[cont.]
Logan, you said re the CJ, “the unconfessional position that it was lost to the Greeks centuries prior but was preserved in the Latin, something the Reformers never would have accepted” (post
#132).
But what was “kept pure in all ages”? As I have elsewhere written:
So how, and what was “kept pure in all ages”? — 1) an entire and intact Greek NT? And that throughout the church age till printing came to be? I don’t think so. 2) Or the pure READINGS of the autographs kept in various Greek mss, and then compiled in an authoritative edition, and then printed? Which edition would that be? I know of none. 3) Or the pure READINGS of the Greek autographs kept in various mss—mostly the Traditional (Byzantine) Greek, but a very few kept in other versions due to attacks and mutilations on the Greek—and then put into print in the Greek Textus Receptus editions (known to and used by the Westminster divines), having also been put into the English, Dutch, and other translations? I hold to the third option.
You quoted Calvin regarding this, “But as even the Greek copies do not agree, I dare not assert any thing on the subject. Since, however, the passage flows better when this clause is added, and as I see that it is found in the best and most approved copies, I am inclined to received it as the true reading.” (post
#105). [emphasis yours]. Whatever Old Latin copies he may have had, it is certain he had the Waldensian Italic version.
When the Reformation fathers, Calvin among them, considered these non-Greek versions among “the best and most approved copies”, what is that saying? Note, I am not arguing on the basis of disputed Greek mss or editions, but those of the Latin / African churches. It is understood that the Bible of the Waldenses, derived from either the Old Latin or earlier sources, was known in Geneva, and not only had a different text of Scripture than that of Rome, but it contained the “heavenly witnesses”, the Comma Johanneum.
You say it is an “unconfessional position”? When Beza and Stephanus included them in their
Greekeditions – despite all the criticisms of Beza’s and Stephanus’ methods (such as Jan Krans has leveled) – they still, as a result, existed in the Greek Textus Receptus. The LORD was working, even through flawed men, His providential preservation. And what was it that convinced Calvin, Matthew Henry, and many other Reformation divines that this pericope warranted inclusion in the Greek?
It surely did not escape the historical awareness of these men that from around 330 to 380 AD the Greek Byzantine empire was ruled, with an iron fist – in both the state and church hierarchies – by fervent, passionate Arians.
In his book,
A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray gives us a sense of those times:
The following year [328] Eusebius of Nicomedia [a leader of the Arians] was not only recalled from exile but became Constantine’s trusted advisor. The Emperor completely reversed his position [and supported the Arians]…From 326 onwards a regular campaign against the [Biblically orthodox] Nicene bishops was conducted, some dozen being deposed. The culmination came in 335 when Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra were removed from office and driven from their sees…In 339 the Arian cause was strengthened by the accession of Eusebius of Nicomedia to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople…[So fervent and violent were the anti-Nicenes], in 357 a council at Sirium…forced Hosius, now a centenarian [a hundred years or more of age], to attend against his will and to sign [an Arian formula] after being beaten and tortured…
…Constans (the orthodox son of Constantine) continued as Emperor of the Nicene west and Constantius [the Arian son] of the anti-Nicene east…Constantius became sole ruler of the Empire in 353…[and] anti-Nicene views were imposed on all his domains…
Hope for the Nicenes seemed to die when Constantius at last made up his mind and on New Year’s Day, 360, decided for the [Arian] Homoeism of Acacius as the official faith of the Empire, thus supporting historic Arianism against Catholic [i.e. universal, not “Roman”] orthodoxy and the Nicaean Creed. (A History of Heresy, by David Christie-Murray (Oxford; Oxford University Press 1991), pages 49, 50, 51.)
This terrible state of affairs for the believing Church ended around 380, when the new Emperor, Theodosius, “a convinced and energetic Nicene Christian,” imposed catholic orthodoxy throughout his empire, and replaced the Arian Bishop of Constantinople by the more orthodox Gregory Nazianzus. In 383 and 384 Theodosius issued imperial edicts which furthered the Nicene cause. (Ibid., pages 53, 54.)
Imagine what would happen if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came into both ecclesiastical and governmental power in a small country (this is being written in the island country of Cyprus) and ruled over both the churches and the government for a period of 50 years. (Now the JWs forbid the holding of political office, so suppose a fervent JW
sympathizer, yet not an official member of them.) Imagine what would happen to the Bibles of this land, and the decrees that could be issued against the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and the Protestant / Evangelicals. The police – or a newly formed government office with the “power of the sword” – controlling all religious affairs, including Bibles, for half a century, could exterminate most so-called heretical beliefs and documents. When the state controls the church, or the church the state, trouble always ensues; as the Lord Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The devil is “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19) so far as the Most High allows, and at times he is allowed the power of the furnace, and the sword.
The real question, to me, is how did it come to pass that the Comma was excised from the text, not how it was alleged to have been added. It was widely known in the early centuries of the church age, but wicked hands, and at times fearful hands, either removed it or allowed it to stay removed without loud complaint.
I’ll add a separate – and brief – excerpt from Frederick Nolan on this shortly.
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