure to recognize the expected prohibi-
tions on asking.
λέγει οὖν αὐτῷ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ Σαμαρῖτις· πῶς σὺ ᾿Ιουδαῖος ὢν παρ’ ἐμοῦ πεῖν
αἰτεῖς γυναικὸς Σαμαρίτιδος οὔσης; (John 4:9)
The Samaritan woman says to him, “How do you, being a Jew, ask of me,
being a Samaritan woman, [something] to drink”?
In 1 John 3:22 the character making the statement is a constituent
of the Agent, and the character and Agent share the same perspective.
The context identifies keeping the commandments and doing pleasing
things as constraints on the asking, and their appearance in the causal
clause indicates that both the character and the Agent recognize and
fulfill these constraints. Thus the verb form is active.
8
R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII (AB 29; Garden City, NY 1996)
170, discusses the ritual impurity assumed for Samaritans.