The following passage from Tittmann’s Meletemata Sacra, (pp. 27—29.) will explain the allusion in the text.
“Nobis quidem inde a longo tempore visa est atque etiamnum videtur maximas veritatis notas habere sententia ea, quam innuimus loc. cit., deinde vero dudum prolatam fuisse vidimus a Laur. Valla, Not. in N. T., cujus verba infra scripsimus,1 et Beza, Not. ad h. l; nostris temporibus autem in primis exornatam à I. A. Cramero, Beyträge zur Beförderung theol. Gelehrsamkeit, P. i. p. 232. et Gabr. Chr. Beni. Moschio, Erklär. der Evangel. P. i. p. 289. probatam quoque Jo. Aug. Ernesti, Bibl. Theol. Nov. T. iii. p. 129, sqq. Scilicet, ut dicamus breviter, nec repetamus quæ e V. T. disputavimus loco citato, vocabulum λόγος arbitramur denotare promissum, usurpatumque esse loco τοῦ λεγόμενος, quod plane æquipollet vocabulo magis usitato ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ejusque usurpandi causam repetitam esse, partim ex more illorum temporum in cogitando denominandoque Servatore, partim ex usu loquendi, partim a consilio Joannis in scribendo hoc libro, partim denique a consuetudine Domini ipsius in se describendo. Primum enim mos illorum temporum, et ex ipsa rei natura, quoniam Servator erat tum futurus, et ex consuetudine V. T. receptus, fuit hic, ut Messias diceretur ὁ ἐρχόμενος, quo quidem nomine in T. V. appellatus est κατ’ ἐξοχήν, et quemadmodum Cyrillus Hieros.2 innuit, ex loco Gen. xlix. 10. in N. T. autem eodem nomine insignitus legitur sæpissime, veluti Matth. xi. 3. ubi Joannes Baptista quæri ex eo jussit, σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; et apud ipsum Joannem, cap. vi. 16. xi. 27. Unde Judæis, in primisque Christianis, neque incognitum plane nomen esse potuit, neque inusitatum in consuetudine vulgari. Deinde quod λόγος Evangelista dixit loco vocis λεγόμενος, id quidem offendet neminem, consuetudinis loquendi Scripturarum sacrarum vel leviter peritum: constat enim, vocabula abstractorum pro concretis centies adhiberi, idque non raro factum esse alias quoque in denominando Domino nostro; veluti quando σωτηρία appellatur loco σωτήρος cap. iv. 22. item ζωή et φῶς, aut apud Lucam, Ev. ii. 25 et 30, σωτήριον et παράκλησις τοῦ Ἰσραήλ. Nec dubitationem habere potest, vocabulo λόγος tribui posse eam vim quam diximus, quoniam vocabulum Hebraicum quod Græco respondit, Græcumque ipsum Rom. ix. 6. sexcenties in locis de promissione dictum extat, atque ab interpretibus Græcis translatum reperitur ἀγγελία et ἐπαγγελία, veluti Prov. xii. 25. atque adeo λεγόμενος idem sit et esse possit, quod ἐπαγγελλόμενος. etiam in loco Sap. xviii. 15, Angelus divinitus promissus et ablegatus λόγος Θεοῦ appellatur, de quo vid. Schleusneri Spicilegium Lexici in interpr. Gr. V. T. Spec. i. p. 75. Ac plane eandem vim vocabulum λόγος obtinet in reliquis libris, Joannis nimirum, 1 Ep. i. 1. ubi Dominus appellatus est λόγος τῆς ζωῆς, id est, promissus auctor felicitatis; et Apoc. xix. 13, in quo loco dicitur λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, hoc est, a Deo promissus. Tum porro consilium Joannis in scribendo Evangelio, cum fuerit hoc, ut demonstraret, quemadmodum supra vidimus, Jesum esse promissum exspectatumque Messiam; facile quisque videt quam aptum sit ei consilio, quamque accommodatum vocabulum τοῦ λόγου, hunc ipsum promissum Messiam exprimens. Ad extremum, quod in primis notabile est, Domino ipsi in sermonibus omnibus in hoc libro commemoratis, solenne fuit, se appellare legatum a Patre, Patrem vero mittentem, seque describere tanquam eum qui missus a Patre, profectusque in has terras venerit, atquead eundem rediturus sit; veluti cap. vi. 38. xvi. 28. xiii. 3. reliqua; quo innuere volebat manifeste se esse τὸν ἐρχόμενον, hoc est, Messiam promissum exspectatumque. Atque hæc consuetudo Domini videtur fuisse causa precipua usurpandi hujus vocabuli alias in hac re paulo insolentioris. Itaque sensus verborum priorum est hic: promissus Servator eatitit ante rerum omnium initia, tanquam scriptum fuisset hoc modo, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λεγόμενος σωτήρ.”
These remarks would be comparatively unimportant if they merely expressed the opinions of an individual critic, even of one so respectable as Tittmann. But the reader will perceive that he is able to produce a fair list of authorities upon his side, some of them dating as far back as the Reformation, some numbered among the scholars of the last age. All these, with more or less reservation, subscribed to an interpretation, which if it were applied to any passage in any uninspired author, would have been rejected by every one of them with indignation and disdain. Now there must be a reason for this. Men who have studied the laws of language could not talk in this way about substituting the abstract for the concrete, or produce such utterly inapplicable parallels from other parts of Scripture, and then resort to the insolent critical dogma that ‘no one who is in the least degree acquainted with the language of the Bible can be offended’ by such a departure from all ordinary principles and usages, if there were not some deeply rooted habit of thought and feeling with which the simple mode of rendering the words is at variance. What this is, perhaps, we may for a moment be puzzled to discover; for the feelings of the writers near the time of the Reformation were, in many respects, directly opposed to those of their successors in the two following centuries. But if we remember the great eagerness which there was among the writers of the earlier period, to assert the distinction of the Bible from all other books, and above all to cut it off from any fellowship with philosophy, we need not wonder that they should have desired wholly to separate the use of the word upon which the Gospel of St. John turns, from the same word as it is employed by Plato and by Philo.
The early Socinian writers perceived the fact, which the orthodox Protestants had determined to overlook, and made use of it to prove, that if this expression imported something abstract and impersonal in either of the uninspired writers, it must have the same import in the sacred ones. That those who replied to them should take fresh pains to assert the special signification, and should pronounce the effort to connect it with any other as profane and heretical, was to be expected. Then came the time when the classical writers began to be spoken of with respect; when the ordinary Protestant commentator was rather glad to look upon Scripture as containing a new and expanded form of heathen morality, and when the descendants of the Polish Socinians began to exercise an important influence on theological opinion. In such a time, one might have looked for a reversal of the former decrees, for a rather excessive willingness to find out an analogy between St. John and the Heathen or Jewish teacher. But by this time Platonism had been just as much exhausted of its meaning as Christianity. So far as any heathen philosopher was found to have laid down fine maxims about virtue, he was respected as a Christian, minus the belief in Christ. But when he uttered anything which savoured of a feeling and recognition of mystery, the reverence for him disappeared; here his paganism or false philosophy was thought to have obtruded itself. A new merit was discovered in the Gospel, that it put an end to such dreams, and brought everything within the region of common sense. As this feeling belonged both to the believers and to the deniers of the old Creeds, it was not wonderful that the former should be glad of any expedient for proving that St. John, though he asserted a strange dogma, was perfectly free from all taint of mysticism; and that the latter should have endeavoured to evade the authority of his words, by alleging that he certainly did show symptoms of a tendency which the enlightened of all parties had agreed to denounce. In our own day, the evangelical protest against mere heathen morality, and the terror of the new attempts to exhibit Christianity as only one out of many forms of religious faith and opinion, have led to the same desire for an exclusive interpretation, which prevailed for different reasons in former periods. Tittmann’s interpretation, therefore, is very likely to be a popular one among religious people both here and abroad.
But can we be honouring Scripture, while we are consciously attempting to find strange and tortuous explanations of its most awful and characteristic passages? Ought not every theological student to suspect himself, if he feels that he is inclined to take refuge in this or any similar contrivance for evading the ordinary force of words? I do most earnestly press this thought upon those whom it may most concern, because it seems to me that the recovery of a sound spiritual theology among us depends mainly upon the temper of mind in which we apply ourselves to the study of St. John’s Gospel; upon the way in which we connect it with Old Testament history and prophecy, and upon our willingness to acknowledge that it does interpret to us the history of God’s dealings with men in all time. The more I look at the different directions which men’s thoughts are taking in this day, the more it seems to me that this is the subject to which we ought to devote ourselves; and the right meditation upon which may save us from a thousand confusions, and help us to bring the most apparently opposite feelings into reconciliation.
The three following notes may perhaps help to explain my meaning, and may enable the reader better to understand the purpose of all my other hints.