Manuscript Evidence
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, explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.
- No Comma. μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα. Select evidence: Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and other codices; Uncial 048, 049, 056, 0142; the text of Minuscules 33, 81, 88, 104, and other minuscules; the Byzantine majority text; the majority of Lectionaries, in particular the menologion of Lectionary 598; the Vulgate (John Wordsworth and Henry Julian White edition and the Stuttgart), Syriac, Coptic (both Sahidic and Bohairic), and other translations; Clement of Alexandria (died 215), Origen (died 254), and other quotations in the Church Fathers.
- The Comma in Greek. All non-lectionary evidence cited: Minuscules Codex Montfortianus (Minuscule 61 Gregory-Aland, c. 1520), 629 (Codex Ottobonianus, 14/15th cent.), 918 (16th cent.), 2318 (18th cent.).
- The Comma at the margins of Greek at the margins of minuscules 88 (Codex Regis, 11th cent. with margins added at the 16th cent.), 221 (10th cent. with margins added at the 15/16th cent.), 429 (14th cent. with margins added at the 16th cent.), 636 (16th cent.); some minority variant readings in lectionaries.
- The Comma in Latin. testimonium dicunt in terra, spiritus aqua et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt in Christo Iesu. 8 et tres sunt, qui testimonium dicunt in caelo, pater verbum et spiritus. All evidence from Fathers cited: Clementine edition of Vulgate translation; Pseudo-Augustine's Speculum Peccatoris (V), also (these three with some variation) Cyprian, Ps-Cyprian, & Priscillian (died 385) Liber Apologeticus. And Contra-Varimadum, and Ps-Vigilius, Fulgentius of Ruspe (died 527) Responsio contra Arianos, Cassiodorus Complexiones in Ioannis Epist. ad Parthos.
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. |
Read more about this topic: Comma Johanneum
Famous quotes containing the words manuscript and/or evidence:
“The manuscript lay like a dust-rag on his desk, and Eitel found, as he had found before, that the difficulty of art was that it forced a man back on his life, and each time the task was more difficult and distasteful.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)