From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 16 2002 - 08:21:22 EST
At 1:36 PM -0500 2/15/02, Bret A. Hicks wrote:
>I have been studying 1 John 1:1 and have a question about the phrase PERI
>TOU LOGOU THS ZWHS. In particular am I interested in the relationship of
>THS ZWHS to TOU LOGOU. It seems that it could be understood as
>epexegetical ("concerning the word which is life") or adjectivally
>("concerning the living word") or objectivally ("concerning the word about
>life").
>
>It seems that all of these are possible, but is one preferable, or more
>common, based on the syntax? In particular, does it make any difference
>that both TOU LOGOU and THS ZWHS are genitive. Wallace (page 87) states
>that "normally in genitive chains (a.k.a concatenative genitives) each
>succesive genitive modifies the one that precedes it." Does this mean
>that the ajectival use is the "most normal" in a genitive chain. Even if
>this is the case, since PERI takes a genitive, does this apply in this
>situation? Do "genitive chains" have a normal way to be read, or does
>context have to drive this determination? Any help would be appreciated.
Text: (1) hO\ HN AP' ARCHS, hO\ AKHKOAMEN, hO\ hEWRAKAMEN TOIS OFQALMOIS
hHMWN, hO\ EQEASAMEQA KAI hAI CEIRES hHMWN EYHLAFHSAN PERI TOU LOGOU THS
ZWHS -- (2) KAI hH ZWH EFANERWQH, KAI hEWRAKAMEN KAI MARTUROUMEN KAI
APAGGELLOMEN hUMIN THN ZWHN THN AIWNIAN hHTIS HN PROS TON PATERA KAI
EFANERWQH hHMIN -- [I've added the backslash (\) to the word hO\ in this
text to make clear that it is the neuter relative pronoun rather than the
article].
So far as the basic question being raised about the genitive case of ZWHS
in relation to the genitive case of LOGOU is concerned, I think that what
Clay Bartholomew has said in his immediate response is correct: there's
nothing in the case-form or position of these words to indicate the
syntactic or semantic relationship between the two--apart from the fact
that PERI must govern TOU LOGOU and THS ZWHS must depend upon LOGOU.
However, my own view is that the genitive word ZWHS in this instance
functions in an "epexegetical" or "definining" or "appositional" way to the
preceding LOGOU upon which it depends, and I understand it to mean
"concerning the Word (which is) Life."
I have not consulted the commentaries on this -- as perhaps I ought to --
before formulating here the view that I've long held but not hitherto
expressed regarding this little prepositional phrase -- PERI TOU LOGOU THS
ZWHS -- in this particular text: that the phrase is fundamentally
parenthetical. To show what I mean I'll offer a 'loose' version of these
two verses:
"What was in existence from the outset, what we have heard, what we have
seen with our own eyes, what we gazed upon and our hands have felt-to-touch
-- (I'm talking) of the WORD which is LIFE -- and this life became visible,
and we have seen it and we attest and report to you the eternal life which
existed in the pressence of the Father and (which) became visible to us ..."
I believe -- and I would guess that most interpreters do believe -- that
this opening passage of 1 John alludes clearly, unmistakably to the
phraseology and conceptual basis of the prologue of the gospel of John: the
acc. neuter sg. relative pronoun (hO\) which is the subject of HN in the
first relative clause and the object of AKHKOAMEN, hEWRAKAMEN, EQEASAMEQA
and EYHLAFHSAN in successive relative clauses should be understood as the
LOGOS, the ZWH, and the FWS of the opening verses of the prologue, and
these two verses of the 'epistle' should be understood, I believe, as a
reiteration of the content of verse 14 of the gospel: KAI hO LOGOS SARX
EGENETO KAI ESKHNWSEN EN hHMIN, KAI EQEASAMEQA THN DOXAN AUTOU. If there's
a difference, the difference is that the present passage underscores far
beyond the original John 1:14 the physical, historical TANGIBLE reality of
the Word become Flesh. The conventional explanation of this emphasis in
this text is that the author intends to underscore, as against docetic
misinterpretation of John 1:14, the tangible historical/fleshly reality of
the incarnate Word. While some may understand this text differently, I
don't think I am asserting here anything different from what is commonly
held regarding the sense of 1 John 1:1-2 and its relationship to the
prologue of the gospel.
BUT, the PHRASING of the opening verse is a little bit confusing because of
the way this prepositional phrase PERI TOU LOGOU THS ZWHS intrudes upon a
string of relative clauses which are really substantive clauses: ("that
which ... " = "what ..." has some awkwardness to it, a grammatical
fuzziness that hints at a semantic fuzziness that resists clear analysis
although it seems we all know exactly what the writer means. Surely that
neuter singular relative pronoun hO\ wouldn't stand in relationship with
PERI TOU LOGOU THS ZWHS to mean something like "the very thing about the
word of life which existed in the beginning, which we heard ..." It's a
sort of anacoluthon. Verse 2 makes clear that the ZWH is none other than
Christ himself, and the affirmations made about the ZWH are the same as
those made in the opening verses of the Johannine prologue about the LOGOS.
And that's why it seems to me that the phrase PERI TOU LOGOU THS ZWHS as a
whole functions as a parenthetical, even "epexegetical" clarifier of what
the writer meant to say with his emphatic initial string of substantive
relative clauses. Let me try once again to rephrase a less-than-literal
version of these two verses:
"What was in existence from the outset, what we have heard, what we have
seen with our own eyes, what we've gazed upon and our hands have felt--it's
the Word which is Life I refer to--and the Life became visible and we've
seen it and attest and report to you that everlasting life that existed in
the presence of the Father and became visible to us ..."
I'd welcome alternative ways of making sense of the phrase PERI TOU LOGOU
THS ZWHS within the context of these verses. I certainly don't think that
"message" is adequate for LOGOU in this phrase.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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