Arthur Cleveland Coxe on Tertullian, Cyprian and the Treatise on Rebaptism

Steven Avery

Administrator
Arthur Cleveland Coxe supports three Ante-Nicene references

Tertullian
Cyprian
Treatise on Rebaptism

And Coxe gives a solid reference to
Johannes Ernest Grabe, Appendix - "Notes on Bishop Bull"

Planned for improvement - italics and perhaps more background

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Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/permalink/936698136422076/?comment_id=3054801674611701

Pure Bible Forum
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...n-cyprian-and-the-treatise-on-rebaptism.1348/

Treatise on Rebaptism - grammar discussed by Matthew Henry, Nathaniel Ellsworth Cornwall and Arthur Cleveland Coxe
https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...orth-cornwall-and-arthur-cleveland-coxe.2127/

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"It appears to me very clear that Tertullian is quoting 1 John 5:7. in the passage now under consideration: ... To those interested in the question let me commend the learned dissertation of Grabe on the textual case, as it stood in his day. I value it chiefly because it proves that the Greek Testament, elsewhere says, disjointedly, what is collected into 1 John 5:7. It is, therefore, Holy Scripture in substance, if not in the letter. What seems to me important, however, is the balance it gives to the whole context, and the defective character of the grammar and logic, if it be stricken out."

Tertullian
Elucidations
Arthur Cleveland Coxe
http://books.google.com/books?id=uoksAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA631 (1887)
http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-44.htm

Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1811-1896)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Cleveland_Coxe

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Cyprian
https://books.google.com/books?id=mIwsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA418

XVII.

(In the name of, etc. Since Three are One, pp. 380, 382.)

Having elsewhere touched upon the quotation attributed to Tertullian, I need not repeat what has been said of this once very painfully agitated matter. But, as to the quotations of the African Fathers generally, it ought to be understood that there was a vetus Itala before Jerome,— more than one, no doubt,—to which that Father was largely indebted for the text now called the Vulgate. Vercellone assured Dean Burgon that there was indeed one established Latin text, an old Itala.

Scrivener says candidly, "It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7 was not cited by Cyprian;" and again, "The African writers Vigilius of Thapsus (at the end of the fifth century) and Fulgentius {circa 520) in two places expressly appeal to the three heavenly Witnesses." So, too, Victor Vitensis, in the notable case of the African king of the Vandals. The admission of Tischendorf is also cited by Scrivener. Tischendorf says, "Gravissimus est Cyprianus (in Tract, de Eccles. Unitate), Dicit Dominus, Ego et Pater unum sumus (Joann. x. 30) ; et, iterum, de Patre, Filio, et Spiritu Sancto, scriptum est, Et tres unum sunt." Tischendorf adds the testimony of this epistle to Jubaianus. And Scrivener decides that "it is surely safer and more candid to admit that Cyprian read it in his copies, than to resort to," etc., the usual explainings away. To this note of this same erudite scholar the reader may also turn for satisfaction as to the reasons against authenticity. But primarily, to meet questions as to versions used by Cyprian, let him consult the same invaluable work (p. 269) on the Old Latin before Jerome. I have added an important consideration in a note to the Anonymous Treatise on Baptism, which follows {infra), with other documents, in our Appendix.

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Treatise on Rebaptism
https://books.google.com/books?id=HjE8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA677


Coxe - protasis.jpg


1 John v. 8. [It is noteworthy that he quotes the Latin formula, and not that (εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν) of the Greek. Now, the Latin, repeating (in verse 8) the formula (hi tres unum sunt) which belongs to the dubious protasis, is so far evidence that such a verse existed in the old Greek. It is important that the Latin is not conformed to the received formula of the apodosis, “the three agree in one.”]

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Cyprian text
https://books.google.com/books?id=mIwsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA423
1702305093018.png

1702305196585.png

5 1 John v. 7.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Facebook - Phil Stringer
https://www.facebook.com/phil.strin...fmno2dPHHbU11DSXRXdr3iDFtqvKWE9rWgBUQEG1VzTbl

Phil Stringer

Cleveland Coxe (1818-1896) was an Episcopal Bishop and a real scholar whose work outlasted his life. He is one of the editors and annotators of the Ante-Nicene fathers. He created an index (God bless him ) for the ten volumes of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Because of his work it is easy to do research in these writings of earliest Christian writers. In volume 5 page 423 you find Cyprian (around 250 AD) quoting I John 5:7. In a note by Coxe on page 418 he points out that this proves there was an Old Latin (Itala) Bible with this reading. He points out that this proves that the Latin Vulgate Bible and the Received text are appealing to the authority of earlier manuscripts than the ones that leave out this verse. Modern King James critics and self appointed scholars like to claim that the verse was a late century invention.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Wikipedia

Treatise on Rebaptism

The Treatise on Rebaptism, placed as a 3rd-century writing and transmitted with Cyprian's works, has two sections that directly refer to the earthly witnesses, and thus has been used against authenticity by Nathaniel Lardner, Alfred Plummer and others. However, because of the context being water baptism and the precise wording being "et isti tres unum sunt", the Matthew Henry Commentary uses this as evidence for Cyprian speaking of the heavenly witnesses in Unity of the Church. Arthur Cleveland Coxe and Nathaniel Cornwall also consider the evidence as suggestively positive, as do Westcott and Hort. After approaching the Tertullian and Cyprian references negatively, "morally certain that they would have quoted these words had they known them" Westcott writes about the Rebaptism Treatise:

the evidence of Cent. III is not exclusively negative, for the treatise on Rebaptism contemporary with Cyp. quotes the whole passage simply thus (15: cf. 19), "quia tres testimonium perhibent, spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et isti tres unum sunt".[53]

Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek Note on Selected Readings, 1 John v 7,8, 1882, p104.
https://books.google.com/books?id=b9YUAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA104

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ADD OTHER REFS TO THE FOOTNOTE OR MORE FOOTNOTES

The Works of Nathaniel Lardner
Nathaniel Lardner
1838
http://books.google.com/books?id=yX49AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA66
1815
https://books.google.com/books?id=PWFGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36

Anonymi liber de Rebaptismate

p. 68
1722087041983.png
 
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