The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

it in this way: That metonomy is either in the subject, or in the predicate, or
in the copula of the proposition. But it is not in the subject, nor is it in the
predicate. Therefore it is in the copula." The reply of HOFFMANN was
so complete, that a result almost without parallel in controversy took place.
Piscator acknowledged that his position was untenable: "I have been like a
gladiator who, incautiously handling his sword, wounds himself with
it...There cannot be a trope in the copula 'is.' In brief, before I enter on this
third struggle, I RETRACT my former opinion." 402 The ripest scholarship
of the most recent period, even under Calvinistic prepossessions, shows the
wisdom of Piscator's retraction.
Robinson, Schaff, Kahnis.
Dr. EDWARD ROBINSON, for example, the greatest of American
New Testament lexicographers, if, as a Puritan, he had been swayed by
unconscious doctrinal influence (for of conscious misrepresentation he was
incapable), would have been, of course, on this point, adverse to the
Lutheran view. It is a happy thing for the truth here, that this eminent
scholar, who so happily combined the results of English and German
culture, saw and expressed the exact truth on this point. He says of eimi:
"The verb eimi is the usual verb of existence, to be; and also the usual
logical copula, connecting subject and predicate: I. As the verb of
existence, to be, to exist, to have existence. II. As the logical copula,
connecting the subject and the predicate, to be; where the predicate
specifies who or what a person or thing is in respect to nature, origin,
office, condition, circumstances, state, place, habit, disposition of mind, etc.,
etc. But these ideas all lie in the predicate, AND NOT IN THE
COPULA, which merely connects the predicate with the subject." What
Robinson says is one of the elementary philological truths on which sound
thinkers, when once the point is fairly brought before their minds, cannot
differ. Thus, for example, we have in Bagster's Greek Lexicon: 403 "Eimi, a
verb of existence, to be, to exist; a simple copula to the subject and
predicate, and, therefore, IN ITSELF affecting the force of the sentence
ONLY by its tense, mood, etc." This same statement, word for word, is
made by Green in his "Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament." 404
402 Scherzer: Colleg. Anticalv. Lips. 1704, 4to, 574.
403 London, 1852, 4to.
404 London, Bagster and Sons, 12mo.