p. 42
8 This was not absolutely the case, however, since his omission of the
comma Johanneum, as well as his resorting to the Greek New Testament were
attempts to recapture an
historically earlier and therefore
purer form of the Christian Faith. In fact, the radicalness of this omission can hardly be
appreciated today but it helps to put it into perspective when one notes that even Lorenzo Valla, who was suspected of antitrinitarian leanings, would not omit this passage in his
Adnotationes, because perhaps, as Bentley suggests, he "considered it too impolitic to meddle with the proof-text for a doctrine so important to the Roman Church as that of the Trinity (Bentley, 1983:44-45). Not so for Erasmus.
This is clear that Letis is approving of the Erasmus omission as an attempt have a purer text.0
p. 74
... Like Origen, Erasmus had a subordinationist christology which allowed him the freedom to question the orthodox interpretations of many of
the major passages traditionally used to defend the deity of Christ (Payne, 1970:54-70).55
4. The
Comma Johanneum
When Erasmus did not add the comma Johanneum to the First Epistle of John it opened the way for theologians to accuse him of contributing to a revival of Arianism (Bentley, 1983:202; Coogan: 53-116).56 Of course, Erasmus’s christology probably had nothing to do with his judgement to omit this passage (although its omission from all the Greek codices he had surveyed probably reinforced his conviction that the Trinity was a late dogmatic reflection of the Church rather than a Biblical teaching). It was simply missing from all the Greek witnesses he consulted, reason enough to drop it. But the churchmen at Alcala, with probably no more Greek MS evidence for this passage than Erasmus possessed,57 added it to their Greek text from the Vulgate, because it had gained, from around the year 800 CE onward, canonical status as part of the sacred text of the Latin Bible.
Erasmus was, however, certain it was a corruption, added to the text by the Western Church, a witness to him of yet one more form of dogmatic corruption influencing the Latin Bible. Luther seems to have been in rare agreement with Erasmus on this point. In Luther’s commentary on John’s first epistle he observes from Erasmus’s
Annotationes:
The Greek books do not have these words, but this verse seems to have been inserted by the Catholics because of the Arians, yet not aptly; for wherever John speaks about the witnesses, he speaks about those on earth, not about those m heaven (LW Vol. 30:316).
Luther never put the verse in his Bible even after Erasmus added it to his third edition of the Greek New Testament.58
The
comma Johanneum takes on great significance from this time forward in the history of text criticism because it remains as proof positive to future Erasmians that the Church has expanded the New Testament message at places to accommodate emerging dogmatic concerns.
55 On Origen’s Christology see Rowe (1987).
56 For a detailed treatment of all those who criticized Erasmus’s text and annotations see Bludau (1902:425-569). For briefer treatments see Boyle
(1986:123-171), Bentley (1983:194-219) and Rabil (94, n.158). For a definitive treatment of the data surrounding Erasmus and the
comma Johanneum,
see de Jonge (1980:381-89).
57 On this point see Tregelles’s excellent treatment (1869:358-361).
58 It was added after Luther’s death. There have been attempts to prove that Luther reconsidered and had come to see it as genuine in later lectures on the epistle but this seems to have been answered by Ezra Abbott (1888:458-463). In his own words, Luther addressed possible future revisions
of his text: "I request my friends and my foes, my masters, printers, and readers, to let this New Testament continue mine. If they find faults in it, let them make another. I know well what I make, I see also well, what others make. But this testament shall remain Luther’s German Testament (Michaelis, 1823:439). Nevertheless, contrary to his wishes, the verse was first added in the Frankfurt edition of 1574. (ibid.) On the other hand, like the churchmen at Alcala, John Calvin and Theodore Beza both treated it as genuine. Even the French humanist, Lefevre, defended it against Erasmus (Rice 1969:180), based on the erroneous assumption of the authenticity of Jerome’s prologue to the catholic epistles,
which did not begin to appear until the ninth century, cf. Scrivener (1894:vol 2, 404, n. 2).
(Quite a blunder of Letis, also of Edward Miller.)
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092355118#page/n413/mode/2up
https://ccel.org/ccel/scrivener/ntcrit2/ntcrit2/Page_404.html
p. 137
During the summer of 1527, Erasmus was being investigated in Valladolid by the Inquisitor General, Alonso Manrique, on his views of the Trinity and on other topics.18 One of those involved in the inquiry was Juan Quintana, to whom Servetus was employed as Secretary. In this capacity, Servetus would have had access to all the documents of Erasmus’s accusers as well as Erasmus’s response, his
Apologia.19
....
The main issue in Erasmus’s debate with the Spaniards rested on his assertion that Scripture simply did not teach a Trinity; rather this was a doctrine
developed by the Church in response to the Arians. He referred to the position of the early Church as superior to the late developments of the fourth century, because the early church left such doctrines open-ended.
Thus, both Erasmus and Servetus shared a preference for the pre-Nicene Church (Gauss:419).
For Erasmus, the
comma Johanneum (I Jn 5:7-8), was evidence of the late development of the doctrine of the Trinity, since it was found in neither the old Greek, nor old Latin MSS. This influenced his exegesis. John 10:30 reads (Grk). Erasmus abandoned the catholic interpretation which maintained that the being one was the shared divine essence. Erasmus, on the other hand, interpreted this as meaning one in agreement. Here his non-dogmatic, philological hermeneutic shows through. Servetus argued for the same interpretation in his work on the Trinity and cited Erasmus as a precedent (Servetus 1932:37).20
Erasmus even resorted to an Islamic argument in refutation of the doctrine of the Trinity. He suggested that by reciting the baptismal rite in
reverse order one discovers that the same rank is not given to three persons, supposedly identical in nature.
In the second part of his
Apologia Erasmus defends himself against the charge of denying the deity of Christ. He points out, as Servetus also would
later, that the word
God is always used in reference to the Father, two or three times in reference to the Son, but never in reference to the Holy Spirit.
17 Bainton had suggested a connection in 1953: ’To him [Erasmus] Servetus may well have owed his first religious awakening" (Bainton 1953:33-
34).
18 On this see Rummel (1988) and (1989). A good case can be made for Edward Lee’s criticism of Erasmus’s edition of the Greek New Testament
and Annotations as the cause of this investigation. On this see Rummel (1988:1); (1989:84-86); and Coogan (1986:476-505).
19
Apologia ad monachos Hispanos (1528). For a general treatment of Erasmus’s rather voluminous
apologiae see Gilmore (1971:62-88) and more
recently Rummel (1988:69-78).
20 In fact, Servetus never challenged the
comma Johanneum probably because this interpretation also served him.
======================================
Myron Piper Gilmore, (1910-1978)
1971
"De Modis Disputandi: The Apologetic Writings of Erasmus . In
Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to W.K. Ferguson. Toronto.
