Against the claim of Fitzmyer et al.
that οτι does not mean that
the woman received forgiveness before her acts of love:
Two basic difficulties complicate this analysis. (i) The same perfect
passive verb, ἀφέωνται, appears in Jesus’ performative speech act in the very next
verse: “He said to her, Ἀφέωνταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι” (Luke 7:48). This expression
parallels exactly the act of absolution Jesus offers in the story of the
paralytic: ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι σου...ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι σου (5:20,
23); and in each pericope Jesus’ pronouncement generates a response among the
hearers who understand him to be conferring forgiveness directly (5:21; 7:49).
Consequently, as even Fitzmyer sees, the verb carries a present sense in 7:48.
It is accordingly difficult to insist upon a different sense in the immediately
preceding verse.
(ii) The logical or resultative use of ὅτι, which
would make the subordinate (ὅτι) clause express the effect rather than
the cause, is unusual and “difficile de justifier en grec.” An Aramaic
substratum has at times been invoked to explain the situation. The line would
have originally run: “I say to you די many sins are forgiven her, די she loves
much.” The first די dropped out because it was mistakenly taken as a ὅτι recitativum,
then the main and subordinate clauses got flip-flopped. Zerwick was certainly
right that this possibility does not enjoy a “high degree of probability.” As
Maurice Casey warns, the mistranslated די card is greatly overplayed. Even
where the argument is accepted, however, Luke’s meaning (being ultimately grounded
on an error) remains just as problematic for the resultative view.
It seems as if Luke intended us to understand, in spite of the
logic of the parable, the words in the sense ‘because she loved much’, in order
to enable him to go on to portray Christ granting the woman absolution (v. 48):
because of this demonstration of gratitude (Luke intends us to understand) the
woman’s sins are being (or going to be) forgiven now. The alternative (and
undoubtedly original) meaning places the absolution or forgiveness of the woman
in the past – her demonstration of affection is a consequence of her having
been forgiven. There is no doubt how the original Aramaic was construed.
On the level of Luke’s canonical text,
then, it remains no less difficult, even on the theory of a garbled Aramaic
tradition, to defend the resultative reading.
There is, in fact, no obvious Lukan
precedent for such a usage of the conjunction ὅτι as Kilgallen and Fitzmyer
wish to find. Most of the suggested instances are cleft interrogatives or
independent exclamations (Luke 4:36; 8:25; 11:18). The case of Luke 7:39b is intriguing and
syntactically complex.
Οὗτος εἰ ἦν προφήτης,
ἐγίνωσκεν ἂν τίς καὶ ποταπὴ ἡ γυνὴ ἥτις
ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ,
ὅτι ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν.
It is not a precedent, however. Within the apodosis of the present
contrafactual conditional, ὅτι functions within a prolepsis – explaining
why the ordering of clauses by the conjunction might look reversed. The semantics
of the verb γινώσκω further conspire towards the idea of a logical usage
(expressing how a thing is known). In fact, though, the subject of the subordinate
ὅτι clause (i.e. implied ἡ γυνή, in a predicate nominative construction with ἁμαρτωλός)
is simply anticipated as the object of the main clause – a compound
interrogative in this case (ἐγίνωσκεν...τίς καὶ ποταπὴ ἡ γυνή) – such
that ὅτι ultimately serves as a simple complement to ἐγίνωσκεν (“he would
know...that she is a sinner”).
The point in all this is only that the causal reading of ὅτι
in Luke 7:47 is much to be preferred and rejected only if compelled. Indeed,
the possibility of a “logical/resultative” use gains all its force from its
ability to tolerate an otherwise established claim that the woman has
already been forgiven. Rather than straining the syntax of 7:47, a better way
to approach the interpretative crux of the whole unit is thus to examine
the language of ἀγαπᾶν, for this language is ultimatelly what binds the parable
(7:42) to the narrative frame (7:47). Such an examination, however, points
directly to the notion of good works. (Anthony Giambrone, Sacramental
Charity, Creditor Christology, and the Economy of Salvation in Luke's Gospel
[Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 439; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2017], 102-4)
