DEAR BRO. PENDLETON:--The January No. of the Harbinger is before me, in which you accompany my brief letter on the translation and interpretation of John 3:8, with some strictures. With unaffected satisfaction I received and read these strictures. I hope ever to be ready to receive any additional light on the word of the Lord with pleasure, no matter how it may affect my former position or interpretations. I entertain no pride of opinion. I seek the more excellent way. In your brief review of my brief note, you failed to have your attention directed to the points to which I desired more particularly to call your attention. On [197] reading your article in the Sept. No. on the subject under consideration, while agreeing with your translation of pneuma, and your translation generally of the 8th verse, I did not and do not think your interpretation correct. I do not think the present or "King James" phrase, "canst not tell," a good rendering of the original. A literal rendering it may be, and even correct in some constructions.. But in the construction of the 8th verse, I do not think it a good or perspicuous rendering. My letter to you was an effort to give the reason for a preference of "art ignorant of," to "canst not tell," I wrote, as you say, in haste, and may have failed to make myself sufficiently intelligible. In looking over my letter, however, I cannot see that it is so.--Still, as your mind was not directed to the same points as mine, it would be easy to misunderstand the drift of my letter. This, however, you did not do very largely on the points to which your attention was directed. You did not, I think, very much misapprehend my conclusions, but could not see the relevancy of my conclusions with your premises. Well, I do not wonder at that. That in part is my trouble. I cannot get your conclusions from the premises contained in the 8th verse, without involving the consequences noticed in the last paragraph of your review. I have looked this matter over carefully till again and again, and arrive on each trial at the same conclusion, to wit: Either your translation or your interpretation is wrong. Believe me, my dear brother, I would not for a slight reason disagree with either your translation or interpretation of a passage of Holy Scripture. I therefore agree with your translation of John iii. 8 (with the exception above). But as yet I cannot agree with your interpretation of the passage.

      I will not call up or animadvert upon your interpretation farther at this time or in this paper, but will endeavor to make myself understood. I set out with the assumption that Nicodemus understood perfectly the Savior's use of pneuma,--whether wind or spirit was in the Saviors' mind, so far as this feature of his declaration is concerned. The point on which you and I part company is therefore not on the Savior's use of pneuma. Your interpretation and conclusion requires the comparison noted by the adverb so to be that of process. And that the process of the Spirit's operation is in some way like the process or "whence and whither of the wind." In this view I do not concur. The [198] question with me is, Does the language of the Savior warrant such a conclusion? If it does, then my interpretation must be abandoned. If it does not, then your conclusions are fallacious.--From this standpoint it does not seem difficult to reach a correct conclusion. If process is in the comparison, it is not difficult to see that there must be objects or persons in the comparison also. Now if the process of the new birth is the point of the comparison, the Spirit is the agent or object. Then the objects of comparison stand thus: Wind, Spirit. Process of comparison stands thus: Whence and whither of the wind; now birth or regeneration. If this is not your position then I do not understand you; and you may transfer what you say of a man of straw to my page and we will call it a drawn battle.

      The whole then turns on a fair and true exegesis of the verse. In order therefore to reach the disputed point, let us find first the objects of comparison. "Thou hearest the sound," sufficiently indicates one of its objects. Thou certainly refers to Nicodemus understood as its antecedent. Nicodemus therefore is one of the objects in the comparison. From this I think there is no appeal. Nicodemus as an object can neither be compared to the wind or spirit. This single fact, to my mind, carries your interpretation and conclusion out of the premises. The next clause requires thou understood after but. It would then read "but thou canst not tell." This use of the pronoun second person still has Nicodemus for its antecedent. On the meaning of this phrase, "canst not tell," the true interpretation of the whole passage or verse depends. I will therefore be at some pains to give my view of its meaning. In reaching its meaning I am not allowed the use of arbitrary rules or special pleadings. The rule by which I reach a conclusion is that, that lies upon the surface of all investigation. When we meet a word the meaning of which is doubtful, or the shade of thought designed to be expressed by it obscure, we take all equivalent, or a number of equivalent words, and from this test, get the shade of thought best suited to the scope of the passage and harmony of the associating thoughts. Precisely so I proceed with a doubtful phrase. And this rule I apply to "canst not tell." Does it mean that Nicodemus could not communicate it, or that he did not know it, or was ignorant of it? Either expresses a condition or state of Nicodemus.--"Canst not tell" is incongruous as a point of comparison, [199] because it is equivocal. "Canst not tell" may be predicated of a person for two reasons: First, He may be unable for want of the knowledge of words; or second, He may be ignorant of it. This latter no doubt was the true condition of the Senator of Israel. And this is the point of the Savior's reproof. "Art thou a teacher in Israel and knowest not these things?" The manner therefore in which the comparison is put, determines the shade of thought conveyed by the phrase "canst not tell." Nicodemus was ignorant of the whence and whither of the agent expressed by the the term "pneuma." Hence "art ignorant of," I take it, is a better rendering of the original than "canst not tell,--not any more literal, but more congruous, more in harmony with the scope and construction of the whole passage.

      The balance of the passage is easy. "So is every on that is begotten (gennemenos) of the Spirit," the other object of the comparison. As you are, Nicodemus, to the whence and whither of the wind, so is every one that is begotten (gennemenos) of the Spirit. A closer analysis, however, will show more certainly the correctness of the foregoing exegesis. "So is every one," the every is a distributive adjective; one is an indefinite pronoun, and means "person," "man" or "woman," according to the gender of the Nominative. That, is a relative pronoun in the sentence under consideration. The clause, then, analyzed, would read, "So is every person who is (born of) begotten of the Spirit." The question now to be decided is this: Is it, or does the passage note, a comparison of process, or of objects? If the former, I am wrong. If the latter, I am right and you are wrong. I think our way is now clear. The word process means, A proceeding or moving forward,"--from the Latin procedo--pro, forward, and cedo, to move. Now if the process of the work of either wind or Spirit were under consideration, the Savior's words not only inadequately express it, but express an exactly opposite conclusion. If language is to be taken at its current value, then we must look for something else than process in the comparison. If he had intended to note a comparison of process, he would have left out two very important words, to wit "that" and "is." And it would read, "So is every person born of the Spirit. "So is every person begotten of the Spirit." The passage reads, however, "So is every person who is begotten of the Spirit." The former of these sentences notes a comparison of process, but it is not the language [200] of the passage. Therefore the language of the passage does not note a comparison of process. The latter of these sentences notes a comparison of objects; but it is the language of the passage. Therefore the language of the passage does note a comparison of objects,--the point to be proved.

      I have not looked at consequences at all, nor will I. If there is a flaw in my readings, rules or reasonings, I know my dear brother will not be slow to point it out. And in the next moon I may move upon the guns of the President.

      Dear Bro. Burns:--Perhaps we have already published more on the point we are considering than our critical readers will think it needs, but before dismissing it as an overdone subject, I beg the indulgence of all, while I add a "few more last words."

      1. I do not understand that Nicodemus is compared to any thing. If he personally, is one object, and the man born of the Spirit, the other,--and the Savior is made to say that, "As you Nicodemus, are, to the whence and whither of the wind, so is every one that is begotten of the Spirit"--then the passage has no connection with the difficulty which it is introduced to remove. The Savior is replying to the astonishment of Nicodemus caused by the announcement to him of the necessity and possibility of the new birth. "How can a man be born again when he is old?" is the question of Nicodemus; "Marvel not that I say it must be so,"--this is the reply of the Savior. Can it be possible, that He then immediately dropped the subject, to say to Nicodemus, "thou canst not tell the whence and the whither of the wind, and the man that is born of the Spirit can tell no more about it than you can! You are ignorant of this natural phenomenon and so is the man who is born of the Spirit!"

      2. I do not understand that "the wind" is compared to any thing. If the wind is one object, and the man born of the spirit the other, (and let it be noted, there is but this one object in the second member of the sentence,)--then we must understand the Savior as saying to Nicodemus, "the man born of the Spirit, like the wind, blows where he pleases and yon hear his sound, but cannot tell, (or if you prefer it, are ignorant of) whence he comes [201] and whither he goes!" But who will say this is the meaning of these words?

      But if the comparison be not one of these two objects, then it cannot be a comparison of objects at all, for there are no other subjects in the first member of the sentence concerning which anything is predicated. If then the Savior does not mean to say that the man born of the Spirit is like the wind, nor yet that he is like Nicodemus, with respect to the whence and the whither of the wind,--what does he mean? This I have attempted to answer, and if I have failed by what I have already written, to convince my dear brother Burns that my answer is correct, I do not know that I can add any thing further, to make it more satisfactory. It may throw some light upon the difficulty, however, if you will allow me to remind you that, when objects, as such, are compared, the resemblance must be looked for in the attributes or actions predicated of the subjects furnishing the resemblance. If the man born of the Spirit, as an object, is compared to the wind as an object, it must be like the wind in what is predicated of the wind:--If he is compared to Nicodemus, he must be like Nicodemus, in what is predicated of him. But to understand the comparison in this way, were beyond the gravity of sacred exegesis. But when the comparison is not of objects, as such, but of some similarity of their relations, then we do not look for the resemblance in the objects, but in their relations.--This we call analogy. This I understand to be the kind of comparison intended by the Savior. He means to say that the man born of the Spirit, or the new birth, (the concrete for the abstract), is to Nicodemus like the wind, (not as an object, but) with respect to the mystery of its procession, its whence and its whither, a matter beyond the reach of his understanding.--He can tell no more of the one than of the other. Why marvel then, since the processes of nature are as inexplicable as those of Spirit. You stumble not though you do not understand the how of the one,--why should you, because you cannot understand the other? Presuming that our readers can now clearly understand the difference in our interpretations, let us dismiss the question to their judgment, and pray for more light.

[The Millennial Harbinger 41 (April 1870): 197-202.]

      A. Burns' "Bro. Burns on John III. 8--Again" and W. K. Pendleton's "Reply" were first published in The Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 41, No. 4, April 1870. The electronic version of the letters has been produced from the College Press reprint (1976) of The Millennial Harbinger, ed. W. K. Pendleton (Bethany, WV: W. K. Pendleton, 1870), pp. 197-202.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions. Emendations are as follows:

            Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 198:    considertaion, [ consideration,
 p. 199:    he he did not [ he did not
 p. 200:    conclusoin out [ conclusion out
            had in- intended [ had intended
 p. 201:    The lattter [ The latter
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
stefanik@westol.com

Created 13 February 1999.