121 A Grammatical Analysis of John 1,1 manity” to indicate class, the Greek would use the arthrous ὁ ἄνθρωπος or ἡ ἀνθρωπότης to express the same idea. In other words, the uses of the English article do not coincide with those of the Greek article, and we would do well not to impose on NT articular or non-articular cons- tructions ideas based on the uses of the English article. Thus, when a Hellene says ὁ ἄνθρωπος, the construction is not definite in the sense that he is speaking of a particular man, but generic: through the use of the article, he concretizes all men (i.e. humanity) in the arthrous singular as representative of the entire class of men. In saying ὁ ἄνθρωπος the Hellene thinks of all that belongs to the category of “man”, but not of beasts, etc., that which distinguishes, demarcates, and defines man from all other categories of creatures, that which belongs to the concept Man139. At the same time, the entire group of men (i.e. the whole of humanity) is thought of as a concrete whole. Thus, ὁ ἄνθρωπος θνητός ἐστιν means “all human beings [without exception] are mortal”. The so-called idefinite form ἄνθρωπός τις means “someone of the genus man”, in other words, it describes man as a substance limited, by itself, and as indefinite: “a cer- tain man”. Thus, too, the abstract “man” by receiving the article becomes concrete or definite: ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὃς ἦλθεν ἐξ ᾿Αθηνῶν “the (particular) man who came from Athens”. Many times the article is used in connection with a person that has been mentioned before: Acts 4,22: ἐτῶν γὰρ ἦν ... ὁ ἄνθρωπος (cf. Acts 3,2, where the same person is described as τις ἀνὴρ). Even though we translate “the man was ...” in English the force is “that man [of whom I wrote earlier] was ...”. In this capacity the article is used in its original demonstrative force, rather than in its pure articular sense. But when the subject is presented as a general concept, without any specification, clas- sification, etc., it is anarthrous. Thus Platon, Theaitetos 152 a: πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος means not so much “a man is the measure of all things” but “anyone who is a man [i.e. who shares in all that makes up a human being] is the measure of all things”. From this it is a small step to the question of the arthrous or anarthrous predicate. The predicate is usually anarthrous, because it does not denote a definite person or kind or class but only property or essence, which is predicated of the subject. An example here is: Κύρος ἐγένετο βασιλεὺς τῶν περσῶν “Kyros was made king of the Persians”. This text is an exact parallel to Jn 1,1c καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος or (in its ordinary form) καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν Θεός. Although Kyros was the only king of the Persians, the Hellene does not use the arthrous ὁ βασιλεύς but the anarthrous βασιλεύς, exactly as Jn 1,1c. The clause Κύρος ἐγένετο ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν German, too, expresses the idea by the articular “Der Mensch”. 139