The Johannine Comma () is a phrase (comma) in verses of the First Epistle of John, which is seen as an interpolation in the Epistle of John according to modern textual criticism. The text in the King James Version of the Bible reads:
In the Greek Textus Receptus (TR), the comma reads thus:ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι. καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ.It became a touchpoint for the Christian theological debate over the doctrine of the Trinity from the early church councils to the Catholic and Protestant disputes in the early modern period.
The words "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" (KJV) found in older translations at 1 John 5:7 are thought by some to be spurious additions to the original text. A footnote in the Jerusalem Bible, a Modern Catholic translation, says that these words are "not in any of the early Greek MSS [manuscripts], or any of the early translations, or in the best MSS of the Vulg[ate] itself." In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger (1975, pp. 716–718) traces in detail the history of the passage, asserting its first mention in the 4th-century treatise Liber Apologeticus, and that it appears in Vetus Latina and Vulgate manuscripts beginning in the 6th century. Modern translations as a whole (both Catholic and Protestant, such as the Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, and New American Bible) do not include them in the main body of the text due to their ostensibly spurious nature. "Spirit." Insight on the Scriptures- Volume 2. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. p. 1019Metzger, Bruce. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. pp. 716-718. 1975.
The comma is mainly only attested in the Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, being absent from the vast majority of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the earliest Greek manuscript being from the 14th century. It is also totally absent in the Geʽez, Coptic,Raymond Brown, The Epistles of John (Doubleday, 1982), p. 777. Syriac, Georgian, Arabic and from the early pre-12th-century Armenian witnesses to the New Testament. Despite its absence from these manuscripts, it was contained in many printed editions of the New Testament in the past, including the Complutensian Polyglot (1517), the different editions of the Textus Receptus (1516-1894), the London Polyglot (1655) and the Patriarchal text (1904). And it is contained in many Reformation-era vernacular translations of the Bible due to the inclusion of the verse within the Textus Receptus and the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. In spite of its late date, members of the King James Only movement and those who advocate for the superiority for the Textus Receptus and of the Vulgate have argued for its authenticity.
The Comma Johanneum is among the most noteworthy variants found within the Textus Receptus in addition to the confession of the Ethiopian eunuch, the long ending of Mark, the Pericope Adulterae, the reading "God" in 1 Timothy 3:16 and the "Book of Life" in Book of Revelation 22:19.
Text The "Johannine Comma" is a short clause found in 1 John 5:7–8.
Erasmus omitted the text of the Johannine Comma from his first and second editions of the Greek-Latin New Testament (the ) because it was not in his Greek manuscripts. He added the text to his in 1522 after being accused of reviving Arianism and after he was informed of a Greek manuscript that contained the verse, although he expressed doubt as to its authenticity in his Annotations.
Many subsequent early printed editions of the Bible include it, such as the Coverdale Bible (1535), the Geneva Bible (1560), the Douay-Rheims Bible (1610), and the King James Bible (1611). Later editions based on the , such as Robert Young's Literal Translation (1862) and the New King James Version (1979), include the verse. In the 1500s it was not always included in Latin New Testament editions, though it was in the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592). However, Martin Luther did not include it in his Luther Bible.
The text in the King James Bible reads:
The text (with the Comma in brackets and italicised) in the Latin of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate reads:
The text (with the Comma in brackets and italicised) in the Greek of the reads:
There are several variant versions of the Latin and Greek texts.
English translations based on a modern critical text have omitted the comma from the main text since the English Revised Version (1881), including the New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
Origin
Several early sources that might be expected to include the Comma Johanneum in fact omit it. For example, Clement of Alexandria's () quotation of 1 John 5:8 does not include the Comma.
Among the earliest possible references to the Comma appears by the 3rd-century Church Father Cyprian (died 258), who in Unity of the Church 1.6CCEL: The Treatises of Cyprian quoted John 10:30: "Again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one. However, some believe that he was giving an interpretation of the three elements mentioned in the uncontested part of the verse.
The first undisputed work to quote the Comma Johanneum as an actual part of the Epistle's text appears to be the 4th-century Latin homily , probably written by Priscillian of Ávila (died 385), or his close follower Bishop Instantius.
Manuscripts
The Comma is not in two of the oldest extant Vulgate manuscripts, Codex Fuldensis and the Codex Amiatinus, although it is referenced in the Prologue to the Canonical Epistles of Fuldensis, and appears in Old Latin manuscripts of similar antiquity. The earliest extant Latin manuscripts supporting the Comma are dated from the 5th to 7th century. The Freisinger fragment,'r' in the UBS-4 also 'it-q' and Beuron 64 are apparatus names today. These fragments were formerly known as Fragmenta Monacensia, as in the Handbook to the textual criticism of the New Testament, by Frederic George Kenyon, 1901, p. 178. León palimpsest, [UBS4] besides the younger Codex Speculum, New Testament quotations extant in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript.Catholic Encyclopedia, "Epistles of St John"
The comma does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland is aware of eight Greek manuscripts that contain the Comma.NA26: mss 61, 629, 918, 2318, besides in mss. 88, 221, 429, 636 as later additions. The date of the addition is late, probably dating to the time of Erasmus.Catholic Encyclopedia: "in only four rather recent cursives – one of the fifteenth and three of the sixteenth century." This is updated in the list below. In one manuscript, back-translated into Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three are one" is absent.
Both (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 the original text of five manuscripts and the margins of five others. All of the other 500 plus Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant. The third variant is found only in Latin manuscripts and patristic works. The Latin variant is considered a trinitarian gloss,John Painter, Daniel J. Harrington. 1, 2, and 3 John explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.
The Comma in Greek. All non-lectionary evidence cited: Minuscules 61 (Codex Montfortianus, ), 629 (Codex Ottobonianus, 14th/15th century), 918 (Codex Escurialensis, Σ. I. 5, 16th century), 2318 (18th century) and 2473 (17th century). It is also found in the Complutensian Polyglot (1520) in both Greek and Latin. Its first full appearance in Greek is from the Greek version of the Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215. Although it later appears in the writings of Emmanuel Calecas (died 1410), Joseph Bryennius (1350 – 1431/38) and in the Orthodox Confession of Moglas (1643). There are no full Patristic Greek references to the comma, however, F.H.A. Scrivener mentions three possible allusions in Greek to the comma in the 4th or 5th century from the Synopsis of Holy Scripture, the Disputation with Arius from Pseudo-Athanasius and from an anonymous homily dated to 381. The Comma at the margins of Greek. At the margins of minuscules 88 (Codex Regis, 11th century with margins added at the 16th century), 177 (BSB Cod. graec. 211), 221 (10th century with margins added at the 15th/16th century), 429 (Codex Guelferbytanus, 14th century with margins added at the 16th century), 636 (16th century). The Comma in Latin. [or ] [or: ] [... "giving evidence on earth, spirit, water and blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus. 8 And the three, which give evidence in heaven, are father word and spirit."] All evidence from Fathers cited: Clementine edition of Vulgate translation; Pseudo-Augustine's (V), also (these three with some variation) Cyprian (3rd century), Priscillian (died 385) , Expositio Fidei (4th century), Contra-Varimadum (439-484), Eugenius of Carthage (5th century), Council of Carthage (483), Pseudo-Jerome (5th century) Prologue to the Catholic Epistles, Fulgentius of Ruspe (died 527) , Cassiodorus (6th century) , Donation of Constantine (8th century). It is also found in the quotations of multiple later medieval writers, including: Peter Abelard (12th century), Peter Lombard (12th century), Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century), Thomas Aquinas (13th century) and William of Ockham (14th century). The Comma in other languages: According to Scrivener, the Johannine Comma is found in a few late Slavonic manuscripts, and also in the margin of the Moscow edition of 1663, published under Alexis of Russia. Due to Latin influence, the Johannine Comma also found its way into the Armenian language after the 12th century under King Haithom. One of the eighteen MSS. used by Zohrab to publish the Armenian Bible had the Comma, and it was quoted in the 13th century in the Armenian synod of Sis alongside being found in Uscan's Armenian translation of the Bible of the 17th century. The Syriac writer Jacob of Edessa (640–708) has been proposed to have referenced the Comma by making a trinitarian reference alongside the water, blood, and Spirit. However, his statements are also seen as possibly referring to the Latin work Against Varimadus, especially with Jacob's mention that the Trinity exists "within us". This suggests Jacob's reference might be to this Latin text rather than a quotation of 1 John 5:7. In Minuscule 460, (a trilingual manuscript) In folio 115v, the Arabic Column reads لأرض (latinized: al-ardh, lit. on earth) in v. 8, but omits the Heavenly Witnesses. On earth being part of the disputed verse. The 14th century German Augsburger Bible mentions the heavenly witnesses after the earthly witnesses. The addition is also in Cod. Sang. 28, an Old French manuscript of the 13th century.
The appearance of the Comma in the manuscript evidence is represented in the following tables:
+ Latin manuscripts Date Name Place Other information 5th century Codex Speculum (m) Holy Cross Monastery (Sessorianus), Rome, Italy Vetus Latina, scripture quotations AD 546 (F) Fulda, Hesse, Germany The oldest Vulgate manuscript does not have the verse, it does have the Vulgate Prologue which discusses the verse 5th-7th century (r) or (q) Bavarian State Library, Munich, Bavaria, Germany Vetus Latina, Spanish - earthly before heavenly, formerly Fragmenta Monacensia 7th century León palimpsest (l) Beuron 67 León Cathedral, Spain Spanish - "and there are three which bear testimony in heaven, the Father, and the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus" - earthly before heavenly