CHAPTER 5
A LEXICAL DEFENSE OF THE JOHANNINE “ONLY BEGOTTEN”
CHARLES LEE IRONS
THE TWO PROCESSIONS—the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit—are an essential component of Trinitarian orthodoxy. They function as the linchpin for maintaining the distinctions among the three persons without compromising the unity and simplicity of God. The nineteenth-century Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert Lewis Dabney put it this way:
In a word, the generation of the Son, and procession of the Spirit, however mysterious, are unavoidable corollaries from two facts. The essence of the Godhead is one; the persons are three. If these are both true, there must be some way, in which the Godhead multiplies its personal modes of subsistence, without multiplying its substance.1
But one of the puzzles of the doctrine of eternal generation is the apparent disjunction between how it was developed and formulated in the history of the church, particularly in the context of the Arian controversy in the fourth century, and how it is to be justified biblically today. The church fathers appealed to a number of passages in support of the eternal generation of the Son that would be understood rather differently by many modern exegetes. But if modern exegetes no longer find the patristic proof texts for the eternal generation of the Son convincing, where does that leave the doctrine? This chapter is an attempt to bridge the gap between patristic and modern exegesis with respect to one particular point, namely, the use of the word monogenēs, which is applied to the Second Person of the Godhead five times in the New Testament—four times in the Gospel of John (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18) and once in the Epistles of John (1 John 4:9).
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION
Traditionally, the five verses that speak of the Second Person of the Godhead as monogenēs were understood as having reference to the uniqueness of the Son’s relationship to the Father, as one who is the “only begotten” Son of the Father. This word was one of the favorite designations for the Son in the Greek fathers of the East, sometimes adjectivally in the phrase, “the only begotten Son” or “the only begotten God,” but very often substantivally, “the Only Begotten” (ὁ Μονογενής). A search of the digital library of Greek literature Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)2 turns up some startling statistics on the usage of this term in the church fathers. Here are the most important Greek fathers and other ecclesiastical writers by the number of times they use this term:3
| Ecclesiastical Writer | Μονογενής | Dates |
| Cyril of Alexandria | 981 | d. 444 |
| Gregory of Nyssa | 643 | c. 330–395 |
| John Chrysostom | 465 | c. 347–407 |
| Theodoret of Cyrrhus | 351 | c. 393–460 |
| Didymus the Blind | 346 | c. 313–398 |
| Eusebius of Caesarea | 340 | c. 260–340 |
| Epiphanius of Salamis | 304 | c. 315–403 |
| Athanasius | 287 | c. 296–373 |
| Basil of Caesarea | 281 | c. 330–379 |
| Origen | 126 | c. 185–254 |
| Cyril of Jerusalem | 89 | c. 315–387 |
| Gregory Nazianzen | 27 | 329–389 |
Perhaps we would not have been surprised to find the term used dozens of times, but that many hundreds of times? This term seems to have had special significance for the Greek fathers.
In the Latin West, the Johannine monogenēs was carried over into theological Latin in two main ways: either as unicus filius or as unigenitus. The first rendering is found in the (pre-Vulgate) Old Latin of John 1:14, 18.4 The Old Latin renders monogenēs not as unicus (“unique”) but as unicus filius (“only son”), which suggests the -genēs stem was taken as communicating the notion of sonship or offspring. In the Vulgate, Jerome translated the five Johannine occurrences as unigenitus (“only begotten”), which clearly indicates his understanding. The Vulgate probably influenced Tyndale, who rendered the word “only begotten” in three out of five of its Johannine occurrences.5 The King James Version continued this rendering in all five Johannine occurrences so that it became the standard interpretation in the English-speaking world for the next three centuries.
However, in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the rendering “only begotten” was called into question, and in its place the rendering “only” became the reigning consensus among biblical scholars. It was argued that monogenēs is derived from μόνος + γένος (rather than μόνος + γεννάω) and therefore it had the meaning “only one of its/his kind,” “unique.” In 1886, B. F. Westcott included a three-page excursus on monogenēs in his commentary on the Epistles of John in which he argued that the word originally meant “unique” and that the transition in meaning to “only begotten” was prompted by the dogmatic concerns of the pro-Nicene church fathers reacting against Arianism,6 concerns that were given final creedal expression at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.7 In a 1938 dissertation written at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Francis Marion Warden expanded upon Westcott’s argument in much greater detail.8 His dissertation was never published, but the substance of it was picked up by the translation committee of the Revised Standard Version, which published the New Testament in 1946, followed by the whole Bible in 1952. In 1953 the Southern Baptist theologian Dale Moody forcefully defended the RSV’s rendering (“only”), appealing to Warden’s dissertation as the scholarly basis for it.9 Moody dismissed the traditional translation “only begotten” as a simple error that the RSV finally corrected after fifteen centuries.
A shift in the scholarly consensus seems to have occurred at this point, for after the RSV nearly all modern English versions follow the RSV’s lead. The first to do so was the first edition of the New International Version in 1978, which rendered the word “one and only.” This rendering has been retained in all subsequent editions of the NIV, including the most recent 2011 edition. The NIV’s rendering was defended by Richard Longenecker in a 1986 article.10 As a consequence of this scholarly shift, the renderings “only” (CEV, ESV, NAB, NRSV, RSV) and “one and only” (HCSB/CSB, NIV, NLT) have become entrenched across a wide spectrum of modern English versions. Even scholars who maintain the traditional doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son in most respects do not appeal to monogenēs in support of it.11
DID “ONLY BEGOTTEN” DEVELOP IN RESPONSE TO ARIANISM?
Before I go on to defend the translation “only begotten,” I think it will first be useful to interact briefly with the argument of Westcott, Warden, and Moody that the interpretation of monogenēs as “only begotten” began with Jerome soon after the First Council of Constantinople in order to combat Arianism. As James M. Bulman and John V. Dahms showed in a series of articles in the 1980s, this argument is undercut by two salient facts.12
The first fact is that monogenēs in the sense of “only begotten” (or unigenitus) was used long before Jerome’s Vulgate and long before the Arian controversy. This usage is found in the writings of two well-known secondcentury Christian authors, one who wrote in Greek (Justin Martyr) and one who wrote in Latin (Tertullian). Justin Martyr uses monogenēs in reference to the Son without clearly quoting any one of the five Johannine texts, but presumably echoing all of them. He writes, “I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father of all things (μονογενὴς γὰρ ὅτι ἦν τῷ πατρὶ τῶν ὅλων οὗτος), being begotten (γεγεννημένος) in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become man through the Virgin.”13 Note the use of the perfect passive participle of γεννάω in apposition to and explaining the meaning of monogenēs.
When we come to our Latin writer, Tertullian, the same picture emerges. He quotes John 1:18 (as well as 1:14) and renders the word unigenitus.14 If one has any doubt as to how he understands the term, attend to his explanation earlier in the same treatise: “Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things; and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart.”15 The last line is key: Tertullian parses unigenitus as “alone begotten of God” (solus ex deo genitus). The first salient fact, then, is that we have two second-century Christian authors, well before the fourth-century Arian controversy, who, on the basis of the Johannine monogenēs passages, affirmed that the Son was “only begotten.”16
The second fact undercutting the anti-Arian theory of Westcott, Warden, and Moody is that taking monogenēs as “only begotten” would not have been sufficient, by itself, to refute Arianism. The dispute between the Arians and the pro-Nicenes was not primarily over whether monogenēs expressed the idea that the Son was begotten.17 The dispute centered on whether the Father’s begetting of the Son was temporal or eternal and, concomitantly, whether the begetting was to be understood as an act of creation out of nothing so that there was a time when the Son did not exist (as the Arians thought) or as his being begotten from the essence of the Father so that the Son is not a creature but the Father’s true and eternal offspring (as the pro-Nicenes taught). The claim that the word monogenēs first began to be understood in the sense of “only begotten” in the fourth century as a weapon against Arianism runs aground on the shoal of the historical facts.
ETYMOLOGY OF Monogenēs
Next, we must examine the etymological argument against translating monogenēs as “only begotten.” The etymological argument is that monogenēs is derived from μόνος + γένος (“kind”), understood as deriving from γί(γ)νομαι (“be, become”) rather than γεννάω (“beget”), with the result that it means “only one of its/his kind.”
First, this appeal to etymology fails to recognize that γεννάω and γί(γ)νομαι are related and derive from the same Indo-European root, g´enh (“beget, arise”).18 The word γί(γ)νομαι itself can mean “be born,” the first meaning listed in Liddell and Scott (hereafter LSJ), in addition to its more common meanings, “be, become, occur.”19 Sometimes scholars will try to drive a wedge between γεννάω and γί(γ)νομαι by pointing to the additional ν in γεννάω. But no significance should be attributed to the geminate ν in γεννάω versus the single ν in γί(γ)νομαι, since the doubling of ν, as well as spelling variants confusing the two, is a common feature of Greek.20 In addition, the word γένος, which has only one ν, can mean “descendant” (e.g., Rev 22:16). The history of the Greek language will not allow us to exclude notions of birth and generation from monogenēs on the ground that it derives from γένος or γί(γ)νομαι.
Second, there is a wealth of lexemes in Greek that are built upon the -genēs stem. The word list of TLG reveals that there are at least 145 such words in the ancient Greek vocabulary.21 In the vast majority of instances, the glosses given in LSJ contain such words as “born” and “produced.” Examples include θαλασσογενής (“sea-born”), κογχογενής (“born from a shell,” picture the Birth of Venus by Botticelli), μοιραγενής (“favored by destiny at birth, child of destiny”), νεογενής (“new-born, newly produced”), πατρογενής (“begotten of the father”), προτερηγενής (“born sooner, older”), and πυριγενής (“born in or from fire”). Fewer than 12 of the 145 -genēs words involve meanings related to “kind” (e.g., ὁμογενής means “of the same genus”), and there are a few with miscellaneous meanings (e.g., διγενής, “of doubtful sex”).
Another piece of etymological evidence is to be found in the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (hereafter LGPN), which has catalogued nearly 36,000 Greek personal names from all ancient sources (literature, inscriptions, graffiti, papyri, coins, vases, and other artefacts).22 According to the online LGPN database, there are at least 166 ancient Greek proper names based on the -genēs stem.23 The most common examples include names like Diogenēs (“offspring of Zeus”), Hermogenēs (“offspring of Hermes,” cf. 2 Tim 1:15), Epigenēs (“born after”), and Theogenēs (“offspring of the god,” “born of God”). Naturally, when used in personal names, the -genēs stem ordinarily communicates the concept of biological birth or begetting, indicating something special about the offspring’s parentage or circumstances of birth. Of course, we cannot assume that every child named Diogenēs was believed to be literally the offspring of Zeus. Yet that is what the name means, and it invites the interpretation that parents thought the giving of such a name would enhance the child’s good fortune in life. It is conceivable that in some cases the -genēs stem in a proper name could communicate the abstract notion of species or kind apart from the biological notion of offspring or birth, but I have not been able to identify any -genēs names that would lend themselves to such an interpretation.
Of course, it is a well-known principle of lexical semantics that the meanings of words are to be determined by usage rather than etymology. I have reviewed the etymological evidence not to prove that monogenēs means “only begotten” but to answer those who appeal to etymology in the attempt to prove that it cannot mean “only begotten.” The etymological evidence suggests that monogenēs could very well mean “only begotten.”
THE LEXICAL ARGUMENT
Having cleared away two of the principal objections, we come now to the positive lexical argument. My claim is not that monogenēs always means “only begotten” and never means “only one of its/his kind” in biblical and extrabiblical Greek. John Dahms tries to make that claim, and he has to strenuously explain away a number of difficult passages where monogenēs plausibly does mean “only one of its/his kind.”24 On the other hand, Gerard Pendrick attempts to argue the opposite position against Dahms—that monogenēs always means “only one of its/his kind” with the notion of begetting never present.25 He is equally wrong. Neither extreme is correct.
The earliest meaning of monogenēs was biological, in reference to an only child.26 For example, Hesiod advises, “Let there be a single-born (μουνογενής) son to nourish the father’s household: in this way wealth is increased in the halls.”27 If a man has more than one son, the inheritance will get divided. The fourth-century Greek-speaking church fathers understood this, for when discussing the term they glossed its meaning as “the only one begotten,” “having no brother,” or “lacking siblings.”28 To provide a definition of the sort one might find in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by Frederick Danker et al. (BDAG), my claim is that monogenēs is used most basically and frequently in reference to an only child begotten by a parent, with the implication of not having any siblings. A base/profile analysis puts the term in a biological familial context.29 It presupposes a biological relationship between a parent and his or her only son or daughter.
Querying the TLG database reveals that monogenēs is an ordinary word quite common in extrabiblical Greek. Its earliest use is in Hesiod (3x), but after that it is found in the Aesopica (2x), Aeschylus (1x), Herodotus (2x), Plato (4x), Theophrastus (3x), Diodorus Siculus (2x), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (3x), Septuagint (10x), Josephus (4x), Plutarch (8x), Arrian (1x), and many others. The word is used most frequently as an adjective modifying the nouns “son,” “daughter,” and “child.” This can be seen in the ordinary, non-Johannine, non-Christological uses in the New Testament (Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38).30 If the word meant “only,” then we would expect to find it used to modify many other nouns that do not involve the concept of being begotten or being an offspring, for example, “only wife,” “only brother,” “only friend,” “only slave”; or “only eye,” “only foot,” “only hand” (for a person missing one eye, foot, or hand); or a man’s “only garment,” “only house,” “only sword,” and so on. But such collocations are completely absent in extrabiblical Greek. This suggests that the literal meaning, which is by far the most common usage in extrabiblical Greek, is the straightforward biological meaning: “only begotten,” that is, “without siblings.”
This biological meaning is explicitly present when accompanied by the verb γεννάω, for instance, when Diodorus Siculus informs us that the god Ares slept with Harpinē and begat Oenomaüs, “who, in turn, begat a daughter, an only child (οὗτος δὲ θυγατέρα μονογενῆ γεννήσας), and named her Hippodameia.”31 The biological meaning, “only begotten,” is the basic and original meaning of the word.32
But as is common in language, this basic meaning gets gradually extended in ever new nonliteral, metaphorical directions. As linguists recognize, such nonliteral extensions of meaning are rooted in the prototypical, embodied experiential meaning and radiate outward from there.33 Consider, for example, the sentence, “foolish, ignorant controversies . . . beget quarrels (γεννῶσιν μάχας)” (2 Tim 2:23). This is clearly a nonliteral or metaphorical use of the verb γεννάω. The word has not shed its original meaning “beget.”34 It would be quite illegitimate for a lexicographer to argue, “We know that controversies don’t literally ‘beget’ quarrels; therefore, the word here must have a fundamentally different meaning, perhaps ‘give rise to.’ ” Even in this instance, γεννάω retains the meaning “beget,” but its meaning has been extended by being used as a metaphor. The metaphorical usage depends on the literal picture of begetting in order for the metaphor to be successful. So it is with monogenēs. Its fundamental biological meaning “only begotten” has been extended in a variety of nonliteral applications, but the nonliteral or metaphorical applications do not negate, and in fact depend on, the primary or literal meaning. A careful study of monogenēs in the Septuagint, the Greek New Testament, and extrabiblical Greek literature suggests at least three nonliteral extensions of the word monogenēs in ever-widening concentric circles.
The First Nonliteral Extension: Only Legitimate Child or Heir
The first nonliteral extension is in biblical contexts shaped by the concern for an heir. This is most clearly seen in the case of Isaac, who is called monogenēs even though Abraham had another son, Ishmael (Gen 22:2, Aquila; Gen 22:12, Symmachus; Heb 11:17; Josephus, Ant. 1.222).35 In this case, an “only begotten” son may actually have siblings and yet be his father’s only legitimate son or heir and so it is as if he were an “only begotten” son. This is how Josephus explains the love of Monobazus, king of Adiabene, for one of his sons: “He had an elder son by Helena . . . and other children by his other wives; but it was clear that all his favour was concentrated on Izates as if he were an only child (ὡς εἰς μονογενῆ).”36 Why might Isaac be regarded as if he were an only son? The answer is ready at hand. In Genesis 21:10–12, Sarah compels Abraham to disown Ishmael so that he is no longer an heir in competition with Isaac. In spite of Abraham’s affection for Ishmael, God sides with Sarah and tells Abraham to do as Sarah said, “for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”37 The point is clear: although Ishmael is also Abraham’s biological son, he is no longer Abraham’s heir, leaving Isaac alone in that position. Philo captures this by saying that Isaac was Abraham’s “only legitimate son” (Abr. 194). It is this context that explains the use of monogenēs as a descriptor for Isaac, a descriptor that clearly involves a slight shift from a literal biological sense to a related sense of being the only legitimate son or heir. The explanation for this shift comes from that fact that even in the literal usage of monogenēs, the concern for an heir is present, a concern that is heightened if there is any danger that the parent may lose his or her monogenēs child.
This concern can be seen in the apocryphal book of Tobit. The story concerns Sarah, daughter of Raguel, who had been married to seven husbands, but the demon Asmodeus had killed each of them before the marriage was consummated. Sarah was weeping and about to hang herself, but she changed her mind since she did not want to bring reproach on her father. So she prayed to God and asked him to take her life. In her prayer she said, “I am my father’s only begotten (μονογενής εἰμι τῷ πατρί μου), and he has no other child to be his heir” (Tobit 3:15 NETS).38 If a father or a mother has only one child, then the loss of that child would be especially tragic since it would mean losing one’s heir. This, then, is why Isaac can be called “only begotten” (monogenēs) even though he is not literally the sole offspring of Abraham.
This is the answer to those who appeal to Hebrews 11:17, “He who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son (τὸν μονογενῆ)” (NASB). Moody triumphantly claims, “No passage illustrates the meaning of monogenēs more clearly than Heb 11:17. . . . It is impossible to say Isaac was the only son begotten by Abraham.”39 If users of language are limited to literal meanings only, then it would be impossible. But language is more flexible than Moody thinks. We see the same thing in classical usage. For example, in the play by Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra speaks on the occasion of Agamemnon’s return from the Trojan war, just before she murders him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to propitiate the goddess Artemis to let his ships sail to Troy. She sarcastically hails her returning lord as “the watchdog of the fold, the savior forestay of the ship, firm-based pillar of the lofty roof, only-begotten son unto a father (μονογενὲς τέκνον πατρί).”40 This cannot be taken literally, since Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, were both sons of Atreus. “Agamemnon is not, of course, an only son; this phrase, like the previous three, metaphorically describes him as one on whom depends the whole safety of the house and/or the city.”41
Under this first nonliteral extension we may include a related usage that is quite rare and only exists in translation. It has to do with the idea of being alone and in danger of death. It occurs only three times—all of them in the Greek Psalter (Pss 21:21; 24:16; 34:17 LXX).42 The translator felt obligated to translate the Hebrew word 
literally. monogenēs in these cases is related to the previous meaning because of the biblical concern for an heir, having someone provide for one in old age, and having someone to bury one upon one’s death. If a person has only one child, then losing that child would be an unbearable loss. One has lost everything. See the passages in the prophets about “mourning as for an only son/child” (Jer 6:26; Amos 8:10; Zech 12:10). One’s life is like that, too. To lose one’s “precious” life is to lose everything.
The Second Nonliteral Extension: Metaphorical Only Begotten
Our circle of nonliteral extended meanings expands further. The second nonliteral extension arises when the act of “begetting” is no longer biological but metaphorical, and yet the begetting metaphor is still very much alive. This can be seen in the way Greek philosophical literature deals with the physical universe as if it were God’s “only begotten” offspring. Plato twice affirms that God did not make two universes or an infinite number of universes, but only this one monogenēs universe.43 The Loeb Classical Library translates the word “unique (or sole) of its kind,” which is certainly legitimate, although it conceals the metaphor of the universe as God’s offspring. Since God’s act of creating the universe is being viewed as a “begetting” of sorts, the term is still related to ordinary biological begetting by way of analogy. Plutarch, who was influenced by Plato, says the same thing, calling the present universe “only begotten,” since it is the only universe that God created.44
A related case is Wisdom of Solomon 7:22, where Solomon is presented as praising Wisdom and listing off her many attributes, one of which is monogenēs. Although two modern versions render this as “unique” (NETS and NRSV), it is probably to be interpreted as containing the notion of Wisdom’s being begotten of God due to the influence of Proverbs 8:25 in the Septuagint: “Before the mountains were established and before all the hills, he begets me (γεννᾷ με)” (NETS).
The Third Nonliteral Extension: Only One of Its Kind
This brings us to the third nonliteral extension, which finally severs any link with begetting, even as a metaphor. We may call this the scientific usage of monogenēs, although it is not limited to scientific literature. In the scientific usage, the relationship between a genus and a species is viewed on the analogy of a father and his offspring. In these cases, the word clearly does mean “only one of its kind,” the relationship being no longer genealogical but purely notional or conceptual. Aristotle’s successor as the head of the Peripatetic School, Theophrastus, uses the term three times in his treatise, Enquiry into Plants. Throughout the book, Theophrastus describes the various “kinds” of each tree. For example, he says that certain types of trees, such as the beech tree, the yew, and the alder exist in only one kind (monogenēs), as opposed to other trees, like the maple or the ash, which exist in two kinds.45 It is interesting to note that in some cases, he uses the synonym μονοειδής, which means “one in kind” (LSJ) without any connotation or hint of the begetting metaphor.
Another example of the scientific usage is 1 Clement 25:2, which refers to the phoenix as monogenēs, “the only one of its species.”46 In the context there is no thought of the phoenix being begotten. Clement simply means that this strange eagle-like creature, which goes through a cycle of death and rebirth every five hundred years, each one rising from the ashes of its predecessor, is utterly unique. There is nothing like it in all creation. We now see that in this scientific usage of the term, the original meaning “only begotten” has been extended and stretched so far that the begetting metaphor has dropped out of sight. However, the biological metaphor is still lurking in the background insofar as the scientific “kind” (meaning “species”) is conceptualized on the analogy of biological kinship.47
My argument is that there is a directional flow from a literal biological meaning (“only begotten, not having any siblings”) to various metaphorical extensions in ever-increasing circles that get further and further away from the original biological context so that the notion of begetting ultimately drops from view. The directionality of this flow from biological to metaphorical to scientific is the best explanation for all the data. On the one hand, the earliest instances of monogenēs are plainly biological, and on the other hand, there are occurrences where the literal biological meaning does not fit, and a more abstract meaning such as “only one of its kind” or “unique” fits much better. It is precisely backward to start with the latter set of data and attempt to reinterpret the former set of data so that it fits into a nonbiological mold. One can only do this by getting rid of the notion of “begetting.” But the fundamental biological concept of “begetting” is surely present in the word when used in literal or metaphorical familial contexts.48
The scientific meaning, “only one of his kind,” is the meaning that modern scholars and English versions attempt to find in the five Johannine passages. But the five Johannine passages clearly do not fit under the third nonliteral extension. The genre and context are not scientific. The Gospel of John is dealing with the relationship between the Father and the Son, not botany. We are not dealing, like Theophrastus, with genus/species analysis. The father–son analogy is very strongly attested in these contexts, as opposed to the scientific usage, where this analogy has dropped from view.
“ONLY BEGOTTEN” IN JOHN 1:14, 18
With the lexical evidence and my lexical argument in mind, then, I would like to turn our attention to the first two of the five Johannine occurrences of monogenēs—John 1:14, 18. These two verses provide compelling evidence that monogenēs, when applied to the Son in the Johannine literature, is not being used in a scientific sense to mean “only one of his kind” but in a metaphorical biological sense meaning “only begotten.”
We will look at John 1:14 first: Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας. It is difficult to see how the meaning “only” or “one and only” fits in a meaningful way unless the notion of sonship or begottenness is part of the meaning of the word. Indeed, many of the modern English versions (like the Old Latin—see note 4 above) bring back the supposedly banished concept of begetting by adding the word “Son” even though it is not present in Greek: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (ESV), and “the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father” (NIV). Both these English versions, though refusing to see “begetting” as part of the meaning of monogenēs, nevertheless cannot avoid inserting the word “Son,” even though it is not present in Greek. In like manner, C. H. Dodd—though taking monogenēs as “only of his kind”—recognized that “one who is μονογενής relatively to a πατήρ can be no other than the only son.”49 The context is pushing the translators and the commentators in the right direction, almost against their will. But why not go the whole way? Barnabas Lindars does just that when he notes that while monogenēs can mean “unique in kind,” the added phrase “from the Father” here in John 1:14 is decisive for “only-begotten.”50 He adds that it is not just the phrase “from the Father” but the entire clause that is significant: “We have seen his glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father” (translation mine). Lindars points out that “glory” here carries the added connotation of “reflection.” “Thus Jesus reflects the glory of God as a son reflects the aspect of a father on account of family likeness.”51 The concept that the son bears the father’s family likeness or image and reveals who the father is further reinforces the biological metaphor of begetting.
Let us now turn to John 1:18 and the second Johannine occurrence of monogenēs: Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε·μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. As is well known, there is a text-critical issue with this verse. Although the Majority Text has ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, since the time of Westcott and Hort, the reading [ὁ] μονογενὴς θεός has been thought more likely on both external and internal grounds.52 This is also the reading presented the main text of Nestle-Aland in all editions.53 Objectively, either reading comports with taking monogenēs in the sense of “only begotten,” but I argue that the superior reading, μονογενὴς θεός, requires that monogenēs be taken in the sense of “only begotten.”
Interestingly, the NIV adopts the μονογενὴς θεός reading, and yet, as in verse 14, it inserts the notion of “Son” in its rendering: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” The NIV renders monogenēs as “the one and only Son” and takes theos in apposition to it, “who is himself God.” Again, as we saw in verse 14, the context is pushing the translators to recognize that the concept of sonship is present in the pregnant word monogenēs.
By contrast, the ESV avoids inserting the word “Son,” but the resulting translation is, in my view, extremely problematic: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Presumably the ESV translation committee was attracted to what seemed to them a powerful affirmation of the deity of Christ. Not only is the predicate “God” attributed to him (as in John 1:1), but even more powerfully, the predicate “the only God.” There is only one true and living God. Jesus is therefore not a lesser divine being distinct from the only God; he is the only God.
However, there are three problems with the ESV’s handling of this verse. In my view, the problems are so serious that they are fatal. First, perhaps without fully realizing it, the ESV translators have removed this one occurrence of monogenēs out of the frame of reference of the other four Johannine occurrences, in all of which monogenēs is used in reference to the uniqueness of the person of the Son: “the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14 ESV), “his only Son” (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9 ESV), or “the only Son of God” (John 3:18 ESV). On the ESV’s rendering of John 1:18 (“the only God”), the adjective “only” is an attributive modifying God (generic deity) rather than the Son.
The second problem with the ESV’s translation of John 1:18 is that it could easily be misused as a proof text for modalistic monarchianism or the “Jesus only” heresy of Oneness Pentecostalism. The New Testament nowhere else calls Jesus “the only God” or “the one true God.” Instead, it consistently calls him “the Son of [the one true] God.” Of course, that means he is fully divine, since the Son is everything that the Father is as to his essential nature. But he is fully divine, not because he just is the one God but because he is the one God’s eternal Son.
Third, the ESV’s rendering produces an unintended result. Here is the ESV again: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” If “the only God” is a person who is “at the Father’s side,” then “the only God” is distinct from the Father. That seems to place the Father outside of “the only God.” The point of the affirmation that Jesus is “the only God” is to make clear that he is fully divine. But no sooner has the ESV put the Son within the ontological deity than it proceeds (unwittingly, no doubt) to place the Father outside of it.54
It would seem that these two things—translating monogenēs as “only” and adopting the μονογενὴς θεός reading at John 1:18—do not comport with one another. Interpreters and translators have to tie themselves up in pretzels in order to harmonize them. It is better to choose one or the other. If interpreters are convinced that monogenēs means “only” rather than “only begotten,” then they ought to follow the RSV and adopt the Majority Text reading, ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, to maintain the inner coherence and logic of the verse: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” On the other hand, if we are convinced (as I am) that μονογενὴς θεός is the earliest and best reading, then the only way to make coherent sense of the text is to take monogenēs in the traditional sense: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (NASB).
Thus, John 1:14 and 18 are of crucial importance for demonstrating that the Johannine monogenēs cannot be reduced to “only of his kind” but must have a metaphorical biological meaning, “only begotten.” John views Christ as the only begotten Son of God in the sense that he is the Father’s only proper offspring deriving his divine being from the Father. The fact that John 1:18 adds that he “is” (ὤν, present participle) in the bosom of the Father (ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρός) underscores that his sonship transcends time and is not to be interpreted as a temporal event like ordinary human begetting. The phrase εἰς τὸν κόλπον reinforces this by emphasizing the profound intimacy and love between the Father and his only begotten Son. We may conclude that, for John, the Son is eternally generated by or begotten of the Father.
Of course, the concept of a human father begetting a human son is an analogy or metaphor that is being used by John as a way of pointing to the eternal Son’s relationship with the Father. It is a relationship of love, intimacy, and delight. When the Son is sent into the world, he comes in obedience to his Father’s will. Ultimately the Son reveals the Father because, by being the offspring begotten of the Father’s divine nature, he possesses the same divine nature as the Father. Therefore, like all metaphors, there are notable points of discontinuity: unlike a human begetting, this begetting (1) had no beginning, (2) did not occur in time, (3) does not grant the Father chronological priority over the Son, and (4) lacks the involvement of a mother. But there is an analogy between human biological begetting and intra-Trinitarian begetting. The main points of continuity are: (1) the Father is the source or cause of the Son, (2) the Son possesses the same nature (homoousios) with the Father who begat him, (3) the Father delights in his Son and calls him “beloved,” and (4) it is fitting that the Son is the one sent on a mission from the Father to do the Father’s will.
CONCLUSION
In spite of the modern consensus that the Johannine monogenēs ought to be rendered “only” or “one and only,” thereby eliminating the notion of begottenness, the lexical evidence for “only begotten” is actually quite compelling. The five occurrences of the term in the Gospel and first Epistle of John thus provide part of the exegetical basis for the traditional doctrine of the eternal begetting or generation of the Son, which is in turn a crucial linchpin for the pro-Nicene doctrine of the Trinity. This is not to say that patristic exegesis relied solely on the Johannine monogenēs. Many other important texts informed their thinking on this issue.55 Nevertheless, the importance of the Johannine monogenēs for the construction of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son cannot be underestimated. While modern exegetes may need, in some cases, to provide legitimate correctives to elements of patristic exegesis, this may turn out to be one case where the church fathers had it right all along.
1. Robert Lewis Dabney, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), 209.
2. According to the website, “The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972 the TLG has collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era” (www.tlg.uci.edu).
3. Dates from F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
4. “[The] Word became flesh and lived among us and we beheld his glory, glory as of [the] only Son from [the] Father (sicut unici filii a patre), full of grace and truth. . . . No one has ever seen God except [the] only Son (unicus filius), alone in [the] side of [the] Father, he has made him known” (translation mine). Francis A. Gasquet, ed., Codex Vercellensis (Rome: F. Pustet, 1914). Codex Vercellensis (ca. 350), which contains only the Gospels, is our most ancient witness to the Old Latin text of the New Testament.
5. At John 1:14, 18; 1 John 4:9, Tyndale has “only begotten” (3x), but at John 3:16, 18 he has “only” (2x). N. Hardy Wallis, ed., The New Testament Translated by William Tyndale 1534 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938).
6. I use the term “pro-Nicene” in the sense articulated by Lewis Ayres, to refer to the consolidation of the orthodox position after the Council of Nicaea in 325 and culminating in the First Council of Constantinople in 381. See Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
7. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistles of St. John (Cambridge and London: Macmillan, 1886), 169–72. See also his briefer comments in his commentary on the Fourth Gospel: Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 1:23, 28. Interestingly, Westcott’s colleague, F. J. A. Hort, apparently did not follow Westcott and continued to defend the “only begotten” interpretation. Hort, Two Dissertations: I. On ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΘΕΟΣ in Scripture and Tradition; II. On the ‘Constantinopolitan’ Creed and Other Eastern Creeds of the Fourth Century (London: Macmillan, 1876), 16–18. However, Westcott’s excursus made an impact, for not long after, in 1908, the article on “Only Begotten” in the Hasting’s Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels followed Westcott in arguing for “only, unique” over “only begotten.” Ferdinand Kattenbusch, “Only Begotten,” in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1908), 2:281–82.
8. Francis Marion Warden, ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ in the Johannine Literature (PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1938). He also summarized his work in “God’s Only Son,” Review and Expositor 50 (April 1953): 216–23.
9. Dale Moody, “God’s Only Son: The Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised Standard Version,” JBL 72 (1953): 213–19.
10. Richard N. Longenecker, “The One and Only Son,” in The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation, ed. Kenneth Barker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986) 119–26.
11. E.g., Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 64–69, 81, 144–48. Giles makes the incredible claim that the Greek-speaking fathers “do not use [monogenēs] or the texts in which it is found as textual support for the eternal generation of the Son. For them . . . the word was understood to mean ‘unique’ or ‘only’ ” (81n44).
12. James M. Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” Calvin Theological Journal 16 (1981): 56–79; John V. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of monogenēs Reconsidered,” NTS 29 (1983): 222–32; Dahms, “The Generation of the Son,” JETS 32, no. 4 (1989): 493–501.
13. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 105, in ANF 1.251.
14. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 15, in ANF 3.611.
15. Tertullian, Against Praxeas 7, in ANF 3.601. “Exinde eum patrem sibi faciens de quo procedendo filius factus est primogenitus, ut ante omnia genitus, et unigenitus, ut solus ex deo genitus, proprie de vulva cordis.”
16. In addition, there are three passages in Irenaeus where he quotes John 1:18, and in each case the text as we have it has unigenitus (Against Heresies 3.11.6; 4.20.6, 11). We may also add Origen from the third century: “We have always held that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son (unigeniti Filii sui), who was born (nati) indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning” (Princ. 1.2.2, in ANF 4.246). However, we should be cautious about this evidence, since the Greek originals of both Irenaeus and Origen have been lost and come down to us in later Latin translations.
17. “The ancient Arians were very ready to call the Son ὁ μονογενὴς θεός; this appellation, in their view, happily distinguished him from the Father, who alone was God in the highest sense, as unbegotten, uncaused, and without beginning” (Ezra Abbot, The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays [Boston: George H. Ellis, 1888], 285, cf. 267). The extreme Arian, Eunomius, in his Expositio Fidei (published in 383) appealed to the appellation seeking to prove that the Son cannot be divine, since God’s essential attribute is that he is “ungenerate” (according to Gregory of Nyssa, Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book, in NPNF2 5:252–55). This “indicates that [the phrase μονογενὴς θεός] by no means necessitates an entirely Nicene Christology” (Benjamin J. Burkholder, “Considering the Possibility of a Theological Corruption in Joh 1,18 in Light of its Early Reception,” ZNW 103 [2012]: 80).
18. Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1954), 1:296–97, 306–8; Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. (Paris: Librairie Klincksieck, 2009), 212–15; and Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1:266, 272–73.
19. LSJ s.v. γίγνομαι I.1: “of persons, to be born.” For example, Agamemnon and Menelaus were “born from the same father (πατρὸς ἐκ ταὐτοῦ γεγώς)” (Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 406). Chantraine says the original meaning of γίγνομαι was “to be born” and that it generated several lexemes pertaining to concepts of birth, race, etc. (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, 212).
20. G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952), 37–52.
21. Ancient Greek includes Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic (Koine) Greek, and excludes Byzantine (Medieval) and Modern Greek.
22. Peter M. Fraser et al., eds., LGPN, vols. I, II, III.A, III.B, IV, V.A, V.B (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987–2013). Each volume covers a different geographical area. The project aims “to collect and publish with documentation all known ancient Greek personal names (including non-Greek names recorded in Greek, and Greek names in Latin), drawn from all available sources (literature, inscriptions, graffiti, papyri, coins, vases and other artefacts), within the period from the earliest Greek written records down to, approximately, the sixth century A.D.” (http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/project/index.html).
23. Number of occurrences in LGPN, summing all occurrences in the seven volumes published thus far. There are two more volumes forthcoming. Search conducted at http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/database/lgpn.php.
24. John V. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of monogenēs Reconsidered,” NTS 29 (1983): 222–32.
25. Gerard Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” NTS 41 (1995): 587–600.
26. “Without siblings” is the gloss given for μουνογενής in Michael Meier-Brügger, ed., Lexicon des frühgriechischen Epos (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 15:258. Compare the German glosses “einzig geboren, einziges Kind” in Adolf Kaegi, ed., Benselers griechisch-deutsches Schulwörterbuch (Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1904), 592.
27. Hesiod, Opera et dies 376–77 (LCL 57).
28. Athanasius: “The term μονογενής is used where there are no brethren, but πρωτότοκος because of brethren” (C. Ar. 2.62, in NPNF2 4.382). Cyril of Jerusalem: “On hearing of a ‘Son,’ think not of an adopted son but a Son by nature, an Only-begotten Son, having no brother” (Catechetical Lectures 11.2, in NPNF2 7.64). Basil of Caesara: “In common usage μονογενής does not designate the one who comes from only one person [as Eunomius claimed], but the one who is the only one begotten (ὁ μόνος γεννηθείς). . . . If your [Eunomius’s] opinions were to prevail, it would be necessary for the entire world to re-learn this term, that the name ‘only-begotten’ does not indicate a lack of siblings but the absence of a pair of procreators” (St. Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, trans. Mark DelCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, The Fathers of the Church 122 [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011], 159, 161 [2.20–21; PG 29:616–17]). Gregory of Nyssa: “Who does not know how great is the difference in signification between the term μονογενής and πρωτότοκος? For πρωτότοκος implies brethren, and μονογενής implies that there are no other brethren. Thus the πρωτότοκος is not μονογενής, for certainly πρωτότοκος is the first-born among brethren, while he who is μονογενής has no brother; for if he were numbered among brethren he would not be only-begotten” (Against Eunomius 2.7–8, in NPNF2 5.112; Refutatio confessionis Eunomii §76 in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. 2, ed. Werner Jaeger [Leiden: Brill, 1960]).
29. Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 2 vols. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987, 1991); Langacker, Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991); William Croft and D. Alan Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
30. Hebrews 11:17 should also be mentioned to complete the list of New Testament uses, but here it is a substantive adjective (τὸν μονογενῆ).
31. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.73.1–2 (LCL 375).
32. The biological usage is found in the following occurrences: Hesiod, Theogonia 426, 448; Opera et dies 376; Corpus fabularum Aesopicarum, ed. Hausrath and Hunger, Fable 279; Aesopi fabulae, ed. Chambry, Fable 296; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 898; Herodotus, Historiae 2.79; 7.221; Plato, Leges 691e; Critias 113d; Eudemus of Rhodes, Fragmenta, ed. Wehrli, frag. 150 line 41; Arrian, Historica Indica 8.6 (quoting Megasthenes); Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.847; 3.1035; Posidonius, Fragmenta, ed. Theiler, frag. 398 line 15; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.73.2; 6.7.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 2.45.2; 3.1.2–3; Septuagint (Judges 11:34; Tobit 3:15; 6:11, 15; 8:17); Josephus, Ant. 1.222; 2.182; 5.264; 20.20; Apion, Fragmenta de glossis Homericis 75.101.15; Plutarch, De fraterno amore 480E; Fragmenta, ed. Sandbach, frag. 57; Lycurgus 31.4; De facie in orbe lunae 943B; Apollonius, Lexicon Homericum 152.18; Antoninus Liberalis, Mythographi Graeci 32.1; Pseudo-Clementina: Homiliae 12.21.5; Orphic Hymns 29.2; Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium 8.9.3 (ANF 8.2); Epiphanius, Panarion (or Adversus haereses) 2.287.2.
33. Croft and Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics, 111, 193–221; Alan Cruse, Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 195–214; Dirk Geeraerts, Diachronic Prototype Semantics: A Contribution to Historical Lexicology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997); Geeraerts, Theories of Lexical Semantics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), see ch. 5, “Cognitive Semantics,” and esp. 233–34.
34. Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 60.
35. The LXX has “beloved” (ἀγαπητός) at Gen 22:2, 12, 16. The likely reason the LXX avoids μονογενής in these three verses is to resolve the apparent problem that Isaac is not the “only begotten” son of Abraham, since he has a half-brother, Ishmael. This is all the more noteworthy given that μονογενής is the standard Greek equivalent for (as in Symmachus and Aquila). The LXX’s intentional avoidance of μονογενής provides further evidence that μονογενής was understood to mean “only begotten.”
36. Josephus, Ant. 20.20 (LCL 456).
37. “So [Sarah] said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.’ And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named’ ” (Gen 21:10–12 ESV).
38. NETS is A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
39. Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 217.
40. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, trans. Herbert Weir Smyth, LCL 146 (London: Heinemann, 1926), 75 (898).
41. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, trans. Alan H. Sommerstein, LCL 146 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 103n185.
42. Pss 22:20; 25:16; 35:17 in the English Bible.
43. Plato, Timaeus 31b3; 92c9.
44. Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum 423A10 and C12; Fragmenta, ed. Sandbach, frag. 279, line 64 (quoting Parmenides). Calling the cosmos monogenēs seems to have been a commonplace in the Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition: Timaeus, Fragmenta et titulus, ed. W. Marg, 207 line 1; Cornutus, De natura deorum, ed. Lang, 49 line 13; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.11.74.3; Joannes Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi 18.2; 512.27; 534.10; 549.9.
45. Theophrastus, Historia plantarum 3.10.1–2; 3.14.3.
46. Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 57.
47. Other examples of the scientific usage of μονογενής (“only one of its kind”) include the following: the liver as a “unique” organ (Galen, De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 6.9.31); the Decalogue designating sins by means of “an elementary principle, simple and of one kind (ἁπλῷ καὶ μονογενεῖ . . . στοιχείῳ)” (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.12.89.1); a church building “unparalleled” in size and beauty (Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3.50.2); the sun, called “unique” because it is alone (Ammonius, Fragmenta in Joannem, ed. Reuss, frag. 86); and each of the stars is “unique” (Joannes Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi 549.13–14). Most of these are cited by Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ.”
48. For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that there are at least two technical uses of μονογενής among the ancient Greek grammarians. Philoxenus, Apollonius Dyscolus, and Aelius Herodianus use the term as a descriptor of words “having one form for all genders” (LSJ s.v. μονογενής 4), and Hephaestio uses it as the name of a metrical foot (LSJ s.v. μονογενής 5).
49. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 305n1; cf. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 166.
50. Barnabas Lindars, SSF, The Gospel of John (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972), 96.
51. Barnabas Lindars, SSF, John (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 17.
52. The Bodmer Papyri (P66 and P75), Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus have μονογενὴς θεός. The reading μονογενὴς υἱός appears to be secondary, due to assimilation to John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9. See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 169.
53. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft). The reading μονογενὴς θεός goes back at least to the 24th edition (1960) and continues in every subsequent edition, including the 28th (2012).
54. The ESV provides an alternate rendering in a footnote: “No one has ever seen God; the only One, who is God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” In one sense, this construction, which takes monogenēs as a substantive (“the only One”), and θεός in apposition to it, is an improvement insofar as it keeps monogenēs as an attribute of the Son (consistent with the rest of Johannine usage) rather than of generic deity. However, in this case, the attempt to hold on to the premise that monogenēs means “only” and not “only begotten” becomes even less tenable, for the postulated christological title, “the only One,” is without example elsewhere in the New Testament and has no definite significance.
55. See Charles Lee Irons, “Begotten of the Father before All Ages: The Biblical Basis of Eternal Generation according to the Church Fathers,” Christian Research Journal 40, no. 1 (2017): 41–47.