As many are very much occupied with the Greek aorist just now, allow me to suggest some thoughts as to it. As to. Greek scholarship I should yield the palm to anyone, I may say, who has made it especially his study, though conversant with the language, as one may be who for years had laid it aside for other occupations, and has only resumed it for the study of the New Testament. But when the question is one of translation, the power of a second language has also to be settled, and its forms may not exactly answer to those of Greek. Still there are certain conditions of human thought which are the same in all languages, because all languages are the expression, as such, of Le human mind. I do not speak of the effect of inspiration on them, but merely of the vehicle of thought in itself. But this shows that metaphysical analysis has its part as well as the empiricism of particular grammars. I shall confine myself to English, unless any particular suggestion may offer itself.
I shall begin by stating what may seem very paradoxical, that tenses have nothing to do with time properly speaking. Verbs, and still more accurately participles, refer not to objects, that is to nouns, but to acts (voices I do not speak of here).
There are only two tenses, as there are two participles; one is accomplishing an act, the other views the act as accomplished. " I dine," that is accomplishing: " I dined," here the act is viewed as accomplished. " I dine every day in the year at three o'clock," that is the accomplishing of the act, and in so far present, i.e., viewed as present; the time is expressed by every day in the year, each viewed as present, but, in fact, many not yet come. But " I dine" is a real aorist, only an aorist of accomplishing, not of what is accomplished. When I say " I dined," the act is viewed as accomplished. But it relates the act as such, the mere act is accomplished, and if I can put my mind into the position of viewing it as accomplished in the mind's eye, a future act as to time will take this form. I take an example which Howell cites as to this question. "He told me he was sent by his principals to Paris, and returned next week." Now, "returned" is de facto at a future time, next week. But the mind views the arrangement as one whole in the mind, and so accomplished. The moment you get into the historical form, not in a mental view of a whole looked at as a plan, and so existing complete in the mind, you must put the present or future. " He was sent by his principals to Paris and returns," if vividly presented, or " will return," if prosaically stated, "next week." But when I look at it as a whole in his plan, the act is looked at as in that accomplished, and I say " returned." The nature of the time remains the same.
Farther, there is no real future tense, because there nothing is accomplishing or accomplished, or it could not be future. Hence I can affirm no act accomplishing or accomplished. What does the mind do? It takes the pure verb which represents the act simply as an act, " dine," and puts present purpose before it. " I will" (that is present will) "dine-with you to-morrow;" the verb is present, a thing accomplishing, " I will." Philologists tell us that in other languages terminations were originally words, but I confine myself to English now. In Greek it seems evident that change of form is used for the tenses, auxiliary verbs being occasionally used, besides the case of the pluperfect.
Participles give very definitively the accomplishing and the accomplished act; " dining," "dined. This, with the auxiliary verbs, gives great accuracy of expression-" I am dining," " I have dined." The former is an exact present, whereas, " I dine," being merely the accomplishing, the act may apply to any time at which the mind realizes the act. It is an aorist present. But in the exact present the' verb is not the act but the participle, " dining." The verb is simply the expression of the present existence of the act. Not that "am" by itself expresses time; but existence, but if the accomplishing is in existence it is of course present. I say, "I am a man." That is not time, but " what;" only it must not have ceased to be, because existence is stated. And in the highest of all expressions it is in contrast with time-" I Am." The other auxiliary verb which must be the main object of inquiry is "I have." This, too, has two tenses, " have," "had; one possession now, the other possession past; the present, as usual, is the fact, not time, only it has not ceased to exist to the mind " I have a book." But I can use this, too, for all times, provided it be viewed in the mind as going on. " I have breakfast every day at nine o'clock." But it is used, though a present, with a past participle, which gives a very logical definite force to it in English. " I have written a letter." The participle views the thing as done, the letter is written. " I have" affirms present realization of the fact. Hence, in English it has a. moral force not historical, not properly referring to time, though to a thing done, not doing or to be done. That man " has stolen." This is not historical. For that I should say " That man `stole' my watch." It is characteristic of the man. " You have beaten your brother." " I have not; I never touched him." " I have not" is denial of the fact morally; "I never touched" is historical. Hence, I say, " I wrote it yesterday," not " I have written." I say simply "I have written a letter." Hence it may be used for the Greek perfect, where the participle can be applied mentally to a subsisting effect. "He has taken the city," historically as a fact. I say, He took the city, but lost it again the next week." " Took" is merely the accomplished fact, " taken" is a past fact, has present possession of the fact. But it is by no means in English a Greek perfect always, i.e., a past fact continuing. It is often a fact in itself wholly past; but realized morally as a present thing. " I have written to you in this article on the subject of the aorist;" in Greek εγτραψα, in English " have written," because though the writing be done once for all, an accomplished fact, it is treated morally as a present thing between my reader and me. " I have;" here the Greek aorist must be translated by what people are pleased to call a perfect. If I say "I wrote," present realization is gone. It is the revelation of the past fact, but present realization is not necessarily a Greek perfect. It may, and very often is, an aorist in Greek. When I read the New Testament I may throw it back into historical fact naturally enough. But often we lose thus the power of it, because the writer is treating the matter as a morally present subject of consideration between him and those written to; yet the aorist may and very often is used. "I have prayed for- thee,"εδεηθην. " I prayed for thee" (which people want us to use for aorist), gives no right sense at all. " Prayed" is past, but the Lord is using it as a present matter between the Apostle and himself. "I have transferred these things in a figure,"μετεσχηματισα. (1 Cor. 4:66And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6).) " I have espoused you," ηρμοσαμην. Where it is an actual continuing act it is perfect: "I have used none of these things," κεχρημαι, he still was not using them (1 Cor. 9:1515But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. (1 Corinthians 9:15)); but in the same sentence, " neither have I written," ουκ εγραψα. " Neither wrote I" would falsify the sense. In some cases one may hesitate, thus, 2 Cor. 11:77Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely? (2 Corinthians 11:7), εποιησα, ευηγγελισαμην. It may be taken historically (aorist, so called) or as present realization in the mind of an accomplished fact. " Committed I sin," " announced the glad tidings;" or, as a present question as to a past fact. " Have I committed sin." " I have announced freely." It is a matter of discernment as to what the writer means, not of Greek tenses. But in a multitude of cases the use of the historical tense in English for the aorist falsifies the sense. First, the application of rules for Greek tenses (often a matter of the writer's feeling at the moment) to English grammar (as if the tenses were the same) leads all wrong; and, secondly, the force of English tenses has not been clearly seen, (of which I am satisfied there are but two, but which from the use of auxiliaries with participles acquire a peculiar force) has not been really analyzed, when Greek aorists are pretended to be represented by them.
How far this is connected with so called tenses in Hebrew, where it is known there are only two, I leave to further investigation. The rules for the use of Vav conversive seem to me strangely vague and unsatisfactory. Try it with Psa. 18, and see what you can make of it.
I have taken the Greek examples merely as they occurred. Hundreds of other examples, perhaps stronger ones, may be found. When it is a present moral question " have" is better than the so-called aorist, though the fact be a simply past act. The question is, Is it treated morally or historically in the mind. " I have written to him twenty times" has not the same shade of meaning as " I wrote to him twenty times." The latter in strict use would require a note of time. I wrote to him twenty. times last year, and I never got an answer." "I have written to him twenty times, and he has never answered me," is the moral fact. " Written" is past, but "have" makes it morally present. I may say, " I wrote to him twenty times, I have never got an answer." " Wrote" is the historical fact; "have never got" is a moral view of what he has done present with me.