Johannine Comma and Augustine of Hippo

From Textus Receptus

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430 AD). For many years it has been falsely asserted that Augustine of Hippo was completely silent on the Comma, which has been taken as evidence that the Comma did not exist as part of the epistle's text in his time. For example the Catholic Encyclopedia emphatically states:

"The silence of the great and voluminous Augustine and the variation in form of the text in the African Church are admitted facts that militate against the canonicity of the three witnesses."

This argumentum ex silentio has been contested by other scholars, including Fickermann and Metzger.Metzger stated:

"The silence of Augustine, contrary to prevailing opinion, cannot be cited as evidence against the genuineness of the Comma. He may indeed have known it" Annotated bibliography of the textual criticism of the New Testament p. 113 Bruce Manning Metzger, 1955. Metzger

Metzger was citing S. Augustinus gegen das Comma Johanneum? by Norbert Fickermann, 1934, who considers evidence from a 12th-century Regensburg manuscript that Augustine specifically avoided referencing the verse directly. The manuscript note contrasts the inclusion position of Jerome in the Vulgate Prologue with the preference for removal by Augustine. This confirms that there was awareness of the Greek and Latin ms. distinction and that some scribes preferred omission. Raymond Brown writes: "Fickermann points to a hitherto unpublished eleventh-century text which says that Jerome considered the Comma to be a genuine part of 1 John—clearly a memory of the Pseudo-Jerome Prologue mentioned above. But the text goes on to make this claim:

'St. Augustine, on the basis of apostolic thought and on the authority of the Greek text, ordered it to be left out.'" Epistles of John, 1982, p. 785.

In addition, some Augustine references have been seen as verse allusions. Augustine scholar Edmund Hill says about a reference in The Trinity – Book IX that "this allusion of Augustine's suggests that it had already found its way into his text".

In The City of God section, from Book V, Chapter 11:

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent…The City of God, Volume 1, trans. by Marcus Dods 1888 p. 197, Latin: Deus itaque summus et verum cum Verbo suo et Spiritu sancto, quae tria unum sunt, Deus unus omnipotens

This verse has often been referenced as based upon the scripture verse of the heavenly witnesses by Franz Anton Knittel, Thomas Burgess, Arthur-Marie Le Hir, Francis Patrick Kenrick, Charles Forster and Pierre Rambouillet.. George Strecker acknowledges the City of God reference:

"Except for a brief remark in De civitate Dei (5.11; CChr 47.141), where he says of Father, Word, and Spirit that the three are one. Augustine († 430) does not cite the Comma Johanneum. But it is certain on the basis of the work Contra Maximum 2.22.3 (PL 42.794-95) that he interpreted 1 John 5:7–8 in trinitarian terms." Strecker

Similarly, Homily 10 on the first Epistle of John has been asserted as an allusion to the verse:

And what meaneth "Christ is the end"? Because Christ is God, and "the end of the commandment is charity" and "Charity is God": because Father and Son and Holy Ghost are One.Homilies, 1849, p. 1224. Latin: et quid est: finis christus? quia christus deus, et finis praecepti caritas, et deus caritas quia et pater et filius et spiritus sanctus unum sunt.

George Travis summarized of Augustinian passages: The striking reiteration, in these passages, of the same expressions, Unum sunt—Hi tres unum sunt—Unum sunt, and Hi tres qui unum sunt seems to bespeak their derivation from the verse…Letters to Edward Gibbon, 1794, p. 46

Contra Maximinum has received attention especially for these two sections, especially the allegorical interpretation.

I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, "the three are one": for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the matter. For these are mystical expressions, in which the point always to be considered is, not what the actual things are, but what they denote as signs: since they are signs of things, and what they are in their essence is one thing, what they are in their signification another. If then we understand the things signified, we do find these things to be of one substance …

But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, "There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One:" there has been an ongoing dialog about context and sense. Contra Maximinum (2.22.3; PL 42.794-95)

John Scott Porter makes the absurd claim that because this section of Augustine's writing did not mention the Comma, he didn't know of it:

Augustine, in his book against Maximin the Arian, turns every stone to find arguments from the Scriptures to prove that tho Spirit is God, and that the Three Persons are the same in substance, but does not adduce this text; nay, clearly shows that he knew nothing of it, for he repeatedly employs the 8th verse, and says, that by the Spirit, the Blood, and the Water—the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, arc signified (see Contr. Maxim, cap. xxii.).Principles of Textual Criticism, p. 506, 1820.

Thomas Joseph Lamy offers a different view based on the context and Augustine's purpose.Thomas Joseph Lamy The Decision of the Holy Office on the "Comma Joanneum" pp.449–483 American ecclesiastical review, 1897. Similarly Thomas Burgess.Thomas Burgess, A vindication of I John, V. 7, p.46, 1821. And Norbert Fickermann's reference and scholarship supports the idea that Augustine may have deliberately bypassed a direct quote of the heavenly witnesses.

In Augustine, A Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin, Book 2, Chapter 5 it says"

"For every nature is either God, who has no author; or out of God, as having Him for its Author. But the nature which has for its author God, out of whom it comes, is either not made, or made. Now, that nature which is not made and yet is out of Him, is either begotten by Him or proceeds from Him. That which is begotten is His only Son, that which proceedeth is the Holy Ghost, and this Trinity is of one and the self-same nature. For these three are one, and each one is God, and all three together are one God, unchangeable, eternal, without any beginning or ending of time," (Augustine, A Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin, Book 2, Chapter 5).

Johannine Comma

1 John 5:7

1 John 5:8

Pure Bible Forum

KJV Today

1 John 5:7 and Modern Criticism by Taylor Desoto

Codex Montfortianus, Erasmus, and 1 John 5:7

Erasmian Myths: The Comma Wager

Erasmian Myths: Codex Vaticanus

1 Jn.5:7,8 Establishing the Authenticity

Defense D. A. Waite

And These Three Are One

Manuscript Differences

“And These Three Are One” Part 1

Riddle Review of McDonald book

Hixson, the CJ, and Roman Catholic Provenance

Riddle on Hixson Part 1

Riddle on Hixson Part 2

Riddle on Hixson Part 3

Riddle - Internal Argument

Riddle - Papyrus

KJV Asia Scams

KJV Asia

KJV Asia Manuscripts

Setting the Record Straight

Dedending 1 John 5:7 by David Cloud

KJV "Errors"

(1 John 5:7-8) Is It Inspired Scripture?

First John 5:6-8 by Floyd Jones

Scion of Zion Article

Trinitarian Bible Society on Johannine Comma

1 John 5:7-8 by Jeffrey Khoo

1 John 5:7 by Thomas Golda

David Cloud Articles

Email Debate Gregory S. Neal and Thomas Holland

“And These Three Are One” Part 2

Internal Articles

Ignatius of Antioch

Origen‎‎

Augustine of Hippo

Clement of Alexandria

Codex Ottobonianus mss 629

Joseph Bryennios

Complutensian Polyglot

Erasmus

Eugenios Voulgaris

Christian Frederick Matthaei

Franz Anton Knittel

Frederick Nolan

Ezra Abbott

Walton's Polyglot

Links to Books

Frederick Nolan - An Inquiry

SS(ancti) apostolorum septem epistolae catholicae 1782 [1]

Joseph Bryennios Comma Quotation

New criticisms Knittle

13 Sermons - Doctrine of the Trinity Edmund Calamy

Raising the Ghost of Arius by Grantley McDonald

Letters To Edward Gibbon George Travis 1785

A Vindication...of Porson Thomas Turton 1827

Memoir of the Controversy. William Orme

A Vindication of 1st John v. 7 Thomas Burgess Web

Ben David

William Craig Brownlee 1825 Part 1

William Craig Brownlee 1825 Part 2

Theopneustia - François Samuel R. Louis Gaussen, 1841

New plea for the authenticity - Charles Forster 1867 [2][3]

Deux dissertations (French) English Martin

The doctrine of the Greek article - Thomas Middleton

Richard Porson I John v 7, 1790

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