110 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis καὶ Πατρί, ὁ δὴ πέπραχεν ἀποδημήσας πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα, while with regard to 1 Jn 1,2 where it is said that life ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, the same author in his Thesauros of the Holy Consubstantial Trinity (MPG 75), p. 513,15, says: Εἰ τοίνυν ἦν ἡ ζωὴ παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ καὶ Πατρί, τουτέστιν ὁ Υἱὸς, πῶς ἂν εἴη γενητός, κατὰ τήν τινων ἀβουλίαν; The unorthodox author Apollinaris, in the fragments of his work on the Psalms, frg. 9 says: τουτέστιν ὢν ὁ λόγος παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ ὄντι, a clear reference to Jn 1,1b, which he felt he could render variously with παρά + dative. And finally, the staunch defender of the homoousion himself, Athanasios, in his Orations against the Arians (MPG 26), p. 209, 26, writes: Καὶ γὰρ εἰ δι´ ἡμᾶς γέγονεν ὁ Λόγος, οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδὲ πρῶτος ἡμῶν παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ— again clear evidence that for Athanasios πρός + acc. and παρὰ + dat. were equivalent. But the Fourth Evangelist himself uses παρὰ + dat. of the very same relation of the Logos or Son to the Father that Jn 1,1b speaks about, when in Jn 17,5, he says: καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δόξη ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί. The παρὰ σοί, for example, would have been expressed by πρὸς σέ, if, indeed, John had meant by πρὸς τὸν Θεόν in Jn 1,1b a special relationship that παρὰ + dat. was incapable of expressing. That he uses παρὰ σοί in Jn 17,5 to describe exactly the same relationship that in Jn 1,1b he had described by πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, is sufficient proof that John employs the two structures as equivalents. There ought to be no doubt, therefore, that πρός + acc. is an infrequent late formation and that it is used as an alternative to παρὰ + dat. 2.3 The Pre-prepositional Use of θεός in καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος 2.3.1 The status of the research on θεός in καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος in Jn 1,1c. Jan v.d. Watt: The absence of the article in the pre-verbal predicate nominative is the grammatical issue at stake in John 1,1c.79 The following An overwhelming number of translations choose to translate, “the Word was God”, for 79 instance, ESV, ASV, GNB, ISV, KJV, NKJV, NIV, NA , NASV, NCV, RSV, NRSV, NJB, V NLV, NAU, MNT, TNT, GNV, DRA, BBE, WEB, Young’s, German Einheitsübersetzung, Elberfelder, Bibelen kanoniske Bøger, Dutch Statenvertaling, Dutch 1951, Dutch GNV, Leidse, Old Afrikaans translation, Die Boodskap. There are sporadic exceptions. The New Afrikaans translation and the NLB add “self” or “himself” to result in the following transla- tion, “the Word was God himself (self God)”. Bultmann, Johannes, (see n. 13), 5 rejects this way of translating. The CEV adds “truly”, “The word was truly God”, while the Gute Nachricht translates, “in allem war es Gott gleich” (in everything he was equal to God). The Vulgata (“et Deus erat Verbum”) and the Luther 1984 (“Und Gott war das Wort”) stuck to the original word order.