Here’s the next few sections in Beatitudines aliae capita viginti of Ephraem Graecus.
δʹ. Μακάριος ὃς | γέγονεν ἁγνὸς Θεῷ | καὶ ἅγιος καὶ καθαρὸς | ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν μιασμῶν καὶ λογισμῶν καὶ πράξεων τῶν πονηρῶν. (IV. Beatus, qui castus est Deo, & sanctus ac purus a cunctis immunditiis, cogitationibusque, ac operibus improbis.)
As before, we have “Blessed [is he] who”, plus a verb, “γέγονεν” – has become (perf, indicative, active). Then the complement, an adjective in the nominative, following by the dative – “ἁγνὸς Θεῷ”, “pure in God”. Then two more nominatives connected by “kai” – “and holy and pure”.
That gives us “pure” twice. Now “katharos” is definitely “pure”, so perhaps we need a different word for “ἁγνὸς”, “hagnos”. Lampe gives “chaste”, and Traversari is rendering it as “castus”, as in “castitas”, chastity, so he understood it the same way. So let’s go with “ἁγνὸς Θεῷ” meaning “chaste in God”.
So far so good: “Blessed [is he] who has become chaste in God, and holy, and pure…”
Then we have a series of nouns all in the genetive; following the preposition ἀπὸ, “from”, which here is pushing the nouns to which it relates into the genetive case. First of these is πάντων μιασμῶν. “Pantos” is “all”, of course. Lampe does NOT give me anything special for “miasmos”, so I’m getting “scandal” for Attic Greek. But in the NT it means “defilement”[1] which agrees with Traversari. Let’s stick with that: “all defilement”.
“logismoi” is thoughts of the heart, as we saw last time. “Praxeis” is acts, deeds; “poneroi” is “evil”. I think we may treat “logismoi and praxeis” together as qualified by “poneroi”, by introducing a comma. All of which resolves to:
4. Blessed [is he] who has become chaste in God, and holy and pure from all defilements, and [from] evil thoughts and deeds.
εʹ. Μακάριος ὃς γέγονεν | ὅλος αὐτὸς ἐλεύθερος | ἐν Κυρίῳ | ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν πραγμάτων | τοῦ βίου τούτου ματαίου. (V. Beatus, qui totus in Domino est liber a cunctis hujus vanae vitae rebus.)
There’s a lot of similarities here; opening words “Blessed [is he] who has become”, then stuff, then “in the Lord” following by “apo” and a genetive.
“holos autos eleutheros” – autos without article meaning “himself”, so “himself completely free” + “en Kyriow”, “himself completely free in the Lord”.
An aside: I often find it pays to google the odd bit of the Greek. Googling “ὅλος αὐτὸς ἐλεύθερος” gave me a bonus here: it led me to the Thwaites edition of 1709, the Oxford edition which Assemani reprinted for vols 1 and 2, and for which I was hunting in vain earlier. It’s here; and I have updated the “main” Ephraim Graecus post / bibliography accordingly.
Then the apo + genetive – “from all of the things”; then a normal genetive, “tou biou” = “of life”, then adjectives for “biou”, “toutou mataiou” so “of this pointless life”. Putting it all together:
5. Blessed [is he] who has become | himself completely free | in the Lord | from all the things of this pointless life.
It is quite encouraging to go through a list of similar statements like this. Not so hard on the translator!
On #3 you say “Now ‘katharos’ is definitely ‘pure’,” but it can also mean cleansed, both in a literal and a figurative sense, as here. So how about “cleansed” for “katharos” (it makes good sense with “defilement”) and then keep “pure” for “hagnos”?
Hmm… I was, of course, thinking of the Cathari. But I like cleansed.
Mind you, it might place an amusing spin on the Cathars. Would we prefer to go out to lunch with someone who is pure and dirty, or someone clean but heretical? 🙂
Is there perhaps a distinct interaction between 4 and St. Matthew 5:8 – there “katharoi tei kardiai”, here “hagnos theoi”, and “hagnos” varied and added to with “kai hagios kai katheros”?