by Micah Murphy
| John 1:1 | In the beginning was (erat) the Word… |
| 1 John 1:1 | What was (fuit) from the beginning…the Word of Life… |
Fascinating thing, ancient grammar.
Did you know that when St. Jerome translated the Greek New Testament into Latin, he rendered the Greek word ἦν (was) in John 1:1 with the Latin word erat (was), but he also rendered the same Greek word with the Latin word fuit (has been) in 1 John 1:1? It has some pretty serious implications for theology, so why did he do it?
Let’s analyze one translation at a time. The Greek is the imperfect (a past continuing tense) of the verb to be. The Latin word erat in John 1:1 is likewise the imperfect of the verb to be. No problem.
Then you go to the First Epistle of St. John, where St. Jerome renders that same Greek word (ἦν) with the Latin word fuit. Fuit is the perfect tense form of the verb to be. Perfect tense indicates a completed action (or, in this case, a completed existence).
Here’s a handy aid to show you what I’m talking about:
| Language | Imperfect Tense | Perfect Tense |
| English | He was cooking. | He has cooked. |
| Latin | Erat (He was being) | Fuit (He has been) |
So let’s say someone knocks at your door and asks what you’ve been doing. If the knock at the door interrupted an ongoing action you were in the middle of (say, cooking), you would say, “I was cooking.” If you had already finished cooking, you would say, “I have cooked.”
The implications of the grammar are huge. St. Jerome was an excellent translator. He didn’t make a mistake.
Horned Moses is still bitter that Michelangelo misunderstood Jerome.
I was looking through the commentary of Fr. Cornelius a Lapide (highly and frequently recommended by Dr. Taylor Marshall) and what he had to say about the beginning of 1 John fascinated me.
Here’s Fr. Cornelius a Lapide’s answer to our confusion:
You will say: why therefore does the Latin interpreter [St. Jerome] in this place render ἦν, i.e., was (erat), as has been (fuit)? I respond, because the other past-tense words which John placed below demand a past-tense fuit, evidently: “what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have we have observed,” that there may be a suitable connection of the tense of words. Secondly, because the fuit signifies more clearly that the Word never began, as Ebion was wishing, but is from the eternal. Thirdly, fuit often is taken for erat and erat for fuit…
In summary, Fr. Cornelius a Lapide argues that fuit is used in 1 John 1:1 for the following three reasons:
- Context demands it, because in the beginning of his first letter, John is using the perfect tense for his other verbs.
- The word fuit is more fitting for showing the eternal origins of the Word, since the perfect tense is more in the past than the imperfect.
- The words fuit and erat are often used interchangeably.
So, the next time you are reading John 1:1 or 1 John 1:1, have a little more appreciation for the fine job St. Jerome did in paying attention to details! Even the tense used can have huge significance for our understanding of the nature of the Word.
The Word was and has been! And is, and is to come…
The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night they do not stop exclaiming:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,
who was, and who is, and who is to come.” -Revelation 4:8
Related Posts: Confession & Reconciliation, Munus: a Key to Understanding Grace.
7 Responses to “Who Was and Is and Is to Come”
test
Not to be excessively pedantic, but since you’ve undertaken to nitpick Greek and Latin grammar: “was” is the simple past tense of “to be”; the imperfect would be “was being”. “He cooked” is likewise the simple past tense of “to cook”; the perfect tense is “He has cooked”.
Richard, thank you for the gentle correction. I was trying to keep my point as simple as possible, but I see your point that it could be confusing. (Frankly, I don’t care much for English grammar :-p I wish we all still spoke Latin. So much simpler. I’ve never bothered learning all the fine details of our English tenses.) I’ve amended some of my post, the portion dealing with English grammar, but retained that the Greek and Latin translate into “was” for the sake of simplicity.
Thanks!
This commentary on a NT phrase from the Vulgate is very interesting, particularly for anyone who, like me, is not literate in either NT Greek or in Latin. Anyone fortunate to have those skills is fortunate!
It depends on what your definition of “is” is.
No disrespect intended to my mother tongue (English), but there are certain subtleties that just defy the blending of accurate translation with “English as she is spoke”. The opening of John’s Gospel is one example. IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM (Jn 1,1a)is normally translated IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. That’s okay but it’s not excellent. An accurate translation would require us to translate it thus: IN THE BEGINNING WAS BEING THE WORD. But you just can’t say that without people saying, “Huh?” We could always try circumlocution, e.g. IN THE BEGINNING THE WORD WAS ALREADY EXISTING. That’s pretty much was St. John wanted us to know. But if you try translating the sentence that way, you will be accused of paraphrasing. Same thing with the phrase ET DEUS ERAT VERBUM (Jn 1,1c). That’s usually translated AND THE WORD WAS GOD. But, somehow or other, when we hear that the Word “was” God, we are tempted to ask, “Was? Isn’t the Word still God? When did the Word stop being God?” So, we should really translate it AND THE WORD WAS BEING GOD. But that prompts another “Huh?” So, we live with what we’ve got in English and hope that people will read the footnotes and commentaries. We could try to get Congress to make the speaking of English illegal in the United States and the speaking of Latin mandatory but it’s unlikely that such a bill would ever get out of committee.
Yes indeed. Thanks for adding those extra details.