# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1859_S312
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

312 Does the Iowa Synod Really Strive, etc.

...not prevent it, that like cannot command like. The reason for this is that he is regarded as the same person as the one whom he has succeeded."*) Now the pope is a single man, a person; and although Luther sometimes calls him the pope-ass, he never meant thereby to deny him personhood. — But perhaps the opponents press the definite Greek article "ὁ," as the "ho anomos" in the Synodical Report seems to suggest (and why then not rather ὁ ἄνθρωπος, if something Greek is to stand there at all?). Now it is indeed true that the definite article in Holy Scripture is never to be overlooked, since it always carries its emphasis; but whether this emphasis is such that a definite, single person is always thereby indicated is another question — one which the Iowa Synod cannot answer with a Yes if it means to prove its point. What else is it to do with passages like Mark 8:27? There the definite article stands with "Sabbath," "τό," and again with "man." On their explanation this passage would have to read: a particular, single Sabbath does not exist for man's sake, but a particular, single man exists for the Sabbath's sake. Or Matt. 13:38. If the "οἱ υἱοί" there (the children, the sons) are to be particular, single persons, the question arises when they lived, and whether there are now no more sons of God and sons of wickedness. — At Matt. 13:49 the definite article stands with "mother" (ἡ μήτηρ), and here of all places anyone can grasp that the Lord, with the definite article, gathers together several persons, for the Lord stretches out his hands over his disciples. So too, notably, 1 Pet. 2:17. I will let it rest with these few passages, though a whole series could be adduced which, like the above, prove on both sides that the definite article sometimes indicates a plurality of persons at the same time, and sometimes a succession of persons. Indeed, the opposite is often the case: that a single thing or a single person is indicated precisely when the definite article is omitted, e.g., Luke 3:5, "ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου," Mark 9:11–13, "Ἠλίας," etc.

Or is the "ho anomos" perhaps meant to stand there because the word "the godless or lawless one" denotes thinking and acting, that is, functions belonging to a person? Then the question arises again: why must this belong to one single person — why can it not be several persons in succession who think and act lawlessly? And if the opponents wish to call the "ὁ" to their aid once more here, the following should be noted in addition to what has been said so far: analogous to "ho anomos" stands 2 Thess. 2:7, "ὁ κατέχων," "he who now restrains." If the Iowa Synod assumes that the godless one is "only one person," it must also assume that "the restrainer" is "only one person." Now "he who now restrains" was already present in Paul's time, and the godless one, according to the Iowa Synod, is still

*) "Potest ergo Dominus Papa derogare constitutionibus praedecessorum suorum, non obstante, quod par in parem non habet imperium. Et est ratio: in eadem persona censetur cum eo, cui succedit." ["The Lord Pope may therefore abrogate the ordinances of his predecessors, notwithstanding that an equal has no authority over an equal. And the reason is: he is reckoned the same person as the one whom he succeeds."]