04_Biblica_Collins_Layout 1 01/04/14 11:47 Pagina 80 80 C. JOHN COLLINS 4. sugkei/mai and sune,cw Apparently the verbs sune,cw and sugkei/mai are interchangeable with suni,sthmi: sune,cw can stand in for the transitive use of sunisthmi that refers to keeping something together, while sugkei/mai , can stand in for the intransitive. a. sugkei/mai It is easier to show this with sugkei/mai. Athanasius describes “a lyre, put together out of [sugkeime,nhj evk] many different strings” (§38:35-36); “the word of human kind that is put together out of [sugkeime,non evk] syllables” (§40:22-23; cf. 41:2, 4-5); “human beings are put together out of [sugkeime,noi evk] parts” (§41:3). This commonly occurring syntax with evk shows the clear parallel with the intransitive uses cited in section 3 above. A similar parallel between sugkei/mai and intransitive suni,sthmi comes from Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, 8.3. He asserts that Socrates was “put together and divided into parts” (sugkei,menoj kai. diairoumenoj eivj me,rh), and in the next sentence insists that , God is “uncreated and impassible and indivisible; he is not, there- fore, put together from parts (sunestw.j evk merw/n)”. 5. sune,cw Athanasius describes the “holy Word of the Father” as the one “illuminating all things visible and invisible, holding them together and binding them together [sune,cei kai. susfi,ggei] for himself” (§42:3-4). Further, Jesus Christ is the one “through whom the Fa- ther orders the universe and holds it together [sune,cei] and pro- vides for all things” (§47:30-31). This corresponds to the transitive use of suni,sthmi for God’s ongoing holding together of the things he first put together 38. 38 It is possible, though uncertain, that 1 Clem 20.5-6 is additional testi- mony to the close semantic connection of these two verbs. Gaden’s rendering (“Christian traditions”, 37), “The inscrutable and indescribable judgements of the abyss and the underworld are held together [sune,cetai] by the same decrees; the basin of the boundless sea being firmly fixed [sustaqe,n, better “held or brought together”] by his creative action for their gathering together”, may obscure this connection.