La Trinidad al Alcance de Todos (página 3)

The gradual appearance of the comma in the manuscript evidence is represented in the following tables:

The grammar in 1 John 5:7-8[edit]

In 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text, we see the words "the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine] in the heaven, THE Father [singular masculine], THE Word and THE Holy Spirit … the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine] on the earth, THE Spirit [singular neuter] and THE water and THE blood."

Note: The words in bold print are the words of the Johannine Comma.

In 1 John 5:7-8 in the Critical Text and Majority Text, we see the words "the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine], THE Spirit [singular neuter] and THE water and THE blood."

Johann Bengel,[132] Eugenius Bulgaris,[133] John Oxlee [134] and Daniel Wallace,[135] who are highly credentialed in the study of the Greek language, say that each plural masculine article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" in 1 John 5:7-8 is a substantive and therefore must (and does) agree with the natural number and gender (plural masculine) of the idea being expressed (persons), and that the three subsequent articular (preceded by an article) nouns in each instance are appositional (added for clarification) nouns, and that the article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" is either plural masculine for persons because the three subsequent appositional articular nouns "THE Father, THE Word and THE Holy Spirit" are three persons or plural masculine for persons because the three subsequent appositional articular nouns "THE Spirit and THE water and THE blood" symbolize three persons, although Bengel, Bulgaris, Oxlee and Wallace do not all agree on the identity of the three persons that are symbolized by "THE Spirit and THE water and THE blood."

Frederick Nolan [136] (and Robert Dabney [137] and Edward Hills,[138] who repeat what Nolan says), who is not highly credentialed in the study of the Greek language, claims that each plural masculine article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" in 1 John 5:7-8 is an adjective that modifies the three subsequent articular nouns, and that it therefore must (according to Nolan) agree with the grammatical gender of the first subsequent articular noun in each instance. Nolan claims that the masculine gender of each article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" in 1 John 5:7-8 has to be based on the masculine grammatical gender of the grammatically masculine articular noun "the Father" in the Johannine Comma, and that since there is no grammatically masculine noun in 1 John 5:7-8 when the Johannine Comma is not included in the text, therefore the masculine gender of each article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" in 1 John 5:7-8 is proof that John wrote the Johannine Comma.

The problem with Nolan"s claim, other than the fact that it is contrary to what Bengel, Bulgaris, Oxlee and Wallace say, is that it is grammatically impossible, because the only way that an article-adjective or article-participle phrase can agree with the grammatical gender of a subsequent noun is to function as an adjective that modifies the subsequent noun (or nouns), and in order for that to occur, the subsequent noun (or nouns) must be anarthrous (not preceded by an article), and the article-adjective or article-participle phrase must agree in case, number and gender (all three) with the subsequent anarthrous noun (if there is one noun) or with the first subsequent anarthrous noun (if there are multiple nouns), as in the following examples.

(Received Text) John 6:57 … the living [nominative singular masculine] Father [nominative singular masculine] …

(Received Text) 1 Timothy 1:11 … the blessed [genitive singular masculine] God [genitive singular masculine] …

(Received Text) Titus 2:13 … the blessed [accusative singular feminine] hope [accusative singular feminine] and appearance [accusative singular feminine] …

Compare:

(Received Text) Revelation 6:14 … every [nominative singular neuter] mountain [nominative singular neuter] and island [nominative singular feminine] …

In 1 John 5:7-8, since the subsequent nouns are always articular, and since the nominative plural masculine article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" never agrees in case, number and gender (all three) with the first subsequent articular noun (either the nominative singular masculine articular noun "the Father" or the nominative singular neuter articular noun "the Spirit"), therefore the article-participle phrase "the-ones bearing-witness" has to be a substantive in each instance, and it has to agree with the natural number and gender (plural masculine) of the idea being expressed (persons) in each instance, as stated by Bengel, Bulgaris, Oxlee and Wallace.

Here are all of the New Testament examples of an article-adjective or article-participle or adjective-article phrase functioning as a substantive, and therefore agreeing with the natural number and gender of the idea being expressed, and being followed by three appositional articular nouns.

(Received Text) Matthew 23:23 … the-things weightier [plural neuter for things] of-the Law, THE judgment [singular feminine] and THE mercy and THE faith …

(Received Text) 1 John 2:16 … every the-thing [singular neuter for things] in the world, THE lust [singular feminine] of-the flesh and THE lust of-the eyes and THE pride of-the life …

(Received Text) 1 John 5:7 … the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine for persons] in the heaven, THE Father [singular masculine], THE Word and THE Holy Spirit … 8 … the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine for persons (symbolically)] on the earth, THE Spirit [singular neuter] and THE water and THE blood …

(Critical Text and Majority Text) 1 John 5:7 … the-ones bearing-witness [plural masculine for persons (symbolically)], 8 THE Spirit [singular neuter] and THE water and THE blood …

The same thing occurs in all of those grammatically correct examples.

See also[edit]

• Textual criticism

• David Martin (French divine) – the French Bible translator who also defended the authenticity of the Comma Johanneum.

• Codex Ravianus

Other disputed New Testament passages[edit]

• The Longer Ending of Mark

• Pericope Adulteræ

• Matthew 16:2b–3

• Christ's agony at Gethsemane

• John 5:3b-4

• Doxology to the Lord's Prayer

• Luke 22:19b-20

Notes[edit]

• Jump up ^ Early English versions that omitted the Comma were produced by Daniel Mace The New Testament in Greek and English, 1729; The Primitive New Testament, 1745 of William Whiston; A Liberal Translation of the New Testament, 1768 by Edward Harwood and also, in multiple editions starting in 1790, A Translation of the New Testament, with notes by Gilbert Wakefield. The New Testament in an Improved Version, 1808 Thomas Belsham omits the verse, and the Paraphrastic translation of the Apostolical Epistles by Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth in 1829, followed by additional versions in the 1800s, including those of Edgar Taylor, Leicester Ambrose Sawyer, Robert Ainslee, George R. Noyes and Samuel Sharpe. Early paraphrases and commentaries that bypassed the heavenly witnesses were the short paraphrase-commentary section given by Isaac Newton and A Commentary on the three Catholick Epistoles of St. John by William Whiston in 1719. Examples of new translations, commentaries, AV updates and paraphrase editions that maintained the Comma were those of Daniel Whitby in 1703 A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament and John Wesley in 1755 Explanatory Notes on the New Testament and Thomas Haweis in 1795, A Translation of the New Testament from the Original Greek.

• Jump up ^ The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the authorized English version, published in 1873, and edited by noted textual scholar F.H.A. Scrivener, one of the translators of the English Revised Version, set the Comma in italics to reflect its disputed authenticity. Few later Authorized Version editions retained this formatting. The AV-1611 page and almost all AV editions use a normal font.

• Jump up ^ For fuller details of this group see King James Versions and derivatives

• Jump up ^ Anthony Kohlmann answered as follows: "There are several ways of accounting for that omission and among others, it may be said, 1st, that this omission happened by the neglect of some ignorant copyists, who, after having written the first words of the 7th verse 'there are three, that give testimony,' by a mistake of the eyes, skipped over the remaining part of the text, and passed on to the immediately following text, where the same words recur; for such mistakes often take place in transcribing, especially when the two verses and the two periods begin and end with the same words. Another reason of this omission is given by the author of the prologue to the seven Catholic epistles … (Vulgate Prologue section translation)… By these words he not obscurely alludes to the Marcionites or Arians, who designedly erased this verse from all the copies they could get into their hands; for they well understood that by that one testimony their cause was undone. With a like perfidy, St. Ambrose, (lib. iii de spiritu sancto cap. 10.) reproaches the Arians, who had expunged these words from the Scriptures: Because God is a Spirit, 'Which passage, says the holy doctor addressing the Arians, you so well know to be understood of the Holy Ghost, that you have erased it from the copies of your scriptures, and would to God! you had only expunged it from yours and not also from those of the church." Anthony Kohlmann, Unitarianism philosophically and theologically examined, 1821, p.173

• Jump up ^ "The addition appears to rest on allegorical exegesis of the three witnesses in the text; it was probably written in the margin of a Latin MS and then found its way into the text; later still the order of the two sets of witnesses was inverted and the text was translated back into Greek and was included in a few Greek MSS." Ian Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John, p. 78 1978.

• Jump up ^ . Henry Armfield on Grotius: "it was the opinion of Grotius that, so far from being apposite to the argument of the Greek Fathers, the text was introduced by the Arians, so that from the analogy of the adjoining verse they might argue that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were one only in consent and not in essence." The Three Witnesses, the Disputed Text in St. John, 1883, p.36

• Jump up ^ "Jerome, for the same end, inserted the Trinity in express words into his version" p. 185 "And the first upon record that inserted it, is Jerome… he altered the public reading" An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture The Recorder, 1803, Vol 2, p. 192-194 full text p.184-253, written by Newton c. 1690. Newton adds "till at length, when the ignorant ages came on, it began by degrees to creep into the Latin copies out of Jerome's version." p.197 which he places very late. "Afterwards the Latines noted his variations in the margins of their books; and thence it began at length to creep into the text in transcribing, and that chiefly in the twelfth and following centuries, when disputing was revived by the schoolmen." p. 192 "it was inserted into the vulgar Latin out of Jerome's version" p. 207. Nonetheless, Newton does go earlier than Jerome at the same time for origins, saying of the Tertullian reference in "Against Praxeas" VI. "So then this interpretation seems to have been invented by the Montanists for giving countenance to their Trinity. For Tertullian was a Montanist when he wrote this ; and it is most likely that so corrupt and forced an interpretation had its rise among a sect of men accustomed to make bold with the Scriptures. Cyprian being used to it in his master's writings" Newton called the words of Tertullian and Cyprian an "interpretation so corrupt and stained". Apparently he saw a vector from their interpretation to a Jerome addition to scripture.

• Jump up ^ Simon's conjecture: "The same thing hapned to those who caused to print St. Athanasius's Works, with a Table of the passages of Holy Scripture, which are quoted therein (apparently a reference to the Synopsis of Scripture). They have set down at large there, the seventh verse of the first chapter of the first epistle of St. John, as if that holy man had quoted that place after that manner….(Simon references the Disputation against Arius at Nicea) .. I make no question but that this explication of St. Athanasius was the occasion that some Greek scoliates placed in the margin of their copies the formentioned note, which afterwards was put in the text. And that is more probable than what Erasmus thought concerning this matter, who was of opinion, that the Greek copies, which make mention of the witness of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, were more correct than the Latin copies. A critical history of the text of the New Testament, 1689, p.10. The Newton dissertation was written shortly after the Simon Critical History was published in English.

• Jump up ^ "As to the introduction of the spurious words into the text, Porson supposes that Tertullian, in imitation of the phrase, I and my Father are one, had said of the three Persons of the Trinity, which Three are One; that Cyprian, adopting this application of the words from Tertullian, said boldly, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it is written, And these Three are One; that in the course of two centuries, when this interpretation had been expressly maintained by Augustin and others, a marginal note of this sort, Sicut tres sunt qui testimonium dant in Caelo, Pater,&c, crept into the text of a few copies; that such a copy was used by the author of the Confession which Victor, the historian of the Council convened by Hunneric, has preserved ; and that such another was used by the historian of the books de Trinitate. The life of Richard Porson, M. A.: professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge from 1792 to 1808 by John Selby Watson Charles Forster responded that the mystical interpretation of the earthly witnesses arose through Augustine, and that Clement of Alexandria shows us the interpretation of verse 8 at the time of Cyprian. New Plea, Charles Forster, footnote p. 52-55

• Jump up ^ That this was written by Orme can be seen by his reference in Memoir of the Controversy, 1830, where he refers to "the present writer…". Also the "learned Critic" and "learned reviewer", who had "triumphantly met" the arguments.

• ^ Jump up to: a b Scrivener, while opposing verse authenticity, wrote in Plain Introduction in 1861 "it is surely safer and more candid to admit that Cyprian read v. 7 in his copies, than to resort to the explanation of Facundus, that the holy Bishop was merely putting on v. 8 a spiritual meaning". And then Scrivener placed mystical interpretation as the root of Comma formation "although we must acknowledge that it was in this way v. 7 obtained a place, first in the margin, then in the text of the Latin copies…mystical interpretation". In the 1883 edition Scrivener wrote "It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7, 8 was not cited by Cyprian". Thus, Scrivener would be taking the position of a mystical interpretation by scribes unknown, working through the margin and later adding to the text, all before Cyprian. "they were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on ver. 8" p.654. Under this possible scenario the Comma "was known and received in some places, as early as the second or third century" (p. 652 1883-ed) which, in the Scrivener textual economy, would be analogous to Acts 8:37. Acts 8:37 has undisputed early citations by Irenaeus and Cyprian and yet is considered by Scrivener and most modern theorists as inauthentic. Despite allowing an early textual formation for the Unity of the Church citation, Scrivener quoted approvingly negative views of the Tertullian and Cyprian Jubaianum references. Scrivener also quoted Tischendorf about the weightiness of the Cyprian referencing gravissimus est Cyprianus de eccles. unitate 5.

• ^ Jump up to: a b Joseph Pohle in the The Divine Trinity: A Dogmatic Treatise accuses Cassiodorus of inserting the Comma into the Vulgate from early manuscripts. "The defense can also claim the authority of Cassiodorus, who, about the middle of the sixth century, with many ancient manuscripts at his elbow, revised the entire Vulgate of St. Jerome, especially the Apostolic Epistles, and deliberately inserted I John V, 7, which St. Jerome had left out." Divine Trinity, 1911 p. 38-39

• Jump up ^ Although Pohle calls the Council of Carthage the "main argument" for authenticity, about Cyprian he notes "It is, as Tischendorf has rightly observed, by far the weightiest proof for the Comma Ioanneum. But it does not prove decisively that St. Cyprian used a New Testament text which contained the "Comma"; and if it did, it would by no means follow that the verse was written by St. John." William Laurence Sullivan argues contra the position of Elie Philippe in La Science Catholique, 1889, p. 238 that the Cyprian citation is "perhaps even peremptory" (conclusive, decisive). Sullivan asserts that if Cyprian's New Testament contained the Comma, the "probable inference would simply be that the interpolation is older than we thought." And that anyway, "this passage of the great African doctor does not suffice to prove that I John v-7 existed in his day." New York Review, The Three Heavenly Witnesses p.182, 1907.

• Jump up ^ Earlier than the Künstle paper, Abbott Ambrose Amelli "unearthed ancient documents by means of which he believes he has succeeded in tracing the interpolation to a Priscillianist and therefore heretical source ; but before he is permitted to publish his results he has to await the pleasure of the Roman Inquisition." Austin West, Abbe Loisy and the Roman Biblical Commission, Contemporary Review, p.504, 1902 Vol 81. Similarly Charles Briggs wrote that Abbe Martin and Dom Amelli had "more or less guessed and propounded,— that the 'Comma' was composed in Spain, in 390 a.d., by the Heresiarch Priscillian, to propagate his Pan-Christian Heresy; and that this gloss, slightly retouched, then found its way, in part rapidly, into the Latin New Testament." Charles Augustus Briggs and Friedrich von Hügel, The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch, p. 60, 1906. An example of the warm reception this theory of direct interpolation by Priscillian initially received is Caspar René Gregory, who wrote it "appears to have been put into the New Testament by Priscillian" Biblical World, The Greek Text in 1611, p.260, 1911. William Laurence Sullivan opined that while "the Comma fits into the Trinitarian heresy of Priscillian", he was "notoriously clever at expressing subtle heresy in apparently Catholic phraseology" and "is about to gain another title to an unfortunate immortality as the inventor of the text of the three heavenly Witnesses." New York Review, The Three Heavenly Witnesses p.182, 1907. One problem with Priscillian interpolation theories was that they make Priscillian guilty of a transparent forgery. Biblical Latin specialist John Chapman reacted sharply to the Priscillian interpolation idea "I do not at all agree with him (Künstle) that Priscillian actually interpolated the passage himself. He could hardly in that case have been so foolish as to quote it in his apology knowing that it would be declared apocryphal. He must have found it in his Bible…" Notes on the early history of the Vulgate Gospels, p. 163 1908.

• ^ Jump up to: a b Before the 1883 publication of Liber Apologetics Priscillian was only known through the writings of his opponents. In 1905 Karl Künstle published Das Comma Ioanneum:auf seine herkunft untersucht a book that proposed that "the insertion of the comma into the text of the Epistle is due to Priscillian himself", as summarized by Alan England Brooke. Brooke references four difficulties with the Künstle theory cited in the 1909 paper by Ernest Babut., The International critical commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Alan England Brooke, 1912, p. 160. The Priscillian origin theory does show up in net articles today.

• Jump up ^ Since all scholars agree that the verse was in the Bible of Priscillian in the 4th century, references to 'medieval' for origin are anachronistic. e.g. In the Anchor Bible, Epistle of John(1982) p. 782, Raymond Brown writes that "The Vandal movements in the fifth century brought North Africa and Spain into close relationship, and the evidence listed above shows clearly that the Comma was known in those two regions between 380 and 550". This date contradicts the idea of a medieval gloss origin.

• Jump up ^ In another paper, Daniel Wallace gives this explanation: "The passage made its way into our Bibles through political pressure, appearing for the first time in 1522, even though scholars then knew as they do now that it was not authentic. The early church did not know of this text…" Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Christian Research Journal, 2006, vol 29, #3.

• Jump up ^ Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary: from the French, Volume 6'', 1824 edition, p. 290. Voltaire mixed up the two verses, as noted by John Hey, in his Lectures in Divinity, Vol 2, 1st ed in 1797, Appendix, "Concerning the Genuineness of 1 John v 7" p 281.

• Jump up ^ "throughout the vast series of one thousand and four hundred years, which intervened between the days of Praxeas, and the age of Erasmus, not a single author whether Patripassian, Cerinthian, Ebionite, Arian, Macedonian, or Sabellian, whether of the Greek or Latin, whether of the Eastern, or Western church— whether in Asia, Africa or Europe, hath ever taxed the various quotations of this verse, which have been set forth in the preceding pages, with interpolation or forgery. Such silence speaks, most emphatically speaks, in favor of the verse, now in dispute. George Travis, Letters to Edward Gibbon, 1785, p.319-320 The value of this opposing "evidence from silence" became a part of the verse debate, Richard Porson responding in his letters Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, 1790, p 372

• Jump up ^ Thomas Belsham: "every man of learning and inquiry knows, that the famous text 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," is an impious forgery: and to them it appears to be little less than blasphemy, to retain this forgery in a book which is represented to be inspired … Unitarians, therefore, are … discarding what they discover and conscientiously believe to be spurious and fictitious, that they conceive that they are by this conduct expressing the greatest possible veneration for them, and the unspeakable value which they set upon the pure, unadulterated Word of God." An address to the inquirers after Christian truth, 1813, p.4-5. Edward Nares replied to the Belsham claim "it is very rudely called 'an impious forgery,' which it has certainly never been proved to be." Remarks on the Version of the NT edited by the Unitarians, 1814, p. 248. Earlier, in 1804, the editor of the works of Ebionite Joseph Priestley, John Towill Rutt, called the verse a "pious fraud", Works, Vol 14, 1804, p.34 although the wording of Priestley himself had been measured and not of that accusatory nature. The 1808 'Improved Version' had the equivocal "Virgilius Tapsensis .. by him it is suspected to have been forged.", an accusation discarded when the Priscillian citation was discovered.

• Jump up ^ In the latter 1800s, notable was Robert Blackley Drummond, biographer of Erasmus. Drummond referred to a "notable forgery" in Erasmus, his Life and Character, p. 318, 1873. And his The text concerning the Three Heavenly Witnesses: An interpolation was published by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in 1862. Drummond also wrote in the Theological Review, including comments on the New Plea by Charles Forster. The editor of the Theological Review was Charles Beard, son of John Relly Beard. John in the 1870 Theological Review listed ten Unitarian New Testaments, all without the verse, and used the phrase "manifest forgery".

• Jump up ^ Guyse, with acknowledgement to John Mill and the Matthew Henry Commentary of John Reynolds, also expresses some of the internal and stylistic arguments from the perspective of authenticity defense: "If we drop this verse, and join the 8th to the 6th, it looks too like a tautology, and the beauty and propriety of the connection is lost, as may appear to any that attentively read the 6th and 8th verses together., leaving out the 7th; and they do not give us near so noble an introduction of the witnesses, as our present reading doth; no make the visible opposition to some witnesses elsewhere, as is manifestly suggested in the words, And there are three that bear witness in earth, ver 8. But all stands in a natural and elegant order, if we take in the 7th verse, which is very agreeable, and almost peculiar to the style and sentiments of our apostle, who, of all others, delights in these titles, the Father and the Word, and who is the only sacred writer that records our Lord's words, in which he speaks of the Spirit's testifying of him, and glorifying him by receiving of his things and shewing them to his disciples and says, I and my father are one. (John x. 30. xv. 26 and xvi.14)."

• Jump up ^ Exceptions to this common understanding include Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558), Pastor and student of Martin Luther, who called the verse an "Arian blasphemy", see Franz Posset. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) in his NT Annotations considered the verse an Arian addition Neque vero Arianis ablatas voces quasdam, sed potius additas. And John Jones (Ben David) was a non-Trinitarian who defended the verse in the Monthly Review (1826). Others have considered the historical inclusion/omission debate to be far more nuanced as well. Edward Freer Hills (1912-1981) in the King James Version Defended Ch. 8, 1956 hypothesized that the verse may have been allowed to drop from the Greek line by Trinitarians who saw the verse as favorable to Sabellianism. See also Frederick Nolan (1784-1864) in Ch 6 of An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate 1815. Nolan offers an explanation with similarities to the later Hills conjecture, including: "the orthodox were so far from having any inducement to appeal to this text, that they had every reason to avoid an allusion to it, as it apparently favored the tenets of their opponents … Sabellianism … absolutely derives support from the text of the heavenly witnesses".Inquiry, p.536-538 And "the preference shewn by the orthodox to the text of the earthly witnesses, over that of the heavenly, needs no palliation from the circumstance of the one text being unquestioned, and the other of doubtful authority, in the age when those points were debated." ibid p.551 Nolan thus claimed that "the negative argument adduced against 1 John v. 7. derives its entire strength from an inattention to the true state of that controversy, and the period for which it prevailed." ibid p.543 Thomas Turton, opposing verse authenticity, used this Nolan argument against the position of supporter Thomas Burgess, A Vindication of the Literary Character 1827, p. 257. And Henry Thomas Armstrong (1836-1898) in Chapter 4 of The three witnesses, the disputed text in st. John p. 29-37 (1883) offers an analysis of why orthodox Trinitarians could see the verse as unhelpful in doctrinal discussions, concluding that "to have arrayed the verse in the lines of their defence would have been simply a blunder in advocacy" (p. 37). The early usage by the non-Trinitarian Priscillian is also discordant to the common understanding, and led to the Karl Künstle theory that the verse was an non-Trinitarian Unionite interpolation.

• Jump up ^ An example from Porter, referencing the 1707 analysis of John Mill: "Mill is equally explicit with regard to many of the Fathers of the ancient Latin Church; for example, he admits that the following knew nothing of the three Heavenly Witnesses; the Author of the Treatise on the Baptism of Heretics, usually printed with the works of Cyprian; Novatian, in his book upon the Trinity; Hilary, who in his Twelve Books upon the Trinity, and other treatises against the Arians, accumulates together a great many quotations out of the sacred books, often less suitable to his purpose, but keeps a deep silence upon this text; Lucifer of Cagliari, in his book against Intercourse with Heretics; Phoeobadius in his book against the Arians; Ambrose, in his manifold writings against Arianism, in which he quotes the 6th and 8th verses at full length, but omits the 7th altogether; Jerome, who in his acknowledged works, never makes any mention of this clause. It is indeed insinuated that this passage was to be found in all the Greek MSS. though absent from all the Latin ones, in a Prologue to the Catholic Epistles, which pretends to have been written by Jerome; but Mill, Bengel, and others confess this prologue to be a forgery. Faustinus takes no notice of the text in his work upon the Trinity against the Arians; Augustine, in his book against Maximin the Arian, turns every stone to find arguments from the Scriptures to prove that the Spirit is God, … Eucherius of Lyons, in his Questions on the New Testament, repeats the same mystical explanation; Facundus of Hermiana, gives a similar gloss, and says the passage was so understood by Cyprian; Leo the Great, Junilius, Cerealis, and Bede, pass the 7th verse unmentioned.

• Jump up ^ . Charles Forster in A new plea for the authenticity of the text of the three heavenly witnesses p 54-55 (1867) notes that the quote of verse 6 is partial, bypassing phrases in verse 6 as well as verse 7. And that Clement's "words et iterum clearly mark the interpolation of other topics and intervening text, between the two quotations." Et iterum is "and again" in the English translation.

• Jump up ^ Travis references Jerome as writing approvingly of the confession. George Travis, Letters to Edward Gibbon, 1785 p. 108. The Latin is "Nobis unus Pater, et unus Filius ejus, verus Deus, et unus Spiritus Sanctus, verus Deus; et hi tres unum sunt; una divimtas, et potentia, et regnum. Sunt autem tres Personae, non duae, non una" Marc Celed. Exposit. Fid. ad Cyril apud Hieronymi Opera, tom. ix. p. 73g. Frederick Nolan, An inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, 1815, p. 291.

• Jump up ^ In dismissing Phoebadius in this fashion, Griesbach was following Porson, whose explanation began, "Phoebadius plainly imitates Tertullian…and therefore, is not a distinct evidence", Letters to Archdeacon Travis, 1790, p. 247.

• Jump up ^ "The silence of Augustine, contrary to prevailing opinion, cannot be cited as evidence against the genuineness of the Comma. He may indeed have known it" Annotated bibliography of the textual criticism of the New Testament p. 113 Bruce Manning Metzger, 1955. Metzger was citing S. Augustinus gegen das Comma Johanneum? by Norbert Fickermann, 1934, who considers evidence from a 12th-century Regensburg manuscript that Augustine specifically avoided referencing the verse directly. The manuscript note contrasts the inclusion position of Jerome in the Vulgate Prologue with the preference for removal by Augustine. This confirms that there was awareness of the Greek and Latin ms. distinction and that some scribes preferred omission. Raymond Brown writes: "Fickermann points to a hitherto unpublished eleventh-century text which says that Jerome considered the Comma to be a genuine part of 1 John–clearly a memory of the Pseudo-Jerome Prologue mentioned above. But the text goes on to make this claim: 'St. Augustine, on the basis of apostolic thought and on the authority of the Greek text, ordered it to be left out.'" Epistles of John, 1982, p. 785.

• Jump up ^ Augustine scholar Edmund Hill says about a reference in The Trinity – Book IX that "this allusion of Augustine's suggests that it had already found its way into his text".

• Jump up ^ George Travis summarized of Augustinian passages: The striking reiteration, in these passages, of the same expressions, Unum sunt—Hi tres unum sunt—Unum sunt, and Hi tres qui unum sunt seems to bespeak their derivation from the verse…Letters to Edward Gibbon, 1794, p. 46

• Jump up ^ While mentioning the usage of Son instead of Word as a possible argument against Cyprian awareness of the Comma, Raymond Brown points out that Son "is an occasional variant in the text of the Comma" and gives the example of Fulgentius referencing "Son" in Contra Fabrianum and "Word" in Reponsio Contra Arianos, Epistles of John p. 784, 1982.

• Jump up ^ This can be seen in The Greek New Testament(1966) UBS p. 824 by Kurt Aland. In 1983 the UBS Preface p.x announced plans for a "thorough revision of the textual apparatus, with special emphasis upon evidence from the ancient versions, the Diatessaron, and the Church Fathers." The latest edition of UBS4 updated many early church writer references and now has Cyprian for Comma inclusion. This citation is in parenthesis, which is given the meaning that while a citation of a Father supports a reading, still it "deviates from it in minor details" UBS4, p. 36.

• Jump up ^ Bruce Metzger, who is used as the main source by many writers in recent decades, ignores the references entirely: "the passage … is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine)", A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, p. 717, 1971, and later editions. James White references Metzger and writes about the possibility that "Cyprian .. could just as well be interpreting the three witnesses of 1 John 5:6 as a Trinitarian reference" A Bit More on the Comma 3/16/2006(White means 5:8). White is conceptually similar to the earlier Raymond Brown section: "There is a good chance that Cyprian's second citation, like the first (Ad Jubianum), is Johannine and comes from the OL text of I John 5:8, which says, "And these three are one," in reference to the Spirit, the water, and the blood. His application of it to the divine trinitarian figures need not represent a knowledge of the Comma, but rather a continuance of the reflections of Tertullian combined with a general patristic tendency to invoke any scriptural group of three as symbolic of or applicable to the Trinity. In other words, Cyprian may exemplify the thought process that gave rise to the Comma." In a footnote Brown acknowledges "It has been argued seriously by Thiele and others that Cyprian knew the Comma". Epistles of John p. 784, 1982.

• Jump up ^ Two Francis Pieper extracts: "In our opinion the decision as to the authenticity or the spuriousness of these words depends on the understanding of certain words of Cyprian (p. 340)… Cyprian is quoting John 10:30. And he immediately adds: "Et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto scriptum est: "Et tres unum sunt"" ("and again it is written of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost: 'And the Three are One"") Now, those who assert that Cyprian is here not quoting the words 1 John 5:7, are obliged to show that the words of Cyprian: "Et tres unum sunt" applied to the three Persons of the Trinity, are found elsewhere in the Scriptures than 1 John 5. Griesbach counters that Cyprian is here not quoting from Scripture, but giving his own allegorical interpretation of the three witnesses on earth. "The Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one." That will hardly do. Cyprian states distinctly that he is quoting Bible passages, not only in the words: "I and the Father are one," but also in the words: "And again it is written of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost." These are, in our opinion, the objective facts." p.341 (1950 English edition). Similarly, Elie Philippe wrote "Le témoignage de saint Cyprien est précieux, peut-être même péremptoire dans la question." (The testimony of St. Cyprian is precious, perhaps even peremptory to the question.) La Science Catholique, 1889, p. 238.

• Jump up ^ .Henry Donald Maurice Spence, in Plumptre's Bible Educator wrote ".. there is little doubt that Cyprian, before the middle of the third century, knew of the passage and quoted it as the genuine words of St. John." James Bennett, in The Theology of the Early Christian Church: Exhibited in Quotations from the Writers of the First Three Centuries, with Reflections 41, p.136, 1841, wrote "the disputed text in John's First Epistle, v. 7, is quoted … Jerome seems to have been falsely charged with introducing the disputed words, without authority, into the Vulgate; for Cyprian had read them in a Latin version, long before." Bennett also sees the "probability is strengthened" that the Tertullian reference is from his Bible. And Bennett rejects the Griesbach "allegorised the eighth verse" attempt "for they (Tertullian and Cyprian) here argue, as from express testimonies of Scripture, without any hint of that allegorical interpretation which, it must be confessed, the later writers abundantly employ". And the most emphatic position is taken by the modern Cyprian scholar, Ezio Gallicet of the University of Turin, in this book on Cyprian's Unity of the Church, La Chiesa: Sui cristiani caduti nella persecuzione ; L'unità della Chiesa cattolica p. 206, 1997. Gallicet, after referencing the usual claims of an interpolation from Caspar René Gregory and Rudolf Bultmann, wrote: "Dal modo in cui Cipriano cita, non sembra che si possano avanzare dubbi: egli conosceva il « comma giovanneo ». (Colloquially .. "there is no doubt about it, the Comma Johanneum was in Cyprian's Bible".)

• Jump up ^ Arthur Cleveland Coxe, annotating Cyprian in the early church writings edition, wrote of the positions denying Cyprian referring the Bible verse in Unity of the Church, as the "usual explainings away" Ante-Nicene Fathers p.418, 1886. And Nathaniel Ellis Cornwall referred to the logic behind attempts to deny Cyprian's usage of the verse (Cornwall looks closely at Porson, Lange and Tischendorf) as "astonishing feats of sophistical fencing". The Genuineness of I John v. 7 p. 638, 1874.

• Jump up ^ Stanley Lawrence Greenslade, Early Latin Theology: Selections from Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome 1956, p. 164. The Latin is "si peccatorum remissam consecutus est, et sanctificatus est, et templum Dei factus est: quaero, cujus Dei? Si creatoris, non potuit, qui in eum non credidit: si Christi, non hujus potest sieri templum, qui negat Deum Christum : si Spiritus Sancti, cum tres unum sunt, quomodo Spiritus Sanctus placatus esse ei potest, qui aut Patris aut Filii inimicus est?"

• Jump up ^ The use of parentheses is described as "these witnesses attest the readings in question, but that they also exhibit certain negligible variations which do not need to be described in detail." Kurt Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 1995, p. 243.

• Jump up ^ Origen, discussing water baptism in his commentary on the Gospel of John, references only verse 8 the earthly witnesses: "And it agrees with this that the disciple John speaks in his epistle of the spirit, and the water, and the blood, as being one."

• Jump up ^ In modern times, scholars on early church writings outside the textual battles are more likely to see the work as from Athanasius, or an actual account of an Athanasius-Arius debate. Examples are John Williams Proudfit Remarks on the history, structure, and theories of the Apostles' Creed 1852, p.58 and George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 1882, p. 272

• Jump up ^ Liber Apologetics given in Maynard p. 39 "The quote as given by A. E. (Alan England) Brooke from (Georg) Schepps, Vienna Corpus, xviii. The Latin is 'Sicut Ioannes ait: Tria sunt quae testimonium dicunt in terra: aqua caro et sanguis; et haec tria in unum sunt et tria sunt quae testimonium dicunt in caelo: pater, verbum et spiritus; et haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.'"

• Jump up ^ Westcott comments "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)" The Epistles of St. John p. 203, 1892. Alan England Brooke "The earliest certain instance of the gloss being quoted as part of the actual text of the Epistle is in the Liber Apologeticus (? a.d. 380) of Priscillian" The Epistles of St. John, p.158, 1912. And Bruce Metzger "The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus". Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, p.717, 1971. Similar to these are William Sullivan, John Pohle, John Seldon Whale, F. F. Bruce, Ian Howard Marshall and others.

• Jump up ^ "It seems plain that the passage of St, Cyprian was lying open before the Priscillianist author of the Creed (Priscillian himself?) because he was accustomed to appeal to it in the same way. In Priscillian's day St. Cyprian had a unique position as the one great Western Doctor." John Chapman, Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels, 1908, p.264

• Jump up ^ Frederick Nolan summarizes the history and gives his view of the significance: "Between three and four hundred prelates attended the Council, which met at Carthage; and Eugenius, as bishop of that see, drew up the Confession of the orthodox, in which the contested verse is expressly quoted. That a whole church should thus concur in quoting a verse which was not contained in the received text, is wholly inconceivable: and admitting that 1 Joh v. 7 was then generally received, its universal prevalence in that text is only to be accounted for by supposing it to have existed in it from the beginning." Inquiry, 1815, p. 296. Bruce Metzger, in the commentary that accompanies the UBS GNT, bypassed the context of the Council and the Confession of Faith, "In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle" A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 1971, p.717 and 2nd ed. 1993, and 2002 p.648.

• Jump up ^ John Scott Porter, Principles of Textual Criticism, 1848, p.509 Latin: Et Joannes evangelista ait; In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud Deurn et Deus erat verbum. Item ad Parthos ; Tres sunt, inquit, qui testimonium perhibent in terra, aqua sanguis el caro, et tres in nobis sunt. Et tres sunt qui testimonium perhibent in caelo. Pater, Verbum, et spiritus, et hi tres unum sunt. McCarthy, Daniel The Epistles and Gospels of the Sundays, 1866, p. 518. The full book is at Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina Vol 62:359, 1800. Nathaniel Ellis Cornwall explains how Idacius Clarus, of the 4th century and an opponent of Priscillian, is internally accredited as the original author Genuineness Proved by Neglected Witnesses 1877, p. 515. The work was originally published in 1528 by Sichard as Idacius Clarus Hispanus, Otto Bardenhewer, Patrology, the Lives and Works of the Fathers, p. 429, 1908.

• Jump up ^ Fulgentius continues "Let Sabellius hear we are, let him hear three', and let him believe that there are three Persons. Let him not blaspheme in his sacrilegious heart by saying that the Father is the same in Himself as the Son is the same in Himself and as the Holy Spirit is the same in Himself, as if in some way He could beget Himself, or in some way proceed from Himself. Even in created natures it is never able to be found that something is able to beget itself. Let also Arius hear one; and let him not say that the Son is of a different nature, if one cannot be said of that, the nature of which is different. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 1970 Volume 3. pp. 291-292.

• Jump up ^ In the historic debate, Thomas Emlyn, George Benson, Richard Porson, Samuel Lee and John Oxlee denied these references as demonstrating the verse as in the Bible of Fulgentius, by a set of differing rationales. Henry Thomas Armfield reviews debate theories and history and offered his conclusion "Surely it is quite clear from the writings of Fulgentius, both that he had himself seen the verse in the copies of the New Testament; and that those with whom he argues had not the objection to offer that the verse was not then extant in St. John's Epistle." Armfield, The Three Witnesses, the Disputed Text, 1883, p.171. Armfield also reviews the Facundus and Fulgentius comparison in depth. Facundus and Fulgentius were often compared in their Cyprian references, with Facundus quoted in support of Cyprian being involved in a mystical interpretation.

• Jump up ^ At the time of the correspondence of Erasmus with Lee and Stunica, the Vulgate Prologue was the single principle early church writing evidence discussed. Evidences like Cyprian's Unity of the Church and the Council of Carthage were either unavailable or omitted in the dialog. Erasmus accepted this Prologue as from Jerome, and accused Jerome of falsifying the scripture.

• Jump up ^ When the theory was originally promulgated the earliest extant Vulgate with the Prologue was dated to no earlier than the 800s. Raymond Brown indicates modern attributions for the conjectured Prologue authorship as "Vincent of Lerini (d. 450) and to Peregrinus (Künstle, Ayuso Marazuela), the fifth-century Spanish editor of the Vg." The Epistles of John pp.782-783, 1982.

• Jump up ^ Fuldensis could be accurately dated as very close to 546 AD, much closer to the lifetime of Jerome 347-420. Fuldensis was a manuscript copied under the ecclesiastical leadership of Victor of Capua. In Nov. 1897, Thomas Joseph Lamy in the American Ecclesiastical Review, The Decision of the Holy Office on the Comma Johanneum , reviewed on pp. 72-74 the Vulgate Prologue. Lamy emphasized how Codex Fuldensis strengthened the case for Jerome's authorship of the Prologue. Even before the Fuldensis discovery, Antoine Eugène Genoud in the Sainte Bible commentary described the reasons given for claiming a forgery as frivoles (i.e. frivolous). Sainte Bible en latin et en français, Volume 5, 1839, pp.681-682.

• Jump up ^ The Latin is "Cui rei testificantur in terra tria mysteria: aqua, sanguis et spiritus, quae in passione Domini leguntur impleta: in coelo autem Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus; et hi tres unus est Deus" – Patrilogiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 70, col. 1373. HTML version at Cassiodorus Complexiones in Epistulas apostolorum English text based on Porson and Maynard p.46.

• Jump up ^ Lamy says that in going through 1 John 5 Cassiodorus "mystically interprets water, blood and spirit as three symbols concerning the Passion of Christ. To those three earthly symbols in terra, he opposes the three heavenly witnesses in coelo the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one God. Evidently we have here verse 7. Cassiodorus does not cite it textually, but he gives the sense of it. He puts it in opposition to verse 8, for he contrasts in coelo with in terra. The last words: Et hi tres unus est Deus can be referred only to verse 7, since Cassiodorus refers tria unum sunt of verse 8, to the Passion of Our Saviour… Maffei's conclusion is therefore justified when he says : Verse 7 was read not only in Africa, but in the most ancient and the most accurate Codices of the Roman Church, since Cassiodorus recommended to the monks to seek, above all else, the correct copies and to compare them with the Greek."

• Jump up ^ Shortly after the Maffei publication, in 1722, George Wade wrote of the significance of the Cassiodorus scholarship and reference: "And what have the Arians to say to this ? Is this a forged Piece of Cassiodorius ? No. Did he read it only in some corrupted copies of his own Age. The Character of the man will let us suspect this. How pressing is he with those of his Monastery to make use of the very best M.S. and such as had been carefully collated with, and corrected by the Greek Text.; nay not only so, but that, in all doubtful places, they should be govern'd by the Authority of two or three ancient copies…… let us never hear more of this verse, being intruded into the version of St. Jerom. Tis evident from innumerable places of these Commentaries, that St. Jerom's was not the Translation he made Use of, but one a great deal older; and yet it no less evidently appears, that this Passage was found in it. A short inquiry into the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is laid down in Holy Scripture, p. 86, 1722. George Wade also looked closely at the question as to whether this was actually Cassiodorus using the Greek writing of Clement of Alexandria, from 200 AD, as indicated by the "learned Dupin".

• Jump up ^ Some see Testimonia Divinae Scripturae as earlier than Isidore. "Most learned critics believe to be more ancient than St. Isidore". John MacEvilly An Exposition of the Epistles of St. Paul, 1875, p.424, M'Carthy: "The question of authorship is not, however, important in our controversy, provided the antiquity of the document be admitted"

• Jump up ^ "For the Spirit too is truth just as the Father and the Son are. The truth of all three is one, just as the nature of all three is one, just as the nature of all three is one. For there are three in heaven who furnish testimony to Christ: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit. The Father, who not once but twice sent forth his voice from the sky and publicly testified that this was his uniquely beloved Son in whom he found no offence; the Word, who, by performing so many miracles and by dying and rising again, showed that he was the true Christ, both God and human alike, the reconciler of God and humankind; the holy Spirit, who descended on his head at baptism and after the resurrection glided down upon the disciples. The agreement of these three is absolute. The Father is the author, the Son the messenger, the Spirit the inspirer. There are likewise three things on earth which attest Christ: the human spirit which he laid down on the cross, the water, and the blood which flowed from his side in death. And these three witnesses are in agreement. They testify that he was a man. The first three declare him to be God." (p. 174)Collected Works of Erasmus – Paraphrase on the First Epistle of John Translator – John J Bateman

• Jump up ^ The text shown in this photograph is part of 1 John chapter 5, from mid-verse 3 to mid-verse 10.

• Jump up ^ Stunica, one of the Complutensian editors, published in 1520 Annotationes Iacobi Lopidis Stunicae contra Erasmum Roterodamum in defensionem tralationis Noui Testamenti, which included half of a page on the heavenly witnesses. Later Erasmus correspondence on the verse included a letter to William Farel in 1524 in which Erasmus noted the lack of Greek manuscript support and the verse not being used in the Arian controversies. In 1531 Erasmus corresponded with Alberto Pio, a critic of Erasmus.

• Jump up ^ Kettner referred to the heavenly witnesses as "the most precious of Biblical pearls, the fairest flower of the New Testament, the compendium by way of analogy of faith in the Trinity." Conybeare, History of New Testament Criticism, 1910, p. 71. In 1697 Kettner wrote Insignis ac celeberrimi de SS. trinitate loci, qui I. Joh. V, 7. extat, divina autoritas sensus et usus dissertatione theol. demonstratus and in 1713 Vindiciae novae dicti vexatissimi de tribus in coelo testibus, 1 Joh. V, 7 and Historia dicti Johannei de Sanctissima Trinitate, I Joh.cap.V vers.7[

• Jump up ^ And, indeed, what the sun is in the world, what the heart is in a man, what the needle is in the mariner's compass, this verse is in the epistle.". (John Wesley, with appreciation to Bengelius, Explanatory Notes, 1754)

• Jump up ^ The footnotes included "In 1689, the papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the protestant Mill wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Arminian Wetstein used the liberty of his times, and of his sect." The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire

• Jump up ^ In 1822 Thomas Burgess published Adnotationes Millii which compiled in one spot writings on the verse sections by John Mill, Wetstein, Bengel, John Selden, Matthaei, John Fell and others.

• Jump up ^ Denounced by evangelist Thomas DeWitt Talmage in a speech covered in the New York Times "Taking up the Bible he turned to the fifth chapter of John, but passed it with the remark, 'I will not read that, for it has been abolished or made doubtful by the new revision.'The Revision Denounced; Strong Language from the Rev. Mr. Talmage, New York Times, June 6, 1881]. See also Peter Johannes Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible 2002, p. 54.

• Jump up ^ Daniel McCarthy: …the first to expunge v. 7. altogether (J. D. Michaelis gives that honor to an 'Anonymous Englishman' who published the N. T, Greek and English, London, 1729, with a text revised on the principles of 'common sense'), but his rash example was followed unhappily by the three ablest critics of our own day, Scholz, a Catholic Prof, in Bonn, Lachmann, and Tischendorf; and approved by Wegscheid, Michaelis, Davidson, Horne, Alford, Tregelles, &c; so that it may be truly said the current of Protestant opinion in England and Germany is now as strong against, as it was for the genuineness of the controverted words even within this century. The change is unaccountable when we bear in mind that the evidence for the verse, both negative and positive, has been increasing every day, whilst the arguments against its authenticity were brought out as fully by Erasmus as by any modern critic. The Epistles and Gospels of the Sundays, 1866, p. 512. The Anonymous Englishman is Daniel Mace.

• Jump up ^ Oft-repeated is "that these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain…" from Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 1971, p. 716.

• Jump up ^ Summarized with pictures on the web site KJVToday Umlaut in Codex Vaticanus, although the conclusion "an early scribe of Vaticanus at least knew of a significant textual variant here" is only one theory. Discussions have continued on the Evangelical Textual Criticism web site, the Yahoogroups textualcriticism forum and helpful is the web page of Wieland Willker, Codex Vaticanus Graece 1209, B/03 The Umlauts.

• Jump up ^ David Charles Parker, while lauding the 1881 Westcott and Hort "purified text", writes of "the ridiculous business of the Johannine Comma" Textual Criticism and Theology, 2009, p. 324. Parker writes of "the presence in a few manuscripts, most of them Latin". The actual number is many thousands of manuscripts. Daniel Wallace comments that the verse "infected the history of the English Bible in a huge way", referring to a "rabid path". The Comma Johanneum in an Overlooked Manuscript, July 2, 2010 James White, even while engaging in discussions on the Puritanboard forums, wrote "I draw the line with the Comma. Anyone who defends the insertion of the Comma is, to me, outside the realm of meaningful scholarship, unless, I guess, they likewise support the radical reworking of the entire text of the New Testament along consistent lines … plainly uninspired insertion." The Comma Johanneum Again March 4, 2006, also March 16, 2006. In an earlier day, Eberhard Nestle wrote that "The fact that it is still defended even from the Protestant side is interesting only from a pathological point of view." Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament, 1901, p. 327, translation by William Edie 1899 German of the German pathologisches.

• Jump up ^ Newton accused Jerome as being the likely source of the heavenly witnesses, asserting that Jerome "inserted the Trinity in express words into his version … the first upon record that inserted it, is Jerome: if the preface to the canonical epistles, which goes under his name, be his. … he altered the public reading". Nonetheless, Newton did acknowledge many other references in the time of the doctrinal battles, including "Eugenius bishop of Carthage, in the seventh year of Hunneric king of the Vandals, anno Christi 484, in the summary of his faith exhibited to the king … Fulgentius, another African bishop, disputing against the same Vandals, cited it again, and backed it with the fore-mentioned place of Cyprian … It occurs also frequently in Vigilius Tapsensis, another African bishop, contemporary to Fulgentius … the feigned disputation of Athanasius with Arius at Nice." The pre-Jerome Priscillian reference was unknown at the time. And Newton's handling of Cyprian is complex, as he accepted the Cyprian text linguistically, but rejected it textually only on the perceived lack of additional supporting evidences: "These places of Cyprian being, in my opinion, genuine, seem so apposite to prove the testimony of the Three in heaven, that I should never have suspected a mistake in it, could I but have reconciled it with the ignorance I meet with of this reading in the next age." As to the Newton historical summary quote above, George Travis addressed this in Letters to Edward Gibbon (1785) p. 264.

• Jump up ^ The Freisinger Fragments, dated from the 5th to 7th centuries, were published in 1876 by Zeigler and were not known at the time of this list of negative evidences in 1808. Similarly, the 7th-century dating of Codex Legionensis was not assigned until 20th century.

• Jump up ^ The Priscillian citation was discovered and published in the latter 1800s, fully refuting this unusual conjecture of Virgilius Tapsensis forgery. And leading to new, albeit short-lived, theories of Priscillian as the verse author, as described in the article.

• Jump up ^ In a commentary on the Epistle in later years, Luther relates to the heavenly witnesses as scripture: "This is the testimony in heaven, which is afforded by three witnesses—is in heaven, and remaineth in heaven. This order is to be carefully noted; namely, that the witness who is last among the witnesses in heaven, is first among the witnesses on earth, and very properly… (John) appeals to a twofold testimony :the one is in heaven, the other on earth.. this divine testimony is twofold. It is given partly in heaven, partly on earth: that given in heaven has three witnesses, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: the other, given on earth, has also three witnesses; namely, the spirit, the water, and the blood." Knittel pp. 93-95

• Jump up ^ 'r' in the UBS-4 also 'it-q' and Beuron 64 are apparatus names today. These fragments were formerly known as Fragmenta Monacensia, as in the Handbook to the textual criticism of the New Testament, by Frederic George Kenyon, 1901, p. 178.

• Jump up ^ "The declaration adds that there was no intention of stopping investigation of the passage by Catholic scholars who act in a moderate and temperate way and tend to think the verse not genuine; provided, however, that such scholars promise to accept the judgment of the Church which is by Christ's appointment the sole guardian and custodian of Holy Scripture (Enchiridion Bibttcum. Documenta Ecdesiastica Sacrum Scripturam Spectantia, Romae, apud Librarian! Vaticanam 1927, pp. 46-47)". Explanation given in Under Orders The Autobiography of William Laurence Sullivan, p. 186, 1945. Sullivan had written an article in 1906 opposing authenticity in the New York Review.

References[edit]

• Jump up ^ NIV,NASB,ESV,NRSV translations

• Jump up ^ Nova Vulgata, Epistula I Ioannis. The Nova Vulgata has not been translated into English.

• Jump up ^ A compleat history of the canon and writers of the books of the Old and New Testament: Luis Ellis Du Pin p.79

• Jump up ^ Matthew Henry Commentary, Exposition of All the Books, Vol 5, 1803, p. 644-645. The Commentary emphasized internal arguments for authenticity. 1 John completed by London minister John Reynolds after Henry passed, as explained on Puritanboard. A complementary genuine or spurious, expunged or admitted, section is given by John Hey in Lectures in Divinity, 1796, pp. 289-290.

• Jump up ^ Richard Simon, A critical history of the text of the New Testament, 1689 p.123.

• Jump up ^ Rob Iliffe, Friendly Criticism: Richard Simon, John Locke, Isaac Newton and the Johannine Comma 2006, p. 143 in Scripture and Scholarship

• Jump up ^ William Craig Brownlee, On the Authenticity of 1 John v.7 Christian Advocate 1825, p. 167

• Jump up ^ Richard Porson, Letters to Travis, 1829, p.61.

• Jump up ^ Thomas Turton, A Vindication of the Literary Character of Richard Porson, 1824, p.124. Griesbach: "Igitur comma controversum septimum praecipue, ne dicam unice, nititur testimonio, fide et auctoritate Vigilii Tapsensis, et librorum huic attributurum auctori, ante quem nemo clare id excitavit."

• Jump up ^ John Oxlee, On the Heavenly Witnesses, Christian Remembrancer 1822, p. 135

• Jump up ^ John Selby Watson The life of Richard Porson 1861, p. 73

• Jump up ^ Scrivener, Plain Introduction, pp. 461-462, 1861.

• Jump up ^ Joseph Barber Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament, p.25, 1871.

• Jump up ^ Léon Labauche, God and man; lectures on dogmatic theology, 1916 p. 43

• Jump up ^ Alan England Brooke, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, p. 198, 1912

• Jump up ^ ibid p.163.

• Jump up ^ The Harvard theological review, Volume 15, 1922, p. 159

• Jump up ^ Raymond Brown, The Gospel and Epistles of John: A Concise Commentary p.120, 1988.

• Jump up ^ Raymond Brown, Epistles of John, p.130, 1982.

• Jump up ^ Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It? A Short History of the Scriptures, Penguin Books Ltd, 2005, p. 15

• Jump up ^ Bruce Metzger writes: "Apparently the gloss arose when the original passage was understood to symbolize the Trinity (through the mention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), an interpretation that may have been written first as a marginal note that afterwards found its way into the text." A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament (2002/1971), p. 648.

• Jump up ^ The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7-8

• Jump up ^ A calm inquiry into the Scripture doctrine concerning the person of Christ, p. 333, 1817.

• Jump up ^ Israel Worsley, An enquiry into the origin of Christmas-Day, 1820, p.66. The British Review reviewed the controversy and spoke of such phrases as "tokens of intellectual weakness … culpable imbecility of mind". The Unitarian Controversy, 1821, p. 165.

• Jump up ^ Robert Taylor: "admitted on all hands to be forgeries … Acts xx. 28.—1 Timothy iii. 10.—1 John v. 7.—These are admitted to be of the utmost importance, bearing on the most essential doctrines, yet are wilful and wicked interpolations.." The diegesis: being a discovery of the origin, evidences, and early history of Christianity, p.421, 1829. See also Syntagma of the Evidences, p.44, 1828

• Jump up ^ Everard Bierrer, The Evolution of Religions, p. 290, 1906.

• Jump up ^ Philip Schaff. History of the Christian Church. A.D. 1-311., 1888, p. 412.

• Jump up ^ Charles Taze Russell The Fact and Philophy of the Atonement, 1899, p. 61.

• Jump up ^ F C. Conybeare, History of New Testament Criticism, 1910, pp. 91-98. (title in Table of Contents). The section on the heavenly witnesses was followed by his accusation that "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" in Matthew 28:19 had similarly been "revised and interpolated by orthodox copyists" and that "we can trace their perversions of the text…expose the fraud." Conybeare also took textual positions that were related to his unusual position on the virgin birth.

• Jump up ^ Preserved Smith, The age of the reformation, 1920, p.564

• Jump up ^ Gordon Campbell and Thomas N. Corns, John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought, 2008, p. 378. Similar in God: A Literary and Pictorial History, 2003.

• Jump up ^ Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 1996, p. 45.

• Jump up ^ Vindiciiœ Priestleianœ, p. 227, 1788.

• Jump up ^ Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall, American Church Review, Vol 29 pp. 509-528 The genuineness of I. John, v. 7 proved by neglected witnesses, 1877, from pp.511, 523.

• Jump up ^ "Fragments of Clemens Alexandrius", translated by Rev. William Wilson, section 3.

• Jump up ^ Eclogae propheticae 13.1Ben David, Monthly Review, 1826 p. 277)

• Jump up ^ Bengel, John Gill, Ben David and Thomas Burgess

• Jump up ^ Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives,, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, John P. Galvin, 2011, p. 159, the Latin is "Ita connexus Patris in Filio, et Filii in Paracleto, tres efficit cohaerentes alterum ex altero: qui tres unum sunt, non unus quomodo dictum est, Ego et Pater unum sumus"

• Jump up ^ Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian 1903, p.631 English on p. 621, left column, bottom.

• Jump up ^ John Kaye, The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian 1826. p. 550.

• Jump up ^ Nolan, Inquiry, p. 297 Although Nolan does study the Praxeas citation in some depth independently.

• Jump up ^ Daniel McCarthy, Epistles and Gospels of the Sunday, 1866, p.514.

• ^ Jump up to: a b c d Georg Strecker, The Johannine Letters (Hermeneia); Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996. "Excursus: The Textual Tradition of the "Comma Johanneum"".

• Jump up ^ August Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and the Church During the Three First Centuries, Volume 2, 1841, p. 184. Latin, Item de pudic. 21. Et ecclesia proprie et principaliter ipse est spiritus, in quo est trinitas unius divinitatis Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Tischendorf apparatus

• Jump up ^ Documents in Early Christian Thought, editors Maurice Wiles and Mark Santer, 1977, p.178, Latin Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Selecta 1839.

• Jump up ^ Burgess, Tracts on the Divinity of Christ, 1820, pp.333-334. Irish Ecclesiastical Review, Traces of the Text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1869 p. 274]

• Jump up ^ Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek Note on Selected Readings, 1 John v 7,8, 1882, p104.

• ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 8 of 15, Epistles of St John, Walter Drum, 1910 pp. 435-438, Chief Editor Charles George Herbermann. Online HTML for this section of the Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org. "Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York".

• Jump up ^ Horne, critical study 1933, p. 451

• Jump up ^ Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, translated by Ernest Cushing Richardson, footnote: "Bishop 353, died about 392".

• Jump up ^ William Hales, Inspector, Antijacobin Review, Sabellian Controversy, Letter XII 1816, p. 590. Latin " Denique Dominus: Petam, inquit, a Patre meo et alium advocatum dabit vobis (Ibid., 16). Sic alius a Filio Spiritus, sicut a Patre Filius. Sic tertia in Spiritu, ut in Filio secunda persona: unus tamen Deus omnia, tres unum sunt. Phoebadius, Liber Contra Arianos

• Jump up ^ Griesbach, Diatribe, p. 700,

• Jump up ^ Introduction historique et critique aux libres de Nouveau Testament 1861, p.564.

• Jump up ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: "The silence of the great and voluminous Augustine and the variation in form of the text in the African Church are admitted facts that militate against the canonicity of the three witnesses."

• Jump up ^ The City of God, Volume 1, trans. by Marcus Dods 1888 p. 197, Latin: Deus itaque summus et verum cum Verbo suo et Spiritu sancto, quae tria unum sunt, Deus unus omnipotens

• Jump up ^ e.g. Franz Anton Knittel, Thomas Burgess, Arthur-Marie Le Hir, Francis Patrick Kenrick, Charles Forster and Pierre Rambouillet

• Jump up ^ Homilies, 1849, p. 1224. Latin: et quid est: finis christus? quia christus deus, et finis praecepti caritas, et deus caritas quia et pater et filius et spiritus sanctus unum sunt.

• Jump up ^ Principles of Textual Criticism, p. 506, 1820.

• Jump up ^ Thomas Joseph Lamy The Decision of the Holy Office on the "Comma Joanneum" pp.449-483 American ecclesiastical review, 1897.

• Jump up ^ Thomas Burgess, A vindication of I John, V. 7, p.46, 1821.

• Jump up ^ The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Vol 3, The Second Session, pp. 22-23, 2005, Richard Price, editor

• Jump up ^ Edward Rochie Hardy Christology of the Later Fathers 1954, p. 368

• Jump up ^ Richard Porson, Letters to Archdeacon Travis 1790 p.378

• Jump up ^ ibid p. 401

• Jump up ^ Thomas Burgess, An introduction to the controversy on the disputed verse of st. John, 1835, p. xxvi

• Jump up ^ ibid p.xxxi

• Jump up ^ Robert Ernest Wallis, translator, The writings of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Volume 1 1868, p.382

• Jump up ^ Daniel B. Wallace, "The Comma Johanneum and Cyprian".

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