MENETE EN AUTWi KAI PAROUSIAi AUTOU in 1 John 2:28

Ilvgrammta at aol.com Ilvgrammta at aol.com
Thu Jul 6 15:59:15 EDT 2000


In a message dated 00-07-06 14:59:56 EDT, mauros at iol.ie writes:

 >At 19:13 06/07/00, Ilvgrammta at aol.com wrote:
 >In 1 John 2:25, John appears to use AUTOS to refer to the Father, who
 >promised everlasting life to His people
 
 [Maurice]
 You will find a summing up of scholarly opinions on this in:
 Brown, Raymond E. The Epistles of John. Anchor Bible vol. 30. New York: 
 Doubleday, 1982. And Brown opts for what he sees as the majority opinion 
that AUTOS is Christ, advancing also the argument that AUTOS here, with its 
emphatic 
 force ( 'he himself' ) and that the dispute in the previous verses has 
 centred on denying that Jesus is the Christ  and so "it is Jesus, not the 
 Father, that the author needs to underline".

Thanks for reminding me of Brown's treatment, Maurice. Its been a while since 
I read his commentary and I do not remember every detail of his discussion. 
But presently, I'm in the process of re-examining my views on this section of 
John's first Epistle anyway. I'm trying to figure out how John employs the 
pronoun AUTOS throughout his discourse in relation to the Father and the Son. 
And I'd like to know how one can be so certain John has reference to Christ 
in 2:25, when he ends 1 John 2:24 as follows: KAI hUMEIS EN TWi hUIWi KAI EN 
TWi PATRI MENEITE. My question is: what is the grammatical principle at work 
here that causes one to choose one referent over another?
 
 [Maurice]
 Again, in v.27, Brown sums up the scholarly opinion, adding a reference 
 to  a long NOTE to 2:20a on  "anointing" in which he envisaged " an 
 anointing ( perhaps phsyical ) with the Holy Spirit, the gift from Christ 
 that makes one a Christian ". He notes that "B.Weiss would  argue that the 
 "he" of 27a and 27b  is God, and that Westcott sees it as "God-in-Christ " 
 but adds that these "views have little following".

The comments above strike at the heart of the issue. If the one that anoints 
is Christ, then MENETE EN AUTWi in 2:28 would make more sense. But I think 
that other factors must be considered before hastily taking that position. 
2:29 is also problematic in that it focuses on the one who brings forth 
Christians as children of the divine One. But that's another problem. :-)

Regards,
Edgar
 



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