Romans 6:22

In Romans 6:22 there are four accusative singular nouns in the main clause: καρπόν, ἁγιασμόν, τέλος, ζωήν. Case is proto-function. Each declensional word is given a case by the speaker to indicate its role or grammatical relation in the sentence. There is a reason why each of them is accusative. What is it? καρπόν fruit is clearly the direct object of ἔχετε have, and ἁγιασμόν holiness is clearly the object of the preposition εἰς. These grammatical relations both require the accusative case.

τέλος is coordinated by the conjunction δὲ, apparently to a previous conjunct. Accordingly, τέλος has the head and grammatical relation of the previous conjunct. The default for the previous conjunct is the previous noun ἁγιασμόν of the same case, but the editors have put a comma there to suggest an exception.

A number of translations show “the purpose is eternal life” as a separate clause for the last two nouns—a verbless nominal clause with an implied is. This is a natural possibility since δέ is a clausal conjunction 20 times as often as it coordinates substantives. And τέλος is ambiguously nominative-accusative as a morphological inflection, like all Indo-european neuters, and hence could serve as the subject of such a clause.

However, the Greek student knows that the Greek sentence is not a nominal clause since ζωήν, the predicate nominative in English, cannot be a predicate nominative in Greek because it is accusative. The translators have latitude to make the English syntax different from the Greek, even though that is not the best for exegesis if there is an idiomatic translation that preserves the original Greek syntax.

Since we see that δέ does not introduce a nominal clause, we return to the question of how the hearer/editor knows that the conjunct τέλος is not coordinated with the usual immediately preceding candidate ἁγιασμόν. Theoretically the clause could mean “you have the result that leads to holiness and to the purpose, eternal life.” That would be the default syntax. 

It is rare for a prior word like ἁγιασμόν with the same class and case not to be a conjunct. Still, none of the translators choose this option. What syntactical clues does the writer leave to skip over ἁγιασμόν and choose καρπὸν as the prior conjunct of τέλος with a prepositional phrase between?

To answer this question we start by looking for precedents. In the 800 syntax-coded occurrences of δέ in the sample, we find 95% coordinating clauses and 11 coordinating nouns, and none of these is a prepositional object. There are no exact parallels for such a coordinate construction of two objects of the preposition (OP) with δὲ in a large sample. Apparently that was not how δέ was generally used in Greek.

The article is also often a fertile syntactic indicator. Latin lacks the article, but Greek, like English, is subtle in its use of articles. There is apparently a rule that nouns and adjectives (the Thraxian nomina) are all articular or all anarthrous in an OP coordinate construction, as long as they are not proper nouns (upper case); articular and anarthrous do not mix in such OP constructions. 

It should be noted that the cited rule means that if the first conjunct is anarthrous, they all must be anarthrous. It is possible for the first conjunct to be articular and subsequent conjuncts to be technically anarthrous. However, in that case the initial article is deemed to modify the other conjuncts distally.

An examination of 121 such OP coordinate nomina constructions in our samples shows no mixed exceptions (with some conjuncts articular and others anarthrous). Since ἁγιασμόν is anarthrous and τέλος would be a trailing articular conjunct, we see that such an interpretation is statistically unlikely. Probability is compound, and a violation of both articular and conjunctive strong language patterns on large populations is virtually impossible. The editor’s and translator’s intuition seems well founded.

The fourth accusative, ζωήν, is naturally taken as an appositive because it is a noun following an uncoordinated noun in the same case. There is an ancient canon of Apollonius which states that if a noun modifies a noun (e.g., genitives and appositives) they must both be articular or both anarthrous. This style canon is mentioned by a number of GNT grammarians, giving a few exceptions. 

Our example violates this canon, but there are two hundred violations (about 10%) in the our sample of the GNT. So the “canon” is not a serious obstacle. It is interesting that a number of academic scholars write articles on such partial patterns because of the historic prestige, yet know nothing about hundreds of more rigorously adhered-to language patterns that wait scientific investigation.

In the interest of examining the options for the four accusative nouns, there is another possibility to evaluate. Sometimes accusative articular nouns or adjectives are adverbial (60 occurrences in our sample). τὸ τέλος could possibly mean finally. In that case, could Romans 6:22 mean “you have the fruit, resulting in holiness and finally in eternal life”? Here life is coordinated with holiness. Although this sounds plausible and is not semantically distorted, the articular rule of coordination and the distribution of uses of δὲ given above answer this question in a probable negative. δὲ does not serve as an OP coordinator, and καρπόν is articular while is ζωήν anarthrous. 

Alternately, the adverbial interpretation of τὸ τέλος could enable the coordination of καρπόν with ζωήν as DO. This does not violate the articular or conjunctive patterns, although intuitively we perceive it as a stretch to put two adverbials between the two noun conjuncts. We do find one such precedent in 1 Corinthians 14:27, κατὰ δύο ἢ τὸ πλεῖστον τρεῖς, καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος two or at most three and one at a time, where τὸ πλεῖστον falls between two substantival conjuncts.

This precedent shows that it is a weakly possible interpretation. However, the two adverbials between the two conjuncts would be awkward in Greek, as in English. We reject it on the grounds that the meanings are not much different and that the simpler and more well-precedented interpretation is better than a convoluted one.

This completes the confirmation of the editor’s and translators’ choice of interpretation. However, it does so with statistical tools that give the interpretation an objective basis and equip the reader to understand Greek better and apply the principles elsewhere. Of course, the Greek speakers who know the rules could not express them or understand the grammatical terms. They did not go through the process of elimination consciously, as given here. Yet the fact that they used them to distill the correct meaning from the potentials shows that they had internalized them. The work of the syntax coder and grammarian, although apparently artificial, is to discover and name the patterns they used, not to invent them.

—Dennis Kenaga, March 2018