122 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis Περσῶν was in itself possible, in which case the author would have had some very special reason for going out of his way to emphasize that Kyros was the only king of the Persians140. Such a turn would be impossible for Jn 1,1c. Conversely, when the predicate is presented not as indefinite or gene- ral, but as definite, well-known, already mentioned, etc., it is arthrous. Xenophon, Anabasis III. 2, 18: οἱ δὲ ἄνδρες (subject) εἰσὶν οἱ ποιοῦντες, ὅ τι ἂν ἐν ταῖς μάχαις γίγνηται (predicate)141; 1 Jn 5,6: καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα (subject) ἐστιν τὸ μαρτυροῦν (predicate). From the above, it ought to be clear that καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν Θεός is not equivalent to the English indefinite “and the Word was a God”142. Had this been the intended sense, then the clause would have been καὶ θεός τις ἦν ὁ Λόγος, or, to express it in the increasingly spreading idiom of the NT, καὶ εἱς θεός ἦν ὁ Λόγος. The idea of “a God” in Jn 1,1c does not arise for the Hellene, because for him the predicate directs attention to the properties or essence of the Word, not whether the Word was a unique God or one among others: “The Word was God”! –not “a God” or “the God”. The author does not go into the question of whether the Word is the only God or one of many Gods. The predicate is, of course, indefinite but in the Greek not in the English sense. Colwell’s rule that “Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article ... a predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a ‘qualitative’ noun solely because of the absence of the article ...”, is formulated problematically, quite apart from its misinterpretations, which have introduced even more confusion. For even if we interpret it in the most benevolent fashion, the rule still opens the way to treating Jn 1,1c as definite, which, as we have seen, it is not. This is the reason why Wallace has to introduce his “sub-set propo- sition” and his “convertible proposition”. However, his explanation that the anarthrous Θεός in Jn 1,1c seems to be definite, because it refers to the same person (τὸν Θεόν, Jn 1,1b), is far off the mark (though, imper- ceptively, here he comes dangerously close to Modalism). He is, however, uncertain about this interpretation, because “the vast majority of definite anarthrous pre-verbal predicate nominatives are monadic ... or proper names, none of which is true here”. Here we are on the wrong track. The interpretation of “interchangeability” confuses the formulated rule that “the article may be inserted if the predicate noun is supposed to be a unique or notable instance” with word order, “which means that See a long list of similar examples in Kühner, Syntax, Vol. I, pp.621 f. 140 For more examples, see Kühner, Syntax, Vol. I, p. 623. 141 Hence, the translation of the Jehovah Witnesses shows lack of familiarity with the 142 spirit of the Greek language, and need not detain us.