grammatical notes from 1500-1780

Steven Avery

Administrator
This thread will handle from the Reformation period until the incredible Eugenius Bulgaris exposition.

We will see that there was a real awareness of the grammatical problem.

 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Erasmus and the tortured grammarians

Erasmus

It will torture the grammarians that the Spirit, water and blood are described by the phrases "there are three" and "these are one/' especially since the words "Spirit," "water" and "blood" are grammatically neuter in Greek. Indeed, the Apostle pays more regard to the sense than to the words, and for three witnesses, as if they were three people, he substitutes three things: Spirit, water and blood. You use the same construction if you say: "The building is a witness to the kind of builder you are."

Clearly, the analogy is a stretch, the example is nothing like the three witnesses verse, lacking the direct element of the participle that connects to neuter nouns.

It is fascinating that Erasmus was willing to acknowledge that the grammatical problem cuts deep. The fact that this only shows up once in his writings indicates that he wanted to keep it from view, as it undercut his personal preference against inclusion of the heavenly witnesses verse.

American Church Review

Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall
https://books.google.com/books?id=0cDSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA641

And here, now, it seems worth while to refer to some remarks of Erasmus, on the grammar of I. John, v. 8. When he had concluded to "replace" verse seven, because the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, varied, and he thought it not perilous to embrace either reading, he said that the peculiar use of genders in verse eight would still make grammarians squirm,—"torquebit grammaticos " (Crit. Annot. viii. 274), and added, that "the Apostle had respect rather to the sense than the words." Now the last of these remarks would have been very rash for such a scholar, while he rejected the seventh verse, and thus left the grammar of the passage lax beyond all precedent. And both of them were over-nice and needless, after he had "replaced" that verse, which gives the passage a fair form of grammar. But they serve to show that Erasmus, in all his investigations, was scrupulous to a fault, in setting the external evidence of manuscripts above the internal evidence of grammatical structure, and that he had good reason tor his conclusion in favor of the disputed passage. They show, also, further, that an objection to the peculiar use of genders in the eighth verse, or an attempt to explain it, would not, at any time, prove or imply that the objector, or the answerer, was ignorant of the seventh verse.
Steven Avery
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Thomas Naogeorgus (1508-1563) or (1511-1578)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Naogeorgus


Quote:
Miror etiam, quamobrem Ioannes tribus neutris masculina & postposuerit, & praeposuerit, irata Grammatica, nisi fortasis scriptura est deprauata
Google translate, tweaked

I wonder, too, why John three are neither male & , prefer angry grammar, except perhaps writing is distorted

Better translation in process, text given in The Ghost of Arius, Dissertation, Grantley McDonald


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"I also wonder how John came to put masculine [words, scil. "tres...tres"] after and before neuter things, to the annoyance of Grammar, unless perhaps the writing is corrupt."

I carelessly left tribus out of the translation entirely, and talking simply of "masculines" and neuters" is clearly closer in sense to what the Latin actually says.

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“why John put masculines both after and before three neuters” (or “the three neuters”). (We would say “both before and after”.) Preceding the three neuters (το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα) is τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες (masc.), following them is και οι τρεις … (also masc.).

Bludau
https://books.google.com/books?id=zQYAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA394

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RGA p. 149-150 , 1544,
Commentary on the First Epistle of John - Kirchmeyer
https://books.google.com/books?id=Pz9bAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA127

In his detailed commentary on the first Epistle of John (1544), the marginal Lutheran Thomas Naogeorgus (Kirchmeyer) left the comma out of the text. In the commentary he explained that the comma was absent from the codices he had inspected, and therefore seems to be an addition. Moreover, he adds, John is not talking of the Trinity at this point, which he does at length elsewhere; he is speaking here of those things that witness to the divinity of Christ. Moreover, Naogeorgus adds that he cannot see the point of having witnesses in heaven, since by the time we get there we will have no need of such testimonies. This rather unusual argument apparently derives from Luther, and suggests that Naogeorgus may have been in possession of notes taken during Luther’s 1527 lectures on the first Epistle of John. Indeed, Naogeorgus points out that Luther, a “sincere exponent of the holy Scriptures,” left the comma out of his translation. He ends his reflections on the comma by wondering why John should have applied masculine participles to things that are grammatically neuter. But for Naogeorgus, unlike for nineteenth century critics like Nolan and Dabney, this apparent grammatical dissonance hints at the textual difficulty of the passage rather than demonstrating its authenticity.164

164 Naogeorgos, 1544, 128r-v:
“In omnibus ferè Latinis, & nonnullis quoque Græcis, quæ ipse uiderim, exemplaribus, ante textum, Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra &c. legitur: Quoniam tres sunt qui testimonum dant in coelo. pater, uerbum & spiritus sanctus, & hi tres unum sunt. Quo ego propter alterius sententiæ similitudinem ab aliquo adiectum existimo, non à Ioanne scriptum. Neque uideo quid ad hunc locum faciat. Non enim Ioannes hîc agit de personarum trinitate (quam uocant) nec de diuinitatis [128v] trinitate, quæ aliàs sufficienter & clare tradidit, sed ostendere uult, quibus testimonijs ostensus & declaratus sit Iesus quòd sit filius Dei, & hactenus probetur & ostendatur. Neque hoc intelligere possum, cui rei faciat testimonium in coelo, quum in coelum nobis uenientibus nullo sit opus testimonio. Videbimus enim facie ad faciem. Enimvero sane in terris tam indigemus testimonijs, ut sine illis fides nostra consistere nequeat. D. M. Lutherus syncerus sacrarum literarum assertor, etiam illam particulam in suo nouo testamento omisit, intelligens nimirum esse adulterinam, & nihil facere ad hunc locum. Miror etiam, quamobrem Ioannes tribus neutris masculina & postposuerit, & præposuerit, irata Grammatica, nisi fortaßis scriptura est deprauata.”

Naogeorgus finishes his commentary (150v) with a rare modesty and flexibility, though he also does not fail to take the opportunity to criticise the Roman Catholic church’s attitude to authority:

“Hæc in epistolam Ioannis primam pro mediocritate ingenij & intellectus nostri in uerbo Dei annotauimus, permittentes liberum pijs omnibus & Apostolicæ ecclesiæ de his iudicium, nec pro oraculis hæc nostra habere cupimus, ut Papistæ solent. Sit unicuique liberum dissentire, neque dissentiens minus mihi amicus erit, & ego quoque ubi è scripturis admonitus me errasse comperero, aliud sentire, & hæc corrigere non grauabor.”

There is an anonymous German translation of Naogeorgus’ commentary (Stuttgart [?], 1554), in Heidelberg cod. Pal. Germ. 522, with the relevant passage on 234r-235r.
 
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