17---1δ.
others only with the ἀποκαλύψεως. But the course of thought and the balance of the terms point to it as qualifying the two gifts specified in the preceding sentence.
Ver. 18. πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλ- μοὺς τῆς διανοίας ὑμῶν: the eyes of your understanding (heart) being enlightened. For the διανοίας of the TR, which is very poorly attested, καρδίας is to be read (with LTTrWHRV) on the au- thority of the best MSS., representing the different families (QQBADFKL, etc.). The ὑμῶν is to be retained, though it is omitted by B 17, etc., and is bracketed by WH. The syntax of the sentence is difficult, but is best taken (with AV, Bez., Beng., Bleek, Mey., etc.) as an acc. absol. The existence, indeed, of the acc. absol. in the NT is still doubted by some good grammarians (Winer, Blass, etc.), and alleged cases are disposed of as ana- coloutha. But such a construction, though of much rarer occurrence than the gen. absol., was not unknown to clas- sical Greek (cf. Jelf, Gv. Gram., ii., Ῥ. 406), even where there was no repetition of the subject (cf. Mey., zn loc.), and there appear to be at least a few instances of it in the NT, e.g., certainly in Acts xxvi. 3 (admitted by Buttm., Gram. of N. T. Greek, p. 347), and probably in Rom. viii. 3, etc. The syntax is otherwise ex- plained here (e.g., by Harl., Stier, etc.) as a case of apposition, the ὀφθαλμούς continuing the πνεῦμα, as if = “that He may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation—enlightened eyes,” an explanation in the highest degree awk- ward and next to impossible in view of the τούς. The presence of the article before ὀφθαλμούς and its absence be- fore πεφωτισμένους point to a case of tertiary predicate (Buttm.), so that the sense would rather be “give unto you the Spirit—to wit, eyes enlightened”. Others (Ell., etc.) account for it as an instance of lax construction and abnor- mal case (by no means rare in the NT), the πεφωτισμένους standing for πεφωτισ- μένοις and the τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς being the defining acc. = “that he may give unto you—being enlightened as to the eyes of your heart” (Ell., etc.). Only in biblical and ecclesiastical Greek is φωτίζω used of the inward enlightenment which means a spiritual, saving knowledge of the things of God; cf. φωτισθέντες as applied to those who had become Christians (Heb. vi. 4, X. 32), and the subsequent use of the same term to describe the ‘“ baptised” in early Christian literature. The un- usual figure of speech, ‘‘ the eyes of your heart,” is peculiarly appropriate here.