Steven Avery
Administrator
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Let's look closely at one of the most important Greek evidences for the heavenly witnesses authenticity (secondary to the basic mass of Latin mss and ECW, the significance of the preservational imperative, and the super-evidences like Cyprian, Jerome's Vulgate Prologue, the Council of Carthage and the grammatical solecism .. yet still very fundamental. These types of Greek evidences eliminate the objection that the heavenly witnesses was missing from the early Greek. There are many such evidences, this is one of the clearest.)
An evidence that has flown under the radar. Back in December, 2009, we placed this on the Fighting Fundamental Forums (FFF) which has been largely dormant the last few years and the url goes nowhere:
Synopsis of Scripture - 1 John
Today we will add a lot more backdrop
From the Greek Synopsis of Holy Scripture (Synopsis Sacrae Scripture) properly ascribed to Athanasius (more info below). The translation (with verses added, a bit more tweaking planned) here is by:
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William Hales
William Hales (1747-1831)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hales
author of Faith in the holy Trinity and writing in the:
AntiJacobin Review and True Churchman's Magazine, Vol 50 (1816)
Sabellian Controversy---Letter XII
William Hales
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ni4ZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA582
The section is quite beautiful, and about the first epistle of John.
And what verse in 1 John fits the following description ?
"he sheweth the unity of the Son with the Father"
Simple to see:
1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.
Before we leave William Hales, note that he builds on Travis and Nolan. He makes an excellent point that the Synopis fits excellently as the scripture texts that were requested by Constans / Constantius of Athanasius. He also explains why the Benedictine Maurists were in a pickle with the Synopsis, since it really supports the historical Reformation view of scripture rather than the Trent counter-Reformation view (my words.)
He is also excellent on the Disputation.
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Richard Porson and Charles Forster
The heavy drinking skeptic, Richard Porson (1759-1808), canvassing earlier scholarship, attempted in response to claim that the authorship was another early Greek writer, from the fifth or sixth century, mentioning Euthalius, Sophronius, or a second Athanasius who lived at the time of Euthalius, 5th century.
In response Charles Forster (more below) showed that this is a "genuine and indubitable work of ... Athanasius." And his demonstration of this has never been countered. And yet in any case, this is an early Greek witness to the heavenly witness, one of the refutations of the claim that the verse was not referenced in the Greek writings.
Porson tried to claim that the reference was to 1 John 2:23, using his own mistranslation to try to make this failed case. He also tried a cheap debating trick attempt, involving burden of proof on a peripheral issues, which is covered below. Since as Armfield points out:
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Henry Thomas Armfield
Henry Armfield also points out that this writing was placed in editions by Oecumenius and Theophylact.
The three witnesses : The disputed text in St. John : considerations new and old (1883)
Henry Thomas Armfield
http://www.archive.org/stream/threewitnessesdi00armf#page/54/mode/2up
Henry Thomas Armfield (1836-1898)
https://books.google.com/books?id=UzMqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA159
And Armfield also has an excellent section, including three pages of the text translated in English. The first part (which I separated with an empty line, was not included by Hales, and would include more verses that are referenced from the epistle.)
Henry Thomas Armfield p. 48-50
http://www.archive.org/stream/threewitnessesdi00armf#page/48/mode/2up
From the Greek Synopsis
Fourth* of John
(footnote * Fourth, sc. in the group of the Seven Catholic Epistles
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George Travis
The full Greek section, with verse allusion numbers in the margin, is given by George Travis (1741-1797):
Letters to Edward Gibbon: author of the History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (1794)
Appendix XXXV
George Travis
https://books.google.com/books?id=nf0qAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA58
On p. 58-59.
With a smaller extract given in:
Appendix XXVIII
https://books.google.com/books?id=nf0qAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA26
The English extract is given on p. 51-52.
https://books.google.com/books?id=nf0qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51
The George Travis discussion of this verse reference is at p. 148-157 of the main body of the writing, in response to:
George Benson (1699-1762)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Benson_(theologian)
George Travis p. 148-157
https://books.google.com/books?id=nf0qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA148
On p. 151-152 Travis reviews Mill, Griesbach, Hody, Cave, Du Pin, Simon and Wetstein on the authorship. And p. 152-155 discusses an often discussed quote from Athansius which is consistent with his being the author. And on p. 155-157 Travis discusses the motive as to why the Benedictine editors considered this dubious (not spurious) as Athanasius. The work did not fit with the Trent pronouncements of certain apocrypha as scriptural books. Overall, a strong section from Travis, who at times was uneven, and on a couple of issues must be approached with caution.
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Charles Forster
Charles Forster (1787-1871)
http://books.google.com/books?id=EKwCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA51
(Work on recreating the Forster paragraph extracts on authenticity.)
Forster gives us a really fine section, p. 51-59, including a vocabulary and style analysis showing the Synopsis as from Athansius. Porson's deliberate mistranslation, made in order to fold the unity into 1 John 2:23, is discussed on p. 58. Note that Charles Forster makes a minor error in saying that the heavenly witnesses section (5:7) is "immediately before" (5:10) and "immediately after" (5:16) chapter 5 refs. That wording from Forster does not allow that 1 John 2:23 is put after 5:7. The reason for that unusual placement of 2:23 (generally the epistles section does go in order) being that 2:23 talks about the Son and the Father.
You can see that the placement of John 2:23 is unusual from the Porson list:
i.1 i.5 i.2 v.20 iii.8 ii.12—14. iii.10-18 iv.7—12. iv.19.18 iii.10. iv.2, 3, 6 v.16 iii.14 iv.8. [ii. 23.] 22. iii.13,14. v. 20, 21.
In fact, Hugoenot Pastor David Martin does nicely make this same point about the placement of 2:23:
Charles Forster
P. 55-57 - vocabulary and style
p. 57-59 - reference to 1 John v. 7
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Various commentators had taken the contra side to this interpretation. The contra Thomas Emlyn in his Reply p. 265 to David Martin were early taking two sides of the issue.
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Richard Porson places all the contra arguments together in the back-and-forth with George Travis.
Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in Answer to His Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, I John, V 7
Richard Porson
https://books.google.com/books?id=SUg7AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA209 (1790)
https://books.google.com/books?id=L3g_AAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA197 (1828)
Some of his arguments had limited validity (e.g. that the section was not totally linear in verse referencing), some were easily answered later in Forster and Armfield. Porson had thrown in a deliberate mistranslation involving the conjunction, which Forster pointed out on p. 58-59.
And I want to focus on what is really the critical point, one that is mentioned in some detail by Armfield, allowing that Forster had handled the grammatical/translational aspect. The question arose as to whether the verse being referenced for unity was 1 John 2:23 (which is referenced next) or 1 John 5:7. However, 1 John 2:23 has no reference to unity.
The logic from Porson here is a total fail. However, it is a standard action of Porson to use the cheap debating trick. In this case a red herring supposed burden of proof. In fact, whatever oneness the author of the Synopsis (e.g. Athanasius) desires for his unity will work for his exposition. If Athanasius read the heavenly witnesses as a unity of consent, rather than essence, he could still write that John is showing the unity or oneness (of consent) of the Son with the Father. (James White, while remaining a believer in the Lord Jesus, is an example of a writer who comes from the mode of the "Porson sneer" style.)
Also, the skeptic Porson demonstrates an animus, even a hatred, against scripture with this comment:
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This inquiry into the Synopsis and the heavenly witnesses is planned for some forum discussions. One post has been placed in the NT Textual Criticism forum.
And I do want to possibly do a spot of tweaking on verse references and possibly add some notes from other commentators. Also show church history writers who accepted the authority of this work as early and significant (e.g Humphrey Prideaux and John Williams Proudfit) Also look a little more on the Athanasius request from Constans. And give a review of the 1800s discussions on authorship and dating. (note to self, check Pericope as well as heavenly witnesses writers in index.)
Steven Avery
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