Georg Stoeckhardt

Steven Avery

Administrator
Stoeckhardt and the Comma Johanneum
https://www.blts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GS-Comma-Johanneum.pdf

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Editor’s Note: Reprinted from George Stoeckhardt. Lectures on the Three Letters of John. Translated by Hugo W. Degner. Aitkin, Minnesota: Hope Press, 1963, pp. 116–123. This section of Lectures on the Three Letters of John gives an excellent defense for including the Comma Johanneum in the sacred text.

... it is without doubt not genuine.

Now, what shall we say? If we had no other information from the ancient Church, we, too, would have to conclude that these words lack the earmarks of authenticity. However, we do have some remarks of the Old Latin church fathers which obviously made use of these very words. We refer to the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Phoebadius.

Tertullian writes: Contra Praxian, c. 25, Ita Conexus patria in filio et filii in paracleto (and so there is a connection of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Comforter). Tres efficit coharrentis alterum ex alters, qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quo modo dictum est. (A Nicene F. Vol. 3, 621. 631)

We note here that Tertullian emphasizes the “unum” saying, “unum, non unus.” He obviously identifies the “unum” with the Word of Scripture.

Cyprian writes in his De Unitate Ecclesisiae (Ante Nicene F. V. P. 423 f.): De patre et filio et spiritu sancto scriptum est et tres unum sunt. This is an exact quotation. “Scriptum est” would point to a word of Scripture, which occurs only in John, ep. 5:7.

Phoebadius, bishop of Agenne in Aquitania, in his writing, Contra Ariano, c. 45, also names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and makes the remark: “Unus tamen Deus omnia, quia tres unum sunt.” The meaning is: These three are one God, since it is certain that these three are one. The latter part of the statement proves the former.

Now the question arises, What do these passages that have been quoted conclusively prove? Very obviously this, that these church fathers must have had a codex in hand in which the words which they quoted did occur. And such a codex must have been at least as old as the oldest we know of today. It must have been a manuscript of the second century. We know very little of the older codices and manuscripts. Very few of the older ones are extant. We will have to assume that in the second century every congregation had a manuscript of one or more of the Gospels. So there were once thousands of such sacred manuscripts, yet only ten of these have come down us. We must say that we lack an accurate knowledge of these older manuscripts. But so much appears certain that those words we are concerned with must have been found in the codices which were in the hands of those early North African Christians. Not only Tertullian, Cyprian, and Phoebadius knew of these words of Scripture, but also all their readers. The fathers quoted these for the purpose that their readers might reassure themselves by looking up and reading for themselves these Scripture references. Hence, the reading containing these words must have been common.
 
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