Post #3
Erasmus 1 John Paraphrase Before Third New Testament Edition
Erasmus - early Christians had no doctrine of the Trinity
Three Known Manuscripts - GA 629 Code Ottobonianus MIA
Wild Haphazard Integrity Attack against respected verse Defender Robert Bellarmine
Excision of the comma from the textus receptus?
Erasmus, Luther and Newton did not support the modern CT ὃς (solecism variant) for 1 Timothy 3:16
the false claim that Erasmus wrote of a marginal gloss that then came into the New Testament text
Date of Philopatris - outdated scholarship
Francis Turretin and Michael Walther
John Mill, Elzeviers and later scholars uninformed about the seven Stephanus mss?
Erasmus 1 John Paraphrase Before Third New Testament Edition
RGA - p. 121 also BCEME
Even after Erasmus had expressed his doubts about the comma in the Annotationes to the third edition of his New Testament, he was still happy to employ it when it suited his purposes. In 1523 he published his Paraphrases of all the Apostolic Epistles, a Latin translation combined with running theological commentary.
Steven Avery
Grantley has the Erasmus Paraphrase as 1523, after edition 3. However it was published in Jan, 1521.
"... and the Paraphrase on the three epistles of John a few weeks later in January 1521"
Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia: Carmina - Page 5 (1997)
https://books.google.com/books?id=SH1iAAAAMAAJ
1523 is the Gospel of John date, also the full Paraphrases of the Apostolic Epistles
RGA - p. 77
See also Erasmus,
Ratio seu methodus compendio perveniendi ad veram theologiam (1519) in Erasmus, 1933, 258-259:
https://books.google.com/books?id=bYVEgXbiunkC&pg=PA41
And I'm pretty sure the Ratio usage is shown to be published in 1518, rather than 1519 However, this note shows some of the complications.
https://books.google.com/books?id=bYVEgXbiunkC&pg=PA41
These dates are important because they show Erasmus usage before the 3rd edition and likely before Montfortianus was known to Erasmus.
(Now in Grantley errata page.)
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Erasmus - early Christians had no doctrine of the Trinity
BCEME - p. 96
"In a work on the Trinity {De falsa et vera unius Dei Patris, Filii et.Spiritus Sancti cognitione), co-written with David and published anonymously in 1567 or 1568, Biandrata declared that the first Christians had no doctrine of the Trinity, a conclusion reached earlier by Joachim of Fiore, Erasmus, Servet and Bernardino Ochino, a prominent Italian Franciscan who subsequently converted to Calvinism and then to Antitrinitarianism. "
Very possibly true for some of these men. However, quotes are needed. This is especially true for Erasmus. I have never heard of Erasmus saying that there was no Trinity for the early Christians.
Any scholar could hold that there was no doctrine of the Trinity in the 1st century, however I have never heard this said by Erasmus, and for the other men there would need to be a quote.
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Three Known Manuscripts - GA 629 Code Ottobonianus MIA
There are a number of questions in the Bellarmine section.
RGA - p. 87
the reading in the Complutensian bible is quite different from that in the only two extant manuscripts that contain the comma in Greek (Montfortianus and GA 629),
Two manuscripts? This contradicts other spots in the paper! Perhaps 4 in text, 9 including margin spots.
BCEME p. 84
"However, only three known manuscripts display this reading in the body text, and all three were copied between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries from printed editions.58"
58 GA 918, 2318, 2473; see K. Aland, Benduhn-Mertz and Mink 1987, 165, Lesarten [6, 6C].
The logic is hard to follow. Where does this place Codex Ottobonianus, a 1300s diglot, GA 629
http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/Manuscripts501-1000.html#m629
"Today, 629 is in the Vatican Library as Ottob. gr. 298. "
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-greek-manuscripts-of-comma.html
Perhaps
"this reading" is used to qualify? Very unclear.
Ottobonianus shows that the restoration of the heavenly witnesses to the Greek line that was spurred by the Lateran Council also affected the manuscripts.
It would be interesting to go back to the source that Grantley gives and see if there is any reference to Ottobonianus.
Aland, Kurt, Annette Benduhn-Mertz and Gerd Mink, ed. Text und Textwert
der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. Die Katholischen Briefe.
3 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987.
https://books.google.com/books?id=RmCaxmBDsYwC
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Wild Haphazard Integrity Attack against respected verse defender Robert Bellarmine
RGA p. 157
Bellarmino’s selective use of the philological evidence provided by Erasmus is misleading, while his co-opting of those Latin Fathers whose works
merely show a knowledge of the allegorical interpretation of 1 Jn 5:8 is nothing short of deceptive. Moreover, Bellarmino’s reliance on the decretal of ps.-Hyginus is quite unworthy.41
BCEME - p. 84-85
Either Bellarmino had access to manuscripts that have since disappeared, or he was not telling the truth. His selective use of the philological evidence provided by Erasmus is also misleading, while his co-opting of those Latin fathers who merely provide an allegorical interpretation of 1 Jn 5:8 is deceptive. Moreover, Bellarmino’s reliance on the decretal of pseudo-Hyginus was disingenuous.59 However, Bellarmino’s status within the church and his later canonisation gave his Three books particular prominence and authority, and they were reprinted into the eighteenth century.
Bellarmine, along with Jodocus Coccius, not given by Grantley, were two able verse defenders in the late 1500s. This seems to have unhinged Grantley a bit.
This is a truly terrible attempt to attack Bellarmine's integrity, by using anachronims and circular reasoning (e.g. Grantley has the absurd view that Cyprian was not referencing the verse, such a modern questionable position cannot be used to attack the integrity of Bellarmine!) and other fallacies. Bellarmine was a very solid scholar, whom the Protestants respected.
"The learned Lutheran historian Mosheim admits that the Jesuit controversialist “collected with reason and diligence the reasons and objections of his adversaries and proposed them for the most part in their full force with integrity and exactness.” (and additional quotes)
https://books.google.com/books?id=PFg_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA150
" co-opting of those Latin fathers who merely provide an allegorical interpretation of 1 Jn 5:8 is deceptive"
This is weak, circular, and anachronistic, relating to very dubious later modern scholarship.
The only solid question from Grantley is Hyginus. Presumably Bellarmine was not accepting the later date given after the Valla research on forgery.
Grantley is going so far as to say that:
Cyprian,
Ithacius,
Athanasius,
Fulgentius
Eugenius of Carthage (Council of Carthage 484 AD)
were all only giving allegorical interpretations of verse 8, which is absurd.
BCEME
"Although Bellarmino was aware of Erasmus’ work on the New Testament, he retained the comma as a weapon to confute the arguments
of the Antitrinitarian Giorgio Biandrata (c. 1516–1588)."
This type of
motive mind-reading, without evidence, is not scholarly, and quite common from Grantley. There is zero evidence that Bellarmino rejected the common Latin Vulgate reading, including the heavenly witnesses, and that he only supported the verse because of apologetics contra Socinians and others.
In reply, Bellarmino asserted that the readings in the Greek and Latin codices at this point are different: in v. 7, the Greek codices say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ‘are one’ (ἕν εἰσι),
The codices have Word, not Son, so does Bellarmine have Son?
Opera Omnia
By Robert Bellarmin
https://books.google.com/books?id=vzhEuiwwjkUC&pg=PA103
p. 103-105
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Excision of the comma from the textus receptus?
BCEME - p. 283
"The attention attracted by the excision of the comma from the textus receptus, which was slowly being dismantled by the critics, ..."
There has never been an excision from the textus receptus, as TR editions like Youngs Literal or the NKJV, have always maintained the heavenly witnesses in the text.
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Erasmus, Luther and Newton did not support the modern CT ὃς (solecism variant) for 1 Timothy 3:16
BCEME - p. 159 .
“Luther .. sided with Erasmus conclusion that ὃς was the original reading.”
"Erasmus suggested that the reading Θεός had arisen from an optical confusion in the uncial manuscripts between the abbreviated nomen sacrum ΘΣ (Θεός, ‘God’) and the relative pronoun ΟΣ (‘who’),"
Luther noted Erasmus’ suggestion that θεός was an anti-Arian corruption, and sided with Erasmus’ conclusion that ὅς was the original reading.
150 These conclusions also appealed to Newton, …
Neither Luther or Erasmus or Newton supported ὃς (who). (which creates a solecism that eventually led to hymn theory in the 1800s)
.. Luther supported the Vulgate reading which is equivalent to the Greek ὃ (which). Luther was equivocal between God and which - but the issue is that the solecism who was NOT in play for any of the three scholars. Luther changed his text in c. 1545
Jortin summarizes it well here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=M-kpAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA364
Burgon explains how Tischendorf started the new march to "who" (or "he who") here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=nXkw1TAatV8C&pg=PA482
George Benson in the 1700s preceded Griesbach on ὃς, this is made clear by the unitarian Andrews Norton:
A Statement of Reasons for Not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians: Concerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ (1882)
https://books.google.com/books?id=hm8_AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA189
"Among modern critics,
ὃς
is regarded as the most probable reading by Benson, Griesbach, Schott, Water, Rosenmüller, Heinrichs, Meyer, De Wette, Olshausen, Wiesinger, Huther, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Davidson, and Tregelles;
ὁ
is preferred by Erasmus, Grotius, Sir Isaac Newton, Wetstein, and Professor Porter.
Calvin and Beza really ripped the position of Erasmus on speaking against "God was manifest"
99% of the Greek mss are on the QEOS side
Now Grantley tries to give a correction:
Corrigenda to McDonald, Biblical Criticism in Early Modern Europe (2016)
https://www.academia.edu/43333729/C...blical_Criticism_in_Early_Modern_Europe_2016_
And this does not solve the problem at all.
We are discussing this at the:
Facebook - Textus Receptus Academy
https://www.facebook.com/groups/467...k/660027008176498/?comment_id=662789321233600
As I do not see Erasmus speaking of "optical confusion".
==================================
Jan Krans similarly blundered:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/694626313957705/
"Whereas Erasmus suggests that the reading Θεὸς (instead of ὃς) “has been added against the Arian heretics”
https://books.google.com/books?id=zy2hDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA314
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the false claim that Erasmus wrote of a marginal gloss that then came into the New Testament text
(ironically this claim is also false in Grantley's claim for Erasmus in 1 Timothy 3:16 right above)
RGA - p. 141
Furthermore, Bullinger followed Erasmus’ judgment in the Annotationes that this Trinitarian interpretation had begun as a marginal gloss which a half-learned (sciolus) reader or scribe had integrated into the text.168
Let's check in the Annotations if Erasmus spoke of such a marginal gloss.
Nope, nothing there.
While Bullinger mentions the margin, and he mentions Erasmus, they are not connected.
168 Bullinger, 1549, 103:
“Quidam multis hic agunt de unitate trinitatis, sed non in loco suo. Nihil enim hic agit de unitate trinitatis, quæ alibi commodius & firmius inducitur & comprobatur. Nam illud membrum, quod quędam insertum habent exemplaria (quoniam tres sunt qui testimonium dant, in coelo pater, sermo & spiritus sanctus, & hi treis unum sunt)
è margine uidetur irrepsisse. Annotauit id forsan sciolus aliquis, qui non uidit aqua significari coelestem doctrinam, sanguine redemptionem, & spiritu uirtutem & administrationem diuinam. Fecit itaque ex aqua patrem, eo quod ex aqua omnia generari dicantur: ex sanguine filium, eo quod sanguinem fuderit: sed ex spiritu personam spiritus sancti. Verum plura huius generis annotata sunt & ab
Erasmo in eruditissimis illis suis in nouum testamentum Annotationibus.”
False claims like this are annoying on a scholarship level, as they are totally unnecessary and they are propelled by the theories of Grantley, not by the actual Erasmian history.
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Francis Turretin and Michael Walther
BCEME - p. 158
"Turretin's source is Walther 1654, 1347-1348"
This has many details, see the separate post at:
Francis Turretin and Michael Walther
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...-arius-grantley-mcdonald.421/page-2#post-5396
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Date of Philopatris - outdated scholarship
RGA p. 226-227
(In fact modern critics have argued from internal evidence that the dialogue was written much later, during the reign of Nicephoras Phocas [963-969], but Whiston’s point remains essentially valid.)196
196 Whiston, 1711-1712, 4:381. On the dating of the dialogue, see Barker, 1957, 117.
A 1982 paper by Barry Baldwin pretty much shredded that idea of Philopatris being at the time of Nicephorus
Later Greek Literature
edited by John J. Winkler, Gordon Williams
The Date and Purpose of the Philopatris
Barry Baldwin (b. 1937)
https://books.google.com/books?id=VBgJfKA1ZAwC&pg=PA344
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John Mill, Elzeviers and later scholars uninformed about the seven Stephanus mss?
RGA - p. 132
"Estienne marked off part of verse 7 with obelisks (thus: `ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ’) to show that these words were not in the seven manuscripts of the Catholic Epistles he had at his disposal. Nevertheless, his failure to register in the critical apparatus that the rest of the comma was not found in any of the manuscripts in the royal library in Paris subsequently led many later scholars to assume that it was. These included a number of editors, .... Schmidt and Zacharias Gerganos, who produced the Wittenberg edition of 1622, intended for distribution in the Greek east; the Leiden Elzeviers, who published three editions in 1624, 1633 and 1641; and John Mill (1707)."
Lucas Brugensis had the scholarship straightened out by 1600. Anyone after Lucas Brugensis would have to have a positive affirmation of Stephanus mss for this to be a valid conclusion, since he had clarified the Stephanus ms. situation. Grantley even shows that awareness with John Mill.
(Some definitely did hold on to the Stephanus ms., e.g. David Martin, John Gill and George Travis all tried to use the Stephanus error, Travis may have dropped it later. In fact, Grantley could have had more about the apologetic tendency to err on this point, as he does to some extent on Montfortianus.)
We have a separate post on the Stephanus mss.
e.g. here is a resource on Mill and Bengel.
Memoir Of The Controversy (1872) ..
Ezra Abbot - also check the earlier Orme and Tregelles editions
https://books.google.com/books?id=-qAprqEQ084C&pg=PA86
"However,
the best critics unanimously agree in the opinion, that Stephens’s MSS. had not the disputed passage; and among these Mill and Bengelius, whose orthodoxy is not doubled, and who were convinced of its authenticity.”
Mill directly mentions this Stephanus correction, here it is in Burgess:
https://books.google.com/books?id=EFgPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA12
Emlyn says that even the
1584 Antwerp Polyglot was not really claiming the Stephanus mss.
https://books.google.com/books?id=iEYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA202
The claim of Grantley about those publishers and editors would generally be false, or at best a scholastic mind-reading conjecture.
Add more from RGA p. 132-133.
This does get more complicated at RGA p. 215:
and all of the manuscripts of the Epistles consulted by Estienne. (Mills strangely chose to ignore the objections of Lucas
Brugensis and Simon on this last point.)164
The Mill section could use a careful and accurate English translation, as he reports the Brugensis analysis.
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