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Lesson 5.2 · Voice

The passive voice

The action is done to the subject.

Put an i after the stem and the subject stops acting and starts being acted on:

Does itHas it done to them
luatō he loosesluitō he is loosed
agapatō he lovesagapitō he is loved
luata he loosedluita he was loosed

Everything else about the word is unchanged — the person letter still says who the subject is, the last letter still says when. Only the direction has flipped.

Telitē.
"It is finished." (John 19:30) — tel·i·t·ē: finish, done to it, it, and still standing so.

English builds a passive with a helper verb — "is loosed", "was loved". Here it is one letter, so a passive is never longer than an active.

Who did it, then?

Often the sentence does not say — that is frequently the point of using a passive. When it does say, the doer appears with one of the little words from Lesson 8.1, most often hupo "by".

In the Greek — the divine passive

Greek's aorist passive is marked with -θη- (ἐλύθη), which is usually easy to spot, and its present passive shares its endings with the middle, which is not.

One thing worth knowing as a reader: Jewish writers of the period often used a passive to avoid naming God directly. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" means, in context, that God will comfort them. Nothing marks this in the grammar — it is a habit of speech — but noticing passives is how you notice it.

Practice

  1. What is agapimō?
  2. What is agapamō?
  3. What is pisteuita?
Show the answers
  1. "I am loved" — i, done to me.
  2. "I love" — a, I do it.
  3. "He was believed" — i done to him, t he, a past.
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