PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS

PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS

There is a class of expressions to which it may be well to allude — short, pithy, or proverbial sayings, which, in many languages, make exception to ordinary grammar, and only claim a metaphysical explanation. It would be said in French, “Chat �chaud� craint l’eau froide”; “force lui fut”; in German, “Unwissenheit und Unschuldigkeit sind Schwestern.” It is not merely, I judge, the rapidity of expression which give occasion to it, or not always, but a peculiar state of mind which takes up the thought characteristically, but neither abstractedly nor objectively; and it becomes, though an appellative noun, a kind of proper name. It is a way of putting it stronger than a mere descriptive statement. The object is so present to the mind that it does not require an article of any kind. Hence in prophetic oracles we have it, fwnh; bowsee footnotento”. As in English, if the Queen were coming, the cry would be, “Queen! Queen!” it characterizes what produces the impression, gives a reason for the effect produced or intended to be produced: so in 1 Thessalonians 2: 5, Qeo;” mavrtu”, which stated historically, Philippians 1: 8, is mavrtu” gavr mouv ejstin oJ Qeov”. This is not perceived so much in English, all abstract nouns being without the article in whatever way they are used, and names never having it. The definite article is allusive or distinctive. But proverbs are in their nature characteristic.