I note that the Sahidic Coptic version translates the Greek preposition pros at John 1:1, 2 by two different Coptic prepositions.
Pros itself has several meanings. It is often rendered into English as "with," as in "with God." (John 1:1, 2) According to the Greek lexicon abbreviated as BDAG, at John 1:1 the significance of pros is 'by, at, near;
be (in company) with someone.' (page 875)
In the Sahidic Coptic version, pros at John 1:1 is rendered by the Coptic
preposition nnahrn. This word comes from the Coptic word for "face," and implies "in the presence of," "before." (Crum 649b; Lambdin, pp. 10, 23)
However, in the Sahidic Coptic version, the Greek pros at John 1:2 is rendered by the Coptic preposition hatn. This preposition is said to derive from the Coptic word for "hand" (Crum 428b), and has the significance of "under the hand of; beside; with." The later (6th century) Coptic Bohairic version uses hatn (haten) in both verses.
All of which means that, although we could translate both John 1:1 and John 1:2 in the Coptic to say merely that the Word was "with" God, a careful translation of the Sahidic more clearly shows that the Word was distinct from the God whom he was "in the presence of" or "under the hand of" or "beside."
I don't know why the Coptic translators of the Sahidic version used two different prepositions in their text of John 1:1, 2 to translate the one Greek preposition pros. But it surely could indicate that they did not believe the Word and the God he was "with" were one and the same.
And if the Sahidic translators meant hatn instead of nnahrn in verse 2 in its significance that implies "under the hand of," it could even signal that they believed the Word to be definitely subordinate to God. Otherwise, why use two different prepositions at all?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Your observation that Sahidic John 1:1 and 1:2 do not employ the same Coptic preposition for Greek πρός is correct. The conclusion you draw from that observation, however, goes considerably beyond what the Coptic prepositions themselves encode. In particular, your attempt to move from the historical body-part etymology of ϩⲁⲧⲛ- to the theological proposition that the Logos is “under the hand,” and therefore ontologically subordinate to God, confuses diachronic etymology with synchronic lexical meaning.
The distinction is especially clear in J. Martin Plumley’s treatment of precisely these forms. Plumley gives (ⲛ-)ⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ- the ordinary meaning “in the presence of, before” and actually illustrates it with John 1:1 itself: “The Logos was in the presence of God.” In the immediately following discussion he analyzes ϩⲁⲧⲛ- as etymologically “beneath the hand,” but gives its actual grammatical meaning as “beside, with,” illustrating it with a sentence meaning “He will remain with you.” That distinction is crucial. “Under the hand” belongs to the historical morphological analysis of the compound; “beside, with” is the lexicalized relational meaning of the preposition in Sahidic. You cannot legitimately take the etymological parenthesis, discard the lexical gloss supplied by the grammarian, and then build a Christological hierarchy out of the discarded literal image.
Bentley Layton makes the methodological point even more explicitly. In his treatment of compound prepositions formed from possessed body-part nouns, he explains that although such expressions are historically connected with words for such things as “foot,” “head,” “mouth,” and “hand,” they function in compound prepositions with “a general, relational meaning rather than a particular, anatomical one.” He then states expressly that prepositions are selected primarily to express an abstract relationship, “regardless of etymology and context.” This is almost a direct warning against the procedure you employ. A historically hand-based preposition is no more compelled to mean “under someone’s authority” in every occurrence than an English speaker who says that a matter is “in someone’s hands” is necessarily making a statement about literal manual location. Grammaticalization and lexicalization routinely weaken, conventionalize, or transform the transparent imagery of an expression’s historical components.
Layton’s own lexical inventory accordingly gives the relevant hand-derived ϩⲁⲧⲛ- form simply as “beside, with,” alongside other hand-based compounds whose established meanings include “to,” “in,” “by,” “with,” “beside,” “from,” “through,” and “by means of.” Gregory Sterling independently gives ⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ- as “in the presence of, before” and the relevant ϩⲁϩⲧⲛ- / ϩⲁⲧⲛ- family as “near, with, besides.” The convergence of Plumley, Layton, and Sterling is therefore straightforward: one expression foregrounds presence/before-ness; the other expresses proximity or accompaniment. None of these grammatical sources assigns ϩⲁⲧⲛ- a semantic feature such as “ontologically inferior to,” “subject to the authority of,” “a creature under,” or “subordinate divine being.”
There is also an important distinction to be made in your statement that the wording “surely could indicate that [the translators] did not believe the Word and the God he was with were one and the same.” If by “one and the same” you mean one and the same personal referent, the observation is not controversial from a Trinitarian standpoint. The Logos is presented in relation to God; one participant is related to another. The Greek πρὸς τὸν θεόν already does precisely that. Nicene Trinitarianism does not maintain that the Son is the same person as the Father. It maintains personal distinction while confessing unity of divine being. A relational preposition can establish the former; it cannot, without further semantic material, adjudicate the latter.
This is why the inferential leap from “the Word was in the presence of God” to “the Word therefore cannot share the divine nature of God” is invalid. Being “in the presence of,” “with,” “beside,” or “in relation to” another person establishes relational distinction. It says nothing by itself about whether the two persons possess the same nature. A human son may be “with” his human father without thereby becoming less human than his father; the preposition identifies a relation, not an ontological grade. The analogy is not intended to prove Trinitarian metaphysics from Coptic syntax; it simply exposes the category mistake involved in treating a relational preposition as though it encoded essence or rank.
Layton’s fuller description of ⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ- is instructive in the same respect. He lists it as “in the presence of, before, in relation to.” That final gloss, “in relation to,” makes especially clear why a metaphysical inference is unwarranted. The construction situates one discourse participant relationally with respect to another. It does not specify whether that relation is between two creatures, a superior and an inferior, equals, family members, or—in theological discourse—distinct divine persons. Those questions require lexical and contextual information beyond the preposition.
Your question “otherwise, why use two different prepositions at all?” therefore places an evidentiary burden on the variation that the variation itself cannot carry. Translators do not need a doctrinal motive every time they render a repeated source-language preposition with two partially overlapping target-language expressions. Ancient translations, like modern ones, display lexical variation for many reasons: semantic overlap between target-language expressions, collocational preference, stylistic variation, avoidance of repetition, differing shades of spatial or interpersonal relation, or simply the translator’s idiom. One should not select one theological explanation from that range unless the target-language evidence demonstrates a stable contrast corresponding to that theology. No such contrast has been established here.
Indeed, your own observation concerning Bohairic weakens rather than strengthens the theological inference from Sahidic variation. As you note, the later Bohairic version can employ the corresponding ϩⲁⲧⲉⲛ expression in both verses. If one Coptic version can represent both occurrences of Greek πρός with the same relational preposition, while Sahidic varies its lexical realization, then variation itself is plainly not required in order to encode some Christological opposition. It is target-language lexical choice. You would need independent evidence that Sahidic systematically opposes ⲛⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ- and ϩⲁⲧⲛ- along a semantic axis of equality versus subordination before the difference could function as evidence for your theological proposal. The grammars you cite do not supply such an axis.
The same point also prevents you from extracting too much from the fact that ⲛⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ- is historically associated with “face” or “presence.” Plumley’s own John 1:1 example confirms that “in the presence of God” is a defensible close rendering of the Sahidic. But “in the presence of” is still a relational expression. It may make the personal distinction vivid; it does not make the Logos a creature. Likewise, “beside” can make proximity vivid; it does not make the one who is beside another ontologically inferior. The theological content you want—subordination in being—has to be added to the preposition from elsewhere because it is not part of the Coptic lexeme.
There is therefore a legitimate observation at the center of your argument, but it is much narrower than your conclusion. Sahidic John 1:1 presents the Logos as ⲛⲛⲁϩⲣⲛ ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ, “in the presence of/before/in relation to God,” while the subsequent wording employs another Coptic relational preposition whose established sense is “beside/with.” This can certainly underline that the Logos and the one with whom he is are relationally distinguishable. There is no reason to suppress that fact; personal distinction is constitutive of Trinitarian doctrine. What the variation cannot establish is your further proposition that the Logos is therefore ontologically subordinate, less divine, or a creature. That conclusion does not arise from the semantics of either Coptic preposition.
Your strongest philological mistake, then, is not noticing the variation; it is treating the historical internal composition of ϩⲁⲧⲛ- as though it were its operative sentence-level meaning. Plumley himself distinguishes the two: etymologically “beneath the hand,” lexically “beside, with.” Layton generalizes the same principle by expressly cautioning that such body-part compounds function as abstract relational prepositions independently of their etymological anatomy. Sterling confirms the ordinary meanings “in the presence of, before” and “near, with, besides.” Taken together, the grammatical sources support relational distinction in the Sahidic text, but they provide no linguistic basis for the alleged move from “with/beside God” to “ontologically subordinate to God.” That latter move is theology imported into the Coptic, not theology encoded by the Coptic preposition.
Post a Comment