page_title: Johannine Comma
section_title: Manuscripts
hierarchical_section_title: Johannine Comma / Origin / Manuscripts
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Cod. Montfortianus page 434 recto 1 John 5 Comma
context_page_description: The Johannine Comma is an interpolated phrase in verse 5:7-8 of the First Epistle of John. It became a touchpoint for Protestant and Catholic debates over the doctrine of the Trinity in the early modern period.
  The passage first appeared as an addition to the Vulgate, the Ecclesiastical Latin translation of the Bible, and entered the Greek manuscript tradition in the 15th century. It does not appear in the oldest Latin manuscripts, and appears to have originated as a gloss around the end of the 4th century. Some scribes gradually incorporated this annotation into the main text over the course of the Middle Ages.
  The first Greek manuscript of the New Testament that contains the comma dates from the 15th century. The comma is absent from some of the Ethiopic, Aramaic, Syriac, Slavic, Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic translations of the Greek New Testament. It appears in some English translations of the Bible via its inclusion in the first printed edition of the New Testament, Novum Instrumentum omne by Erasmus, where it first appeared in the 1522 third edition.
context_section_description: The comma is not in two of the oldest Vulgate manuscripts, Codex Fuldensis and the Codex Amiatinus, although it is referenced in the Prologue of Fuldensis (which also otherwise cites Old Latin readings) . Overall, it is estimated that over 95% of the thousands of Vulgate manuscripts contain the verse.  The Vulgate text of the Epistles of John was developed from Vetus Latina manuscripts, revised by an unknown scholar to conform better with the Greek.
  The earliest extant Latin manuscripts supporting the comma are dated from the 5th to 7th century. The Freisinger fragment, León palimpsest, and the Codex Legionensis (7th century), besides the younger Codex Speculum, New Testament quotations extant in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript.
  The comma does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland is aware of eight Greek manuscripts that contain the comma. The date of the addition is late, probably dating to the time of Erasmus. In one manuscript, back-translated into Greek from the Vulgate, the phrase "and these three are one" is not present.
  Both Novum Testamentum Graece (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 only four manuscripts, the margins of three others and in some minority variant readings of lectionaries. All of the hundreds of other Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John support the first variant. The third variant is found only in Latin, in one class of Vulgate manuscripts and three patristic works. The other two Vulgate traditions omit the phrase, as do more than a dozen major Church Fathers who quote the verses. The Latin variant is considered a trinitarian gloss, explaining or paralleled by the second Greek variant.
  The comma in Greek. All non-lectionary evidence cited: Minuscules Codex Montfortianus (Minuscule 61 Gregory-Aland, c. 1520), 629 (Codex Ottobonianus, 14th/15th century), 918 (16th century), 2318 (18th century).
  The comma at the margins of Greek at the margins of minuscules 88 (Codex Regis, 11th century with margins added at the 16th century), 221 (10th century with margins added at the 15th/16th century), 429 (14th century with margins added at the 16th century), 636 (16th century); some minority variant readings in lectionaries.
  The comma in Latin. testimonium dicunt [or dant] in terra, spiritus [or: spiritus et] aqua et sanguis, et hi tres unum sunt in Christo Iesu. 8 et tres sunt, qui testimonium dicunt in caelo, pater verbum et spiritus. [... 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 Speculum Peccatoris (V), also (these three with some variation) Cyprian, Ps-Cyprian, & Priscillian (died 385) Liber Apologeticus. And Contra-Varimadum, and Ps-Vigilius, Fulgentius of Ruspe (died 527) Responsio contra Arianos, Cassiodorus Complexiones in Ioannis Epist. ad Parthos.
  The gradual appearance of the comma in the manuscript evidence is represented in the following tables:
caption: Codex Montfortianus (1520) page 434 recto with 1 John 5 Comma Johanneum.
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