114 Travis B. Williams rather than its usage within the immediate context. This type of approach can be seen in the commentary of Norbert Brox. When discussing the meaning of the construction, he argues, “Da der Optativ aufgrund der Einheitlichkeit des 1Petr und der Identität der vorausgesetzen Situation im ganzen Brief . . . trotz zahlreicher Befürworter des Gegenteils nicht im Sinn einer Eventualität verstanden werden kann . . . ”11 Similarly, after noting how some scholars interpret the optative as expressing a remote future contingency, Thomas R. Schreiner challenges the interpretation by asserting that, “[s]uch an understanding of the verbal form flies in the face of the context of the rest of 1 Peter, where it is quite evident that Christians in Asia Minor were facing suffering”12. But by placing such heavy emphasis on not contradicting the reality of suffering described elsewhere in the epistle, the condition is never given a chance to speak for itself. Surely, the use of such a rare form should cause us to explore its meaning somewhat further. With an eye towards avoiding these methodological pitfalls, we will now seek to undertake a closer examination of the fourth-class condition in 1 Pet 3,14a. 3. The Semantics of the Fourth-Class Condition A conditional clause, simply defined, is a “supposition on which a statement is based”13. By its very nature a conditional sentence consist of two parts: a protasis (“if” clause) and an apodosis (“then” clause). The protasis is the contingent element upon which the apodosis is based. The apodosis is the principal clause whose fulfillment is portrayed by the author as semantically dependent upon the truth or fulfillment of the protasis. In both classical and Koine Greek, conditional sentences were divided up primarily into four (or possibly five) structural patterns or classes. A complete fourth-class condition consists of εἰ + optative in the protasis along with ἄν + optative in the apodosis. Our attention will be focused upon how this condition was employed in the Koine period, and, by implication, how it should be approached in 1 Pet 3,14a14. Yet due to the 11 Brox, Der erste Petrusbrief, 158 (emphasis added). Cf. also Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 230. 12 Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, 171. Cf. also Senior, 1 Peter, 94; Green, 1 Peter, 114. 13 H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. G.M. Messing; Cambridge, MA 1956) 512. 14 For more on the fourth-class condition in the New Testament, see J.W. Roberts, “The Use of Conditional Sentences in the Greek New Testament as Compared with Homeric, Classical, and Hellenistic Uses”, (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1955) 230-48.