Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

102 Dimensions in Baptism

number of other grammarians—is that in order to have the reflexive sense,

one must specify it by some grammatical means other than the middle

voice, such as the use of the reflexive pronoun, since that meaning is not

part of what the verbal voice form grammaticalizes. In this sense, the use

of the reflexive pronoun with the Greek middle voice form is no different

from using it with the active voice form, where it also appears, since it

adds a feature of reflexivity. However, most grammarians do not suggest

that the Greek active voice is reflexive even though it can be collocated

with the reflexive pronoun.^44 It is to be noted further that many if not most

instances often pointed to as indicating the reflexive sense of the middle

voice involve a verb whose agent and patient are conceptually or prag-

matically bound, such as a person and a part of his or her body. As Moul-

ton has noted:

If the active is transitive, the middle indicates that the action goes no further

than the agent himself, a sense which naturally comes out of the concen-

tration on the agent characteristic of the middle. Thus viTrrojjai is 'I

washed', with or without object, but implying that the action stops with

myself. If then there is no object, VITTTOHOU = 'I wash myself: if there is,

viTTTO|jai TOS xsipas= 'I wash my hands'.^45

Despite the ideas noted above, the more persistent analysis of the mid-

dle voice in Greek among grammarians is to see it conveying some sort of

personal involvement of the subject in the action. For example, one of the

earliest to hold to such a position in recent New Testament grammatical

discussion is A. Buttmann. Comparing the use of voice in New Testament

Greek to that of classical Greek, he states: 'The remark that the Greeks

employ the Middle form to designate an action that takes place in some

connection with the subject, is performed for his own advantage or disad-

vantage, in general, stands in some close relation to him,—is in the main

applicable to the N.T. also. '^46 A position similar to this one has been held

44. An exception to this is Blass and Debrunner, Greek Grammar, pp. 161-63,
    wisely disputed by A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the
    Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 4th edn, 1934 [1914]), p. 802.


45. Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 156. Cf. Robertson, Grammar, p. 797, where he
    rightly distinguishes between the issue of voice and transitivity, noting that active and
    middle verbs, and sometimes even passives, may be either transitive or intransitive, a
    matter separate from voice.


46. A. Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek (trans. J.H. Thayer;
    Andover, MA: Draper, 1895), p. 192.