108 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis to ascribe the imaginative nuances ‘discovered’ by many grammarians and commentators (such as “face-to-face presence” (Porter), “dynamic sense” (= ‘active personal relationship’?) (Zerwick) “active communion rather than passive association” (Young), “a marker of relation involv- ing potential interaction” (Janse v. Rensburg), “adverbial accusative of measure”, i.e. indicating how far the action of the verb extends (Brooks & Winbery) above, who, perhaps, let themselves be influenced more by what they took to be theological nuances in Jn 1,1b rather than by strict linguistic considerations, i.e. grammatical constructions applying to all relevant texts without exception. If this construction, then, is a NT phenomenon absent from the Sep- tuagint, in which πρός occurs no fewer than 3,851 times, it must be a late development. Nor is it possible to argue that πρός with acc. in personal relations is a unique expression for describing the Λόγος-God relations- hip, since exactly the same expression occurs 12 more times in the NT to describe ordinary human relationships. That in the entire Greek lit. the idea expressed by this structure should occur only 14 times (in the NT) is utterly incredible. That no other author would ever have had occasion to express the same idea overtaxes our credulity. Such a position would come dangerously close to the “Holy Ghost language” position. The ques- tion, then, is whether this structure is not a late development that evolved and was used alongside other alternative structures, which had been and were in use since early times. This conclusion is unavoidable when we compare, for example. Mk 6,3: οὐκ εἰσὶν αἱ ἀδελφαὶ αὐτοῦ ὧδε πρὸς ἡμᾶς... with Gregorios Mo- nachos, Chronikon, 160,12: ἱερεύς τις ἦν παρὰ ᾿Ιουδαίοις, or Mt 26,18: πρὸς σὲ ποιῶ τὸ πάσχα with Lk 19,7: παρὰ ἁμαρτωλῷ ἀνδρὶ εἰσῆλθεν καταλῦσαι. The πρός ἡμᾶς of Mk 6,3 (Mt 13,56) could just as well have been παρ´ ἡμῖν without a shade of difference in semantics. Or, again, Mk 14,49: καθ᾿ ἡμέραν ἤμην πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ with Lk 11,37: ἐρωτᾷ αὐτὸν Φαρισαῖος ὅπως ἀριστήσῃ παρ᾿ αὐτῷ·. The same applies to all such structures76. Cf. e.g. the construction with πρός in Mt 26,18: πρὸς σὲ ποιῶ τὸ πάσχα; Mk 9,19: 76 ἕως πότε ἔσομαι πρὸς ἡμᾶς; 2 Cor 11,9: καὶ παρὼν πρὸς ἡμᾶς; Gal 1,18: καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτόν; Gal 4,20 (also 4,18): ἤθελον δὲ παρεῖναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἄρτι; 1 Th 3,10 (so, too, 2,5): ὅτε ἦμεν πρὸς ὑμᾶς; 1 Jn 1,2: τὴν ζωὴν ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα with the construction with παραω in 1 Cor 3,19: μωρία παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ ἔστιν; 1 Cor 7,24: ἕκαστος ... ἐν τούτῳ μενέτω παρά Θεῷ; 2 Tm 4,13: τὸν φαιλόνην ὅν ἀπέλιπον ἐν Τρῳάδι παρὰ Κάρπῳ. Cf. also the LXX examples: Gen 24,23: εἰ ἔστιν παρὰ τῷ πατρί σου τόπος ἡμῖν… Ex 2,21: κατῳκίσθη δὲ Μωυσῆς παρὰ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ; Jdg 15,8: καὶ κατῴκει παρὰ τῷ χειμάρῳ; Jdg 17,11: ἤρξατο παροικεῖν παρὰ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ; Jdg 18,3: καὶ αὐτῶν ὄντων παρὰ τῷ οἴκῳ Μιχα; Jud 11,17: καὶ νῦν μενῶ παρὰ σοί, κυριέ μου; Jdt 12,11: τὴν γυναῖκα τὴν ᾿Εβραίαν, ἥ ἐστιν παρὰ σοί; 4 Mac 9,8: καὶ ἐσόμεθα παρὰ Θεῷ δι´ ὃν καὶ πάσχομεν; Ps 28,13: ὅτι πάροικος ἐγὼ παρὰ σοί. The LXX has tried to express the same thought twice with πρός