Also those asserting authenticity of the Comma often claim that heretics doctored all of the early Greek manuscripts and removed doctrinally offensive passages. Such claims have been made by Donald A. Waite, Thomas Strouse, Thomas Holland, Frederick Nolan, and Robert L. Dabney.
Addition theories (verse spurious)
Those who believe the Johannine Comma is inauthentic view the text as either an accidental intrusion, which could be a margin commentary note that a later scribe mistakenly considered to be the original text,[n 5] or as a deliberate insertion or forgery.
Hugo Grotius contended that the verse had been added into the Johannine text by the Arians.[n 6] About the Grotius view, Richard Simon wrote "… all this is only founded on conjectures: and seeing every one does reason according to his prejudices, some will have the Arians to be the authors of that addition, and others do attribute the same to the Catholicks."[5] Luther's pastor, John Bugenhagen, like Grotius, wrote of a conjectured Arian origin.
Isaac Newton took a similar approach as Erasmus, looking to Jerome as the principal figure in placing the Comma in the Bible. [n 7] Newton also thought that the Athanasius Disputation with Arius (Ps-Athanasius) "had been deeply influential on the subsequent attitude to the authenticity of the passage."[6] Newton's comment that from Matthew 28:19 "they tried at first to derive the Trinity" implies that for the conjectured interpolation, "the Trinity" was the motive.
Richard Simon believed the verse began in a Greek scholium, while Herbert Marsh posited the origin as a Latin scholium.[7] Simon conjectured that the Athanasius exposition at Nicea was the catalyst for the Greek scholium which brought forth the text.[n 8]
Richard Porson was a major figure in the opposition to the authenticity of the verse. His theory of spurious origin involved Tertullian and Cyprian, and also the interpretation by Augustine which led to a marginal note. And, in the Porson theory, that marginal note was in the Bible text used by the author of the Confession of Faith at the Council of Carthage of 484 AD.[n 9] Porson also considered the Vulgate Prologue as spurious, a forgery not written by Jerome, and this Prologue was responsible for the entrance into the Vulgate. "… Latin copies had this verse in the eighth century. It is then that we suppose it to have crawled into notice on the strength of Pseudo-Jerome's recommendation."[8]
Johann Jakob Griesbach wrote his Diatribe in Locum 1 Joann V. 7, 8 in 1806, as an Appendix to his Critical Edition of the New Testament. In the Diatribe, Griesbach "expresses his conviction that the seventh verse rests upon the authority of Vigilius Tapsensis."[9]
The 1808 Improved Version, with Thomas Belsham contributing, followed Griesbach on the idea of Tapsensis authority, combined with enhancing the forgery intimations of Gibbon. Thus came the theory that the verse was a forgery by Virgilius Tapsensis. This emphasis on Tapsensis (Thapsus) was echoed by Unitarians of the 1800s, including Theophilus Lindsey, Abner Kneeland, and John Wilson.
John Oxlee, in his journal debate with Frederick Nolan, accused the African Prelates Vigilius Tapensis and Fulgentius Ruspensis of thrusting the verse into the Latin manuscripts.[10]
William Orme, in the Monthly Review, 1825, conjectured Augustine as the source. "it is probable that the verse originated in the interpretation of St. Augustine. It seems to have existed for some time on the margins of the Latin copies, in a kind of intermediate state, as something better than a mere dictum of Augustine, and yet not absolutely Scripture itself. By degrees it was received into the text, where it appears in by far the greater number of Latin manuscripts now in our hands."[11][n 10]
Scrivener allowed for the authenticity of the Cyprian citation as a reference to the verse being in Cyprian's Bible. [n 11] To allow for this, Scrivener's theory of the source and timing of an interpolation cannot be late, and his scenario did not give estimated dates or any names responsible any more than the Arian removal theory proposed by Nolan, Forster, and others. "the disputed words…were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on v. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim."[12]
Joseph Barber Lightfoot, who similarly worked on the Revision, included Origen as part of the origin. "not in the first instance a deliberate forgery, but a comparatively innocent gloss …. the spirit and the water and the blood—a gloss which is given substantially by S. Augustine and was indicated before by Origen and Cyprian, and which first thrust itself into the text in some Latin MSS .."[13]
Brooke Foss Westcott had a theory of verse origin and development which said of the Augustine reference in the City of God – "Augustine supplies the word 'Verbum' which is required to 'complete the gloss'". Even in 1892, in the third edition of The epistles of St John: the Greek text, with notes and essays, when Westcott acknowledged the newly discovered Liber Apologeticus Priscillian reference with verbum, the Augustine Verbum/gloss assertion remained in his book. And the assertion "there is no evidence that it was found in the text of St John before the latter part of the 5th century" also remained, alongside "The gloss which had thus become an established interpretation of St John's words is first quoted as part of the Epistle in a tract of Priscillian (c 385)".
Joseph Pohle, after asking "how did the text of the three heavenly Witnesses find its way into the Vulgate? All explanations that have been advanced so far are pure guesswork." concludes "the Comma Ioanneum was perhaps found in copies of the Latin Bible current in Africa as early as the third century", and then considered Cassiodorus as responsible for inserting the verse into the Vulgate.[n 12] Pohle, like Scrivener, allows that the Cyprian citation may well indicate that the verse was in his Bible. [n 13]
In the early 20th century Karl Künstle helped to popularize a theory that Priscillian of Ávila (c. 350-385) was the author of the Comma.[n 14] The theory held that "Priscillian interpolated … in the first epistle of John so as to justify in this way his unitarian theories. The text was then retouched in order to appear orthodox, and in this shape found its way into several Spanish documents."[14] This idea of a Priscillian origin for the Comma had a brief scholarship flourish and then quickly lost support in textual circles. The Priscillian citation had been recently published in 1889 by Georg Schepps. [n 15]
Alan England Brooke, while theorizing that "the growth of that gloss can be traced back at least as early as Cyprian"[15] also placed the Theodulfian recension of the Vulgate, after 800 AD, as a prime point whereby the verse first gained traction into the Latin text-lines. "It is through the Theodulfian Recension of the Vulgate that the gloss first gained anything like wide acceptance".[16]
Adolf Harnack in Zur Textkritik und Christologie der Schriften des Johannes "argues that the comma johanneum is the post-augustinian revision of an old addition to the text".[17]
Raymond Brown expresses a theory of verse development in which the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian (the sections that proponents consider Comma allusions) represented the "thought process" involved, that gave rise to the Comma. The words of the Comma "appear among Latin writers in North Africa and Spain in the third century as a dogmatic reflection on and expansion of the 'three that testify': 'the Spirit' is the Father [Jn 4:24]; 'the blood' is the Son; 'the water' is the Spirit (Jn 7:38-39)."[18]
Walter Thiele allows for a Greek origin of the Comma, before Cyprian. Raymond Brown summarizes: "Thiele, Beobachtungen 64-68, argues that the I John additions may have a Greek basis, for sometimes a plausible early chain can be constructed thus: Cyprian, Pseudo-Cyprian, Augustine, Pseudo-Augustine, Spanish Vulgate (especially Isidore of Seville and Theodolfus)."[19]
Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan expresses the common scholarly view that the words (apparently) crept into the Latin text of the New Testament during the Early Middle Ages, "[possibly] as one of those medieval glosses but were then written into the text itself by a careless copyist. Erasmus omitted them from his first edition; but when a storm of protest arose because the omission seemed to threaten the doctrine of the Trinity, he put them back in the third and later editions, whence they also came into the Textus Receptus, 'the received text'."[20][n 16]
Most New Testament scholars today believe that the Comma was inserted into the Old Latin text based on a gloss to that text, with the original gloss dating to the 3rd or 4th century, as expressed with some qualifications by Bruce Metzger.[21] The summary of Daniel Wallace is short, beginning in the 300s AD with an unspecified homily: "The reading seems to have arisen in a fourth century Latin homily in which the text was allegorized to refer to members of the Trinity. From there, it made its way into copies of the Latin Vulgate, the text used by the Roman Catholic Church."[22][n 17]
Forgery
Most opponents of the Comma as inauthentic view the verse as having arisen by a sequence of events involving scribal difficulties and error. Often this is a staged understanding, beginning with an interpretation placed as a margin commentary. The margin note is later erroneously brought into the text by a scribe who mistakenly thought the margin note indicated a superior alternate reading or correction. Those types of proposed scenarios are based on the limitations inherent in laborious hand-copying and do not have to impugn motives.
By contrast, the accusations of deliberate textual tampering and forgery for doctrinal purposes are based on scribes making deliberate changes away from the original text. A number of writers have theories of direct forgery as the motive for the insertion of the Comma into the text. Some of these theories were developed after the 1883 Priscillian discovery [n 15] and fingered Priscillian as the culprit.
Voltaire wrote that the verse was inserted at the time of Constantine. "Lactantius … It was about this time that, among the very violent disputes on the Trinity, this famous verse was inserted in the First Epistle of St. John: "There are three that bear witness in earth—the word or spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one.".[n 18]
The accusation against the verse by Edward Gibbon in 1781, while stating "the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands" stops short of a direct accusation of forgery by also discussing marginal notes and allegorical interpretation. In response to Gibbon, George Travis noted the lack of forgery accusations before the Reformation-era debate. [n 19]
In 1813, Unitarian Thomas Belsham accused the verse of being an "impious forgery…spurious and fictitious".[n 20] In Calm Inquiry in 1817, Belsham had the verse as a "palpable forgery"[23] and his student, Unitarian minister Israel Worsley, for more emphasis wrote of "a gross and a palpable forgery".[24][n 21]
For the next decades, the forgery accusation was generally made outside the context of textual analysis, usually by Unitarians and freethinkers, such as Robert Taylor.[25] author of the Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society. Everard Bierer took this approach "This bold interpolation shows conclusively what Trinitarian fanaticism in the Dark Ages would do, and leaves us to imagine what renderings it probably gave to many other texts, and especially somewhat obscure ones on the same subject."[26]
In 1888, Philip Schaff, church historian who worked on the American committee of the Revision, brought the accusation to the mainstream, "Erasmus .. omitted in his Greek Testament the forgery of the three witnesses".[27]
Charles Taze Russell in 1899 made his accusation specific and the forgery late: "the spurious words were no doubt interpolated by some over-zealous monk, who felt sure of the (Trinity) doctrine himself, and thought that the holy spirit had blundered in not stating the matter in the Scriptures: his intention, no doubt, was to help God and the truth out of a difficulty by perpetrating a fraud."[28]
Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare was a textual scholar who wrote in 1910 a section specifically about "famous orthodox corruptions", including "The text of the three witnesses a doctrinal forgery".[29]
Preserved Smith in 1920 called the verse "a Latin forgery of the fourth century, possibly due to Priscillian".[30]
Gordon Campbell, author of Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 asserts that the Comma is "a medieval forgery inserted into Bibles to support a trinitarian doctrine that had been erected on a disconcertingly thin biblical base.".[31]
The popularity of the modern "orthodox corruption" view of Bart Ehrman has increased the forgery claims, especially on the Internet. Ehrman calls the Comma "the most obvious instance of a theologically motivated corruption in the entire manuscript tradition of the New Testament. Nonetheless, in my judgment, the comma's appearance in the tradition can scarcely be dated prior to the trinitarian controversies that arose after the period under examination."[32] Ehrman posits his other corruptions as around the 2nd century, so Ehrman is considering the Comma as exceptional and placing the "appearance" of the Comma in the 300s or 400s, close to Priscillian's verse usage and citation as from John.
Doctrinal issues, Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, Arianism.
Theories of both authenticity and spuriousness often interweave doctrinal and Christology concerns as part of their analysis of 'Origins', how the verse developed and was either dropped or added to Bible lines.
John Guyse gave a summary in the Practical Expositor that was a type of model for many of the later doctrinal expositions by those defending authenticity from a Trinitarian perspective.
"the Trinitarians therefore had less occasion to interpolate this verse, than the Antitrinitarians had to take it out of the sacred canon, if any, on either side, can be supposed to be so very wicked as to make such an attempt ; and it is much more likely that (Guyse describes homoeoteleuton or other omission) than that any should be so daring as designedly to add it to the text". [n 22]
Often those who oppose authenticity take the position that the Comma was included in the Textus Receptus (TR) compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam because of its doctrinal importance in supporting Trinitarianism. The passage is often viewed as an explicit reference to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with notable exceptions.[n 23]
The issue of whether Trinitarian doctrine is supported by, and dependent on, the heavenly witnesses is an ongoing dispute. Theophilus Lindsay, a Unitarian who opposed the authenticity of the verse, wrote:
"passage of scripture … the only one which can be brought for any shew or semblance of proof of a Trinity in Unity, of three persons being one God, is 1 John v. 7."[33]
And some defenders of authenticity place doctrinal Christology issues as only auxiliary or secondary, considering the primary issue to be the integrity of scripture. Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall wrote:
The genuineness of I. John, v. 7, then, is here maintained, not to secure a proof-text of the doctrine of the Trinity, but to preserve the integrity of Holy Scripture. As a proof-text it would be less important than many others if it were wholly unquestioned. But as a part of Holy Scripture it is to be defended with all diligence … it is rather the integrity of Holy Scripture than the doctrine of the Trinity that is involved in the question of the genuineness of I. John, v. 7 …[34]
Evidences.
Absence in early authors
The following early church writers are those whose utter silence on the Comma has been given special note by opponents of authenticity; Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Treatise on Rebaptism, Jerome, Augustine, Leo, also Origen, Cyprian and Athanasius.
Greek and Latin silences
There are many Greek and Latin writers, also Syriac, who can be referenced as not showing awareness of the Comma. Adam Clarke, in his 1823 work Observations on the Three Heavenly Witnesses, compiled a Greek and Latin list of those he considered to be silent on the verse. The writers require individual examination, and the significance of the verse evidence from silence by church writers varies. In Principles of Textual Criticism, 1848, pp. 503–507 John Scott Porter wrote similarly, with information about the specific writings of the omitters. [n 24]
Clement of Alexandria
The comma is absent from an extant fragment of Clement of Alexandria (c. 200), through Cassiodorus (6th century), with homily style verse references from 1 John, including verse 1 John 5:6 and 1 John 5:8 without verse 7, the heavenly witnesses.
"He says, "This is He who came by water and blood;" and again,- For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, which is life, and the water, which is regeneration and faith, and the blood, which is knowledge; "and these three are one. For in the Saviour are those saving virtues, and life itself exists in His own Son."[35][n 25]
Another reference that is studied is from Clement's Prophetic Extracts:
"Every promise is valid before two or three witnesses, before the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; before whom, as witnesses and helpers, what are called the commandments ought to be kept."[36]
is seen by some[37] as allusion evidence that Clement was familiar with the verse.
Tertullian
Tertullian, in Against Praxeas (c. 210), supports a Trinitarian view by quoting John 10:30:
So the close series of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other: And these three are one substance, not one person, (qui tres unum sunt, non unus) in the sense in which it was said, 'I and the Father are one' in respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number.[38]
Tertullian's use of tres unum sunt has been seen by many commentators as supporting authenticity, a textual connection to 1 John 5:7. "It appears to me very clear that Tertullian is quoting I. John v. 7. in the passage now under consideration."[39] While many other commentators have argued against any Comma evidence here, most emphatically John Kaye's, "far from containing an allusion to 1 Jo. v. 7, it furnishes most decisive proof that he knew nothing of the verse".[40] Proponents of authenticity emphasize the corroborative nature of examining the evidences of the time as one unit, including the Cyprian quotes and the Old Latin mss. "… the testimony of these early fathers must stand and fall together; as St. Cyprian obviously follows his master Tertullian."[41] Daniel McCarthy, also referencing the views of Wetstein and Nicholas Wiseman, offers an exegesis that the three heavenly witnesses are implied by context.[42] Georg Strecker comments cautiously "An initial echo of the Comma Johanneum occurs as early as Tertullian Adv. Pax. 25.1 (CChr 2.1195; written ca. 215). In his commentary on John 16:14 he writes that the Father, Son, and Paraclete are one (unum), but not one person (unus). However, this passage cannot be regarded as a certain attestation of the Comma Johanneum."[43]
References from Tertullian in De Pudicitia 21:16 (On Modesty):
"The Church, in the peculiar and the most excellent sense, is the Holy Ghost, in which the Three are One, and therefore the whole union of those who agree in this belief (viz. that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one), is named the Church, after its founder and sanctifier (the Holy Ghost)."[44]
and De Baptismo:
Now if every word of God is to be established by three witnesses… For where there are the three, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is the Church which is a body of the three.[45]
have also been presented as verse allusions.[46]
Treatise on Rebaptism
The Treatise on Rebaptism, placed as a 3rd-century writing and transmitted with Cyprian's works, has two sections that directly refer to the earthly witnesses, and thus has been used against authenticity by Nathaniel Lardner, Alfred Plummer and others. However, because of the context being water baptism and the precise wording being "et itsi tres unum sunt", the Matthew Henry Commentary uses this as evidence for Cyprian speaking of the heavenly witnesses in Unity of the Church. And Arthur Cleveland Coxe and Nathaniel Cornwall consider the evidence as suggestively positive. Westcott and Hort also are positive. After approaching the Tertullian and Cyprian references negatively, "morally certain that they would have quoted these words had they known them" Westcott writes about the Rebaptism Treatise:
the evidence of Cent. III is not exclusively negative, for the treatise on Rebaptism contemporary with Cyp. quotes the whole passage simply thus (15: cf. 19), 'quia tres testimonium perhibent, spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et isti tres unum sunt.'[47]
Jerome
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 asserts that Jerome "does not seem to know the text".[48] This is based on the theory that the Vulgate Prologue is not from Jerome. Proponents of authenticity also contend that Jerome would be aware of the writings of Marcus Celedensis and Phoebadius of Agen.
Marcus Celedensis
Coming down to us with the writings of Jerome we have the statement of faith attributed to Marcus Celedensis, friend and correspondent to Jerome, presented to Cyrillus:
To us there is one Father, and his only Son [who is] very [or true] God, and one Holy Spirit, [who is] very God, and these three are one ; — one divinity, and power, and kingdom. And they are three persons, not two nor one.[49][n 26]
Phoebadius of Agen
Similarly, Jerome wrote of Phoebadius of Agen in his Lives of Illustrious Men. "Phoebadius, bishop of Agen, in Gaul, published a book Against the Arians. There are said to be other works by him, which I have not yet read. He is still living, infirm with age."[50] William Hales looks at Phoebadius: "Phoebadius, A. D. 359, in his controversy with the Arians, Cap, xiv. writes,"
The Lord says, I will ask of my Father, and He will give you another advocate." (John xiv. 16) Thus, the Spirit is another from the Son as the Son is another from the Father ; so, the third person is in the Spirit, as the second, is in the Son. All, however, are one God, because the three are one, (tres unum sunt.)
"Here, 1 John v. 7, is evidently connected, as a scriptural argument, with John xiv. 16."[51]Griesbach argued that Phoebadius was only making an allusion to Tertullian[52] and his unusual explanation was commented on by Reithmayer.[53][n 27]
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo has been said to be completely silent on the matter, which has been taken as evidence that the comma did not exist as part of the epistle's text in his time.[54] This argumentum ex silentio has been contested by other scholars, including Fickermann and Metzger.[n 28] In addition, some Augustine references have been seen as verse allusions. [n 29]
The City of God section, from Book V, Chapter 11:
Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent…[55]
has often been referenced as based upon the scripture verse of the heavenly witnesses.[56] George Strecker acknowledges the City of God reference: "Except for a brief remark in De civitate Dei (5.11; CChr 47.141), where he says of Father, Word, and Spirit that the three are one. Augustine († 430) does not cite the Comma Johanneum. But it is certain on the basis of the work Contra Maximum 2.22.3 (PL 42.794-95) that he interpreted 1 John 5:7-8 in trinitarian terms."[43]Similarly, Homily 10 on the first Epistle of John has been asserted as an allusion to the verse:
And what meaneth "Christ is the end"? Because Christ is God, and "the end of the commandment is charity." and "Charity is God:" because Father and Son and Holy Ghost are One.[57][n 30]
Contra Maximinum has received attention especially for these two sections, especially the allegorical interpretation.
I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, "the three are one:" for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the matter. For these are mystical expressions, in which the point always to be considered is, not what the actual things are, but what they denote as signs: since they are signs of things, and what they are in their essence is one thing, what they are in their signification another. If then we understand the things signified, we do find these things to be of one substance…
But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, "There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One:" there has been an ongoing dialog about context and sense. Contra Maximinum (2.22.3; PL 42.794-95)
John Scott Porter writes "Augustine, in his book against Maximin the Arian, turns every stone to find arguments from the Scriptures to prove that tho Spirit is God, and that the Three Persons are the same in substance, but does not adduce this text; nay, clearly shows that he knew nothing of it, for he repeatedly employs the 8th verse, and says, that by the Spirit, the Blood, and the Water—the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, arc signified (see Contr. Maxim, cap. xxii.)"[58]
Thomas Joseph Lamy offers a different view based on the context and Augustine's purpose.[59] Similarly Thomas Burgess.[60] And Norbert Fickermann's reference and scholarship supports the idea that Augustine may have deliberately bypassed a direct quote of the heavenly witnesses.
Leo
In an epistle to Flavianus that was read at the Council of Chalcedon, Oct. 10, 451 AD,[61] and published in Greek, the usage of 1 John 5 by Leo the Great (Pope Leo) has Leo moving in discourse from verse six to verse eight:
"… This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith"; and: "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood; and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three are one." That is, the Spirit of sanctification, and the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism; which three things are one, and remain undivided …[62]
This epistle from Leo was considered by Richard Porson to be the "strongest proof" of verse inauthenticity "… the strongest proof that this verse is spurious may be drawn from the Epistle of Leo the Great to Flavianus upon the Incarnation."[63] and went along with Porson's assertion that the verse was slow to enter into the Latin lines. Porson asserted that the verse "remained a rude, unformed mass, and was not completely licked into shape till the end of the tenth century."[64] In response, Thomas Burgess points out that the context of Leo's argument would not call for the 7th verse. And that the verse was referenced in a fully formed manner centuries earlier than Porson's claim, at the time of Fulgentius and the Council of Carthage.[65] And Burgess pointed out that there were multiple confirmations that the verse was in the Latin Bibles of Leo's day. Burgess argued, ironically, that the fact that Leo could move from verse 6 to 8 for argument context is, in the bigger picture, favorable to authenticity. "Leo's omission of the Verse is not only counterbalanced by its actual existence in contemporary copies, but the passage of his Letter is, in some material respects, favourable to the authenticity of the Verse, by its contradiction to some assertions confidently urged against the Verse by its opponents, and essential to their theory against it."[66] Today, with the discovery of additional Old Latin evidences in the 1800s, the discourse of Leo is rarely referenced as a significant evidence against verse authenticity.
Early Church Writer evidences
Cyprian of Carthage
Unity of the Church
The 3rd-century Church father Cyprian (c. 200-258), in writing on the Unity of the Church, Treatise I section 6 quoted John 10:30 and another scriptural spot:
"The Lord says, 'I and the Father are one'
and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
'And these three are one.'"[67]
The Catholic Encyclopedia concludes "Cyprian…seems undoubtedly to have had it in mind…".[48] Against this view, Daniel B. Wallace writes that since Cyprian does not quote the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit "this in the least does not afford proof that he knew of such wording".[n 31] And the fact that Cyprian did not quote the "exact wording … indicates that a Trinitarian interpretation was superimposed on the text by Cyprian".[68] In his position against Cyprian knowing of the Comma, Wallace is in agreement with the earlier critical edition of the New Testament (NA26 and UBS3) which considered Cyprian a witness against the Comma. [n 32]
The Cyprian citation, dating to more than a century before any extant Epistle of John manuscripts and before the Arian controversies that are often considered pivotal in verse addition/omission debate, remains a central focus of Comma research and textual apologetics. The Scrivener view is often discussed.[n 11] Westcott and Hort assert: "Tert and Cyp use language which renders it morally certain that they would have quoted these words had they known them; Cyp going so far as to assume a reference to the Trinity in the conclusion of v. 8"[69][n 33]
In the 20th century, Lutheran scholar Francis Pieper wrote in Christian Dogmatics emphasizing the antiquity and significance of the reference.[n 34] Frequently commentators have seen Cyprian as having the verse in his Latin Bible, even if not directly supporting and commenting on verse authenticity. [n 35] And some writers have seen the denial of the verse in the Bible of Cyprian as worthy of special note and humor. [n 36]
Ad Jubaianum (Epistle 73)
The second, lesser reference from Cyprian that has been involved in the verse debate is from Ad Jubaianum 23.12. Cyprian while discussing baptism writes:
If he obtained the remission of sins, he was sanctified, and if he was sanctified, he was made the temple of God. But of what God? I ask. The Creator?, Impossible; he did not believe in him. Christ? But he could not be made Christ's temple, for he denied the deity of Christ. The Holy Spirit? Since the Three are One, what pleasure could the Holy Spirit take in the enemy of the Father and the Son?[n 37]
Knittel emphasizes that Cyprian would be familiar with the Bible in Greek as well as Latin. "Cyprian understood Greek. He read Homer, Plato, Hermes Trismegiatus and Hippocrates… he translated into Latin the Greek epistle written to him by Firmilianus…".[70] UBS-4 has its entry for text inclusion as (Cyprian).
Ps-Cyprian
The Hundredfold Reward for Martyrs and Ascetics: De centesima, sexagesimal tricesima[71] speaks of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as "three witnesses" and was passed down with the Cyprian corpus. This was only first published in 1914 and thus does not show up in the historical debate. UBS-4 includes this in the apparatus as (Ps-Cyprian). [n 38]
Origen and Athanasius
Those who see Cyprian as negative evidence assert that other church writers, such as Athanasius of Alexandria and Origen,[n 39] never quoted or referred to the passage, which they would have done if the verse was in the Bibles of that era. The contrasting position is that there are in fact such references, and that "evidences from silence" arguments, looking at the extant early church writer material, should not be given much weight as reflecting absence in the manuscripts—with the exception of verse-by-verse homilies, which were uncommon in the Ante-Nicene era.
Origen Scholium on Psalm 123:2
In the scholium on Psalm 123 attributed to Origen is the commentary:
"spirit and body are servants to masters,
Father and Son, and the soul is handmaid to a mistress, the Holy Ghost;
and the Lord our God is the three (persons),
for the three are one".
This has been considered by many commentators, including the translation source Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall, as an allusion to verse 7.[72] Ellsworth especially noted the Richard Porson comment in response to the evidence of the Psalm commentary: "The critical chemistry which could extract the doctrine of the Trinity from this place must have been exquisitely refining".[73] Fabricius wrote about the Origen wording "ad locum 1 Joh v. 7 alludi ab origene non est dubitandum".[74]
Disputation of Athanasius with Arius at the Council of Nicea, Ps-Athanasius
Traditionally, Athanasius was considered to lend support to the authenticity of the verse, one reason being the Disputation with Arius at the Council of Nicea which circulated with the works of Athanasius, where is found:
"Likewise is not the remission of sins procured by that quickening and sanctifying ablution, without which no man shall see the kingdom of heaven, an ablution given to the faithful in the thrice-blessed name. And besides all these, John says, And the three are one."[75]
Today, many scholars consider this a later work Pseudo-Athanasius, perhaps by Maximus the Confessor. Charles Forster in New Plea argues for the writing as stylistically Athanasius. [n 40] While the author and date are debated, this is a Greek reference directly related to the doctrinal Trinitarian-Arian controversies, and one that purports to be an account of Nicea when those doctrinal battles were raging. The reference was given in UBS-3 as supporting verse inclusion, yet was removed from UBS-4 for reasons unknown.
The Synopsis of Scripture, often ascribed to Athanasius, has also been referenced as indicating awareness of the Comma.
Priscillian and the Expositio Fidei
Priscillian of Avila
The earliest quotation which some scholars consider a direct reference to the heavenly witnesses from the First Epistle of John is from the Spaniard Priscillian c. 380.
"As John says 'and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh the blood,
and these three are in one,
and there are three which give testimony in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Spirit,
and these three are one in Christ Jesus.'"[n 41]
Theodor Zahn calls this "the earliest quotation of the passage which is certain and which can be definitely dated (circa 380)",[76] a view expressed by Westcott, Brooke, Metzger and others. [n 42]
And Georg Strecker adds context: "The oldest undoubted instance is in Priscillian Liber apologeticus I.4 (CSEL 18.6). Priscillian was probably a Sabellianist or Modalist, whose principal interest would have in the closing statement about the heavenly witnesses ("and these three, the Father, the Word, the Holy Spirit, are one"). Here he found his theological opinions confirmed: that the three persons of the Trinity are only modes or manners of appearance of the one God. This observation caused some interpreters to suppose that Priscillian himself created the Comma Johanneum. However, there are signs of the Comma Johanneum, although no certain attestations, even before Priscillian…".[43] In the early 1900s the Karl Künstle theory of Priscillian origination and interpolation was popular: "The verse is an interpolation, first quoted and perhaps introduced by Priscillian (a.d. 380) as a pious fraud to convince doubters of the doctrine of the Trinity."[77]
Expositio Fidei
Another complementary early reference is an exposition of faith published in 1883 by Carl Paul Caspari from the Ambrosian manuscript, which also contains the Muratorian (canon) fragment.
pater est Ingenitus, filius uero sine Initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem sanctus processit a patre et accipit de filio, Sicut euangelista testatur quia scriptum est, 'Tres sunt qui dicunt testimonium in caelo pater uerbum et spiritus: ' et haec tria unum sunt in Christo lesu. Non tamen dixit ' Unus est in Christo lesu.'
Edgar Simmons Buchanan,[78] points out that the reading "in Christo Iesu" is textually valuable, referencing 1 John 5:7.
The authorship is uncertain, however it is often placed around the same period as Priscillian. Karl Künstle saw the writing as anti-Priscillianist, which would have competing doctrinal positions utilizing the verse. Alan England Brooke[79] notes the similarities of the Expositio with the Priscillian form, and the Priscillian form with the Leon Palimpsest. Theodor Zahn[80] refers to the Expositio as "possibly contemporaneous" to Priscilian, "apparently taken from the proselyte Isaac (alias Ambrosiaster)".
John Chapman looked closely at these materials and the section in Liber Apologeticus around the Priscillian faith statement "Pater Deus, Filius, Deus, et Spiritus sanctus Deus ; haec unum sunt in Christo Iesu". Chapman saw an indication that Priscillian found himself bound to defend the Comma by citing from the "Unity of the Church" Cyprian section. [n 43]
Council of Carthage, 484 AD
"The Comma ….was invoked at Carthage in 484 when the Catholic (anti-Arian) bishops of North Africa confessed their faith before Huneric the Vandal (Victor de Vita, Historia persecutionis Africanae Prov 2.82 [3.11]; CSEL, 7, 60)"[81] The Confession of faith representing the hundreds of orthodox Bishops[82] included the following section, emphasizing the heavenly witnesses to teach luce clarius (clearer than the light):
And so, no occasion for uncertainty is left. It is clear that the Holy Spirit is also God and the author of his own will, he who is most clearly shown to be at work in all things and to bestow the gifts of the divine dispensation according to the judgment of his own will, because where it is proclaimed that he distributes graces where he wills, servile condition cannot exist, for servitude is to be understood in what is created, but power and freedom in the Trinity. And so that we may teach the Holy Spirit to be of one divinity with the Father and the Son still more clearly than the light, here is proof from the testimony of John the evangelist. For he says: There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.' Surely he does not say 'three separated by a difference in quality' or 'divided by grades which differentiate, so that there is a great distance between them?' No, he says that the 'three are one.' But so that the single divinity which the Holy Spirit has with the Father and the Son might be demonstrated still more in the creation of all things, you have in the book of Job the Holy Spirit as a creator: 'It is the divine Spirit …[83][n 44]
Books on the Trinity and Contra Varimadum
There are additional heavenly witnesses references that are considered to be from the same period as the Council of Carthage, including references that have been attributed to Vigilius Tapsensis who attended the Council. Raymond Brown gives one summary:
…in the century following Priscillian, the chief appearance of the Comma is in tractates defending the Trinity. In PL 62 227-334 there is a work De Trinitate consisting of twelve books… In Books 1 and 10 (PL 62, 243D, 246B, 297B) the Comma is cited three times. Another work on the Trinity consisting of three books Contra Varimadum … North African origin ca. 450 seems probable. The Comma is cited in 1.5 (CC 90, 20-21).[84]
One of the references in De Trinitate, from Book V.
"But the Holy Ghost abides in the Father, and in the Son [Filio] and in himself; as the Evangelist St. John so absolutely testifies in his Epistle : And the three are one. But how, ye heretics, are the three ONE, if their substance he divided or cut asunder? Or how are they one, if they be placed one before another? Or how are the three one. if the Divinity be different in each? How are they one, if there reside not in them the united eternal plenitude of the Godhead?[85]
These references are in the UBS apparatus as Ps-Vigilius.The Contra Varimadum reference:
John the Evangelist, in his Epistle to the Parthians (i.e. his 1st Epistle), says there are three who afford testimony on earth, the Water, the Blood, and the Flesh, and these three are in us; and there are three who afford testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one.[n 45]
This is in the UBS apparatus as Varimadum.Ebrard, in referencing this quote, comments, "We see that he had before him the passage in his New Testament in its corrupt form (aqua, sanguis et caro, et tres in nobis sunt) ; but also, that the gloss was already in the text, and not merely in a single copy, but that it was so widely diffused and acknowledged in the West as to be appealed to by him bona fide in his contest with his Arian opponents."[86]
Fulgentius of Ruspe
In the 6th century, Fulgentius of Ruspe, like Cyprian a father of the North African Church, skilled in Greek as well as his native Latin, used the verse in the doctrinal battles of the day.
Contra Arianos
From Responsio contra Arianos "Reply against the Arians" Migne (Ad 10; CC 91A, 797).
In the Father, therefore, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we acknowledge unity of substance, but dare not confound the persons. For St. John the apostle, testifieth saying, There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one.
Then Fulgentius discusses the earlier reference by Cyprian, and the interweaving of the two Johannine verses, John 10:30 and 1 John 5:7.
Which also the blessed martyr Cyprian, in his epistle de unitate Ecclesiae (Unity of the Church), confesseth, saying, Who so breaketh the peace of Christ, and concord, acteth against Christ: whoso gathereth elsewhere beside the Church, scattereth. And that he might shew, that the Church of the one God is one, he inserted these testimonies, immediately from the scriptures; The Lord said, I and the Father are one.. And again, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is written, and these three are one[87]
Contra Fabianum
Another heavenly witnesses reference from Fulgentius is in Contra Fabianum Fragmenta Migne (Frag. 21.4: CC 01A,797)
The blessed Apostle, St. John evidently says ;
And the three are one ;
which was said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
as I have before shewn, when you demanded of me for a reason.'[88]
De Trinitate ad Felicem
Also from Fulgentius in De Trinitate ad Felicem:
See, in short you have it that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, in Person, each is other, but in nature they are not other. In this regard He says: "The Father and I, we are one." He teaches us that one refers to Their nature, and we are to Their persons. In like manner it is said: "There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one." [n 46]
Today these references are generally accepted as probative to the verse being in the Bible of Fulgentius. [n 47]
Adversus Pintam Episcopum Arianum
A reference in De Fide Catholica adversus Pintam episcopum Arianum that is a Testimonia de Trinitate:
in epistola Johannis, tres sunt in coelo, qui testimonium reddunt,
Pater , Verbum, et Spiritus: et hi tres unum sunt[89]
has been assigned away from Fulgentius to a "Catholic controvertist of the same age".[90]
Vulgate Prologue to the Canonical Epistles
Many Vulgate manuscripts, including the Codex Fuldensis, the earliest extant Vulgate manuscript, contain the Prologue to the Canonical Epistles. The Prologue reads as a first-person account from Jerome written to Eustochium, to whom Jerome dedicated his commentary on the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. The internal evidence of the authorship is contested, with claims since the 1600s, after the heavenly witnesses verse debate began, that a forger pretended to be Jerome.
This translation is by Thomas Caldwell of Marquette University, as explained on the blog of Kent Brandenburg. Also available online is the Codex Fuldensis Latin.
Prologue to the Canonical Epistles
The order of the seven Epistles which are called canonical is not the same among the Greeks who follow the correct faith and the one found in the Latin codices, where Peter, being the first among the apostles, also has his two epistles first. But just as we have corrected the evangelists into their proper order, so with God"s help have we done with these. The first is one of James, then two of Peter, three of John and one of Jude.
Just as these are properly understood and so translated faithfully by interpreters into Latin without leaving ambiguity for the readers nor [allowing] the variety of genres to conflict, especially in that text where we read the unity of the trinity is placed in the first letter of John, where much error has occurred at the hands of unfaithful translators contrary to the truth of faith, who have kept just the three words water, blood and spirit in this edition omitting mention of Father, Word and Spirit in which especially the catholic faith is strengthened and the unity of substance of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is attested.
In the other epistles to what extent our edition varies from others I leave to the prudence of the reader. But you, virgin of Christ, Eustocium, when you ask me urgently about the truth of scripture you expose my old age to being gnawed at by the teeth of envious ones who accuse me of being a falsifier and corruptor of the scriptures. But in such work I neither fear the envy of my critics nor deny the truth of scripture to those who seek it.
This Prologue, its historical accuracy and textual significance, has been a major point in the Comma debate since its start at the times of Erasmus. [n 48] And its authenticity and authorship became an issue in the late 1600s, when a new theory came forth that the Prologue was spurious. This theory claimed that the Prologue was not created until hundreds of years after Jerome, by an unknown writer pretending to be Jerome "the preface has been commonly rejected by critics, and looked upon as an impudent forgery of the ninth century."[91][n 49] Westcott is among those who have contended that the actual purpose of the theorized forgery was specifically to bring the verse into the Latin Vulgate text line; it "seems to have been written with this express purpose".[92] And Raymond Brown implies verse acceptance as the motive for the Vulgate Prologue: "Jerome's authority was such that this statement, spuriously attributed to him, helped to win acceptance for the Comma.".[93] Metzger makes no reference of the Prologue, even while referencing the absence of the verse in the Johannine epistle of Fuldensis in order to assert that Jerome's original edition did not have the verse. "The passage … is not found …in the Vulgate as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716])".[94]
Major figures in the early dialogue from about 1650-1725 were John Selden, Christopher Sandius, John Fell, Richard Simon, Isaac Newton, Jean Leclerc, Jean Martianay and Augustin Calmet. The discovery in the Bible scholarship community in the latter 1800s that the Prologue was in the well-respected Codex Fuldensis[95] (while the Codex lacked the Comma in the text, an unusual discordance) contradicted many earlier forgery chronology scenarios. [n 50]
Summaries of Latin evidences 400-550 AD
Raymond Brown and Georg Strecker are two modern scholars available in English who reference the series of evidences above, at least briefly, and who point out that the verse references were frequently in Christological and Trinitarian controversies. Strecker writes:
Thus, although there is no clear attestation of the Comma Johanneum in the time before Priscillian, after him the addition is cited more frequently, most often in order to adduce a proof for the Trinity contrary to Priscillian"s own ideas. As examples one may cite the twelve books De Trinitate and three books Contra Varimadum. Their authors and time of composition are unknown, but a date in the fifth century is probable. In addition one should mention the Historia persecutionis by Victor, the bishop of Vita in North Africa (ca. 485), as well as the Responsio contra Arianos by Fulgentius (10; CChr 91.93); and finally a prologue to the Catholic Letters from the period 550.[43]
By contrast, these verse expositions and commentary are bypassed in two frequently quoted scholarly sources, Bruce Metzger and the NETBible.
Cassiodorus
Cassiodorus wrote Bible commentaries, and was familiar with Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts,[n 12] seeking out sacred manuscripts. Cassiodorus was also skilled in Greek. In Complexiones in Epistolis Apostolorum, first published in 1721 by Scipio Maffei, in the commentary section on 1 John, from the Cassiodorus corpus, is written:
On earth three mysteries bear witness,
the water, the blood, and the spirit,
which were fulfilled, we read, in the passion of the Lord.
In heaven, are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and these three are one God. [n 51]
Thomas Joseph Lamy describes the Cassiodorus section [n 52] and references that Tischendorf saw this as Cassiodorus having the text in his Bible. However, earlier "Porson endeavoured to show that Cassiodorius had, in his copy, no more than the 8th verse, to which he added the gloss of Eucherius, with whose writings he was acquainted."[96] Westcott in Notes on Selected Readings, 1882 p. 105 says that Cassiodorus paraphrased the verse. However, in The Epistles of St. John, 1886, p. 204 Westcott writes "…the language of Cassiodorus (c. 550) seems to me to show that he did not find the gloss in his text of St John, though he accepted it as a true interpretation of the apostle's words.", following Porson and Turton (as indicated in the 1883 edition).[n 53]
Isidore of Seville
In the early 7th century, the Testimonia Divinae Scripturae et Patrum is often attributed to Isidore of Seville:
De Distinctions personarum, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
In Epistola Joannis. Quoniam tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra Spiritus, aqua, et sanguis; et tres unum sunt in Christo Jesu; et tres sunt qui testimonium dicunt in coelo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus, et tres unum sunt.[97]
Arthur-Marie Le Hir asserts that evidences like Isidore and the Ambrose Ansbert Commentary on Revelation show early circulation of the Vulgate with the verse and thus also should be considered in the issues of Jerome's original Vulgate text and the authenticity of the Vulgate Prologue.[98] Cassiodorus has also been indicated as reflecting the Vulgate text, rather than simply the Vetus Latina. [n 54]
Ambrose Ansbert, Commentary on Revelation
Ansbert refers to the scripture verse in his Revelation commentary:
Although the expression of faithful witness found therein, refers directly to Jesus Christ alone, — yet it equally characterises the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; according to these words of St. John. There are three which bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.[99]
"Ambrose Ansbert, in the middle of the eighth century, wrote a comment upon the Apocalypse, in which this verse is applied, in explaining the 5th verse of the first chapter of the Revelation".[100]
Middle Ages evidences
Fourth Lateran Council
In the Middle Ages a Trinitarian doctrinal debate arose around the position of Joachim of Florence (1135-1202) which was different from the more traditional view of Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160). When the 4th Lateran Council was held in 1215 at Rome, with hundreds of Bishops attending, the understanding of the heavenly witnesses was a primary point in siding with Lombard, against the writing of Joachim.
For, he says, Christ's faithful are not one in the sense of a single reality which is common to all. They are one only in this sense, that they form one church through the unity of the catholic faith, and finally one kingdom through a union of indissoluble charity. Thus we read in the canonical letter of John : For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Word and the holy Spirit, and these three are one; and he immediately adds, And the three that bear witness on earth are the spirit, water and blood, and the three are one, according to some manuscripts.[101]
The Council thus printed the verse in both Latin and Greek, and this may have contributed to later scholarship references in Greek to the verse. The reference to "some manuscripts" showed an acknowledgment of textual issues, yet this likely related to "and the three are one" in verse eight, not the heavenly witnesses in verse seven.[102] The manuscript issue for the final phrase in verse eight and the commentary by Thomas Aquinas were an influence upon the text and note of the Complutensian Polyglot.
Latin commentaries
In this period, the greater portion of Bible commentary was written in Latin. The references in this era are extensive and wide-ranging. Some of the better-known writers who utilized the Comma as scripture, in addition to Peter Lombard and Joachim of Fiore, include Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester), Peter Abelard, Bernard of Clairvaux, Duns Scotus, Roger of Wendover (historian, including the Lateran Council), Thomas Aquinas (many verse uses, including one which has Origen relating to "the three that give witness in heaven"), William of Ockham (of razor fame), Nicholas of Lyra and the commentary of the Glossa Ordinaria.
Greek commentaries
Emanual Calecas in the 14th and Joseph Bryennius (c. 1350-1430) in the 15th century reference the Comma in their Greek writings.
The Orthodox accepted the Comma as Johannine scripture notwithstanding its absence in the Greek manuscripts line. The Orthodox Confession of Faith, published in Greek in 1643 by the multilingual scholar Peter Mogila specifically references the Comma. "Accordingly the Evangelist teacheth (1 John v. 7.) There are three that bear Record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one …"[103]
Armenia – Synod of Sis
The Epistle of Gregory, the Bishop of Sis, to Haitho c. 1270 utilized 1 John 5:7 in the context of the use of water in the mass. The Synod of Sis of 1307 expressly cited the verse, and deepened the relationship with Rome.
Commentators generally see the Armenian text from the 1200s on as having been modified by the interaction with the Latin church and Bible, including the addition of the Comma in some mss.
Manuscripts and special notations
There are a number of special manuscript notations and entries relating to 1 John 5:7. Vulgate scholar Samuel Berger reports on MS 13174 in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris that shows the scribe listing four distinct textual variations of the heavenly witnesses. Three are understood by the scribe to have textual lineages of Athanasius, Augustine and Fulgentius.[104] The Franciscan Correctorium gives a note about there being manuscripts with the verses transposed.[105] The Regensburg ms. referenced by Fickermann discusses the positions of Jerome and Augustine. The Glossa Ordinaria discusses the Vulgate Prologue in the Preface, in addition to its commentary section on the verse. John J. Contrini in Haimo of Auxerre, Abbot of Sasceium (Cessy-les-Bois), and a New Sermon on I John v. 4-10 discusses a 9th-century manuscript and the Leiden sermon.
Erasmus and the Textus Receptus
The central figure in the 16th-century history of the Comma Johanneum is the humanist Erasmus,[106] and his efforts leading to the publication of the Greek New Testament. The Comma was omitted in the first edition in 1516, the Novum Instrumentum omne : diligenter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum & emendatum and the second edition of 1519. The verse is placed in the third edition, published in 1522, and those of 1527 and 1535.
Ratio Seu Methodus and Paraphrase
Erasmus included the Comma, with commentary, in his paraphrase edition, first published in 1520.[n 55] And in "Ratio seu Methodus compendio perveniendi ad veram theologiam", first published in 1518, Erasmus included the Comma in the interpretation of John 12 and 13. Erasmian scholar John Jack Bateman, discussing the Paraphrase and the Ratio verae theologiae, says of these uses of the Comma that "Erasmus attributes some authority to it despite any doubts he had about its transmission in the Greek text."[107]
This photograph shows Greek text of 1 John 5:3-10[n 56] which is missing the Comma Johanneum. This text was published in 1524.
Controversies
The New Testament of Erasmus provoked critical responses that focused on a number of verses, including his text and translation decisions on Romans 9:5, John 1:1, 1 Timothy 1:17, Titus 2:13 and Philippians 2:6. The absence of the Comma from the first two editions received a sharp response from churchmen and scholars, and was discussed and defended by Erasmus in the correspondence with Edward Lee and Lopez de Zúñiga (Stunica), and Erasmus is also known to have referenced the verse in correspondence with Antoine Brugnard in 1518. [n 57] The first two Erasmus editions only had a small note about the verse. The major Erasmus writing regarding Comma issues was in the Annotationes to the third edition of 1522, expanded in the fourth edition of 1527 and then given a small addition in the fifth edition of 1535.
The 'Erasmus Promise'
Erasmus is said to have replied to his critics that the Comma did not occur in any of the Greek manuscripts he could find, but that he would add it to future editions if it appeared in a single Greek manuscript.[108] Such a manuscript was subsequently produced, some say concocted, by a Franciscan, and Erasmus, true to his word, added the Comma to his 1522 edition, but with a lengthy footnote setting out his suspicion that the manuscript had been prepared expressly to confute him. This Erasmus change was accepted into the Received Text editions, the chief source for the King James Version, thereby fixing the Comma firmly in the English-language scriptures for centuries.[108]
Although the story of Erasmus' promise has been accepted as fact by scholars, repeated by even so eminent an authority as Bruce M. Metzger, Metzger later, on pg 291 (n2) of the (new) 3rd edition of The Text of the New Testament, writes: "What is said on p. 101 above about Erasmus' promise to include the Comma Johanneum if one Greek manuscript were found that contained it, and his subsequent suspicion that MS. 61 was written expressly to force him to do so, needs to be corrected in the light of the research of H.J. de Jonge, a specialist in Erasmian studies who finds no explicit evidence that supports this frequently made assertion.[109] In A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7,8, Michael Maynard records that H.J. de Jonge, the Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Rijksuniversiteit (Leiden, Netherlands), a recognized specialist in Erasmian studies, refuted the myth of a promise in 1980, stating that Metzger's view on Erasmus' promise "has no foundation in Erasmus' work. Consequently it is highly improbable that he included the difficult passage because he considered himself bound by any such promise." In a letter of June 13, 1995, to Maynard, de Jonge wrote:
Dear Mr. Maynard, Leiden, 13 June 1995
I have checked again Erasmus' words quoted by Erika Rummel and her comments on them in her book Erasmus' Annotations. This is what Erasmus writes in his Liber tertius quo respondet … Ed. Lei: Erasmus first records that Lee had reproached him with neglect of the MSS. of 1 John because Er. (according to Lee) had consulted only one MS. Erasmus replies that he had certainly not used only one ms., but many copies, first in England, then in Brabant, and finally at Basle. He cannot accept, therefore, Lee's reproach of negligence and impiety.
'Is it negligence and impiety, if I did not consult manuscripts which were simply not within my reach? I have at least assembled whatever I could assemble. Let Lee produce a Greek MS. which contains what my edition does not contain and let him show that that manuscript was within my reach. Only then can he reproach me with negligence in sacred matters.'
From this passage you can see that Erasmus does not challenge Lee to produce a manuscript etc. What Erasmus argues is that Lee may only reproach Erasmus with negligence of MSS if he demonstrates that Erasmus could have consulted any MS. in which the Comma johanneum figured. Erasmus does not at all ask for a MS. containing the Comma johanneum. He denies Lee the right to call him negligent and impious if the latter does not prove that Erasmus neglected a manuscript to which he had access.
In short, Rummel's interpretation is simply wrong. The passage she quotes has nothing to do with a challenge. Also, she cuts the quotation short, so that the real sense of the passage becomes unrecognizable. She is absolutely not justified in speaking of a challenge in this case or in the case of any other passage on the subject.[110]
The 'Textus Receptus'
The term Textus Receptus commonly refers to one of Erasmus's later editions or one of the works derived from them. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, a Protestant reference published in 1914, offers a quote on the TR from Ezra Abbot (1819–1884), who worked with Philip Schaff on the American Revision committee translating from the Westcott-Hort text:
The textus receptus, slavishly followed, with slight diversities, in hundreds of editions, and substantially represented in all the principal modern Protestant translations prior to the nineteenth century, thus resolves itself essentially into that of the last edition of Erasmus, framed from a few modern and inferior manuscripts and the Complutensian Polyglot, in the infancy of Biblical criticism. In more than twenty places its reading is supported by the authority of no known Greek manuscript.[111]
From a position of defending the Textus Receptus, Edward Freer Hills would consider this quote from Ezra Abbot as the "The Naturalistic, Critical View of the Textus Receptus" and summarized his overall understanding:
We believe that the formation of the Textus Receptus was guided by the special providence of God. There were three ways in which the editors of the Textus Receptus Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevirs, were providentially guided. In the first place, they were guided by the manuscripts which God in His providence had made available to them. In the second place, they were guided by the providential circumstances in which they found themselves. Then in the third place, and most of all, they were guided by the common faith.[112]
History of modern study
Verse debate, 1500 to today[edit]
Comma in Codex Ottobonianus (629 Gregory-Aland)
He Kaine Diatheke 1859, with Griesbach's text of the New Testament. The English note is from the 1859 editor, with reasons for omitting the Comma Johanneum.
"…the authenticity of this passage has been controverted, from the beginning of the 16th century, down to the present day … no passage in the Bible has ever occasioned a dispute so violent and so general in the Church. Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Socinians, in short all Religious Sects whatever, who appeal to the New Testament as authority, have taken part in the contest."[113]
The history of the Comma in the centuries following the development of the Textus Receptus in the 1500s has been one of initial general acceptance as scripture, to a period of spirited debate, and then to the general modern scholarship rejection, with continued studies and limited exceptions.
3 stages, up to early 1800s (Charles Butler analysis)[edit]
In 1807 Charles Butler[114] described the dispute to that point as consisting of three distinct phases.
Phase 1, Erasmus and the Reformation era[edit]
The 1st phase began with the disputes and correspondence involving Erasmus with Edward Lee followed by Jacobus Stunica. And about the 16th-century controversies, Thomas Burgess summarized "In the sixteenth century its chief opponents were Socinus, Blandrata, and the Fratres Poloni; its defenders, Ley, Beza, Bellarmine, and Sixtus Senensis."[115] In the 17th century John Selden in Latin and Francis Cheynell and Henry Hammond were English writers with studies on the verse, Johann Gerhard and Abraham Calovius from the German Lutherans, writing in Latin.
Phase 2, Authenticity attacked and defended, Richard Simon into the 1700s, Newton, Mill and Bengel[edit]
The 2nd dispute stage begins with Sandius, the Arian around 1670. Francis Turretin published De Tribus Testibus Coelestibus in 1674 and the verse was a central focus of the writings of Symon Patrick. In 1689 the attack on authenticity by Richard Simon was published in English, in his Critical History of the Text of the New Testament. Many responded directly to the views of Simon, including Thomas Smith,[116] Friedrich Kettner,[n 58]James Benigne Bossuet,[117] Johann Majus, Thomas Ittigius, Abraham Taylor[118] and the published sermons of Edmund Calamy. There was the famous verse defenses by John Mill and later by Johann Bengel. Also in this era was the David Martin and Thomas Emlyn debate. There were attacks on authenticity by Richard Bentley and Samuel Clarke and William Whiston and defense of authenticity by John Guyse in the Practical Expositor. There were writings by numerous additional scholars, including publication in London of Isaac Newton's Two Letters in 1754, which he had written to John Locke in 1690. The mariner's compass poem of Bengel was given in a slightly modified form by John Wesley. [n 59]
Phase 3, Travis and Porson debate, 1800s scholarship[edit]
Travis and Porson Debate[edit]
The third stage of the controversy begins with the quote from Edward Gibbon in 1776 :
"Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text, which asserts the unity of the three who bear witness in heaven, is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. It was first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage. An allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries."[n 60]
Followed by the response of George Travis that led to the Porson-Travis debate. In the 1794 3rd edition of Letters to Edward Gibbon, George Travis included a 42-part appendix with source references. Another event coincided with the inauguration of this stage of the debate: "a great stirring in sacred science was certainly going on. Griesbach's first edition of the New Testament (1775-7) marks the commencement of a new era."[119] The Griesbach GNT provided an alternative to the Received Text editions to assist as scholarship textual legitimacy for opponents of the verse.
Early 1800s scholarship[edit]
Butler also mentions Michaelis and Herbert Marsh, along with Adam Clarke, leading up to the time of his publication. Griesbach included his Diatribe[120] with his Greek New Testament which omitted the verse. Frederick Nolan, John Oxlee, William Hales, Thomas Burgess,[n 61] Thomas Turton, William Brownlee and John Jones were among the major contributors in the third stage in the early 1800s. Also Franz Anton Knittel was translated into English by William Evanson and William Aldis Wright wrote a forty page Appendix that was added to his translation of Biblical Hermeneutics by Georg Friedrich Seiler. The principal language of the debate switched from the earlier Latin preponderance, to more English, and some German.
Modern phases[edit]
The next period, from approximately 1835 to 1990, was comparatively quiet, yet still vibrant.
1800s after major debate decades[edit]
Some highlights from this era are the Nicholas Wiseman Old Latin and Speculum scholarship, the defense of the verse by the Germans Sander, Besser and Mayer, the Charles Forster New Plea book which revisited Richard Porson's arguments, and the earlier work by his friend Arthur-Marie Le Hir,[121] Discoveries included the Priscillian reference and Exposito Fidei. Also Old Latin manuscripts including La Cava, and the moving up of the date of the Vulgate Prologue due to its being found in Codex Fuldensis. Ezra Abbot wrote on 1 John V.7 and Luther's German Bible and Scrivener's analysis came forth in Six Lectures and Plain Introduction. In the 1881 Revision came the full removal of the verse.[n 62] Daniel McCarthy noted the change in position among the textual scholars,[n 63] and in French there was the sharp Roman Catholic debate in the 1880s involving Pierre Rambouillet, Auguste-François Maunoury, Jean Michel Alfred Vacant, Elie Philippe and Paulin Martin.[122] In Germany Wilhelm Kölling defended authenticity, and in Ireland Charles Vincent Dolman wrote about the Revision and the Comma in the Dulbin Review, noting that "the heavenly witnesses have departed".[123]
20th century[edit]
The 20th century saw the scholarship of Alan England Brooke and Joseph Pohle, the RCC controversy following the 1897 Papal declaration as to whether the verse could be challenged by Catholic scholars, the Karl Künstle Priscillian-origin theory, the detailed scholarship of Augustus Bludau in many papers, the Eduard Riggenbach book, and the Franz Pieper and Edward Hills defenses. There were specialty papers by Anton Baumstark (Syriac reference), Norbert Fickermann (Augustine), Claude Jenkins (Bede), Mateo del Alamo, Teófilo Ayuso Marazuela, Franz Posset (Luther) and Rykle Borger (Peshitta). Verse dismissals, such as that given by Bruce Metzger, became popular.[n 64] There was the fine technical scholarship of Raymond Brown. And the continuing publication and studies of the Erasmus correspondence, writings and Annotations, some with English translation. From Germany came Walter Thiele's Old Latin studies and sympathy for the Comma being in the Bible of Cyprian, and the research by Henk de Jonge on Erasmus and the Received Text and the Comma.
Recent scholarship to the 21st century[edit]
The last 20 years have seen a popular revival of interest in the historic verse controversies and the textual debate. Factors include the growth of interest in the Received Text and the Authorized Version (including the King James Version Only movement) and the questioning of Critical Text theories, the 1995 book by Michael Maynard documenting the historical debate on 1 John 5:7, and the internet ability to spur research and discussion with participatory interaction. In this period, King James Bible defenders and opponents wrote a number of papers on the Johannine Comma, usually published in evangelical literature and on the internet. In textual criticism scholarship circles, the book by Klaus Wachtel Der byzantinische Text der katholischen Briefe: Eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung der Koine des Neuen Testaments, 1995 contains a section with detailed studies on the Comma. Similarly, Der einzig wahre Bibeltext?, published in 2006 by K. Martin Heide. Special interest has been given to the studies of the Codex Vaticanus umlauts by Philip Barton Payne and Paul Canart, senior paleographer at the Vatican Library. [n 65] The Erasmus studies have continued, including research on the Valladolid inquiry by Peter G. Bietenholz and Lu Ann Homza. Jan Krans has written on conjectural emendation and other textual topics, looking closely at the Received Text work of Erasmus and Beza. And some elements of the recent scholarship commentary have been especially dismissive and negative.[n 66]
Isaac Newton[edit]
Isaac Newton (1643–1727), best known today for his many contributions to mathematics and physics, also wrote extensively on Biblical matters. In a 1690 treatise entitled An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, he summed up the history of the comma and his own belief that it was introduced, intentionally or by accident, into a Latin text during the 4th or 5th century, a time when he believed the Church to be rife with corruption:[124]
In all the vehement universal and lasting controversy about the Trinity in Jerome's time and both before and long enough after it, this text of the "three in heaven" was never once thought of. It is now in everybody"s mouth and accounted the main text for the business and would assuredly have been so too with them, had it been in their books.[125][n 67]
Arguments against authenticity from 1808 "improved version"[edit]
In the 1808 New Testament in an improved version, upon the basis of Archbishop Newcome's new translation, which did not contain the Comma Johanneum, the editors explained their reasons for rejecting the Textus Receptus for the verse as follows: "1. This text concerning the heavenly witnesses is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. 2. Nor in any Latin manuscript earlier than the ninth century.[n 68] 3. It is not found in any of the ancient versions. 4. It is not cited by any of the Greek ecclesiastical writers, though to prove the doctrine of the Trinity they have cited the words both before and after this text 5. It is not cited by any of the early Latin fathers, even when the subjects upon which they treat would naturally have led them to appeal to its authority. 6. It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth century, and by him it is suspected to have been forged. [n 69] 7. It has been omitted as spurious in many editions of the New Testament since the Reformation:—in the two first of Erasmus, in those of Aldus, Colinaus, Zwinglius, and lately of Griesbach. 8. It was omitted by Luther in his German version. [n 70] In the old English Bibles of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth, it was printed in small types, or included in brackets: but between the years 1566 and 1580 it began to be printed as it now stands; by whose authority, is not known."[126]
Textual analysis summarized[edit]
The Comma is not in the two oldest pure Vulgate manuscripts, Fuldensis and Amiatinus, although it is referenced in the Prologue of Fuldensis. Overall, it is estimated that over 95% of the thousands of Vulgate MSS. contain the verse. The Vulgate was developed from Vetus Latina manuscripts, updated by Jerome utilizing the Greek fountainhead.
The earliest extant Latin manuscripts (m q l) supporting the Comma are dated from the 5th to 7th century. The Freisinger fragment[n 71] and the Codex Legionensis (7th century), besides the younger Codex Speculum, New Testament quotations extant in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript.[48]
The Comma does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland is aware of eight Greek manuscripts that contain the comma.[127] The date of the addition is late, probably dating to the time of Erasmus.[128] In one manuscript, back-translated into Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three are one" is not present.[108]
No Syriac manuscripts include the Comma, and its presence in some printed Syriac Bibles is due to back-translation from the Latin Vulgate. Coptic manuscripts and those from Ethiopian churches also do not include the verse, although these churches similarly have accepted the Comma into their modern print editions. UBS-4 indicates arm-mss in support of the verse, and also arm-mss against, indicating that some but not all Armenian manuscripts include the Comma.
Roman Catholic Church[edit]
The Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1546 defined the Biblical canon as "the entire books with all their parts, as these have been wont to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate." "On the Catholic side, the Comma appeared in both the Sixtine (1590) and the Clementine (1592) editions of the Vulgate, the latter of which became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church."[93] Although the revised Vulgate contained the Comma, the earliest known copies did not, leaving the status of the Comma Johanneum unclear.[48] On 13 January 1897, during a period of reaction in the Church, the Holy Office decreed that Catholic theologians could not "with safety" deny or call into doubt the Comma's authenticity. Pope Leo XIII approved this decision two days later, though his approval was not in forma specifica[48]—that is, Leo XIII did not invest his full papal authority in the matter, leaving the decree with the ordinary authority possessed by the Holy Office. Three decades later, on 2 June 1927, Pope Pius XI decreed that the Comma Johanneum was open to dispute. [n 72]
Defenders of authenticity[edit]
King James Only[edit]
In more recent years, the Comma has become relevant to the King-James-Only Movement, a largely Protestant development most prevalent within the fundamentalist and Independent Baptist branch of the Baptist churches. Many proponents view the Comma as an important Trinitarian text.[129] The defense of the verse by Edward Freer Hills in 1956 as part of his defense of the Textus Receptus The King James Version Defended The Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7) was unusual due to Hills' textual criticism scholarship credentials.
Received text and preservation[edit]
In addition, defenders of the verse as Johannine scripture include many who highly regard the writers coming out of the Puritan movement and the Reformation era, such as Francis Turretin, Matthew Henry and John Gill. These men had defended the verse as scripture in their Latin, Greek Received Text, English and vernacular Bibles. William Alleyn Evanson, writing the Preface to Knittel's New Criticisms p.xxx-xxxiii expresses the stance that preservation should not be sacrificed on even one verse. Thomas Turton (as Clemens Anglicanus) wrote Remarks upon Mr. Evanson's preface and William Orme summarizes his counter-arguments to Evanson Memoir of the controversy, pp. 178-180.
Commentary and interpretation[edit]
There have been a wide variety of verse interpretations. This is true for those who accept as authentic as well as for those who offer commentary on the Johannine writings, the Epistle of 1 John, or the singular chapter five, with the Comma absent.
For those accepting the verse, one major issue is whether the unity is one of essence or testimony. Sometimes the commentaries include textual and internal analysis, often not. These quote extracts are the parts that emphasize exegesis and interpretation.
John Calvin[edit]
"There are three than bear record in heaven"
… And the meaning would be, that God, in order to confirm most abundantly our faith in Christ, testifies in three ways that we ought to acquiesce in him. For as our faith acknowledges three persons in the one divine essence, so it is called in so really ways to Christ that it may rest on him.
When he says, These three are one, he refers not to essence, but on the contrary to consent; as though he had said that the Father and his eternal Word and Spirit harmoniously testify the same thing respecting Christ. Hence some copies have e?? ??, "for one." But though you read ?? e?s??, as in other copies, yet there is no doubt but that the Father, the Word and the Spirit are said to be one, in the same sense in which afterwards the blood and the water and the Spirit are said to agree in one.[130]
Manuscript evidence[edit]
Sangallensis 63, Comma at the bottom
Both Novum Testamentum Graece (NA27) and the United Bible Societies (UBS4) provide three variants. The numbers here follow UBS4, which rates its preference for the first variant as { A }, meaning "virtually certain" to reflect the original text. The second variant is a longer Greek version found in only four manuscripts, the margins of three others and in some minority variant readings of lectionaries. All of the hundreds of other Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant. The third variant is found only in Latin, in one class of Vulgate manuscripts and three patristic works. The other two Vulgate traditions omit the Comma, as do more than a dozen major Church Fathers who quote the verses. The Latin variant is considered a trinitarian gloss,[131] explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.
No Comma. µa?t?????te?, t? p?e?µa ?a? t? ?d?? ?a? t? a?µa. [… witnessing, the spirit and the water and the blood.] Select evidence: Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and other codices; Uncial 048, 049, 056, 0142; the text of Minuscules 33, 81, 88, 104, and other minuscules; the Byzantine majority text; the majority of Lectionaries, in particular the menologion of Lectionary 598; the Vulgate (John Wordsworth and Henry Julian White edition and the Stuttgart), Syriac, Coptic (both Sahidic and Bohairic), and other translations; Clement of Alexandria (died 215), Origen (died 254), and other quotations in the Church Fathers.
The Comma in Greek. All non-lectionary evidence cited: Minuscules Codex Montfortianus (Minuscule 61 Gregory-Aland, c. 1520), 629 (Codex Ottobonianus, 14th/15th century), 918 (16th century), 2318 (18th century).
The Comma at the margins of Greek at the margins of minuscules 88 (Codex Regis, 11th century with margins added at the 16th century), 221 (10th century with margins added at the 15th/16th century), 429 (14th century with margins added at the 16th century), 636 (16th century); some minority variant readings in lectionaries.
The Comma in Latin. testimonium dicunt [or dant] in terra, spiritus [or: spiritus et] aqua et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt in Christo Iesu. 8 et tres sunt, qui testimonium dicunt in caelo, pater verbum et spiritus. [… giving evidence on earth, spirit, water and blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus. 8 And the three, which give evidence in heaven, are father word and spirit.] All evidence from Fathers cited: Clementine edition of Vulgate translation; Pseudo-Augustine's Speculum Peccatoris (V), also (these three with some variation) Cyprian, Ps-Cyprian, & Priscillian (died 385) Liber Apologeticus. And Contra-Varimadum, and Ps-Vigilius, Fulgentius of Ruspe (died 527) Responsio contra Arianos, Cassiodorus Complexiones in Ioannis Epist. ad Parthos.
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