1789.]

THE DUBLIN MANUSCRIPT.

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amount to ninety-seven ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, good, bad, and indifferent, do with one consent wholly omit the seventh verse, and the words Ty of the eighth. "You have said, I know," continues Porson, addressing Mr. Travis, "that the words T

seem to have been omitted in a few copies only; but this is a little pious fraud, which is very excusable when it tends to promote the cause of truth and the glory of God. If you think this charge of fraud too severe, I shall be very happy to seize the slightest probabilities that may acquit you of so odious an imputation, and shall acquiesce in the milder accusation of shameful and enormous ignorance. But be this assertion of yours owing to fraud or to ignorance, I defy you to specify a single Greek manuscript that omits the seventh verse, and retains these words [vry]."* The truth is, that no Greek manuscript has been found containing the seventh verse, except a Berlin forgery, and the codex Britannicus which came to light in the time of Erasmus, and which is the same that is now called codex Dubliniensis. This manuscript, in Porson's opinion, was probably written about the year 1520, and interpolated in this place for the purpose of deceiving Erasmus. This hypothesis," he continues, "will explain how it so suddenly appeared when it was wanted, and how it disappeared as suddenly after having achieved the glorious exploit for which it was destined."+ Similar opinions regarding the manuscript had been expressed by Michaelis, Griesbach, Wetstein, Marsh, Mill, and Bengelius. Dr. Adam Clarke, however, who

66

Porson, Letters, p. 26.

† Ibid. p. 117.

examined the Dublin manuscript, thinks that it is as old as the thirteenth century*, and, if so, it was not, as he observes, written with an intention to deceive; certainly not to deceive Erasmus. But is not a manuscript, which differs in this passage from other manuscripts, greatly to be suspected? If corrupted, may not the corruption have been made to seem older than it really was?

As to the versions of the New Testament, Porson employs two letters in showing that there is no authority for the genuineness of the verse in the Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Æthiopic, Armenian, or Slavonic versions.

The last letter mentions the host of Greek and Latin writers who might have quoted the verse if it had been in their copies of St. John's Epistle, but in whose works it is not found.

Porson's judgment, therefore, is, that "the only genuine words of 1 John v. 7, 8, are these; "Ori τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι. This is the reading,” he states," of all the Greek manuscripts, above a hundred and ten; of near thirty of the oldest Latin; of the two Syriac versions; of the Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic and Slavonic."

As to the introduction of the spurious words into the text, Porson supposes that Tertullian, in imitation of the phrase, I and my Father are one, had said of the three Persons of the Trinity, which Three are One; that Cyprian, adopting this application of the words from Tertullian, said boldly, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it is written, And these Three are One; that in the

* Vindication of Porson, pp. 8, 9.

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AUGUSTIN.

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course of two centuries, when this interpretation had been expressly maintained by Augustin and others, a marginal note of this sort, Sicut tres sunt qui testimonium dant in Colo, Pater, &c., crept into the text of a few copies; that such a copy was used by the author of the Confession which Victor, the historian of the Council convened by Hunneric, has preserved; and that such another was used by the historian of the books de Trinitate.*

The origin of the text is also attributed to Augustin by a writer in the "Quarterly Review" for December 1825:†

"Augustin, who died about the year 430, had taught the African church with an authority only inferior to that of the Apostles, that the Homoüsian doctrine of the Trinity was contained in the words of St. John: Tres sunt qui testimonium dant, spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis; et hi tres unum sunt. It is not improbable that, as a security for the faith, this dogma of the great teacher was recorded in the margins of the Latin manuscripts of the New Testament; and thus it may have glided into the text. At all events these African bishops, or the compiler of the Confession, discovered what had escaped all the acuteness and all the researches of preceding times. To silence their opponents at once; to render their opinions clearer than the day, as they expressed it, they adduced as the words of St. John, the disputed verse. Perhaps this was not so bold a measure as it may at first sight appear; the judges of the correctness of the quotation were a set of fierce and intolerant barbarians, so ignorant that in all probability not an individual among them understood a word of Greek; and few perhaps could read a Latin manuscript. Nescio Latine, said the patriarch Cyrila himself; an assertion which, although not literally true, is a sufficient indication that neither he nor his assessors were great clerks.

*Porson, Letters, p. 339.

† Vol. xxxiii. p. 84.

"Et ut adhuc luce clarius unius Divinitatis esse cum Patria et Filio, Spiritum sanctum doceamus, Joannis Evangelista testimonio comprobatur; ait namque, Tres sunt qui testimonium perhibent in cœlo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus; et hi tres unum sunt. Such is the passage in the African Confession, as it appears in the printed editions of Victor Vitensis. It is easy to conceive the mode in which these words may have been derived into the text from Augustine's interpretation of the eighth verse; it is not easy to conceive that they could have existed, as Scripture, unquoted, till the close of the fifth century, and then be, all at once, advanced as an argument to make everything luce clarius. Perhaps it may be objected that Augustine enumerates Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, as the witnesses, while the Confession mentions Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. This apparent discrepancy may be removed. There are in the Colbertine Library, at Paris, three manuscripts of Victor Vitensis, which Mr. Butler, whose attention has been drawn to the controversy, caused to be examined. A manuscript of the thirteenth century reads Verbum in this place, and a manuscript of the fifteenth century reads Filius. The oldest of the three, a manuscript of the tenth century, reads Filius, with this note in the margin, In Epistola Beati Joannis ita legendum. It is probable, therefore, that Filius is the true reading in the Confession, that is, the original reading, and that Verbum was an after thought. That word would appear to render the passage peculiarly St. John's; he being the only apostle who has written distinctly of the Logos. Moreover there is an expression in Augustine, which might suggest the substitution of Verbum for Filius. To show that by the Blood we are to understand the Son, he observes, Nomine autem sanguinis Filium significatum accipiamus; quia Verbum caro factum est. On the whole, therefore, it is probable that the verse originated in the interpretation of St. Augustine. It seems to have existed for some time on the margins of the Latin copies, in a kind of intermediate state, as something better than a mere dictum of Augustine, and yet not absolutely Scripture itself. By degrees it was received

1789.]

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CONCLUSION OF LETTERS TO TRAVIS."

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into the text, where it appears in by far the greater number of Latin manuscripts now in our hands. When, to use Newton's expression, the ignorant ages came on,' all further inquiry was at an end, and when the verse was fairly established in the text, it gained the protection of the Romish church; and thus, at the period of the Reformation, few doubts were entertained on the subject. Such, in brief, is its history from the Council of Hanneric to the time of Erasmus."

Porson's conclusion of his Letters is this:

"In short, if this verse be really genuine, notwithstanding its absence from all the visible Greek manuscripts except two;" [that of Dublin, and the forged one found at Berlin ;] "one of which awkwardly translates the verse from the Latin, and the other transcribes it from a printed book;" [the Berlin manuscript coincides exactly with the Complutensian edition ;] "notwithstanding its absence from all the versions except the Vulgate, even from many of the best and oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate; notwithstanding the deep and dead silence of all the Greek writers down to the thirteenth, and of most of the Latins down to the middle of the eighth century; if, in spite of all these objections, it be still genuine, no part of Scripture whatsoever can be proved either spurious or genuine; and Satan has been permitted for many centuries miraculously to banish the finest passage in the New Testament," as Martin calls it, "from the eyes and memories of almost all the Christian authors, translators, and transcribers."

"At last, Sir, I see land. I have so clearly explained my sentiments concerning the authority of the disputed verse, and the merits of your book, in the progress of these Letters, that it will be needless to add anything upon either of these topics. As I was persuaded that Mr. Gibbon would never condescend to answer you, I have been bold enough to trouble you with my objections to your facts and arguments. The proofs of the spuriousness of 1 John v. 7, that I have enumerated, are, in my opinion, more than sufficient to convince