# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S48
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

48 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

about, in that the apostle dictated to an assistant what was to be written
and added only his apostolic greeting in his own hand,
as he writes in 1 Cor. 16:21: I, Paul, greet you
with my hand." Col. 4:18: "My greeting with my own
Paul's hand." 2 Thess. 3:17: "The greeting with the hand
of Paul: that is the sign in all letters; so I write." Where he
for once [printed "eknmal" for "einmal"] writes more with his own hand, he points this out specially.
Gal. 6:11: "See with how many words I have written to you
with my own hand." So St. Peter also made use of an ama-
nuensis to whom he dictated, as we see from 1 Pet. 5:12, where it says:
"By Silvanus, your faithful brother, as I suppose, I have
written to you a little," according to which Peter wrote, but not with
his own hand, rather through Silvanus, that is, in such a way that in writing
he used Silvanus as an intermediary for putting down the
words he dictated.

Now the preposition "through," in the original Greek δια, which indicates precisely
a mediation, is a standing expression in the New Testament for
the relationship in which the holy prophets stood to their
writings, as when it says, for example, Matt. 2:5: "For thus it stands
written through the prophet." It does not say here: by the prophet,
but "through" him, as through a person from whom the writing did not
proceed as from the actual author of the writing, but whom
another, the actual author, used in the writing. Also
v. 17, where the translation says: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken
by the prophet Jeremiah," it says according to the original text: "through (δια)
the prophet Jeremiah"; and in passages which in earlier textual recensions
of the Greek New Testament had the preposition ὑπο corresponding to the German "by" [von],
the restoration of the text according to the
old manuscripts has yielded the reading δια, "through." There may be compared here
the passages Matt. 8:17: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken
through the prophet Isaiah"; chap. 12:17: "That it
might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet"; chap. 13:35: "That
it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet"; chap. 24:15:
"Then is fulfilled that which was spoken through the prophet Daniel"; chap. 27:9:
"Then is fulfilled that which was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah"; v. 35:
"That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet"; Luke
18:31: "All things shall be accomplished that are written through
the prophets"; Acts 2:16: "This is that which was spoken beforehand through the prophet
Joel."

The question now arises: Who was it that spoke or wrote
through the prophets, who used them as his instruments and was
the actual author of their writings? The answer to this question
we do not seek in vain in Holy Scripture. Matt. 1:22 we read