All my experience has confirmed the principle stated elsewhere, that the article is used when the object of the mind is spoken of, and is left out when the word or combination of words is characteristic. This does not at all conflict with its being the notion expressed by the substantive as viewed by the speaker as an individual, which, as another form of the thought, is correct enough, but gives no expression to the import of the absence of the article. All the particular cases and rules are but reducing expressions under the general principle, often multiplied (as in Middleton) by ignorance of it. I doubt altogether that his notion that the general rule does not apply where there is a preposition, or with proper names, &c., has the least truth in it.
Thus, as to abstract nouns here, the rule only perplexes. I confess I do not understand particularizing an abstract idea: perhaps individualizing or personifying is meant. Ὁ νόμος may be abstract or not. If I have spoken of a particular νόμος, ὁ νόμος realizes that νόμος as an individual; or, as I should say, presents it as a definite object to the mind. If I have no such law mentioned, ὁ νόμος would be “the thing law,” law viewed as an object before my mind as such. Abstract nouns are a kind of personification. “Law” does this, “law” does that. If I say διὰ νόμου, it is something that happens on that principle; it is only characteristic.
Anarthrous nominatives (such as, καλὸς γὰρ θησαυρὸς παῤ ἀνδρὶ σπουδαίῳ; χάρις ὀφειλομένη, Isocr. p. 8 B: λόγος ἀληθὴς.... καὶ δίκαιος φυχῆς ἀγαθῆς καὶ πιστῆς εἴδωλόν, Id. p. 28 A:) express moral characteristics—beings or things that have a certain quality. It is what each is, anything that has this character. It is not an abstraction but an universal, that is, a species which is known by a predicate of each individual that has such a character. There may be many a χάρις and all sorts of λόγοι not such as these. So πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἔνθρωπος (Plat. Theaet. 8) is the character of the measure used. Ὀ ἄνθρωπος would point out an object, the race viewed as one whole, where some specified individual was not meant (i.e., if you please, one individual, real or ideal); it is always a subsisting thing to the mind about which something is affirmed. Hence, as an abstract noun is an objective personification of the idea, it has the article. But an universal, or species, as in these anarthrous instances, is the character of all the individuals composing it. If a characteristic universal be not seized, it is impossible to understand the omission of the article in Greek.
An abstract noun as such has always the article, because it is always the personification of the idea, its reduction to an objective individual. But in so intellectual (or if you please imaginative) a language as Greek, it requires keen perception to see why or why not an article is used. Just so in English. “The daylight came.” I am thinking of daylight as a positive substantive thing. “It was already daylight.” Daylight characterizes the state of atmosphere, of surrounding nature, spoken of as day. ‘It’ is the mind’s object, “daylight” the state or character of it. I could perfectly well say “Daylight came,” and I should think of the state of the scene around me, though the thing characterized is not expressed. We have a strong case in νόμος παρεισῆλθεν. Ὁ νόμος would have been the Jewish law: here it would not do, either, to say ὁ νόμος for the abstract idea. It was merely the legal principle which characterized the dealings of God, the state of things; but, as “daylight,” it means the state in which the world is. This explains εἰρήνη ἐστὶ τἀγαθόν. It is peace, a state of peace. You might have said ἡ εἰρήνη and then it would have been the thing itself. But τἀγαθόν, is not a predicate characterizing εἰρήνη—does not affirm that peace is good, but that peace is the good thing, the one good thing. It is the abstract idea individualized. It would have been ἀγαθή if it had been a predicate.
In Matt. 1:1, (Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,) it is the common case of a title and exceptional; as in English one might say, “Book of Wisdom;” yet were I making a sentence, I should say, “The Book of Wisdom is so and so.” It is elliptical. The name of what follows (not anything as to each) is τὸν Ἰσαάκ. The article is usually put with known persons, because they are definite objects before the mind. Were one never heard of before, it would be anarthrous; but with the article it would be “that Isaac which you know so well of in Genesis, the well-known Isaac.”
The same remark applies to Matt. 7:25, 27. It is the well-known rain and floods, the rain came on. I should say in English, “The rain was very heavy on a particular day—the rain spoiled flowers.” It is a well-known particular object in nature before the eyes. But it would be better to say, “The rain spoils the flowers,” because both become objective. The rain did it. I could say, “Rain spoils flowers.” This is aphoristic; which is always anarthrous, because essentially characteristic. If I say, “The rain spoiled,” it is again objective—the rain on a given day in my mind. If I say, “It was not heat, it was rain spoiled them,” rain becomes characteristic, in contrast with heat, of a state of the weather. It is something of a proper name, but a proper name has not an article when the person is not known or has not been mentioned.
I do not believe that there is any difference as to Κυρίος or Θεός, save that they may be proper names. Compare for Κυρίος, Matt. 1:20, 22, 24; 2:15, 19; 3:4; 4:7, 10; 21:9; 23:39; Mark 11:9; 13:209And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: (Mark 11:9)
20And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. (Mark 13:20); Acts 2:20, 39; 3:22; 5:9, 19; 7:31, 37; 8:26, 39; 12:7, 23; 13:10, 11. Ὁ Κυρίος is often not a name but an office as ὁ χριστός, unless they may have been mentioned before so as to make them a present object here. In Matt. 1:20, Κυρίου is the character of the angel, ἄγγελος is the simple way of saying one when there are many; ὁ ἄγγελος would not do if there were many, unless followed by a characteristic word, the angel of the Lord: then I think of one to the exclusion, at least then, of all others.
As to Matt. 13:6 (ἡλίου ἀνατέλαντος) I do not accept the ἡλίου being a proper name. It is at sunrise-a characteristic state. I might say “the rising of the sun,” as in Mark 16:2; then I have an object. So with γῆ, θάλασσα, κόσμος, οὐρανός, ἡμέρα, ἀνήρ, γυνή, πατηρ, &c.
Again, τὸ ὄρος in Matt. 5:1; 14:28; Mark 3:13 (cf. Luke 6:12, 17), does not mean some particular mountain well known by this name (as Wetstein and Rosenmϋller think). Not “a mountain” (as in the Authorized Version, Campbell, Newcome, Schleusner) but “the mountain” in the sense of the hill-country or highlands, in contrast with “the plain.” The same principle accounts for τὴν πέτραν in chapter vii. 24, 25; only that this is made more obvious by the expressed contrast, in verse 26, of τὴν ἄμμον. Just so with τὴν οἰκίαν, Matt. 9; 10:12, 13, in contrast with “without” or “the open air,” and τῶ ἀγρῷ contrasted with “the city” or “town;” similarly εἰς τὸ πλοίον “on board ship” (Matt. 13:2, &c.), in contrast with being “ashore,” unless in cases where reference required the article, as perhaps in chapter 4:21; 9:1. In Mark 1:45, εἰς πόλιν is purposely characteristic (and not a license because of the preposition as is commonly said) “into town,” any town: so εἰς ἀγρόν, in chapter 16:12, and είς πόλιν in chapter 2:1, meaning “at home.” The article might or might not be used in many cases; but the phrase or thought is never precisely the same.
With a proper name as such, one can hardly have an article, save as a reference, and this not immediate, I apprehend. If I say ὁ Ξενοφων, it is the well-known man, or the Xenophon I have been speaking about always, as a designated object of thought: why so, it may be a question, which only appears afterward and hence is anticipative. When the person is named historically, the article disappears; when spoken of as a direct object before the writer’s mind and meant to be so pointed out to the reader, the article is used (as in ordinary appellatives). When not thus referred to or presented, one cannot point out a name as a subject-matter of thought: it is a predicate then and anarthrous as usual.
So πᾶσα Ἱεροσόλυμα is not an exceptional case. ‘I. is a name, and as such without an article; and the name is necessarily an individual. You cannot gather a name of a city into one as a country or province, like πᾶσα ἡ Ἰουδαία. By the article, a country is brought before the mind as one whole. But if one thinks of a name simply, the article is excluded, a name being not a thing but something said about a thing. The sense in this case is πᾶσα [ἡ πόλις, which city is called] Ἱεροσόλυμα. A river has the article; because from its nature, like a district, it needs this sign of unity as a whole.
Rom. 4:13 is a simple case of the general rule, to which I admit no exception for prepositions; διὰ νόμου was the character or way of his getting the promise. So δ. δ. π., “by righteousness of faith.” It was not by law. The case is a very simple one. So in Rom. 1:17, ἐκ πίστεως characterizes the revelation, εὶς πίστιν the manner of its reception. God’s righteousness is revealed not merely διά, but ἐκ π., excluding claims of birth, ordinances, works, &c., by faith as the sole ground and therefore open to faith wherever found.
The abstract noun is more abstract, if that could be said, with an article than without. It is in the essence of its nature, all things foreign to it apart; ἡ ἁμαρτία is “that thing called sin,” as such in itself. A being is only what it is, or it is not that being, but another. Hence when it is said ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία, they are identical: one of the things before my mind is itself and no more; but the other is the same with it, as itself and no more. This is the effect of all article with an abstract noun.
There are nouns, it may be remarked here, which are generalizations more than abstractions. Thus νόμος: in general, it is a certain particular rule, and becomes a general idea of acting on the principle of a rule. In such cases it is hard to use the article without returning to the particular form which one has generalized. Law gives the idea of an actual concrete thing, Hence I have a mental difficulty to decide in Rom. 4:15, whether it is abstract. It would be more naturally abstract law,” the thing law;” but with this word, which is first known as an actual existing objective code, it is difficult, when thus taken by itself, not to return to the particular. When, ἡ ἁμαρτία is used, I should have no difficulty.