Wim Hendriks, «'Euteos' beyond the Temporal Meaning.», Vol. 25 (2012) 21-35
The Greek lexeme euteos should be understood primarily as an adverb of quality, rather than regularly be taken as an adverb of time in the New Testament. Three problematic passages with euteos will be discussed. They are 3 John 14, Galatians 1:15-17, and a variant reading in Acts 14:8-10. As background to this discussion the meaning of the adjective euteos is considered, as well as its use in various derivative and compound words. Next the formation of adverbs of manner and their place in the Greek sentence or phrase is envisaged. Four meanings of euteos as an adverb of quality, drawing on extra-biblical and New Testament sources, are identified before proceeding to discuss the three problematic passages, indicating how euteos is to be understood and translated.
24 Wim Hendriks
tion 1843), adducing material from earlier Thesauri, albeit revised (new
edition completed 1940), and provided with a supplement (1968). The
literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods is insufficiently referred
to. Regarding the entry εὐθύσ some 116 references are given: 70 for the
classical period and only 46 for the post-classical period. In this respect it
is noteworthy that the subdivision C ends with the remark “εὐθέωσ is the
commoner form in later Greek.” However, one finds only 13 references
for εὐθέωσ, while in the post-classical period (really important for the
study of the NT) the form εὐθέωσ is predominant. Below the frequencies
of the adverbs εὐθύ, εὐθύσ, εὐθέωσ, and παραχρῆμα in non-Attic and
non-Atticistic authors and writings.5
author (corpus) ευθυ ευθυσ ευθεωσ παραχρημα sum total
Herodotus, I-IX 9 5 13 4 31
Polybius 0 13 207 103 323
Septuaginta 0 4 15 20 39
NT (Mark excluded) 0 10 35 18 63
Mark in the TR 0 2 40 0 42
Josephus, BJ I-VI 0 10 64 30 104
Apostolic Fathers 0 7 7 2 16
Apocrypha 0 9 17 6 32
Herodianus, I-VIII 0 12 20 0 32
sum total 9 72 418 183 682
corpus ευθυ ευθυσ ευθεωσ παραχρημα sum total
Papyri III BC 0 1 15 24 40
Papyri II BC 5 1 9 47 62
Papyri I BC 0 1 0 19 20
Papyri I AD 0 3 5 87 95
Papyri II AD 0 5 28 46 79
Papyri III AD 0 2 13 4 19
sum total 5 13 70 227 315
The form εὐθέωσ (ἰθέωσ in Herodotus) predominates in the Hel-
lenistic and Roman periods, including the New Testament (Mark in
5
The first table contains the results of my own reading and counting. The data in the
second table are borrowed from L. Rydbeck, Fachprosa, vermeintliche Volkssprache und
Neues Testament: Zur Beurteilung der sprachlichen Niveauunterschiede im nachklassi
schen Griechisch (AUU SGU 5, Uppsala 1967), 173.
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