Some Textual Facts for my fellow Catholics and Protestant Anticatholics: The 1520 Codex Montfortianus and the Comma Johanneum The Comma Johanneum: or Johannine Comma or Heavenly Witnesses is a comma (a short clause) in the First Epistle of John, 1 John 5:7–8. This reading is a medieval Latin Vulgate Text corruption that entered the Western Greek manuscript tradition through the 1520 Codex Montfortianus and in subsequent copies. The medieval Latin Vulgate reads: quoniam tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo pater verbum et spiritus sanctus et hi tres unum sunt et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra spiritus et aqua et sanguis et tres unum sunt The 1520 forged Koine Greek manuscript of I John given to Desiderius Erasmus 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 The Codex Montfortianus designated by 61 (on the list Gregory-Aland; Sodens δ 603), and known as minuscule 61, Erasmus named it Codex Britannicus (Codex of Britain), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament on paper. It is dated to the early 16th century, though a 15th-century date is possible on paleographic grounds. The manuscript is famous for including the Comma Johanneum. It has marginalia. This codex contains the entire of the New Testament. The text is written in one column per page, 21 lines per page, on 455 paper leaves (15.8 cm by 12 cm). The text is divided according to the κεφαλαια (chapters), whose numbers are given at the margin, and their τιτλοι (titles) at the top of the pages. There is also another division according to the smaller Ammonian Sections, with references to the Eusebian Canons. It contains prolegomena, tables of the κεφαλαια (tables of contents) before each book, and subscriptions at the end of each book, with numbers of στιχοι. The titles of the sacred books were written in red ink. The order of books: Gospels, Pauline epistles, Acts, General epistles (James, Jude, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John), and Book of Revelation. The order of General epistles is the same as in Minuscule 326. The Koine Greek text of the Gospels and Acts of this codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type, Aland placed it in Category V. In Pauline epistles and General epistles its text is mixed. Aland placed it in Category III. In the Book of Revelation its text belongs to the Byzantine text-type but with a large number of unique textual variants, in a close relationship to the Uncial 046, and Minuscule 69. In the Gospels close to the manuscripts 56, 58. In 1 John 5:6 it has textual variant δι ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου (through water and blood and the Holy Spirit) together with the manuscripts: 39, 326, 1837. It contains the Comma Johanneum as an integral part of the text. An engraved facsimile of the relevant page can be seen in Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (London: Cadell and Davies, 1818), vol. 2.2, p. 118. It was the first Greek manuscript discovered that contains the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7-8. It was copied from a 10th-century manuscript at Lincoln College, Oxford, that did not have the Comma. The Comma was inserted from the Latin. Its earliest known owner was Froy, a Franciscan friar, then Thomas Clement (1569), then William Chark (1582), then Thomas Montfort, from whom it derives its present name, then Archbishop Ussher, who caused the collation to be made which appears in Waltons Polyglott (Matthew 1:1; Acts 22:29; Romans 1), and presented the manuscript to Trinity College. This is the codex that was presented to and was used by Erasmus as the sole authority for the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum into his third edition of the Novum Testamentum (1522). Erasmus misprinted εμαις for εν αις in Apocalypse 2:13. It was described by Wettstein and Orlando Dobbin. C. R. Gregory saw it in 1883. Codex Montfortianus is now located at Trinity College (Ms. 30) in Dublin, Ireland. The Byzantine Text (IE The Traditional or Majority Text) does not contain this reading among its Manuscript Witnesses. The Latin Nova Vulgata (New Vulgate), published in 1979 following the Second Vatican Council, approved for liturgical use, does not include the Comma. This spurious reading did not come from any Koine Greek Text Family of the NT, nor from the original Latin Vulgate Text. It has no support in any ancient translations of the Byzantine Text NT either. How it was inserted into the 3rd Edition of Desiderius Erasmus 3rd, 4th and 5th Editions of his Koine Greek NT Text is known. His 3rd Edition Greek text was used by William Tyndale to produce the first Greek Text based English Translation of the New Testament - thus this reading entered all future English Bibles from William Tyndale. Martin Luther used Desiderius Erasmus 2nd Edition Greek/Latin Polyglot NT for his German Translation, so that the Luther Bible does not contain this Comma Johanneum in it to this day. This is the empirical evidence that the reading For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one is not from the Autographs, Inspired or part of Scripture. It is Orthodox in Theology, but that is not enough to retain it.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:23:36 +0000
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