Johannine Comma and Frederick von Nolan

From Textus Receptus

"'instead of "the Father, Word, and Spirit,' the remaining passage would have been direct concessions to the Gnostics and Sabellians, who, in denying the personal difference of the Father and the Son, were equally obnoxious to those avowed adversaries, the Catholics and the Arians. Nor did the orthodox require these verses for the support of their cause; they had other passages which would accomplish all that they could effect; and without their aid, they maintained and established their tenents."An Inquiry Into The Integrity of the Greek Vulgate or Received Text of the New Testament, Rev. Frederick Nolan, 1815, pg. 278-279

Nolan gives two reasons why 1 John 5:7 is seemingly scanty in reference to quotations from the church fathers: One - The passage in I John 5:7 is among those like 1 Timothy 3:16 and Acts 20:28 that have all been tampered with in the manuscript tradition, all three having to do with the deity of Christ as "God." Two - That the major reason for not quoting 1 John 5:7 was based on its wording, chiefly, purporting Jesus Christ as the "Word" instead of the "Son." Hence, with the Sabellian heresy being debated that Jesus Christ is the Father with no distinction, 1 John 5:7 would further propagate that notion. Therefore it wasn't quoted.

Dr. Nolan wrote of Eusebius:

“If we now compare the authority thus committed to Eusebius, which seems to have vested him at least with a discretionary power of selecting chiefly those sacred scriptures which he knew to be useful and necessary to the doctrine of the church, with the state of the sacred text as it is now marked in the corrected edition lately put forth by M. Griesbach; we shall perhaps discover how far it is probable he acted to the full extent of his powers, and removed those parts of scripture from the circulated edition, which he judged to be neither conducive to use for doctrine and which are now marked as probable interpolations in the Received Text. They amount principally to the following: the account of the woman taken in adultery, John 8:53–9:11, and three texts which assert in the strongest manner the mystery of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and Redemption, 1 John v. 7-8, 1 Timothy iii. 16, and Acts xx. 28.”

“If two points can be established against Eusebius, that he lacked neither the power, nor the will, to suppress these passages, particularly the latter; there will be fewer objections lying against the charge with which I am adventurous enough to accuse him; in asserting that the probabilities are decidedly in favor of his having expunged,rather than the Catholics having inserted, those passages in the sacred text.” (Dr. Nolan, p. 6)

On the next page of his 116 page summary book, Dr. Nolan continued to comment on the Gnostic Eusebius and the Arians who employed him: "“There will be less reason to dispute his [referring to Eusebius] power over the copies of the original Greek, when we know that his high reputation for learning, aided by the powerful authority of the emperor, tended to recommend his edition to the exclusion of every other; and when it is remembered that the number of the copies of scripture was in this reign above all others considerably reduced on account of the destruction made of them in the preceding. Let us add to these considerations, these further circumstances, that the pious emperor who had employed him to revise the text had been at considerable pains and expense to multiply copies of the scripture, and that the edition thus dispersed, as altered by Eusebius, was peculiarly accommodated to the opinions of the Arians, who from the reign of Constantine that of Theodosius held an unlimited sway over the church; and there will arise something more than presumptive proof in favor of the opinion which I have advanced; that at this period an alteration was made in the sacred text, of which it still retains a melancholy evidence, particularly in the translations made from the edition of Eusebius.” (Dr. Nolan, p. 7)

An inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate

An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate: Or, Received Text of the New Testament; In which the Greek Manuscripts are Newly Classed, the Integrity of the Authorised Text Vindicated, and the Various Readings Traced to their Origin was printed in 1815 by Frederick Nolan (pp. 257-261):

3. In 1 Joh. v. 7, three masculine adjectives, τρεῖς οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, are forced into union with three neuter substantives, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα; a grosser solecism than can be ascribed to any writer, sacred or profane¹⁹³. And low as the opinion may be which the admirers of the Corrected Text may hold of the purity of the style of St. John; it is a grosser solecism than they can fasten on the holy Evangelist, who, in his context, has made one of these adjectives regularly agree with its correspondent substantive in the neuter: καὶ τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστι τὸ μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι ὁ ϖνεῦμα ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. Ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες. κ.τ.ἑ. There seems to be consequently as little reason for tolerating this text as either of the preceding.

From the alternative to which the question has been reduced, it might now be inferred, that the reading of our printed editions, which is supported, in 1 Tim. iii. 16. by the Greek Vulgate, in 1 Joh. v. 7. by the Latin Vulgate, and in Act. xx. 28. by both the Greek and Latin Vulgate, contained the genuine text of Scripture. As the reading of those passages, however, admits of more than a negative defence; I proceed to examine how far this testimony of the Eastern and Western Churches is confirmed by the internal evidence of the original. An admirable rule is laid down by M. Griesbach¹⁹⁴ for determining, between two readings, which is the genuine: I am wholly mistaken, or it may be shewn, that every mark of authenticity, which he has pointed out, will be found to exist in those readings which he has rejected as spurious.

Directing our attention, in the first place, to the structure of the phrase, the tenour of the sense and language as fully declares for the received reading, as against the corrected.

1. In Act. xx. 28. the apostolical phrase, ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ, is not only preserved, but its full force consequently assigned to the epithet ἰδίου. This term, as used by the apostle, has an exclusive and emphatical force; an exclusive, in limiting the sense to “God,” the subject of the assertion;—an emphatical, in evincing the apostle's earnestness, in using so extraordinary an expression. ‘Feed the Church of God, which he purchased with no other blood than his own,’ is the literal meaning of the phrase¹⁹⁵; and this meaning is not more clearly expressed, than we shall see it was required by the object of the apostle, in writing.

2. In 1 Tim. iii. 16. there can be little doubt that the “Great Mystery,” of which the apostle speaks, and that whereby some one “was manifested in the flesh,” must be the Incarnation. If we take the account given of this “mystery” in John i. 1. 14. it marks out “God” as the divine person who “was manifested.” And, putting this term into the letter of the text, it renders the apostle’s explanation answerable to his purpose, and to the solemn mode of his enunciation. For, as the manifestation of no person, but the incomprehensible and divine, can be a mystery, any “manifestation” of “God,” as “in the flesh,” must be a "Great Mystery”¹⁹⁶. So far, the apostle’s phrase is as just as it is sententious.

3. In 1 John v. 7. the manifest rent in the Corrected Text, which appears from the solecism in the language, is filled up in the Received Text; and ὁ Πατὴρ, καὶ ὁ Λόγος, being inserted, the masculine adjectives, τρεῖς οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, are ascribed suitable substantives; and, by the figure attraction, which is so prevalent in Greek, every objection is removed to the structure of the context. Nor is there thus a necessary emendation made in the apostle’s language alone, but in his meaning. St. John is here expressly summing up the divine and human testimony, “the witness of God and man¹⁹⁷;” and he has elsewhere formally enumerated the heavenly witnesses, as they occur in the disputed passage. In his Gospel he thus explicitly declares, “I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me: and when the Comforter is come, even the Spirit of truth, he shall testify of me¹⁹⁸.” And yet, in his Epistle, where he is expressly summing up the testimony in favour of Jesus, we are given to understand, that he passes at least two of these heavenly witnesses by, to insist on three earthly; which have brought the suppressed witnesses to the remembrance of almost every other person, who has read the passage, for the last sixteen centuries! Nay more, he omits them in such a manner as to create a gross solecism in his language, which is ultimately removed by the accidental insertion, as we are taught, of those witnesses, from a note in his margin. Nor is this all; but this solecism is corrected, and the oversight of the Apostle remedied, by the accidental insertion of the disputed passage, from the margin of a translation: the sense of which, we are told, it embarrasses, while it contributes nothing to amend the grammatical structure¹⁹⁹! Of all the omissions which have been mentioned respecting this verse, I call upon the impugners of its authenticity to specify one, half so extraordinary as the present? Of all the improbabilities which the controversy respecting it has assumed as true, I challenge the upholders of the Corrected Text, to name one, which is not admissible as truth, when set in competition with so flagrant an improbability as the last. Yet, on the assumption of this extravagant improbability, as matter of fact, must every attack, on the authenticity of this verse, be built, as its very foundation!

From viewing the internal evidence of the disputed texts, let us next consider the circumstances under which they were delivered; and here, I am wholly deceived, or the investigation will lead to the ultimate establishment of the same conclusion.

193 This objection was first started by the learned Abp. Eugenius, who has translated “the Georgics” into Greek; and may be seen in a letter prefixed by M. Matthæu to his Greek Testament, Tom. XI. p. ix.—“haud plane consisteret, nisi cum violentia quadam dictionis, et per solæcismum patentissimum. Cum etenim τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα nomina neutrius generis sunt, qua ratione concordabit cum iis quod immediate præcedit; τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, et quod illico sequitur, καὶ ὕδoι καὶ οἱ τρεῖς κ.τ.λ. —Sed nonne quceso dictio naturalis hie et propria potius esset; τρὶα εἰσι τὰ μαρτυροῦντα ἐν τῇ γῇ, τὸ πνεῦμα, τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ τα τρὶα εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσὶν; At illud tamen est scriptum non hoc.”
194 Gricsb. Proleg. Sect. III. p. lix. Insita sua bonitate commendatur lectio, quæ vel auctoris cogitandi sentiendique modo, stylo, scopo, cæiterisque περιστάσεσι sive exegeticis, ut contextui, adjunctis, oppositis, &c. sive historicis omnium convenientissima, vel ita comparata est, ut ea, velut primitiva, posita facile intelligi queat, quomodo cæteræ: lectiones omnes— sive librariorum errore—aut criticorum inepta sedulitate, progenitæ ex illa fuerint.
195 It was not merely possible, but it was only probable, that “God” would “purchase the Church” with other “blood” than “his own:” but it was wholly inconceivable, that our ‘Lord’ could have purchased it with any other “blood,” but “his own.” On the possibility implied in the former consideration rests the propriety of using ἴδίος; which differs from αὐτὸς, in having that exclusive force which is solely implied in the antecedent of those different considerations.
196 S. Iren. adv. Hær. Lib. III. cap. xvi. § 6. p. 206.—et hominem ergo [Dominus noster] in semetipsum recapiutlans est, invisibilis visibilis factus, et incomprehensibilis factus comprehensibilis, et impassibilis passibilis, et Verbum homo,” &c.
197 1 Joh. v. 9.
198 Joh. viii. 18. xv. 26
199 Though the reading of the Greek Vulgate, τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, is not to be tolerated; the reading of the Latin Vulgate, (from whence it is asserted 1 Joh. v. 7. has crept into the Greek text,) is grammatically correct; “tres sunt qui testimonium dant, spiritus, aqua, et sanguis.”

Grantley McDonald

In Grantley McDonald's artilce Raising the Ghost of Arius on page 14, it says:

One argument frequently made to support the authenticity of the comma is the so-called “argument from grammar,” often associated with Frederick Nolan

(1815), Louis Gaussen (1840) and Robert Dabney (1890), and still promoted by “King James Only” advocates such as Peter S. Ruckman (1973), Jack A. Moorman (1988) and Michael Maynard (1995). Nolan believed that the comma was an integral part of the Greek text, but had been removed by Eusebius out of a secret inclination to Arianism. To support this hypothesis he argued that while the masculine participle μαρτυροῦντες (“those bearing witness”) in verse 7 requires at least one masculine referent, the neuter nouns πνεῦμα (spirit), ὕδωρ (water) and αἷμα (blood) in verse 8 cannot serve as referents without creating a grammatical problem. This apparent solecism, he argued, disappears if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are made the referent of the participle, thus proving that a reference to the Trinity must have been an original and integral part of the text.²

2. Nolan, 1815, 257-260; Dabney, 1890-1897, 1:377-379.

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