| 37. Linguistic Exegesis The statement begins with the aorist verb ēgagete {ἠγάγετε | ē-gá-ge-te} 'you brought', which expresses a completed action by the second person plural. The postpositive conjunction gar {γὰρ | gàr} 'for' follows, adding a causal link to the preceding argument. The accusative noun phrase tous andras toutous {τοὺς ἄνδρας τούτους | toùs án-dras toú-tous} 'these men' functions as the object, combining the article, noun, and demonstrative to specify the defendants. The correlative negatives oute … oute {οὔτε … οὔτε | oû-te … oû-te} 'neither ... nor' introduce a parallel denial of two offenses: hierosylous {ἱεροσύλους | hi-e-ro-sý-lous} 'temple-robbers' and blasphēmountas {βλασφημοῦντας | blas-phē-moûn-tas} 'blaspheming'. The participial noun blasphēmountas takes the accusative object tēn theon hēmōn {τὴν θεὸν ἡμῶν | tḕn the-ón hē-môn} 'our goddess', indicating the target of the alleged sacrilege. In English, the relative "who are" is supplied to render the participial clause, preserving the legal-defense tone and balanced parallelism of the Greek. |