Every noun which is not itself a proper name is in direct contrast with this latter; it is the name of what a thing is, not of an individual.
When, in the nature of things, there is ostensibly only one, as sun, moon, heaven, imagination easily personifies them. But as John, Peter, etc., are names of individuals, or become so, so tree, table, glass, etc., is the name of a thing, not of an individual. Such a word, or appellative noun, answers to the question What? Just so a proper name answers to the question Who? I say, " Who, what individual, is that? " The reply is," Peter, John," etc. If I say, " What is that? " the answer is, " It is a tree, a table," etc., that is what it is.
Habits of language may vary. A language may have an indefinite article, or use the number one for it; and either of these individualizes. Thus in French, un homme, a man; and even in Greek, εἰς (one) is often so used in the New Testament. But the noun in itself states what a thing is-table, chair, etc.
In this lies the whole doctrine of the article, at least the root of it all. The style of language varies as the mind of the people who speak it. An Englishman says " law "; that is, he uses the abstract idea " law,é by itself.
French cannot bear this; it must have a positive object before the mind, it cannot deal in abstractions. Hence it can say sans loi, because sans excludes existence, but not par loi. Where the sentence implies existence it cannot use a mere abstract word. It must be toute loi, toute loi quelconque, or something tantamount.
Each nation may insist that its own habits of thought are the best. That does not affect the question which we have to treat.
Whenever a word is merely descriptive of something else, not an individual, it needs no article. So even in French, par bonti. In Latin all is thus abstract. Every noun, when not defined by a pronoun possessive or the like, answers to the question " What? " not to " Who? " It is not individualized. German and Dutch are more like French. Our business now is with the Greek; but the general principle will help us to understand it.
A noun, as elsewhere, is always a quality or kind of being, or answers to " What? " As, for instance, ἄνθρωπος, βιός, οἰκία, etc. The article makes it individual, ὁ ἄνθρωπος. A similar principle will be found in Hebrew; and its form, when a word is in regimen, shows the individualizing, indicative, character of the article; Ish ha-Elohim, the man of God, that is, a man, that one, that is of God. So we have ha-Adam, that special race, or being, which God had created, and Himself quickened; so ha-nahar the Euphrates; ha-Baal the lord (Baal). Now, in Greek, when once we have taken a noun substantive for what a thing is called, and the article as indicative of individualization, all becomes easy. Νόμος παρεισῆλθε (Rom. 5:20), in English, " law," the thing so called; ὁ νόμος, the law; that is, of Moses. Ἄνθρωπος ἦλθε, What (not who) came? A being that was a man, not an angel. In English we should say " a man "; δι' ἄνθρωπου, by man. In English, either " by a man," or " by man " would do, but better " by man."
What follows is striking: ὁ θάνατος; but ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν, anarthrous. The latter-this thing, what is called by that name; the former might have been equally anarthrous, but ὁ points it out as the well-known king of terrors. It is individualized, a being to the mind. Abstractions are the chief difficulty; for the article individualizes. But a thoroughly abstract word is made a unity of (that is individualized) by contrast with all other things possible compared with it. Hence an individual of any kind, and an abstraction, will both have the article. When I say " man," I individualize the kind or race, 1 sum up qualities which distinguish him from animals, angels, God, etc., with which the mind would compare him. Thus ό ἄνθρωπος may be man, that kind of being summed up as an individual being in thought, or a particular individual man, already known. So ὁ νόμος may be " law," or " Moses's law," or any known law; less familiar here, because νόμος is more difficult to individualize abstractedly by a tacit comparison with other things: a few particular laws are what we think of, or law simply in its nature, that is, the name for what it is. Law cannot be so abstract a thought-is more positively instituted. With abstract qualities the case is simple. That particular one is, itself, in contrast with all other qualities, ἡ ἀνομία, ἡ ἁμαρτία. I think it will be found that of such words, of those that are in kind familiar to us in detail, we make what is called an abstraction; that is, we sum up the various things as a whole, and it becomes a unity and in Greek has an article: as ἡ ἁμαρτία, ἡ ἀνομία. The principle applies anywhere, but such a word as νόμος, for example, is less liable to be summed up thus. Species afford facility for this; if accustomed to be viewed as species, they are individualized in contrast with other species. In English every species is not individualized: the word remains a kind of adjective. I say man. I say " the " horse, meaning the horse tribe, and the ox or sheep, that class. God and man are alone, I think, given a personal name thus in English. It is not a set of beings, but a being; it is really a name.
Take, now, to illustrate the principle, John 1. Ό λόγος is an individual personal being; Θεός a kind of being; πρὸς τὸν Θεόν a personal being; ἐν ἀρχῇ is absolute (ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ would be a particular beginning, perhaps of all things, but one designated one); ζωὴ ἦν, it is, what was there (ἡ ζωή would have individualized it, and there would have been none anywhere else-that life would have been in Him alone as a whole); then ἡ ζωή, because it is the life mentioned, that is, it is individualized. It is not what, but which life. So τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀνθρώπων, it was the light of men. Here it is clearly individualized, a particular light, and, indeed, the only one owned as of men. In the case of τῇ σκοτίᾳ, it is important. You could not say φῶς φαίνει ἐν σκοτία because there would be no darkness if the nature (the what) of the thing were in question, but τῇ σκοτίᾳ is a particular darkness-abstract, no doubt, but what was opposite to the light of men, which was life in Christ the Word. What that found itself in was darkness opposed to it, and which could not comprehend it, the darkness of this world. It is stated mysteriously, but it is that darkness in which the light of men, Christ, shines. That darkness did not comprehend it-no doubt because it was darkness, but the opposite of that light. Whatever is contrasted has an article, for it is thereby a positive object individualized; consequently, as one whole before the mind; hence as above species.
Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος sent παρὰ Θεοῦ. What was sent? A man, not an angel; here it is evident. So παρὰ Θεοῦ is what the being was, he was sent from; παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ is Greek, but it individualizes God, παρὰ Θεοῦ characterizes Him. The messenger was a man, but a man sent from God; ὄνομα αὐτοῦ is not " his name was," but " there was a name to him," John. We have, lower down, τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ: then it is a particular name amongst others. Here what had he? a name, which was John. You could not say, I apprehend, as stating a fact, ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, because the genitive gives a particular name- his name. It is known that in ordinary cases the possessive pronoun requires the article before the noun. Εἰς μαρτυρίαν, that is what he came for-his mission: what particular testimony it was, he goes on to say. Ό κόσμος is the one individual world, clearly.
Τὰ ἴδια, oἱ ἴδιοι, I note as being plural, where the plurality itself clearly individualizes, gives positive objects as units to the mind-only it also embraces all of them-τά, oἱ, all the units which bear the name or designation of ἴδια, ἴδιοι. 'Εξ αἱμάτων, etc., is clearly of what: ἐκ τῶν αἱμάτων would have specified the particular kinds, that is, individualized each kind of blood- probably it is meant to exclude all, if not a mere Hebraism. Ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρός is noticeable because a genitive very commonly brings an article with it, as giving the particular kind of the governing noun, and so objectively individualizes it (τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων), but here the whole is merely what the thing is, έκ marking nature or quality. Their birth was not of that kind, this was not what it was. It is not merely an actual will supposed to exist in the individual man.
Ὁ λόγος σάρξ is a common form of proposition, that individual person or being did now become that.
Τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, there was the particular actual glory which they saw; δόξαν ὡς then, what it was, its quality. This may suffice.
Θεόν stands as a name. Yet involving they saw. Yet even here, where it is used personally and objectively, the article is used; πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, it was somebody He was with; παρὰ Θεοῦ, the quality of His mission. So here ἑώρακε Θεόν, Him, who is truly such; τὸν Θεόν would have been personally, and not have given the force; it would have been the fact. Here it is more in the nature of things.
In John 8 it is ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, for it was from God Himself [that] He came out. In verse 44, Ye are ἐκ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου; the devil is personal, individual; but they were not out of him personally but characteristically. They had him morally as their father. From the devil as father, the source of what they were.
Τὸ ψεῦδος objectively contrasted with ἡ ἀλήθεια and so individualized; ψεύστης is what he is.
Ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων-of distinct things which are his own.
So περί ἁμαρτίας is neither one particular sin, nor as an ideal or abstract whole, but what they could or could not convict Him of.
So ἀλήθειαν, speak truth, what characterizes the speaking. Hence, as heretofore observed, in such cases of accusatives after verbs, and of the verb substantive, an anarthrous word is usual.
In John 5:37 we have an instance which might seem strange, φωνὴν αὐτοῦ. It is not properly his voice as one known voice which speaks, but a voice, any voice of his; so εἶδος αὐτοῦ, anything that was his form. It is not one known voice or form, but anything that (what) was that. But τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ (ver. 38) because that is one recognized word. In verse 41, παρὰ ἀνθρώπων, that character of praise, παρὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων living individuals in fact. So verse 44, δόξαν παρ' ἀλλήλων, but τὴν δόξαν τὴν παρὴ τοῦ μόνου Θεοῦ.
John perhaps tests the principle best, from the peculiarly abstract way in which many things are stated by him. In more narrative books it is simpler.
I quote now some more peculiar forms. Acts 14:3, ἱκανόν μὲν οὖν χρόνον. Here, clearly, it was not the object to designate one particular, pretty long, time, individualizing it from others-but what the time was; it was a ἰκανὸς χρόνος.
With ἦν and ἐγένετο, as stated, it is the question of what took place; there was a ὁρμή there [ver. 4 and some (ἦσαν) were with the Jews and some with the apostles], verse 5, ὡς δὲ ἐγένετο ὁρμὴ τῶν ἐθνῶν τε καὶ Ἰουδαίων σὺν τοῖς, etc. The individuals τῶν of both classes.
It is a mistake to think there is never an anarthrous noun followed by an article. When the first noun depends on another word to which it answers, as " What," and the following one is of individuals who refer to that, you will have the first anarthrous, the second not. When the first is an individual whole, dependent on the following genitive, it must have the article, τὸ πλῆθος τῆς πόλεως.
It was the multitude, the one whole multitude of that city, not of another (ver. 4); but ὁρμὴ τῶν ἐθνῶν, etc., because there it is merely what took place, and does not belong wholly and exclusively as an embodied individual to those people.
Verse 8, καί τις ἀνὴρ ἐν Λύστροις ἀδύνατος τοῖς ποσὶν. The man was ἀδύνατος τοῖς ποσίν: his two individual feet, though there is no αύτοΰ (his); χωλὸς ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς (αὐτοῦ), his mother's womb is merely a date to characterize his lameness. The womb is not before us objectively as an existing thing.
Verse 10, εἵπε μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ is somewhat peculiar but accounted for in the same way; μεγάλῇ φωνῇ would do, but simply characterize the manner of είπε: τη φωνή is his voice, raised to a loud pitch,-I have not the character of speaking but Paul's voice; μεγάλῃ φωνῇ is practically one word. Hence the article in the plural, unless there be a limiting word, means all of that kind.
Verse 13, ταύρους, bulls: τοὺς ταύρους would be individuals designated; and the what is ταύρους, that is, all that comes under that name.
All this is not a different principle from the previous paper on it, but goes to the root; the other more to the form. The former is grammatical, this metaphysical.
The noun is always characteristic, or the what of something, even when there is an article. The article indicates an individual, or single object (many if plural) which is that " what." The form of subject and predicate is merely an effect of this. The person " ὁ " or object I call man, the what of the object is an animal. Other words may take the place of the article in individualizing, as τις, πᾶς, πολλοί. Oἱ πολλοί is something else; οἱ gives a number of designated individuals in contrast with one, a number of individuals lost in the designation πολλοί in contrast with some one or few otherwise connected though contrasted with them-oἱ ἡγεμόνες, oἱ πολλοί; πολλοί is, becomes, a qualification, not a mere uncertain number. Hence, as a general rule, an unmentioned individual kind has no article; ἄγγελος, ἄνθρωπος, πρός παρθένον. It is what the being is; singular, but known by its character.
When mentioned, the article comes too as a rule, because an individual (now known) is designated.
There is an oracular absence of the article which, though apparently exceptional, only confirms the rule: πνεΰμα άγιον: καϊ δύναμις υψίστου. It specially characterizes what it was and is, not merely historical of what took place, in which case the article would have been used. The translation (Acts 1:8) is right: " Ye shall receive power, the Holy Ghost coming upon you "; not as in the margin: this would have been, I conceive, τὴν δύναμιν.