Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Cyprian and the Comma Johanneum

An iconic representation of
Cyprian, bishop and martyr.
        Few textual variants in the New Testament have received more attention than First John 5:7-8, where the  Textus Receptus – the printed base-text of the New Testament in the King James Version – reads, οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τω ουρανω ο πατηρ ο λογος και το αγιον πνευμα και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισιν και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τη γη το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν, which is represented in English as, “There are three witnesses in heaven:  the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.  And there are three witnesses in the earth:  the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one.”  The base-text of most modern translations is significantly shorter and different:  οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν, that is, in English, “There are three witnesses:  the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one.”
          The longer reading – technically known as the Comma Johanneum – is well-known from the KJV.  It is also in the text of the NKJV and Modern English Version (with a footnote).  The English Standard Version, on the other hand, does not contain the Comma Johanneum and the ESV has no footnote in First John 5:7-8.  The NIV2011 and the Holman Christian Standard Bible do not have the Comma Johanneum in the text, but each contains a footnote acknowledging its existence in manuscripts of the Vulgate and in a few late manuscripts.
          I am not going to review all the evidence about the Comma Johanneum here, but a few points should be covered to set the stage for what I am going to say about the testimony from the third-century writer Cyprian. 

● The support for the Comma Johanneum in Greek manuscripts is staggeringly poor.  Out of about 500 extant Greek copies of First John, four of them have the Comma Johanneum in the text:  629 (a manuscript in which the Greek and Latin texts appear side-by-side), 61 (Codex Montfortianus, which was brought to the attention of Erasmus when this passage was discussed in the early 1500s after Erasmus had not included the passage in his first edition of the Greek New Testament), and 2473 and 2318 (both of which are extremely late – later than 1611).  Six other manuscripts have the Comma Johanneum (“CJ” from here on) written in the margin, but these margin-notes appear to have been added much later than the production-date of the manuscript itself.  (In the case of minuscule 177, made in the 1000s, the CJ was added in the margin after 1550; the margin-note mentions the verse-number.)

● The Latin support for the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum is plentiful, and its earliest components are only slightly later than the earliest manuscript-evidence for non-inclusion.  The author of a composition called Liber Apologeticus (either Priscillian, or one of his associates) used the CJ in the 380’s, in Spain“Tria sunt quae testimonium dicunt in terra:  aqua caro et sanguis et haec tria in unum sunt.  Et tria sunt quae testimonium dicent in caelo:  Pater Verbum et Spiritus et haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.”  It should be noticed, however, that this varies considerably from the contents of First John 5:7-8 as known from the TR and KJV.  Priscillian lists the earthly witnesses before the heavenly witnesses.  Priscillian’s list of earthly witnesses is different:  instead of referring to “the spirit, the water, and the blood,” Priscillian refers to “water, flesh, and blood.”  He also adds the phrase, “in Christ Jesus” at the end.

● A Latin writer in North Africa named Victor Vitensis attended the Council of Carthage in 484, after the Arian Vandal king Huneric had instructed the Trinitarian bishops of North Africa to meet there with Arian bishops to discuss the subject of the Trinity.  The Trinitarian African bishops, who numbered over 100, were led by Eugene of Carthage.   The Council of Carthage itself was unproductive and brief.  Eugene of Carthage, the leader of the Trinitarian bishops, had intended to present a statement of faith at the council, and this manifesto was incorporated into Victor Vitensis’ account.  It includes the following statement:  “Et ut luce clarius unius divinitatis esse cum Patre et Filio Spiritum Sanctum doceamus, Joannis Evangelistae testimonio comprobatur.  Ait namque:  Tres sunt qui testimonium perhibent in coelo:  Pater, Verbum et Spiritus Sanctus et hi tres unum sunt.” – which means, in English, “And as a shining light teaching the unity of the divinity of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the testimony of John the Evangelist demonstratively testifies:  ‘There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.’”  This indicates that the CJ was so well-circulated in Latin in North Africa in the late 400s that a prominent bishop was willing to utilize it at a theological conference.

● A composition called Contra Varimadum Arianum (conceivably written by Idacius Clarus in Spain in the late 300s, but perhaps more probably by Vigilius Tapsensis in North Africa in  the late 400s) includes the following statement:  “John the Evangelist, in his Epistle to the Parthians (i.e. his 1st Epistle), says there are three who afford testimony on earth:  the water, the blood, and the flesh, and these three are in us; and there are three who afford testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one.

● Eucherius of Lyons, c. 440, in his composition Formulas of Spiritual Knowledge (Formulae Spiritualis Intelligentiae), in chapter 10 (On Numbers), stated that the number three represents the Trinity, “in the epistle of John: three are those who bear witness: water, blood, and spirit.” 

● Cassiodorus, in the 500s, utilized the CJ in his composition Complexiones in Epistolis Apostolorum, as follows:  “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.”  In English this yields:  “And the three mysteries testify – on earth:  water, blood and spirit.  The fulfillment of which we read about in the passion of the Lord.  And in heaven:  Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  And these three are one God.”
   
● In Codex Fuldensis, which was produced in 546, the CJ is mentioned in the Preface to the Canonical Epistles (by “Canonical Epistles” the General Epistles are meant).  The author of this preface specifically mentioned the CJ, and stated that “much error has occurred at the hands of unfaithful translators contrary to the truth of faith, who have kept just the three words ‘water, blood and spirit’ in this edition, omitting mention of Father, Word and Spirit.”  The text of First John in Codex Fuldensis does not contain the CJ; similarly, the order of the three witnesses in the text is different than the order cited in the Preface to the Canonical Epistles – in the text of First John, Codex Fuldensis refers to “spirit and water and blood” as the three who testify.

          With all this in the background, we now come to today’s main subject:  the testimony of Cyprian of Carthage.  In his Treatise on the Unity of the Universal Church (1:6), Cyprian says: “Dicit Dominus, ‘Ego et Pater unum sumus,’ et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto scriptum est:  ‘Et tres unum sunt.’”  In English:  “The Lord says, ‘I and the Father are one,” and again, it is written of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, ‘And these three are one.’”
          The issue here is (as Dan Wallace has pointed out) whether Cyprian quoted (or slightly misquoted) the CJ when he refers to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, or whether he merely quoted the words, “And these three are one.”  
          The idea that Cyprian possessed a copy of First John that contained the CJ is not as unlikely as some commentators have made it seem.  Against the point that none of the early Greek manuscripts of First John contain the CJ, the counterpoint may be submitted that Hort, in 1881, argued for six readings in the General Epistles which are likewise supported by no ancient Greek manuscripts – and in 2013, the Nestle-Aland compilers adopted a reading into the text of Second Peter 3:10 that is found in no Greek manuscripts.  Clearly, at least among some highly influential textual critics, the lack of early Greek manuscript support does not rule out the plausibility of a textual variant.
          In addition, it is possible to explain the early loss of the CJ as a consequence of two simple scribal errors.  If a copyist were to copy the longer reading in a narrow column, and transpose the words “εν τη γη” (“on the earth”) so as to appear before the word “τρεις” (three) in verse 8, the text would look like this:   
     οι μαρτυρουντες
     εν τω ουρανω
     ο πατηρ ο λογος και
     το αγιον πνευμα
     και ουτοι οι τρεις
     εν εισιν και εν
     τη γη τρεις εισιν
     οι μαρτυρουντες
     το πνευμα και το
     υδωρ και το αιμα
     και οι τρεις εις το
     εν εισιν·           
And if a subsequent copyist were to lose his line of sight and jump from the words οι μαρτυρουντες at the end of the second line to the identical words at the end of the ninth line, accidentally skipping the intervening words (in bold print), the resultant text would be:
     οτι τρεις εισιν
     οι μαρτυρουντες
     το πνευμα και το
     υδωρ και το αιμα
     και οι τρεις εις το
     εν εισιν·          
which is the text found in almost all Greek manuscripts of First John. 

          So those who defend the CJ may have an answer to Dan Wallace’s charge that they are denying history.  They are proposing that early scribal errors resulted in the corruption of all of the early Greek manuscripts, just as advocates of the Nestle-Aland compilation implicitly propose that early scribal errors have repeatedly resulted in the corruption of all the early Greek manuscripts except three, or two, or one, or (at Acts 16:12 and Second Peter 3:10) all of them. 

          But let’s not get distracted from that comment by Cyprian.  When one considers the theory that Cyprian was merely applying the final phrase of First John 5:8 to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a question presents itself:  what sort of interpretive alchemy starts with “the spirit and the water and the blood,” and manages to conjure from that a representation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?   
          Enter Scotti Anonymi – an anonymous Irishman who wrote a commentary on the General Epistles in the late 600s.  He does not comment on the CJ.  He does, however, put a distinctly Trinitarian spin on the three witnesses – which he lists, not as “the spirit and the water and the blood,” but as “water, blood, and spirit.”  This is a conformation to the order in which the water, blood, and spirit appear in First John 5:6.  A change in the order of the witnesses in First John 5:8 was an easy change for an early copyist to make.  And when we look at the early citations of First John, it becomes clear that early Latin copyists did indeed make this alteration in the text of First John. 
          That is why, in the commentary of Scotti Anonymi, the text of First John 5:8 elicited thoughts about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  As researcher Shane Angland has observed, Scotti Anonymi used Jeremiah 2:13 – where God describes Himself as “the fountain of living waters” – as the basis on which to interpret “the water” as a proxy for the Father.  Blood represents Christ.  And of course the reference to the spirit was interpreted to represent the Holy Spirit.  Even a fan of allegorical, or symbolic, interpretation, might not naturally or readily see a reference to the Trinity in the words, “the spirit and the water and the blood,” but when these nouns are rearranged as “the water and the blood and the spirit,” a symbolic interpretation becomes much more natural.

          I propose that the arrangement of the witnesses in First John 5:8 was adjusted – not with any intent to model the Trinity, but simply to conform to the order in which the water, blood, and spirit are introduced in 5:6 – very early in an Old Latin transmission-stream.  Let’s look again for indications of this in the patristic evidence:

● This was the text used by the author of the Preface to the Canonical Epistles in Codex Fuldensis;  he mentioned “the three words ‘water, blood and spirit.’”
● This was the text used by Eucherius:  “water, blood, and spirit.” 
● This was the text used by Cassiodorus:  “water, blood, and spirit.” 
● Two-thirds of this reading is supported by Etherius of Osma in the 700s in Adversus Elipandum (“the water and the blood and the flesh”), and by the author of Contra Varimadum (“the water, the blood, and the flesh”).
● Priscillian similarly put water first in the list of earthly witnesses (“water, flesh, and blood”).

          From this evidence it may be deduced that in the North African Latin text of First John (or at least in one form of it), by the time Cyprian ever read the text, the order of the earthly witnesses in 5:6 had been transposed to “water, blood, and spirit.”  Due to this transposition, Cyprian interpreted the passage as a reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  With the transposition in the equation, Cyprian’s interpretation of First John 5:8 as a model of the Trinity is not puzzling.  There is thus no reason to assume that he was referring to the CJ in his Treatise on the Unity of the Universal Church.

[Readers are invited to check the data used in this post.]

11 comments:

  1. Very informative, and hardly overlapping with my in-depth discussions of several of the same sources here.

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  2. Some comments about the above placed here:

    Facebook - PureBible
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/permalink/1097251690366719/

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  3. Very interesting and informative.

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  4. James Snapp
    "I propose that the arrangement of the witnesses in First John 5:8 was adjusted "

    This is against the evidence in the same era.

    Origen - Commentary on John
    Clement Alexandria - Adumbrationes through Cassiodorus
    Treatise on Rebaptism (3rd century)
    Pope Eusebius (c. 309)

    All of these have our spirit-water-blood order.

    And I would suggest that your attempt to use transposition as part of your argument be retired :) .

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  5. Steven Avery,

    << This is against the evidence in the same era. >>

    How you imagine that I meant that the adjustment occurrec everywhere, I have no idea. It occurred in the particular Old Latin transmission-stream, where we see the CJ emerge later. As Plainly Shown via the examples I listed.

    << All of these have our spirit-water-blood order. >>

    And they're not in the same OL transmission-stream that later produced the CJ. Is it really that hard to see the connection? The transposition and the CJ go together, and the transmission-stream where the are together is a North Africa Latin transmission-stream.

    Which is why it's not in the Greek transmission-lines that weren't affected later by Latin retro-translation. The CJ originated as a Latin reading, not as a Greek reading.


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  6. Hi James,

    By far the closest match in locale and time is the:

    Treatise on Rebaptism - spirit, water, blood
    which is even thought to have been directed towards the teachings of Cyprian. So it is far away the most important, and it contradicts your proposal.

    ===========

    James Snapp
    "transmission-stream where the are together is a North Africa Latin transmission-stream."

    Jerome is clearly not a North African transmission line, and 150 years later.
    Plus you try, with great difficulty, to make the Prologue even later, geography and author unknown, and then landing with Victor of Capua in Italy. Still waiting for your reasons, have asked many times.)

    Eucherius was Lyon, not North African.
    Cassiodorus was Rome, not North Africa.

    Plus you are cherry-picking, also going hundreds of years later, and leaving out other writers.

    Here is a fuller list (I am even giving you a bit you can add on the transpose side.)

    ==================

    Augustine - Contra Maximinum - spirit, water, blood

    Hesychius - spirit, water, blood

    Leo to Flavium - spirit, water, blood

    Ambrose - two methods, at least
    On the Holy Spirit - spirit, water, blood
    On the Mysteries - water, blood spirit - also Luke commentary

    Ambrosius - water, blood, spirit

    Codex Fuldensis - spirit, water, blood

    Cyprian De Duplici Martyrio ad Fortunatum - spirit, water, blood
    (possibly written by Erasmus)

    Pope Eusebius - spirit, blood,water

    Facundus - spirit, water, blood

    There are others that I am not checking now, like the twelve books on the Trinity, however the above should make it clear that your theory was cherry-picking.

    Then you go into later writers, with totally different order and text, and some do not even have spirit. Why do you think the water becomes the Father in your analogy leap? Please try to give your reasoning.

    Here is the rest of your short grab-bag, after the Prologue and Eucherius, with three different orders.

    ● Cassiodorus: “water, blood, and spirit.”
    ● Etherius of Osma - 700’s (“the water and the blood and the flesh”),
    ● Contra Varimadum (“the water, the blood, and the flesh”).
    ● Priscillian (“water, flesh, and blood”).

    Anyway, you can conjecture anything, that is your right. However the African transmission line theory, of having a different order that might somehow help the leaping analogy theory of verse creation does not fit the 'facts on the ground'. Once we stop the cherry-picking. :)

    Steven Avery
    Dutchess County, NY, USA

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  7. Hi James,
    You wrote: "The transposition and the CJ go together, and the transmission-stream where the are together is a North Africa Latin transmission-stream."

    Do you have any thoughts on Origen's "Selecta in Psalmos," specifically within the commentary provided for Psalm 123 (122) where Origen allegedly writes, "And the Lord our God is three, for the three are one," which particularly contains the Greek text, "οἱ γὰρ τρεῖς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν."

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  8. I'm not James, but here we go:
    The text you're referring to is from PG12:1633 "Δοῦλοι κυρίων Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ πνεῦμα καὶ σῶμα· παιδίσκη δὲ κυρίας τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἡ ψυχή. Τὰ δὲ τρία Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν· οἱ γὰρ τρεῖς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν."
    The translation: "The servants of the Lords, the Father and the Son, are the spirit and the body; and the handmaid of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, is the soul. And the Three are our Lord, God; for the Three are one."

    Now - I don't believe he's quoting anything here. He's simply stating that the three persons are one, that's simply trinitarian doctrine and must not be a reference to 1.John - neither verse 7 nor verse 8. The preceeding sentence "Τὰ δὲ τρία Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν" is also not a quote; he doesn't claim to quote anything here; there is no "εἰς" here, which is part of 1.John 5.
    So I think the most fitting explanation is that Origen makes a theological statement on his own in here and doesn't quote anything.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Marvin, thanks for the reply. Would there be any reason in particular to think that the writer of this work (allegedly Origen, but regardless of the exact attribution) was not quoting from 1 John 5:7, specifically the end of it? This seems to be what he was doing, of course, similarly to Cyprian, who quoted it in "Unity" and in "Letter to Iubaianus" in the mid-3rd century. Of course, just as with Cyprian, there's no reason why the quotation has to match our modern verse divisions. Someone writing in the 3rd century could quote part of a verse, a whole verse, or maybe a verse and a half, and there would be nothing to stop them from doing that. Is there some particular reason to think that he wasn't, or couldn't be quoting it that I haven't considered yet?

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    2. Dear Andrew, yes there are quite a few reasons for that. But before we get to them, let me demonstrate, that Cyprian doesn't quote the Comma - neither in "De unitate" nor in "Ad Jubaianum":
      In "Ad Jubaianum" the quote is "si Spiritus Sancti, cum tres unum sunt, quomodo Spiritus Sanctus placatus esse ei potest, qui aut Patris aut Filii inimicus est?" -> 1. we simply have "tres unum sunt" in here - nothing more than that. If one would claim that "three are one" is neccessarily a quote of the comma, then there would be no trinity besides the comma - which is pretty much ridiculous, since "three are one" is just a really standard trinitarian phrase - no one would claim that every christian that says "the three persons of the trinity are one" is quoting the comma every single time while stating that - that would be ridiculous. 2. there is no reason to assume, even granting he is quoting anything here - that this would be the comma instead of simply 1.John 5:8. The reason for this is, that the theological implication of "father, word and spirit" explicitly being mentioned would be pretty much huge and there would be no single reason to not explicitly cite that as part of the quote like "si Spiritus Sancti, cum pater, verbum et spitius sanctus tres unum sunt". This is explicit evidence that he cannot be quoting the comma here - if anything, nothing more than verse 8.
      Every single point that I mentioned for "Ad Jubaianum" is exactly the same for Origen.
      As for "De Unitate", the quote is "Dicit Dominus, ‘Ego et Pater unum sumus,’ et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto scriptum est: ‘Et tres unum sunt.’”
      Cyprian explicitly states, that the quote is simply "et tres unum sunt" and nothing more than that - neither pater, nor filius, nor spiritus sanctus is part of the quote. If they would be part of the quote, he would have written something like "Dicit Dominus, ‘Ego et Pater unum sumus,’ et iterum scriptum est: ‘Pater, filium et spiritus sanctus, et tres unum sunt.’” - But he doesn't do that. Why? Because that's not part of the verse - he's simply quoting verse 8. Also Cyprian (just like Origen and in Ad Jubaianum) doesn't say "verbum" - he says "filius". If he would be referencing the comma, he would use "verbum" - since the comma doesn't have "filius".
      There is no reason to suggest, that Cyprian knew of the Comma but wasn't explicitly citing "pater, verbum et spiritus sanctus" as part of the quote. That would make zero sense.
      Cyprian's quote (and other quote as for example in Augustine etc.) is the reason, why the Comma even exists to begin with - it's an interpretation of verse 8 - nothing more, nothing less.
      Like I mentioned, you're claim that they simply "quote part of a verse" in here doesn't make any sense - because of the theological messaging in the given texts.
      Which additional external reasons are there for rejecting these texts as quotes of the comma by any chance? Well - there is no pre-vulgate translation, that has the comma in any manuscript; there are no greek manuscripts that have it apart from Montfortianus and Ottobonianus - both of them are obvious translations of the vulgate in the late middle ages; the earliest vulgate manuscript doesn't have it; no church father quotes it until the 4th century; there are several church fathers till the 4th century who explicitly don't know the comma (like Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory the theologian for example); "ἐν τῇ γῇ" - which is part of the comma is a grammatical error - that is an obvious translation from the latin phrase "in terra" - in greek you would say "ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς". These are just a few - to sum it up, the external evidence against it would be that it's absolutely anachronistic to claim so.

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  9. Thanks for the reply. I am simply looking for reasons why they cannot possibly be quoting it. Obviously, their quotations alone would not provide sufficient reason by itself to add something that we do not already have to Scripture, but I do still think that these other early writings (regardless of who actually wrote them) can be supporting evidence, similar to how Irenaeus' quotation of Mark 16:19 is relevant to the discussion of that passage. Hopefully that much makes sense. I would always be interested to know if someone has a reason to definitively show that, without any doubt whatsoever, they could not possibly be quoting from it. This is because I would not continue to use such quotations if I was presented with such reasoning and/or evidence that would totally undermine them. Note that merely throwing some amount of doubt on these items of evidence, which I classify as supporting, isn't really the same as definitively proving that it is actually impossible for them to be quoting it.

    I do agree that late MSS do not provide much weight at all since we know that the 13th century Council of Lateran (1215) spurred some scribes to back-translate the passage into some late MSS, or write it in the margins. That fact doesn't really speak to its originality. This would also explain the irregularity of MS like Montfortianus, which Erasmus adopted in 1522 but later added definite articles to, before Stephanus finally gave the actual TR form in 1546. I do not think that Stephanus included this reading on the basis of those manuscripts, but rather on the basis of higher quality but non-extant manuscripts, similar to his longer readings in places like Acts 10:6 and Hebrews 12:20. This is also how he was able to correct Erasmus on the last six verses of Revelation, by the way.

    You say there are people who explicitly do not know the CJ. I would be somewhat interested in elaboration on this, but not extremely so. It is a known fact that some writers resorted to depleted or corrupted manuscripts. But it is important to note that that fact, in itself, is not evidence that all of the manuscripts at that time were like that. It is only evidence that some manuscripts at that time were like that.

    I readily accept that some copies were depleted or corrupted in ancient times, but I do not believe that all of them were. I believe based on the Bible's claims that the true reading was preserved in some lines of copies. In order to exhaustively disprove the possibility that some copies had this reading, a person would logically need to produce every single copy that existed at that time, and prove that none of them, zero, had the reading.

    Lastly, you mention this: "ἐν τῇ γῇ" - which is part of the comma is a grammatical error - that is an obvious translation from the latin phrase "in terra" - in greek you would say "ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς".

    My response to the above: As far as I know, nobody disputes the readings "ἐν πάσῃ τῇ γῇ" in Romans 9:17 or "ἐν τῇ γῇ" in Luke 12:51. My understanding is that sometimes in Biblical Greek, the rules of syntax aren't completely followed to the letter of every known rule. I might be willing in some case at least, to admit that the original writer had an unusual style of writing in Greek. But that wouldn't necessarily invalidate its authenticity (although depending on the specifics, it might). Sometimes the details of how "regular" the writing style is just depends on the style of the Biblical writer, from what I've been told and read. I don't claim to be expert on the subject. But my basic thought on this point is, an "irregular" reading, in general, might or might not be considered unacceptable as a New Testament reading then – but as far as I can tell, in this specific case there isn't as much controversy about two similar readings in Luke and Romans which are even in the CT and in the different Byz. editions. Hopefully, my above explanation makes some amount of sense.

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