The Comma Johanneum is a comma (a short clause) in the First Epistle of John (1 John 5:7–8) according to the Latin Vulgate text as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages, based on Vetus Latina minority readings dating to the 7th century. It was inserted into the Latin text based on a gloss to that text; the gloss itself may date to as early as the 3rd or 4th century. It was included in the Textus Receptus (TR) compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam because of its doctrinal importance in supporting Trinitarianism. Owing to the widespread use of the Textus Receptus (TR) as the sole source, the comma is also contained in most translations published from 1522 until the latter part of the nineteenth century, [n 1] for Protestant translation.[n 2]
In translations containing the clause, such as the King James Version, 1 John 5:7–8 reads as follows (with the Comma in bold print):
The resulting passage is often viewed as an explicit reference to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.[n 3]
It does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts, nor in the passage as quoted by many of the early Church Fathers. The words apparently crept into the Latin text of the New Testament during the Early Middle Ages, "[possibly] as one of those medieval glosses but were then written into the text itself by a careless copyist. Erasmus omitted them from his first edition; but when a storm of protest arose because the omission seemed to threaten the doctrine of the Trinity, he put them back in the third and later editions, whence they also came into the Textus Receptus, 'the received text'."[1] Although many traditional Bible translations, most notably the Authorized King James Version (KJV), contain the Comma, modern Bible translations such as the New International Version (NIV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and others tend to either omit the Comma entirely, or relegate it to the footnotes. The Nova Vulgata, the modern revision of the Vulgate approved for liturgical use by the Catholic Church, also excludes the Comma.[2] The Greek Orthodox editions (ZWH Brotherhood and Antoniades) have the Comma in the main text in a smaller font.[3]
Contents |
The comma may have arisen as a gloss as early as the 4th century, and was worked into the epistle's text in the Latin Vulgate in around the year 800.[4]
Jerome's extant writings from the period 380 to 420 give no evidence that he was aware of the Comma's existence.[5][n 4] The comma is also absent from an extant fragment of Clement of Alexandria (c. 200), through Cassiodorus (6th century), with homily style verse references from 1 John, including verse 1 John 5:6 and 1 John 5:8 without verse 7, the heavenly witnesses.[6][n 5] Tertullian, in his Against Praxeas (c. 210), supports a Trinitarian view by quoting John 10:30.[n 6]
Augustine of Hippo, is completely silent on the matter, which has been taken as evidence that the comma did not exist as part of the epistle's text in his time.[7] But this argumentum ex silentio was rejected by other scholars.[n 7]
No Syriac manuscripts include the Comma, and its presence in some printed Syriac Bibles is due to back-translation from the Latin Vulgate. Coptic manuscripts and those from Ethiopian churches also do not include it.
The 3rd-century Church father Cyprian (died 258), in writing on the Unity of the Church, Treatise I section 6[8] quoted John 10:30 "The Lord says, 'I and the Father are one' " and added: "and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one.'"[5][9] Daniel B. Wallace says that "a Trinitarian interpretation was superimposed on the text by Cyprian". In noting this, Wallace is in agreement with the earlier critical edition of the New Testament (NA26 and UBS3) which consider Cyprian a witness against the Comma. The latest edition of UBS4 updated many early church writer references and has Cyprian for heavenly witnesses inclusion. Those who see Cyprian as a negative evidence assert that other theologians such as Athanasius of Alexandria [n 8] and Origen never quoted or referred to the passage, which they would have done if the verse was in the Bibles of that era. The contrasting position is that there are in fact such references,[n 9] and that evidences from silence arguments in terms of extant early church writer material should not be given much weight.
In the early 20th century, there was a theory according to which Priscillian of Ávila (died 385) was the author of the comma. This idea of a Priscillian origin for the Comma had a brief scholarship flourish but quickly lost support in textual circles. The Priscillian citation was discovered in the late 1800s, and in the early 1900s Karl Künstle published a paper 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, who references four difficulties cited in the 1909 paper by Ernest Babut.[10]
In the 6th century, Fulgentius of Ruspe is quoted as a witness in favour of the Comma. Like Cyprian a father of the North African Church, he referred to Cyprian's remark in his Responsio contra Arianos ("Reply against the Arians" ).[n 10] For the English translation of De Trinitate see Introduction to the Critical Study p. 512 Thomas Horne (1821), and Fabianum "The blessed Apostle, St John, evidently says, And the three are one,..." is given by Thomas Burgess in A letter to the Reverend Thomas Beynon p.56 (1829) (</ref>
The oldest evidence of the comma presented as part of the epistle's text are two Vetus Latina manuscripts, namely the Codex Monacensis (6th or 7th century) and Codex Legionensis (7th century), besides the younger Codex Speculum, an 8th- or 9th-century collection of New Testament quotations.[5] The comma then apparently became worked into copies of the Latin Vulgate roughly around the year 800.
It was subsequently back-translated into some Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland is aware of eight Greek manuscripts which contain the comma.[11] The date of the addition is late, probably dating to the time of Erasmus.[12] In one manuscript, back-translated into Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three are one" is not present.[13]
The central figure in the sixteenth-century history of the Comma Johanneum is the humanist Erasmus.[14] Erasmus had been working for years on two projects: a collation of Greek texts and a fresh Latin New Testament. In 1512, he began his work on a fresh Latin New Testament. He collected all the Vulgate manuscripts he could find to create a critical edition. Then he polished the Latin. He declared, "It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin."[15] In the earlier phases of the project, he never mentioned a Greek text:
"My mind is so excited at the thought of emending Jerome’s text, with notes, that I seem to myself inspired by some god. I have already almost finished emending him by collating a large number of ancient manuscripts, and this I am doing at enormous personal expense."[16]
While his intentions for publishing a fresh Latin translation are clear, it is less clear why he included the Greek text. Though some speculate that he intended on producing a critical Greek text or that he wanted to beat the Complutensian Polyglot into print, there is no evidence to support this. Rather his motivation seems to be simpler: he included the Greek text to prove the superiority of his Latin version. He wrote, "There remains the New Testament translated by me, with the Greek facing, and notes on it by me."[17] He further demonstrated the reason for the inclusion of the Greek text when defending his work:
"But one thing the facts cry out, and it can be clear, as they say, even to a blind man, that often through the translator’s clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep."[18]
Erasmus's new work was published by Froben of Basel in 1516 and thence became the first published Greek New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum. The second edition used the more familiar term Testamentum instead of Instrumentum, and eventually became a major source for Luther's German translation.
In his haste, Erasmus made a considerable number of transcription mistakes. He was unable to find manuscripts containing the entire Greek New Testament, so he compiled several different sources. After comparing what writings he could find, Erasmus wrote corrections between the lines of the manuscripts he was using (among which was Minuscule 2) and sent them as proofs to Froben. Erasmus said the resulting work was "thrown headlong rather than edited" ("prœcipitatum fuit verius quam editum").[19] He fixed many but not all of the resulting mistakes in the second edition, published in 1519.[13] The Comma does not appear until the third edition, published in 1522.[20]
Its absence from the first two editions provoked animosity among churchmen and scholars, led by Lopez de Zúñiga, one of the Complutensian editors. Erasmus is said to have replied to these critics that the Comma did not occur in any of the Greek manuscripts he could find, but that he would add it to future editions if it appeared in a single Greek manuscript.[13] Such a manuscript was subsequently produced, some say concocted, by a Franciscan, and Erasmus, true to his word, added the Comma to his 1522 edition, but with a lengthy footnote setting out his suspicion that the manuscript had been prepared expressly to confute him. This Erasmus change was accepted into the Received Text editions, the chief source for the King James Version, thereby fixing the Comma firmly in the English-language scriptures for centuries.[13]
The story of Erasmus' promise has been accepted as fact by scholars, repeated by even so eminent an authority as Bruce M. Metzger.[21] Nevertheless, it can be traced back no further than 1790,[22] and a 1980 paper by Professor H.J. De Jonge concludes that no such promise was ever made by Erasmus, and that he never suspected the Codex Britannicus (Minuscule 61, the text prepared by the Franciscan) of having been fraudulently prepared with the express purpose of forcing him to include the Comma. Rather, Erasmus included the Comma because he wished to avoid any suspicion of personal unorthodoxy which might undermine the acceptance of his translation:
"For the sake of his ideal Erasmus chose to avoid any occasion for slander rather than persisting in philological accuracy and thus condemning himself to impotence. That was the reason why Erasmus included the Comma Johanneum even though he remained convinced that it did not belong to the original text of l John."[23]
The term Textus Receptus commonly refers to one of Erasmus's later editions or one of the works derived from them. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, a Protestant reference published in 1914, comments:
The textus receptus, slavishly followed, with slight diversities, in hundreds of editions, and substantially represented in all the principal modern Protestant translations prior to the nineteenth century, thus resolves itself essentially into that of the last edition of Erasmus, framed from a few modern and inferior manuscripts and the Complutensian Polyglot, in the infancy of Biblical criticism. In more than twenty places its reading is supported by the authority of no known Greek manuscript.[19]
Isaac Newton (1643–1727), best known today for his many contributions to mathematics and physics, also wrote extensively on Biblical matters. In a 1690 treatise entitled An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, he summed up the history of the comma and his own belief that it was introduced, intentionally or by accident, into a Latin text during the fourth or fifth century, a time when he believed the Church to be ripe with corruption:[24]
In all the vehement universal and lasting controversy about the Trinity in Jerome's time and both before and long enough after it, this text of the "three in heaven" was never once thought of. It is now in everybody’s mouth and accounted the main text for the business and would assuredly have been so too with them, had it been in their books.[25][n 12]
The history of the comma in the centuries following the Textus Receptus has been one of initial acceptance followed by near-total rejection. This history is summed up in the Introduction to the 1808 New Testament in an improved version, upon the basis of Archbishop Newcome's new translation, which did not contain the Comma Johanneum, where the editors explained their reasons for rejecting the Textus Receptus as follows: "1. This text concerning the heavenly witnesses is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. 2. Nor in any Latin manuscript earlier than the ninth century.[n 13] 3. It is not found in any of the ancient versions. 4. It is not cited by any of the Greek ecclesiastical writers, though to prove the doctrine of the Trinity they have cited the words both before and after this text 5. It is not cited by any of the early Latin fathers, even when the subjects upon which they treat would naturally have led them to appeal to its authority. 6. It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth century, and by him it is suspected to have been forged. [n 14] 7. It has been omitted as spurious in many editions of the New Testament since the Reformation:—in the two first of Erasmus, in those of Aldus, Colinaus, Zwinglius, and lately of Griesbach. 8. It was omitted by Luther in his German version. In the old English Bibles of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth, it was printed in small types, or included in brackets: but between the years 1566 and 1580 it began to be printed as it now stands; by whose authority, is not known."[26] The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the authorized English version, an edition of the King James 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. Modern Bible translations such as the NIV, NASB, ESV, NRSV and others tend to either omit the Comma entirely, or relegate it to the footnotes.[27]
The Roman Catholic Church was slower to reject the comma. The Council of Trent in 1546 defined the Biblical canon as "the entire books with all their parts, as these have been wont to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate." Although the revised Vulgate contained the Comma, the earliest known copies did not, leaving the status of the Comma Johanneum unclear.[5] On 13 January 1897, during a period of reaction in the Church, the Holy Office decreed that Catholic theologians could not "with safety" deny or call into doubt the Comma's authenticity. Pope Leo XIII approved this decision two days later, though his approval was not in forma specifica[5]—that is, Leo XIII did not invest his full papal authority in the matter, leaving the decree with the ordinary authority possessed by the Holy Office. Three decades later, on 2 June 1927, the more liberal Pope Pius XI decreed that the Comma Johanneum was open to dispute. The updated Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate), published in 1979 following Second Vatican Council, does not include the Comma,[28] nor does the English-language New American Bible.
In more recent years, the Comma has become relevant to the King-James-Only Movement, a largely Protestant development most prevalent within the fundamentalist and Independent Baptist branch of the Baptist churches. Many proponents view the Comma as an important Trinitarian text.[29]
Both Novum Testamentum Graece (NA27) and the United Bible Societies (UBS4) provide three variants. The numbers here follow UBS4, which rates its preference for the first variant as { A }, meaning "virtually certain" to reflect the original text. The second variant is a longer Greek version found in only four manuscripts, the margins of three others and in some minority variant readings of lectionaries. All of the hundreds of other Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant. The third variant is found only in Latin, in one class of Vulgate manuscripts and three patristic works. The other two Vulgate traditions omit the Comma, as do more than a dozen major Church Fathers who quote the verses. The Latin variant is considered a trinitarian gloss,[30] explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.
The gradual appearance of the comma in the manuscript evidence is represented in the following tables:
Latin manuscripts | |||
---|---|---|---|
Date | Name | Place | Other information |
7th cent. | Codex Legionensis | Leon Cathedral | Spanish |
7th cent. | Frisingensia Fragmenta | Spanish | |
9th cent. | Codex Cavensis | Spanish | |
9th cent. | Codex Ulmensis | Spanish | |
927 A.D. | Codex Complutensis I | Spanish | |
10th cent. | Codex Toletanus | Spanish | |
8th–9th cent. | Codex Theodulphianus | Paris (BnF) | Franco-Spanish |
8th–9th cent. | Codex Sangallensis 907 | St. Gallen | Franco-Spanish |
9th–10th cent. | Codex Sangallensis 63 | St. Gallen | marginal gloss |
Greek manuscripts | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Manuscript No. | Name | Place | Other information |
c. 1520 | 61 | Codex Montfortianus | Dublin | Original. Reads "Holy Spirit" instead of simply "Spirit". Articles are missing before the "three witnesses" (spirit, water, blood). |
14th–15th cent. | 629 | Codex Ottobonianus | Vatican | Original. Latin text along the Greek text, revised to conform to the Latin. The Comma was translated and copied back into the Greek from the Latin. |
16th cent. | 918 | Escorial (Spain) |
Original. | |
18th cent. | 2318 | Bucharest | Original. Thought to be influenced by the Vulgata Clementina. |
|
18th cent. | 2473 | Athens | Original. | |
11th cent. | 88 | Codex Regis | Naples | Marginal gloss: 16th cent. |
11th cent. | 177 | BSB Cod. graec. 211 | Munich | Marginal gloss: late 16th cent. |
10th cent. | 221 | Oxford | Marginal gloss: 15th or 16th cent. | |
14th cent. | 429 | Codex Wolfenbüttel | Wolfenbüttel (Germany) |
Marginal gloss: 16th cent. |
16th cent. | 636 | Naples | Marginal gloss: 16th cent. |
On pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate,[31] Frederick Nolan (1784–1864) is the first person to claim (1) that the verb’s subject (οι μαρτυρουντες / the-ones bearing-witness / a substantival articular participle / masculine) in 1 John 5:7 in the Received Text agrees with the grammatical genders (masculine, masculine, neuter) of the three added (appositive) nouns (πατηρ, λογος, πνευμα / Father, Word, Spirit / three persons / masculine natural gender) that are added to it, and (2) that the verb’s subject (οι μαρτυρουντες / the-ones bearing-witness / a substantival articular participle / masculine) in 1 John 5:8 in the Received Text should agree with the grammatical genders (neuter, neuter, neuter) of the three added (appositive) nouns (πνευμα, υδωρ, αιμα / Spirit, water, Blood / a person and two things / masculine natural gender) that are added to it, and (3) that the reason that this does not occur in verse 5:8 is that the verb’s subject in verse 5:8 is attracted in gender to the verb’s subject in verse 5:7, and (4) that this proves that John wrote verse 5:7.
In footnote 193 on page 257 in his 1815 book, Nolan quotes two small out of context excerpts from a letter that Eugenius Bulgaris (1716–1806), an expert in the Greek language, wrote in 1780.[32] In that 1780 letter, Eugenius analyzes the Greek grammar in 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text. In footnote 193, Nolan claims that what Eugenius says regarding 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text in his 1780 letter is the same thing that he (Nolan) says regarding 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text on pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book. However, when one takes the time to read Eugenius' 1780 letter, one discovers that what Eugenius says in his 1780 letter (the gender of the verb's subject is determined by the natural gender of the idea being expressed, not by the grammatical gender of any noun, and not by gender attraction) is the opposite of what Nolan says on pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book (the gender of the verb's subject is determined by the grammatical genders of the nouns and by gender attraction, not by the natural gender of the idea being expressed). Instead of supporting it, Nolan's own expert (Eugenius) refutes Nolan's grammatical argument.
On pages 191-234 in the 1871 (volume 22) edition of the Southern Presbyterian Review journal, Robert Dabney (1820–1898) anonymously presents his 1871 article, The Doctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek,[33] which is in part a review of Nolan’s 1815 book. On page 221, Dabney repeats the grammatical argument that Nolan originally presents on pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book, except Dabney had apparently not read page 565 in Nolan’s 1815 book, where Nolan states that the gender attraction in his grammatical argument occurs between the participles in 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text, because Dabney states on page 221 in his 1871 article that the gender attraction in Nolan’s grammatical argument occurs between the nouns in 1 John 5:7-8 in the Received Text.
Either Dabney never actually accepted Nolan’s grammatical argument in the first place, despite presenting it on page 221 in his 1871 article, or Dabney subsequently rejected it, because on page 182 in the 1878 second edition of his book, Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology, Dabney states that 1 John 5:7 in the Received Text is certainly of too doubtful genuineness to be used in defense of the Trinity,[34] which is the same thing Dabney states on page 116 in the 1871 first edition of that book.
On pages 350-390 in the 1890 book, Discussions Theological and Evangelical, which is a compilation of the previous writings of Dabney, the anonymous 1871 article is presented as having been written by Dabney (pages 377-378 in the 1890 book corresponding to page 221 in the 1871 article).[35]
In footnote 20[36] on page 237 in his 1978 book, The Epistles of John, Dr. I. Howard Marshall subscribes to the explanation that the verb’s subject in 1 John 5:7-8 in the Majority Text and Critical Text (which correlates with 1 John 5:8 in the Received Text) is masculine because the Spirit, water and Blood are a person and two things (masculine natural gender), the grammatical genders of the three added nouns being irrelevant.
In footnote 44[37] on page 332 in his 1996 book, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace subscribes to the explanation that the verb’s subject in 1 John 5:7-8 in the Majority Text and Critical Text (which correlates with 1 John 5:8 in the Received Text) is masculine because the men (την μαρτυριαν / the men) in the witness of the men (την μαρτυριαν των ανθρωπων / the witness of-the men) in verse 5:9, to whom the Spirit, water and Blood are being compared in verses 5:7-8 in the Majority Text and Critical Text (which correlate with verse 5:8 in the Received Text), are three persons (masculine natural gender), the grammatical genders of the three added nouns being irrelevant.
There are four instances in the Received Text in which three added (appositive) nouns are added as modifiers to the verb’s subject or direct object to provide additional information (Matthew 23:23, 1 John 2:16, 1 John 5:7 and 1 John 5:8 / 1 John 5:7-8 in the Majority Text and Critical Text correlates with 1 John 5:8 in the Received Text).
(Received Text) Matthew 23:23 .. τα βαρυτερα ... κρισιν ... ελεον ... πιστιν ...
23:23 … the weightier-things [the verb’s direct object / neuter for things because judgment, mercy and faith are three things] … judgment [feminine] … mercy [masculine] … faith [feminine] …
(Received Text) 1 John 2:16 … παν το … επιθυμια … επιθυμια … αλαζονεια …
2:16 … every the-thing [the verb’s subject / neuter for things because lust, lust and pride are three things] … lust [feminine] … lust [feminine] … pride [feminine] …
(Received Text) 1 John 5:7 … οι μαρτυρουντες … πατηρ … λογος … πνευμα …
5:7 … the-ones bearing-witness [the verb’s subject / masculine for persons because the Father, Word and Spirit are three persons] … Father [masculine] … Word [masculine] … Spirit [neuter] …
(Received Text) 1 John 5:8 … οι μαρτυρουντες … πνευμα … υδωρ … αιμα … 9 … την μαρτυριαν των ανθρωπων …
5:8 … the-ones bearing-witness [the verb’s subject / either (1) masculine for a person and two things because the Spirit, water and Blood are a person and two things (Dr. Marshall), or (2) masculine for three persons because the men in the witness of the men, to whom the Spirit, water and Blood are being compared, are three persons (Dr. Wallace), or (3) masculine for three persons because the Father, Word and Spirit, to whom the spirit, water and blood (three things, according to Eugenius) are being compared, are three persons (Eugenius)] … Spirit [neuter] … water [neuter] … Blood [neuter] … 9 … the witness of-the men …
In all four instances, the verb’s subject or direct object agrees with the natural gender of the idea being expressed, and the grammatical genders of the added nouns that are added to it are irrelevant. This corroborates the statements of Eugenius (Nolan's own expert), Dr. Marshall and Dr. Wallace, and it refutes the grammatical argument originally presented by Nolan on pages 257, 260 and 565 in his 1815 book and anonymously repeated by Dabney on page 221 in his 1871 article.