The Use of the Greek perfect in the Treatise «On the Faith» by Nikephoros Blemmydes

The present paper deals with the semantics of the perfect verb forms in the treatise «On the Faith» (Peri pisteos), written by Byzantine theologian Nikephoros Blemmydes circa late 1260s in literary ancient Greek. This text was written, like some other writings by Blemmydes, during the theological controversy between the Nicene Empire and the Catholic Church, and it once formed the first part of the typicon of the monastery in Emathia. The fact that by the 13 century the synthetic perfect disappeared from the colloquial speech provides especial meaning to the linguistic studies of the Byzantine theological writings. Since the verbal form of the message reflects the individuality of the author, the study of the contextual role of the perfect also contributes to the description of the literary style of the author being studied. The study reveals 55 perfect forms, all of which represent key concepts of Orthodox Christology (‘Incarnation’, ‘Inspiration of God’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘God’s Providence’). As the contextual analysis shows, perfect forms tends to involve christological terminology, as well as neutral literary vocabulary, which represents christological ideas within the context. The grammatical meaning of the perfect is used to represent the state of affairs as a result of Jesus Christ’s deeds, so that the use of the perfect becomes semantically marked to the reader of Nikephoros Blemmydes. The semantic of the perfect category (semantic of result) becomes an additional factor in enhancing the impact of the author's statements, giving the verbs in perfect form an explicit terminological meaning. At the same time, Nikephoros Blemmydes prefers narrow use of perfect forms, which indicates the subject role of this category in the literary style of the author.