Nikolaos Sotiropoulos defends verse authenticity including grammar from Eugenius Bulgaris

[Steven Avery]

Nikolaos Sotiropoulos (1934-2014)

Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Orthodoxy_in_Greece_(from_2008)#cite_note-133

Nikolaos Sotiropoulos was born on 15 April 1934 in Palaiopirgos, in the Nafpaktia region of Greece. He received his degrees from the University of Athens as a Professor of Theology and Professor of Literature, with honors. He became the student and spiritual son of Metropolitan Augoustinos Kantiotes (1907-2010), the Bishop of the Holy Metropolis of Florina, Prespai, and Eordaia in northern Greece, and a defender of traditional Orthodoxy both in Greece and abroad. Sotiropoulos published many volumes, including Interpretation of the New Testament (ΕΡΜΗΝΕΙΑ ΚΑΙΝΗΣ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗΣ), and Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles (ΕΡΜΗΝΕΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΠΡΑΞΕΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ), as well as many others. He was a founder and director of the Orthodox missionary brotherhood "The Cross" ("O Stavros") for many years (which assumed the form of a brotherhood in 1966). He also went on speaking tours to address Hellenic communities throughout Europe, America, Canada and Australia. He was excommunicated for the rest of his life by the Holy Synod of Constantinople in July 1993, for openly criticizing Archbishop Stylianos (Harkianakis) of Australia in 1988, and for his "divisive" behaviour.[101][102] He died on 28 August 2014 in Patras. He was unmarried and did not have any direct descendants. His funeral was held on 29 August 2014, at the Monastery of the Entrance of the Virgin Mary, in the village of Myrtia in Aetolia-Acarnania, in the presence of the Bishops of Aetolia and Acarnania (Kosmas Papachristou), Piraeus (Seraphim Mentzenopoulos), Gortynos (Ieremias Foundas), and others.

 

[Steven Avery]

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Ιστολόγιο αφιερωμένο στο πρόσωπο και το έργο του κορυφαίου ορθόδοξου θεολόγου, ιεροκήρυκα και συγγραφέα, του Ομολογητού κ. Νικολάου Σωτηρόπουλου…

niksothropoulos.wordpress.com

Nick came across a paper from

Nikolaos Sotiropoulos
https://www.docdroid.net/1E7Kzby/ioanneio-komma-nikolaos-sotiropoylos-pdf

Also here with a nice blurb
https://issuu.com/nikolaos_sotiropoulos1/docs/comma

"Johannine Comma". Nikolaos Sotiropoulos
Published on May 9, 2020
https://independent.academia.edu/ORDODOX2020
https://independent.academia.edu/orthodoxia

Johannine Comma on Academia.edu - 12 pages, with download
https://www.academia.edu/42982882/_Ιωάννειο_κόμμα_Νικόλαος_Σωτηρόπουλος
Also archive.org
https://archive.org/details/ncomma/mode/2up

"Johannine Comma"
Study, Work of Nikolaos I. Sotiropoulos excellent theologian - Philologist. Through this study, the regularity of verses 7-8 of the 5th chapter, of the first letter of the apostle and evangelist John, is proved with a multitude of facts. From his work "Interpretation of difficult passages of the Bible" volume C, pp. 527-538. "In heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And three are the witnesses on earth

Nikolaos Sotiropoulos

Looks like he totally accepted the grammatical argument, we are hoping to get a strong Greek to English translation ... plus he mentions a few other important 'internal' arguments.

George Panayiotou
Dear Steven, greetings! Thanks a lot for Nikolaos Sotiropoulos' pages that strongly support the authenticity and genuineness of the "comma Johanneum" (Ιωάννειον κόμμα). I have read more than half of those pages and have been greatly impressed by his views!

And a sermon on the Johannine section

Ύδωρ - αίμα - Πνεύμα - ζωή αποδεικνύουν. (Α´ Ιωάν. 5:5-12),
Νικόλαος Σωτηρόπουλος (Ομιλία 349)

============================

 

[Steven Avery]

June 12, 2022
george panayiotou <georgepanayiotou7@gmail.com>

Dear Steven, greetings! I sincerely apologize for my late response . Even though l was acquainted with Nikolaos Sotiropoulos' views on this problem, nevertheless it took me some time to read his article again and again, digest it , summarize it and present his views to you in English.

Sotiropoulos firmly defends the genuineness of the Comma Johanneum both on philological and theological grounds. He was both a theologian and a philologist . We will present here onĺy his philological arguments :

According to N. Sotiropoulos the differences in the phaseology among Latin authors in rendering the comma Johanneum, e.g. "quae testimonium dicunt", "qui testimonium perhibent" and "qui testificantur", far from proving that the Comma Johanneum entered into the Greek N. T. from Latin can be easily explained away as mere variant attempts by those authors to express in Latin the Greek text in question either through direct translation or through the use of translations older than the Vulgata.

Sotiropoulos is in full agreement with Eugenius Boulgaris' view that without the Comma Johanneum the text (1John 5:7-8 ) presents us with an unusual syntactical (structural) anomaly, namely the use of the masculine plural "τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες" (AV 5-8: and there are three that bear witness) to refer to three neuter nouns - το Πνεύμα, το ύδωρ, το αιμα (AV 5-8: the spirit, and the water and the blood) - instead of the normally required and expected neuter plural, namely "τρία εστι τα μαρτυρουντα.” He argues that the use of the masculine gender the second time, namely in the three (earthly) witnesses, can be justified only if it is viewed as having been deliberately used in order to form a parallel construction with the first instance in 1John 5:7-8, in which the masculine gender in the phrase "τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες” (AV 5-7: there are three that bear record) to refer to the nouns - o Πατήρ, ο Λόγος and το Άγιον Πνευμα - (AV 5-8: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) is properly and normally used.

Without the Comma Johanneum, what is left of verses 7-8 becomes a repetition of the preceding verse six and tautology.

Without the Comma Johanneum, the presence of the causal conjunction "Ότι" ( =because, AV 5-7 for) with which verse 7 begins has no meaning.

The phrase "εν τηι γηι" (AV 5-8: in the earth) which occurs in some Greek N.T. manuscripts which do not contain the rest of the Comma Johanneum is a cogent piece of evidence that this disputed passage was once part of the genuine text and was parallel to and corresponded with the preceding phrase "εν τω ουρανωι" (AV 5-7: in heaven). Thus, there are three witnesses on earth just as there are three witnesses in heaven.

Sotiropoulos explains the omission of the Comma Johanneum as having been unintentionally caused by some copyist of a Greek N.T. manuscript due to a visual jump of his eyes from the first instance of the occurrence of the participle "οι μαρτυρουντες" in verse 7 to its second occurrence in verse 8. So the copyist inadvertently omitted what immediately follows after the first use of the participle "οι μαρτυρουντες" and, without realizing it, he went on to copy the text that comes right after the second occurrence of the participle "οι μαρτυρουντες" in verse 8.

The phrase that refers to the spirit, the water and the blood of verse 8, "και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν" (AV 5-8: and these three agree in one), is superfluous without the Comma Johanneum. The occurrence of this phrase in verse 8 makes sense only if it corresponds with the similar phrase in verse 7 "και ουτοι οι οι τρεις εν εισι" (AV 5-7: and these three are one) ; in other words this phrase makes sense only if the disputed passage is regarded genuine and authentic .

Sotiropoulos translates the entire passage, namely

7. Οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες [ εν τωι ουρανωι, ο Πατήρ, ο Λόγος και το Άγιον Πνευμα, και ούτοι οι τρεις εν εισι .
8. και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τηι γηι ] το Πνευμα και το ύδωρ και το αιμα, και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν.

as follows :

7. "Because those that bear witness [ in heaven are three and these three are the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one ;

8. for this reason three are also those that bear witness on the earth ], the spirit, and the water and the blood, and the three bear witness about the one."

In this whole passage (including the Comma Johanneum), Sotiropoulos recognizes the use of a familiar Hebraic type of a bipartite sentence construction beginning with the causal conjunction " Ότι"( = because ) which refers not to what has preceded but to what follows. In this type of construction, the first part which begins with the conjunction " Ότι " is connected with the second part by the conjunction "καί ", which in this case does not have a copulative ( i. e. coordinating) force; it is equivalent to any of the following adverbs and adverbial phrases: "therefore" , "consequently", "as a result", "for this reason". Furthermore, in this characteristically Hebraic type of bipartite sentence structure there is a clear correspondence and parallelism. Thus, in this passage, according to the same scholar, the first part of it, namely verse 7,

"Ότι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες [ εν τωi ουρανωι, ο Πατήρ, ο Λόγος και το Άγιον Πνευμα, και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισι."]

corresponds to and forms a parallel pair with the second part of it, namely verse 8 ,

[ "και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τηι γηι ] το Πνευμα και το ύδωρ και το αιμα, και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν."

Thus, the three witnesses on the earth correspond to and form a parallel pair with the three witnesses in heaven. Sotiropoulos, as I have already said above, regards this entire passage, namely 1John 5:7-8, (and any other of a similar syntactical pattern) as an instance of Hebraism which as such could not have been written by anybody other than a Jewish writer who, Sotiropoulos implies, must have been none other than John, the author of this Epistle himself. In order to lend support to his assertion that this bipartite passage:

" 7. Ότι τρείς εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες [ εν τωι ουρανωι, ο Πατήρ, ο Λόγος και το Άγιον Πνεύμα, και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισι. 8. και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τηι γηι ] το πνευμα και το ύδωρ και το αιμα, και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν. "

from the syntactical (structural) point of view constitutes an instance of Hebraism he adduces seven relevant passages from Jewish authors, six from the Septuagint and one from the New Testament. These are the following:

SEPTUAGINT Leviticus 20:23 ; Joshua 17:18 ; Psalms 90:14 ; 91:5 ; 106:11-12 ; Hosea 4 : 6 -- -
NEW TESTAMENT Revelation 3 :10 .

In all these examples, as well as in 1John 5:7-8 (including the Comma Johanneum) , Sotiropoulos observes, we have the same bipartite syntactical pattern, namely a passage consisting of two parts, the first part of which begins with the causal conjunction " Ότι" ( = " because ", which points forward to what follows and not to what has preceded ) and the second part begins with the conjunction "και", which in this case does not mean "and" but "therefore", "consequently", "for this reason", “as a result". Moreover, in all these examples there is a clear correspondence and parallelism between the first and the second part of each of these passages.

This rationale, Sotiropoulos concludes, convincingly proves that the Comma Johanneum is a genuine and integral part of this Epistle and demolishes the theory that considers it an interpolation by a Greek or Latin Father of the Church which found its way into 1John 5 a couple of centuries later, after the composition of the EpistIe .

 

[Steven Avery]

Summary

"quae testimonium dicunt", "qui testimonium perhibent" and "qui testificantur" are translations from Greek to Latin

syntactic parallelism - parallel construction with the first instance in 1John 5:7-8,

verse 6 followed by three witnesses is tautology - wooden repeitiion

Middleton grammatical argument

Greek manuscripts with in the earth show earlier heavenly witnesses

homoeoteleuton

"and these three agree in one" is parallel to the heavenly are one

translation

Hebraic type of a bipartite sentence construction ... clear correspondence and parallelism.

written by the Jewish writer John

Hebraism like other Bible verses

Comma Johanneum is a genuine and integral part of this Epistle and demolishes the theory that considers it an interpolation by a Greek or Latin Father of the Church which found its way into 1John 5 a couple of centuries later, after the composition of the EpistIe .