VIII. The Absence of the Article. I do not care to use the term “omission” in
connection with the article. That word implies that the article ought to be present. As
has been already shown, the article is not the only means of showing that a word is
definite. This luxury in language did not become indispensable. The servant never
became master. There remained in the classic period many parallel phrases which
were intelligible without the article. Indeed, new phrases came into use by analogy
without the article. I do not think it is necessary to devote so much space to this phase
of the subject as is done in most grammars. Most of the cases have already come up
for discussion in one way or another. It is sufficient here to give a résumé of the chief
idioms in the N. T. which are without the article and are still definite. Much of the
modern difficulty about the absence of the Greek article is due to the effort to
interpret it by the standard of the English or German article. So Winer (Winer-Thayer,
p. 119) speaks of “appellatives, which as expressing definite objects should have the
article”! Even Gildersleeve, in discussing the “Absence of the Article” (note the
phrase, Syntax, p. 259), says that “prepositional phrases and other formulæ may
dispense with the article as in the earlier language,” and he adds “but anaphora or
contrast may bring back the article at any time and there is no pedantical uniformity.”
Admirably said, except “dispense with” and “bring back,” dim ghosts of the old
grammar. Moulton2
cites Jo. 6:68, ῥήµατα ζωῆς αἰωνίου, which should be translated
‘words of eternal life’ (as marg. of R. V.). There are indeed “few of the finer points of
Greek which need more constant attention”3
than the absence of the article. The word
may be either definite or indefinite when the article is absent. The context and history
of the phrase in question must decide. The translation of the expression into English
or German is not determined by the mere [Page 791] absence of the Greek article. If
the word is indefinite, as in Jo. 4:27; 6:68, no article, of course, occurs. But the article
is absent in a good many definite phrases also. It is about these that a few words
further are needed. A brief summary of the various types of anarthrous definite
phrases is given.1
A sane treatment of the subject occurs in Winer-Schmiedel.2
https://bibletranslation.ws/down/Robertson_Greek_Grammar.pdf
ROFL that is not dealing with John 1:1 ROFL