Habentibus

john abshire

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Fidem habentibus nihil est incertum.
To those having faith nothing is uncertain.

Shouldn’t habentibus be habere?
Shouldn’t there be an illis in there?
Edit: and why is fidem accusative?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Location:
Belgium
Shouldn’t habentibus be habere?
No, that wouldn't make sense. Habere is an infinitive; it means "to have" or "(the fact of) having", not "having" as a participle describing someone or something.
Shouldn’t there be an illis in there?
No. That would be if you were pointing at some specific people like "those people over there, having faith..." or "those people that I've just mentioned, having faith...". If you just mean anyone having faith in general, no demonstrative should be used.
 

Clemens

Aedilis

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Location:
Maine, United States.
Perhaps you already know this, but participles have properties of adjectives (or nouns) and verbs. So, like an adjective or noun, it takes cases and agrees with the noun (expressed or implied) it refers to. Like a verb, it can take an object. So, the participle habēns in this case is in the dative plural (habentibus) because of the needs of the syntax and because it refers to multiple people (those having). As Pacifica has said, a pronoun isn't necessary, unlike in English, because adjectives (including participles) in Latin can often function as nouns, referring to a person or thing that the adjective describes. (This is true in the Romance languages as well.) In English we would be more likely to use a relative clause ("people who have"). When we use the verb habeō, the thing being had is expressed in the accusative, and this is true of the participial form as well.

Participles play a much larger role in Latin than they do in English, which is something a learner of Latin must get used to, as the syntactical idiom is therefore quite different.
 

Clemens

Aedilis

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Location:
Maine, United States.
Maybe if you think of fidem habentibus as "to persons having faith" or "to faith-having persons" it would be more clear how the Latin syntax works. The word persons isn't explicitly expressed, because it's not necessary in Latin.
 

john abshire

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I’m not sure who to reply to, so I will make my reply generic.
Fidem habentibus nihil est incertum.

Could this sentence also translate “by those having faith”, (or ‘from those…’), and assuming so, is this construction (and translation) common in Latin writings?
 

Pacifica

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Location:
Belgium
Could this sentence also translate “by those having faith”, (or ‘from those…’), and assuming so, is this construction (and translation) common in Latin writings?
No. "By/from those who have faith" would require the preposition ab to be used. But I'm not sure it would make much sense here...
 

john abshire

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No. "By/from those who have faith" would require the preposition ab to be used. But I'm not sure it would make much sense here...
Is the preposition a/ab always required (never left out or assumed), so if I see an …-ibus I will know it is dative?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Location:
Belgium
No. Ablative words can appear without prepositions (or with prepositions other than ab). But ab is required when the meaning is "by someone" or "from someone" (well, depending on context, "from someone" can also be expressed with other prepositions, but usually not with none).
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Location:
Belgium
Ablative words can appear without prepositions
To give one example among many: an inanimate agent is put in the ablative without preposition. So for instance if you say that your hat was snatched away by the wind, "by the wind" will just be vento.
 

john abshire

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To give one example among many: an inanimate agent is put in the ablative without preposition. So for instance if you say that your hat was snatched away by the wind, "by the wind" will just be vento.
That is also an ablative of means, I believe, but I am sure there are other examples.
 
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