Note 213 — DISCOURSE VIII.

The ουν in ver. 24 is not recognised by the R. V. nor adopted in Professor Westcott's text. One uncial (A), however, inserts it in 1 John iv. 19. It occurs in 3 John 8. This inferential particle is found with unusual frequency in St. John's Gospel. It does not seem satisfactory to account for this by calling it "one of the beginnings of modern Greek." (B. de Xivrey.) By St. John as an historian, the frequent therefore is the spontaneous recognition of a Divine logic of events; of the necessary yet natural sequence of every incident in the life of the "Word made Flesh." The ουν expresses something more than continuity of narrative. It indicates a connection of events so interlinked that each springs from, and is joined with, the preceding, as if it were a conclusion which followed from the premiss of the Divine argument. Now a mind which views history in this light is just the mind which will be dogmatic in theology. The inspired dogmatic theologian will necessarily write in a style different from that of the theologian of the Schools. The style of the former will be oracular; that of the latter will be scholastic, i.e., inferential, a concatenation of syllogisms. The syllogistic ουν is then naturally absent from St. John's Epistles. The one undoubted exception is 3 John 8, where a practical inference is drawn from an historical statement in ver. 7. The writer may be allowed to refer to The Speaker's Commentary, iv., 381.