Comma johanneum

COMMA JOHANNEUM1 John 5:7-8

WHAT IS IT?

The Comma Johanneum is a comma (a short clause) in the First Epistle of John (1 John 5:7)

WHAT IS IT?

This comma appears in the Latin Vulgate text as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages, based on Vetus Latina minority readings dating to the 7th century.

WHAT IS IT?

1 John 5:7 (Douay Rheims) Translated from the Latin Vulgate: quia

tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. Et hi tres unum sunt.

WHAT IS IT?

1 John 5:7 (Douay Rheims) “And there are three who give

testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.”

THE LATIN VULGATE BIBLE

The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations. By the 13th century this revision had come to be called the versio vulgata, that is, the "commonly used translation”, and ultimately it became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible in the Roman Catholic Church.

THE VETUS LATINA

Vetus Latina is a collective name given to the Biblical texts in Latin that were translated before St Jerome's Vulgate Bible (382-405 AD) became the standard Bible for Latin-speaking Western Christians. The phrase Vetus Latina is Latin for Old Latin, and the Vetus Latina is sometimes known as the Old Latin Bible.

THE INSERTION OF THE COMMA JOHANNEUM

The Comma Johanneum 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.

WHAT IS A GLOSS?

Biblical scholars use the word glossa or gloss, in connection with glosses of Biblical texts

WHAT IS A GLOSS?

The English word gloss is derived from the Latin glossa, a transcript of the Greek

(glossa glossa).

WHAT IS A GLOSS?

In Greek the word glossa means tongue, or language

WHAT IS A GLOSS?

In time the word came to mean an explanation or addition to a biblical text

WHAT IS A GLOSS?

In the example to the right, the verse is on the right and the gloss is on the left

INSERTION OF A COMMENT INTO THE TEXT

At some point in the 200’s or 300’s AD, a copyist inserted a commentary on the text of 1 John 5:7 into the actual text itself


So the manuscript writer copying out the text of the Letter inserted what was a comment on the original text


From that point, those who copied the text included the inserted words into the First Epistle of John

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

The Dutch Catholic scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus wanted to provide a Greek New Testament which could be used for translation into vernacular editions as well as for the study of scholars

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

Beginning in 1516 and using six manuscripts which contained not quite the whole of the New Testament, Erasmus began to put together his critical Greek text

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

Erasmus filled in the missing portions of the text from the Latin Vulgate Bible which was the oldest and most used text of Scripture in Europe

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

We should note that at this time in history the greatest manuscript discoveries were yet to be made

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS

Therefore, the Greek text of Erasmus was flawed from the beginning and the Vulgate he was using itself contained errors, such as the Comma Johanneum

ERASMUS AND SCHOLARSHIP

To his credit, Erasmus actually left out the Comma Johanneum from the first edition of his published text


But this was a time of theological infighting and there was an outcry about the missing text


The Comma Johanneum supported the Doctrine of the Trinity and because Erasmus omitted the text it was looked upon as an attack on that doctrine


Therefore Erasmus included the words in the third and later editions

THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”

Erasmus intended to produce a new critical Latin translation of the Vulgate when he began his work


He gathered all the manuscripts of the Vulgate he could find in order to produce a more authoritative version of the New Testament


The Greek texts available to Erasmus were limited and in many places he had to translate backwards from the Latin Vulgate or the writings of the Fathers of the Church into the Greek of his new critical edition


The texts that Erasmus was using for the Greek version of the New Testament were very late


They all dated from the 12th century or later making them far removed from the most original Greek biblical documents used by St. Jerome and the Fathers of the Church


It was this flawed edition of the Greek New Testament that became the basis of the translation into vernacular languages, especially for Protestant editions, from the 16th to the late 19th centuries

ERASMUS ON THE NECESSITY OF THE GREEK TEXT

Erasmus realized the need to go back to the oldest sources available for an accurate translation of the Scriptures into a vernacular language

ERASMUS ON THE NECESSITY OF THE GREEK TEXT

“…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.“ ~ D. Erasmus

PROBLEMS WITH ERASMUS’ TRANSLATION

Because the manuscripts that Erasmus was working on were so late, there are mistakes in his final version of the New Testament

PROBLEMS WITH ERASMUS’ TRANSLATION

In more than twenty places the reading supplied by Erasmus in his text is supported by the authority of no known Greek manuscript

THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT CENTURIES

The Comma Johanneum was initially widely accepted in the translations of the Scriptures and continued to be included in the text of the Catholic Bible both Latin and vernacular


With the rise of Biblical Scholarship, the Comma Johanneum became just as widely rejected as it had been widely accepted


Among the reasons cited for the rejection of the Comma Johanneum by the Protestants are the following


This text concerning the heavenly witnesses is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century


This text is not found in any Latin manuscript earlier than the ninth century


This text is not found in any of the ancient versions.


This text 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


This text 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


The Church was slower to reject the Comma Johanneum


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," meaning that the comma was included.


Although the revised Vulgate contained the Comma, the earliest known copies did not, leaving the status of the Comma Johanneum unclear


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.


On 15 January, 1897, Pope Leo XIII approved this decision but he did not invest his full papal authority in the matter, leaving the decree with the ordinary authority possessed by the Holy Office


On 2 June 1927, Pope Pius XI decreed that the Comma Johanneum was open to dispute


The updated Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate), given the recognitio by Pope Paul VI


And published in 1979 by Blessed Pope John Paul II following Second Vatican Council, does not include the Comma Johanneum


The New American Bible does not contain the Comma Johanneum simply because there is no evidence that the text was ever present in the most ancient manuscripts

Comma johanneum

Spiritual

textus receptus erasmus

latin vulgate bible

text of theletter

text itwas

published text

old latin bible

hiscritical greek text

latin vulgatebible