Note 1 — WORDS.
Reading edition
“And I persecuted this way unto the death.” Acts xxii. 4. The Apostle does not mean any particular sort of death, but death in general: the Definite Article therefore is improperly used. It ought to be unto death, without any Article: agreeably to the Original, αχρι θανατου.
“When He the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all Truth.” John xvi. 13. That is, according to this Translation, into all Truth whatsoever, into Truth of all kinds: very different from the meaning of the Evangelist, and from the Original, εις πασαν την αληθειαν, into all the Truth; that is, into all Evangelical Truth.
“Truly this was the Son of God.” Matt. xxvii. 54. and Mark xv. 39. This Translation supposes, that the Roman Centurion had a proper and adequate notion of the character of Jesus, as the Son of God in a peculiar and incommunicable sense: whereas, it is probable, both from the circumstances of the History, and from the expression of the Original, (ὑιος Θεου, a Son of God, not ὁ υιος, the Son) that he only meant to acknowledge him to be an extraordinary person, and more than a mere man; according to his own notion of Sons of Gods in the Pagan Theology. This is also more agreeable to St. Luke’s account of the same confession of the Centurion: “Certainly this was δικαιος, a righteous man;” not ὁ Δικαιος, the Just One. The same may be observed of Nebuchadnezzar’s words, Dan. iii. 25.—“And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God:” it ought to be by the Indefinite Article, like a Son of God: ὁμοια ὑιῳ Θεου, as Theodotion very properly renders it: that is, like an Angel; according to Nebuchadnezzar’s own account of it in the 28th verse: “Blessed be God, who hath sent his Angel, and delivered his servants.” See also Luke xix. 9.
These Remarks may serve to shew the great importance of the proper use of the Article; the near affinity there is between the Greek Article, and the English Definite Article; and the excellence of the English Language in this respect, which by means of its two Articles does most precisely determine the extent of signification of Common Names: whereas the Greek has only one Article, and it has puzzled all the Grammarians to reduce the use of that to any clear and certain rules.