Johannine Comma and Cyprian of Carthage

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Cyprian of Carthage

The Latin church writer Cyprian (210 - 258) makes reference to the Johannine Comma in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, Treatise 1, paragraph 6. Here is the full quotation:

The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth." He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, "I and the Father are one;" and again it is written of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, "And these three are one." And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.

“Dicit Dominus, ‘Ego et Pater unum sumus,’ et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto scriptum est: ‘Et tres unum sunt.’”

“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.’”

‘De Unitate Ecclesiae, (On the Unity of the Church)

Notice that Cyprian firstly said “The Lord says, ‘I and the Father are one,” and again.... obviously making the claim that the bible verse quoted again had as much weight as the first quotation. Secondly, confirms that it is scripture by saying it is written . The obvious conclusion is the Cyprian is quoting from scripture and believes the Comma to have the same authority as John's earlier quotation in his gospel.

Scrivener stated:

“surely safer and more candid to admit that Cyprian read verse 7 in his copies, than to resort to the explanation of Facundus that the holy bishop was merely putting upon verse 8 a spiritual meaning.”

Arthur Cleveland Coxe referenced Scrivener ..

“it is surely safer and more candid to admit that Cyprian read it in his copies, than to resort to,” etc., the usual explainings away.”

Ad Jubaianum (Epistle 73)

The second, lesser reference from Cyprian that has been involved in the verse debate is from Ad Jubaianum 23.12. Cyprian while discussing baptism writes:

If he obtained the remission of sins, he was sanctified, and if he was sanctified, he was made the temple of God. But of what God? I ask. The Creator?, Impossible; he did not believe in him. Christ? But he could not be made Christ's temple, for he denied the deity of Christ. The Holy Spirit? Since the Three are One, what pleasure could the Holy Spirit take in the enemy of the Father and the Son?

The Latin is:

"si peccatorum remissam consecutus est, et sanctificatus est, et templum Dei factus est: quaero, cujus Dei? Si creatoris, non potuit, qui in eum non credidit: si Christi, non hujus potest sieri templum, qui negat Deum Christum : si Spiritus Sancti, cum tres unum sunt, quomodo Spiritus Sanctus placatus esse ei potest, qui aut Patris aut Filii inimicus est?" Stanley Lawrence Greenslade, Early Latin Theology: Selections from Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome 1956, p. 164.

Knittel emphasizes that Cyprian would be familiar with the Bible in Greek as well as Latin. "Cyprian understood Greek. He read Homer, Plato, Hermes Trismegiatus and Hippocrates... he translated into Latin the Greek epistle written to him by Firmilianus...".

Johannine Comma and Cyprian of Carthage

From Textus Receptus

Dan Wallace

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