On the whole, I’ve noticed that the better Hellenistic Greek writers, such as the author of 4 Maccabees work significantly harder to keep their participle usage clear.

We all learn the categories for types of adverbial participles:

• Time
• Manner
• Means
• Cause
• Condition
• Concession
• Purpose
• Result

And most of the time through the New Testament its guess work as to the particular nuance of a given participle – to the extent that its often more helpful simply to view the participle as describing some sort of circumstance related to the noun with which the participle agrees in case, gender, and number.

But in 4 Maccabees, the author regularly uses other adverbs and particles to make clear his meaning. For example, he often introduces participle clauses with ὥσπερ and sometimes even ὅτι. The former generally marking manner and the latter, of course, cause. In retrospect, I wish I had documented examples, but that will have to wait for another time.

Either way, its interesting.