Nouns of the first declension

The second declension gave you -ος and -ον. The first gives you -η and -α, and its nouns are usually feminine.

You already know more of these than you think. ἀγάπη, ἁμαρτία, βασιλεία, ἐκκλησία, δόξα, ζωή, ἡμέρα, καρδία — the vocabulary of the New Testament is full of them.

ἀγάπη — the basic pattern

πάντα ὑμῶν ἐν ἀγάπῃ γινέσθω

"Let all that you do be done in love." That is the dative, with its iota subscript, sitting after ἐν — which is the pairing the last section of this chapter is about.

Alpha or eta?

The vowel depends on the letter before it, and the rule is worth knowing because it decides two of the four singular endings.

If the stem ends in ε, ι or ρ, the alpha is kept all the way through: ἡμέρα, ἡμέρας, ἡμέρᾳ, ἡμέραν.

Otherwise the alpha shifts to eta in the genitive and dative singular: δόξα, δόξης, δόξῃ, δόξαν. Note that it comes back for the accusative.

Everything else — the whole plural, and the nominative and accusative singular — behaves the same either way.

The masculines

A handful of important nouns look feminine and are not: μαθητής (disciple), προφήτης (prophet), Μεσσίας (Messiah).

They decline in this declension but take the masculine article, and the article is how you know. ὁ μαθητής, never ἡ μαθητής. This is the second time the article has settled a gender the ending could not, and it will not be the last.

The genitive plural always has a circumflex

Every first-declension noun ends its genitive plural in -ῶν, with a circumflex, wherever the accent falls in the rest of the word. ἀγαπῶν from ἀγάπη; ἡμερῶν from ἡμέρα.

It is one of the few accent rules worth learning as a rule, because it never varies and it identifies the form on sight.

Four prepositions worth meeting now

A preposition tells you how its noun relates to the rest of the sentence, and in Greek it fixes that noun's case. These four take one case each, which makes them the most reliable case signposts in the text.

Read a preposition together with the noun it governs, as one unit, rather than as a word on its own: ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ is a single idea.

Once you can see a preposition and predict the case that follows it, you are reading ahead of the sentence rather than behind it.

Small words change shape before a vowel

You met this in chapter 3 with the negative: οὐ before a consonant, οὐκ before a smooth breathing, οὐχ before a rough one. Prepositions do the same thing, and for the same reason — Greek adjusts a small word to whatever follows it.

ἐκ becomes ἐξ before a vowel: 679 times against 234 in the New Testament, so you will meet both, and the split is clean — every one of the 679 sits before a consonant and every one of the 234 before a vowel.

ἀπό drops its vowel and becomes ἀπ’ before a vowel, and ἀφ’ before a rough breathing — the pi turning into a phi for exactly the reason the kappa of οὐκ turns into the chi of οὐχ.

ἐξ ἀνθρώπων δόξαν, οὔτε ἀφ’ ὑμῶν οὔτε ἀπ’ ἄλλων

"glory from men, neither from you nor from others." Three of these in one line: ἐξ before a vowel, ἀφ’ before the rough breathing of ὑμῶν, and ἀπ’ before the smooth breathing of ἄλλων.

None of this changes the meaning or the case. It is the same preposition, dressed for the word in front of it — and worth recognising, because a lexicon lists ἀπό and the page says ἀφ’.

What to watch for

ἡ χάρις μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν

"Grace be with you all." χάρις is not first declension at all — it is third, which is chapter 17 — and it is a good reminder that a noun ending in a vowel is not automatically first declension. The article and the genitive in the lexicon entry are what settle it.

And ἀγάπῃ against ἀγάπη: dative against nominative, one silent letter apart, and the difference between love acting and love being acted in.