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Peter Gurry
@pjgurry
A little trip in Church history via one of the Bible’s most famous variants: 1 John 5:7–8, known as the “Johannine clause” (or Comma Johanneum)...
In the KJV the text reads, “For there are three that bear record *in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,* the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
What’s between asterisks is absent in about 500 Greek manuscripts of 1 John and found in only 10. Only 2 of these predate the printed Greek New Testament (GA 629, c. 1362; GA 61, c. 1500) and the first of these is a Greek-Latin bilingual. Several are copies of printed editions.
(For a thorough look at the Greek manuscripts, see here:
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-greek-manuscripts-of-comma.html )
The first evidence we have of the three heavenly witnesses in Greek is from the translation of the acts of the Fourth Lateran Council held in 1215. These were written in Latin but translated for the benefit of the Eastern, Greek-speaking church.
In the second decree, the council condemns Abbot Joachim for his writings regarding the unity of the Trinity.
See here:
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum12-2.htm#2
2.
On the error of abbot Joachim
In doing so, the decree cites 1 John 5.7–8 but does so with the qualification that this is “according to some manuscripts.” As it happens, most (all?) of our Greek witnesses to the Comma shows signs of Latin influence.
Famously, when Erasmus published his Greek New Testament in 1516 he did not include the three heavenly witnesses because it wasn’t in his Greek manuscripts (see pic). He did the same in his 2nd edition in 1519 and only included it in his third edition of 1522 under pressure.
Much of that pressure came from his Spanish competitor, Stunica, who was at work on the Complutensian Polyglot. This massive, multi-lingual edition of the Bible had printed the NT portion two years before Erasmus. But work on the OT kept it from public sale until 1520.
Seizing on Erasmus’s lack of the Comma, Stunica, eventually joined by Edward Lee in England and Alberto Pio in Italy, criticized his edition and accused him of Arianism.
To really make the point, the page of the Complutensian Polyglot that had the Comma was reprinted, after Erasmus’s edition, with a long note added at 1 John 5.7–8.
The note is from Thomas Aquinas’s comments on the Fourth Lateran Council’s decree on Abbot Joachim. In it, Aquinas criticizes Joachim for following the Arian interpretation (and corruption) of this text.
(For an English translation, see
@AJMacDonaldJr ‘s blog here:
http://theworldperceived.blogspot.com/2019/08/translation-of-marginal-note-at-1-john.html )
ADDED from MacDonald blog page, the actual note, important for analysis:
Translation of marginal note at 1 John 5:7-8 in the Complutensian Polyglot - English translation from William Orme
“Saint Thomas, in his exposition of the second Decretal concerning the Most High Trinity and the Catholic faith, treating of this passage, ‘There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit,’ in opposition to the Abbot Jochim, uses precisely the following language: — And to teach the unity of the three persons it is subjoined, And these three are one; which is said on account of their unity of essence. But Joachim, wishing perversely to refer this to a unity of affection and agreement, alleged the text that follows it. For it is immediately subjoined, And there are three that bear witness on earth, namely, the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And in some books it is added, And these three are one. But this is not contained in the true copies, but is said to have been added by the Arian heretics to prevent the text that precedes from being correctly understood as relating to the unity of essence of the three persons.’ — Thus the blessed Thomas, as above referred to.”
The Complutensian’s point is as clear as ink: anyone who rejects this text must be an Arian like Joachim. Erasmus, take note!
Erasmus never did change his opinion. But he did add it once Codex Montfortianus (GA 61) was brought to his attention. His own take was that the Comma was inauthentic and that, in any case, it spoke of a unity of testimony (akin to the earthly witnesses) and not one of essence.
(Some have thought that Codex Montfortianus was made to order for Erasmus, but I’m a bit skeptical.
See here:
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2019/08/more-on-erasmus-and-codex-montfortianus.html )
After Erasmus, the debate about the Comma only intensified. Although Luther flatly rejected it and Calvin wasn’t quite sure, it became a touchstone of orthodoxy in the centuries to come.
It drew the attention of many leading lights like John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift, and Edward Gibbon. A major reason for the debate was that both the orthodox and the unorthodox agreed that the Comma really was proof of the Trinity.
For a good example, see the Racovian Catechism III.1, a key document among anti-Trinitarians.
Today, orthodox theologians rarely, if ever, appeal to the Comma in defending the doctrine of the Trinity. In this, they are doing little more than the Greek-speaking church did for a millennium.
While it has lost much of its ability to galvanize church leaders like it once did, it remains fascinating because it offers a window onto larger questions about the Bible’s authority, its textual history, and the history of its interpretation and use. /fin
For an outstanding book on this, see
https://amzn.to/2ZSd14b
