ACTs 26:26 and confirming negatives

For the king knows about these things

and I also speak to him boldly;

For I do not believe that any of these things has escaped him;

For this has not been done in some corner.

The focus of this investigation is the red main clause on line 3. The question is how the two negatives οὐ and οὐθέν work with each other and with the textual variant τι and what connection and grammatical function each negative has in Greek.

The normal translation with one negative is “I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped him.” Both of these equivalent translations collapse the two Greek negatives into one English negative. 

This translation tradition comes down directly from the Vulgate with one negative: “Scit enim de his rex, ad quem et constanter loquor: latere enim eum nihil horum arbitror. Neque enim in angulo quidquam horum gestum est,” “Now the king knows about these things, to whom I boldly speak: for I consider that indeed none of these things escapes him. Neither indeed has any of this been done in a corner.” A third negative occurs in the final clause of the sentence.

We know that in Greek a negative adverb or particle right before a finite verb always negates it even though in the usual translation of πείθομαι is positive. There are 1590 adverbial or particle negatives like οὐ right before a finite verb in the GNT. I have coded a third of them. They all modify the following verb and negate it. It is an absolute rule with a significant sample size; there are no exceptions.

In Greek syntax we give each negative a head and grammatical relation, but what rule allows us to ignore one of the negatives when translating?

There are 26 negative lexemes in the GNT, and about half have the negative mood οὐ with indicative and half have the negative mood μή with non indicative, although there are some exceptions for special fixed mood negative constructions. Since this negative is the subject of an infinitive, ordinarily it would be μηθέν instead of οὐθέν. So now we have a second question: why is it οὐθέν instead of μηθέν?

It is a rule in Greek that when a negative adjective like οὐθέν is used with an adverbial negative like οὐ it preserves and follows the adverbial negative mood and is a confirming negative, not a double negative (which would equate to a positive). For this reason, it is necessary to translate the Greek clause that has two confirming negatives as an English clause with a single negative “I do not believe that any of these” or I believe that none of these” or “I am convinced that none of these.” This rule answers both questions.

However, this brings up a third syntactical hypothesis. Since οὐθέν is adjacent to πείθομαι and not to λανθάνειν and since its negative mood matches πείθομαι and not λανθάνειν and since οὐθέν is often used as an adverbial negative to finite verbs, why could not both negatives just be confirming negatives of πείθομαι, especially if we take adjacent τι instead of remote οὐθέν as the accusative subject of λανθάνειν? This would be more compact and avoid the hyperbation.

Although this works out as a possible syntax connection in theory, we go to the language pattern precedents to test the option. We find that the adverbial negator of a finite verb always precedes it even if it is an adjective like οὐθέν. And the negative adjective may indeed act as a confirming substantival or attributive on the same head, but never as an adverbial confirming negative on the same head. Therefore, the proposed option is doubly rejected based on complete lack of precedent and violation of the order rules.

A final question is how οὐθέν connects with τι since they are fully concordant and appear as accusative subjects of the infinitive, although widely separated. Here again we find four other precedents where τι connects with οὐθέν as a kind of optional indefinite article or any: Matthew 26:62, Mark 14:60, Acts 17:21 and Acts 26:31. Either textual variant with or without τι is good Greek.