Steven Avery
Administrator
Priscillian
In terms of factual material, Grantley handles Priscillian in RGA far better than most evidences. His own analysis is usually of little or no value (except in the spot where he references circularity by Kunstle), especially since he presupposes the error of interpolation and tries convoluted methods of explaining the textual historry. , However, the Priscillian factual base is strong. Nothing at all was put in BCEME about Prisicillian.
The critical fact that Priscillian asserted he was quoting John in his Bible is only referenced once, in another area, and is not even given in the quotes in the main Priscillian section. In fact, this English text never appears in Grantley:
Grantley never really explains the various specific accusation issues around Priscillian, even though he references the heresy accusation and his execution many times. We should have a page on this history!
Grantley misses that there were anathemas even as early as they Council of Toledo, 400 AD.
PBF
Priscillian and Council of Toledo - 400 AD
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/priscillian-and-council-of-toledo-400-ad.1876/
Grantley has a section combining Cyprian and Priscillian, we should try to find and correct his logic, it is an interesting mix.
(correction: that is in the superb Witness of God section below.)
Joseph Denk has a wonderful comment related to Jerome that I included below. It would be good to know how he stood overall on authenticity, likely favorable!
Witness of God
First about Priscillian, then Psalm 91 from Jerome
=================================
RGA - p. 27
However, Thiele’s hypothesis rests on the assumptions that all the interpolations entered this text-type simultaneously from a Greek original, and that all were present uniformly in all exemplars of this text-type. These assumptions cannot necessarily be made. Moreover, Thiele’s hypothesis does not adequately explain the absence of the comma from the works of the Greek Fathers or from other Latin writers before Priscillian, notably Augustine, who seems to have been familiar with this text-type.
RGA - p. 34
4. Priscillian, early creeds, and the origins of the comma in textual combination
RGA - p. 35
It is in another such a profession of faith—the Liber apologeticus (c. 380) of Priscillian, a Spanish bishop executed in 385 on charges of sorcery and heresy—that we first find the comma cited unambiguously. Priscillian, whose works were suppressed at the first Council of Braga and only rediscovered in 1885, cites the comma not merely as evidence of the unity of God, but also to support his notion of “Panchristism.” This position, anathematised by bishop Pastor of Palencia and the Council of Braga, is a species of Unitarianism that rejects any attempt to distinguish the persons of the Trinity, identifying Christ as the one true God.41
The form in which Priscillian cites the comma is as follows: Tria sunt quæ testimonium dicunt in terra: aqua caro et sanguis; et hæc tria in unum sunt. Et tria sunt quæ testimonium dicunt in cælo: Pater, Verbum et Spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.42 Several features of Priscillian’s reading of the comma deserve notice. Firstly, he places the heavenly witnesses after the earthly witnesses; this uncertainty is a feature of the manuscript transmission for the next thousand years. Secondly, Priscillian says that the heavenly witnesses “are one in Christ Jesus.” Thirdly, Priscillian uses the neuter forms hæc tria instead of the masculine hi tres one would expect in a direct translation from the Greek. Finally, Priscillian lists the three earthly witnesses as water, flesh and blood, a variant found in no extant Greek bible, but in the writings of some Latin Fathers and a handful of Latin bibles copied as late as the thirteenth century.43
Since Priscillian was the first author to cite the comma, Karl Künstle (1905) suggested that he had invented it and inserted it in the biblical text. This suggestion was immediately challenged by Adolf Jülicher (1905). Joseph Denk (1906) likewise argued that Priscillian’s citations of Scripture reflect a “very early, extremely interesting and faithful form of the Itala,” and pointed out that he himself had not found any other instance of deliberate falsification of Scripture in Priscillian’s work. Moreover, Denk suggested that if Jerome had suspected Priscillian of inventing the passage, he certainly would have unmasked and denounced such an outrageous forgery.44 (However plausible Denk’s suggestion may appear, arguments ex silentio do not compel assent. Indeed, Jerome also fails to mention the unusual variant “water, flesh and blood” in Priscillian’s reading of verse 8, which—although it is represented in some later Spanish manuscripts— would certainly have merited a comment from Jerome if he were familiar with Priscillian’s text.) Ernest-Charles Babut (1909) concurred with Denk, and added that the comma is to be found in several orthodox works of the fifth century, which would hardly be expected if it were the invention of a man condemned as a heretic. All these factors suggested to Babut that the comma was already to be found in the bibles of Priscillian’s orthodox opponents as well as in his own.45 Whatever the truth of the matter, the rediscovery of Priscillian’s work, coinciding with the beginnings of interest in the textual history of the Vulgate by Berger (1893) and the editors of the Oxford critical text of the Vulgate (1889-1954), led to the more general suggestion that the comma may have first arisen in Spain rather than in North Africa, as had hitherto been suspected.
Priscillian’s use of neuter plural forms (hæc tria) to refer to the divine persons instead of the masculine plural forms (hi tres) we might naturally expect from the Greek original of 1 Jn 5:8 (οἱ τρεῖς) is noteworthy. It has been suggested that this grammatical peculiarity was consonant with Priscillian’s modalistic understanding of the persons of the Trinity.46 However, we have seen enough examples of identical or similar phrases being used by orthodox expositors to realise that this conclusion is not warranted.
More interestingly, Priscillian’s reading of verse 7 contains the phrase in Christo Iesu. The complete phrase unum sunt in Christo Iesu is derived ultimately from Gal 3:28 (ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ), and was clearly attracted to the end of 1 Jn 5:8 by the fact that they share the words unum sunt. The phrase unum sunt in Christo [Iesu] subsequently occurs as a Trinitarian symbolum in two large-scale creeds. The first is the Reply to Pope Damasus, written in or before 384 (the year of Damasus’ death) by Priscillian or one of his followers.47 The second is the Expositio fidei chatolice, an orthodox creed written probably in Spain in the fifth or sixth century, in which this symbolum occurs as part of the wording of the Johannine comma.48
p. 39
... The fact that the form of the comma cited by Priscillian and the author of the Expositio fidei chatolice is identical ..
(SA: followed by Grantley speculations of formation of no real value)
Other variants in verse 8—aqua caro et sanguis (Priscillian) and tres in nobis sunt (Ps.-Athanasius, Contra Varimadus)
(SA: more speculation based on false interpolation theories)
(SA: next is a mini-reference to Eugenius at Carthage, one of the super-evidences, is that all he gives? Check my notes.)
41 A convenient survey of Priscillian’s life and thought is Chadwick, 1976. For the text of the Symbolum Toletanum I (400) and the Libellus in modum symboli (447) of bishop Pastor, see Denzinger, 2001, 95-98, §§ 188-209; for the letter Quam laudabiliter to bishop Turribius of Astorga (447), see Denzinger, 2001, 132-134, §§ 283-286; for the Anathemas of the Council of Braga (574), see Denzinger, 2001, 208-210, §§ 451-464.
42 Priscillian, Liber apologeticus, ed. Schepss, CSEL 18:6.
43 Künstle, 1905a, 8-9, 12-15; Künstle, 1905b, 60-61; Thiele, 1966, 363; Brown, 1982, 781-782; Strecker, 1989, 281; Strecker, 1996, 189. The sources reading caro are Madrid, Complutense ms 31; Dublin, Trinity College ms 52; Paris, BnF ms lat. 315; Vienna, ÖNB ms 11902; Contra Varimadum I.5; Beatus and Eterius, Contra Elipandum I.26; ps.-John II, Epist. ad Valerium.
44 Denk, 1906.
45 Babut, 1909, Appendix IV.3; Brooke, 1912, 160.
46 Brown, 1982, 781-782, 786; Strecker, 1996, 189.
47 Ad Damasum papam, cit. Künstle, 1905b, 59: “Pater deus, filius deus et spiritus sanctus deus. Hæc unum sunt in Christo Iesu. Tres itaque formæ, sed una potestas.” Künstle, 1905b, 67, contrasts this with the orthodox formulation in the creed Clemens Trinitas est una divinitas, also known as the “creed of St Augustine” (Southern France, fifth/sixth century; text given in Denzinger, 2001, 49-50, § 73-74). Although Clemens Trinitas does not contain the comma in its classical form, it contains the phrase tres unum sunt (here with the status of a symbolum) with an enumeration of the persons of the Trinity, creating an oddly ungrammatical sentence (Itaque Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, et tres unum sunt). In combination, these two elements are clearly moving towards the Johannine comma in its classical formulation. See also the Canons of the Second Council of Braga, PL 84:582: “LV. Quid in altari offerri oporteat. Non oportet aliquid aliud in sanctuario offerri præter panem et vinum et aquam, quæ in typo Christi benedicuntur, quia dum in cruce penderet de corpore eius sanguis effluxit et aqua. Hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu, hæc hostia et oblatio Dei in odorem suavitatis.” This document, which was subsequently absorbed into the Decretum Gratiani, first appears in the forged ps.-Isidorean collection, put together in the ninth century; it is consequently difficult to know whether the formulation genuinely reflects the thought of the late fifth century. In any case it is fascinating that this phraseology occurs in combination with the three elements of flesh, blood and water, which are found in Priscillian’s citation of 1 Jn 5:8. It is possible that the inclusion of this phrase in the Canons was suggested by the common interpretation of 1 Jn 5:6 as a reference to the sacraments.
48 Expositio fidei chatolice, in Caspari, 1883, XIV, 305: “[…] pater est ingenitus, filius uero sine initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem sanctus processet [procedit Caspari] a patre et accipit de filio sicut euangelista testatur, quia scriptum est: Tres sunt qui dicunt testimonium in cælo: pater, uerbum et spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu. Non tamen dixit: unus est in Christo Iesu.” The Expositio is preserved in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana ms I 101 sup., the same eighth-century manuscript that contains the Muratorian Canon. The date and provenance of the Expositio are disputed. Caspari, 1883, 304-308, the first editor of the document, suggested that it was written in Africa around the fifth or sixth century. Morin, 1899, 101-102, suggested less convincingly that it was written by Isaac Judaeus in the time of Pope Damasus (372). A more convincing explanation was offered by Künstle, 1905b, 89-99, who suggested that it was written in Spain in the fifth or sixth century against the position of Priscillian. In support of his contention that the Expositio is Spanish, Künstle noted that the same manuscript contains a Fides Athanasii, which is identical with the eighth chapter of the De Trinitate of ps.-Vigilius, and that the whole collection of documents in this manuscript is a suite of tracts belonging to the anti-Priscillianist movement. He concluded that Isaac cannot have written the Expositio, since he lived before the comma Johanneum is first attested, though this argument seems a little circular. Further on Morin’s hypotheses, see Lunn-Rockliffe, 2007, 33-62. It should be noted that the reading of the comma in Priscillian and in the Expositio is very similar to that later found in the biblical manuscripts Madrid, Complutense ms 31 and León, Archivio catedralicio ms 6.
=====================================================================
RGA - p. 50-51
De Trinitate attributed (erroneously) to Athanasius.68 ... the Spanish bishop Idacius Clarus (fl. c. 380), an opponent and accuser of Priscillian, as we learn from Isidore of Seville. The author of De Trinitate, like Priscillian, moreover claims to be quoting the words of John, which suggests that both authors had actually seen the words in a biblical manuscript.
This was missing in the whole major section about Priscillian! Amazing. It is critical information.
Is this the only Idacius Clarus reference?
RGA - p. 55
Moreover, Jerome suggests that the attendant speculations about the nature of the Trinity—Joseph Denk suggested that he may have had the followers of Priscillian in mind—were controversial, dangerous and presumptuous, tantamount to the speculations of an earthernware vessel on the nature of the potter who fashioned it.80
80 Jerome, Tractatuum in psalmos series altera, de Psalmo 91, CCSL 78, 424-429: “Relatum est mihi, fratres, quia inter se quidam fratres disputando quæsissent, quomodo Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus et tres et unum sunt. Videtis ex quæstione, quam periculosa sit disputatio: lutum et vas fictile de creatore disputat, et ad rationem suæ naturæ non potest pervenire; et curiose quærit scire de mysterio Trinitatis, quod angeli in cælo scire non possunt.” This section of Jerome’s commentary constitutes the incipit of Augustine’s Sermo de sancta trinitate, PL 39:2173 (Appendix, Sermo 232), as noted by Fischer, 2007, 119. Denk, 1906, asserted that this passage shows Jerome as “den klassischen Zeugen für die Existenz des Comma Johanneum in der spanischen Bibel des 4. Jahr., der es (gleichviel ob mit der Lesart tres oder tria) nicht für schriftwidrig hielt, trotzdem er es von seiner Bibelrevision ausschloß.” But this evidence is not at all compelling. As Denk himself admits, the passage Jerome himself provides to demonstrate the three persons of the Trinity is Mt 28:19, not the Johannine comma.
RGA - p. 430
There is evidence from the late fourth century that this explicitly Trinitarian interpretation of 1 Jn 5:8, especially the phrase “these three are one,” gained some currency as a credal statement, primarily in the Latin tradition. Accordingly, it is in the context of (Latin) creeds (such as Priscillian’s Liber apologeticus and the Expositio fidei chatolice) that we first find the Johannine comma fully articulated.
The false idea of placing Priscillian in the rogue's gallery creator of the verse came up on CARM and I gave the reference showing it was refuted by 1909. even though it pops up in writings today.
CARM
Even among contras that did not accept Tertullian and Cyprian, and did not yet know Potamius and other evidences, and believed the myth of the Vulgate Prologue being not by Jerome, this was dead and buried by 1909.
In terms of factual material, Grantley handles Priscillian in RGA far better than most evidences. His own analysis is usually of little or no value (except in the spot where he references circularity by Kunstle), especially since he presupposes the error of interpolation and tries convoluted methods of explaining the textual historry. , However, the Priscillian factual base is strong. Nothing at all was put in BCEME about Prisicillian.
The critical fact that Priscillian asserted he was quoting John in his Bible is only referenced once, in another area, and is not even given in the quotes in the main Priscillian section. In fact, this English text never appears in Grantley:
Grantley never really explains the various specific accusation issues around Priscillian, even though he references the heresy accusation and his execution many times. We should have a page on this history!
Grantley misses that there were anathemas even as early as they Council of Toledo, 400 AD.
PBF
Priscillian and Council of Toledo - 400 AD
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/priscillian-and-council-of-toledo-400-ad.1876/
Grantley has a section combining Cyprian and Priscillian, we should try to find and correct his logic, it is an interesting mix.
(correction: that is in the superb Witness of God section below.)
Joseph Denk has a wonderful comment related to Jerome that I included below. It would be good to know how he stood overall on authenticity, likely favorable!
Witness of God
First about Priscillian, then Psalm 91 from Jerome
=================================
RGA - p. 27
However, Thiele’s hypothesis rests on the assumptions that all the interpolations entered this text-type simultaneously from a Greek original, and that all were present uniformly in all exemplars of this text-type. These assumptions cannot necessarily be made. Moreover, Thiele’s hypothesis does not adequately explain the absence of the comma from the works of the Greek Fathers or from other Latin writers before Priscillian, notably Augustine, who seems to have been familiar with this text-type.
RGA - p. 34
4. Priscillian, early creeds, and the origins of the comma in textual combination
RGA - p. 35
It is in another such a profession of faith—the Liber apologeticus (c. 380) of Priscillian, a Spanish bishop executed in 385 on charges of sorcery and heresy—that we first find the comma cited unambiguously. Priscillian, whose works were suppressed at the first Council of Braga and only rediscovered in 1885, cites the comma not merely as evidence of the unity of God, but also to support his notion of “Panchristism.” This position, anathematised by bishop Pastor of Palencia and the Council of Braga, is a species of Unitarianism that rejects any attempt to distinguish the persons of the Trinity, identifying Christ as the one true God.41
The form in which Priscillian cites the comma is as follows: Tria sunt quæ testimonium dicunt in terra: aqua caro et sanguis; et hæc tria in unum sunt. Et tria sunt quæ testimonium dicunt in cælo: Pater, Verbum et Spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.42 Several features of Priscillian’s reading of the comma deserve notice. Firstly, he places the heavenly witnesses after the earthly witnesses; this uncertainty is a feature of the manuscript transmission for the next thousand years. Secondly, Priscillian says that the heavenly witnesses “are one in Christ Jesus.” Thirdly, Priscillian uses the neuter forms hæc tria instead of the masculine hi tres one would expect in a direct translation from the Greek. Finally, Priscillian lists the three earthly witnesses as water, flesh and blood, a variant found in no extant Greek bible, but in the writings of some Latin Fathers and a handful of Latin bibles copied as late as the thirteenth century.43
Since Priscillian was the first author to cite the comma, Karl Künstle (1905) suggested that he had invented it and inserted it in the biblical text. This suggestion was immediately challenged by Adolf Jülicher (1905). Joseph Denk (1906) likewise argued that Priscillian’s citations of Scripture reflect a “very early, extremely interesting and faithful form of the Itala,” and pointed out that he himself had not found any other instance of deliberate falsification of Scripture in Priscillian’s work. Moreover, Denk suggested that if Jerome had suspected Priscillian of inventing the passage, he certainly would have unmasked and denounced such an outrageous forgery.44 (However plausible Denk’s suggestion may appear, arguments ex silentio do not compel assent. Indeed, Jerome also fails to mention the unusual variant “water, flesh and blood” in Priscillian’s reading of verse 8, which—although it is represented in some later Spanish manuscripts— would certainly have merited a comment from Jerome if he were familiar with Priscillian’s text.) Ernest-Charles Babut (1909) concurred with Denk, and added that the comma is to be found in several orthodox works of the fifth century, which would hardly be expected if it were the invention of a man condemned as a heretic. All these factors suggested to Babut that the comma was already to be found in the bibles of Priscillian’s orthodox opponents as well as in his own.45 Whatever the truth of the matter, the rediscovery of Priscillian’s work, coinciding with the beginnings of interest in the textual history of the Vulgate by Berger (1893) and the editors of the Oxford critical text of the Vulgate (1889-1954), led to the more general suggestion that the comma may have first arisen in Spain rather than in North Africa, as had hitherto been suspected.
Priscillian’s use of neuter plural forms (hæc tria) to refer to the divine persons instead of the masculine plural forms (hi tres) we might naturally expect from the Greek original of 1 Jn 5:8 (οἱ τρεῖς) is noteworthy. It has been suggested that this grammatical peculiarity was consonant with Priscillian’s modalistic understanding of the persons of the Trinity.46 However, we have seen enough examples of identical or similar phrases being used by orthodox expositors to realise that this conclusion is not warranted.
More interestingly, Priscillian’s reading of verse 7 contains the phrase in Christo Iesu. The complete phrase unum sunt in Christo Iesu is derived ultimately from Gal 3:28 (ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ), and was clearly attracted to the end of 1 Jn 5:8 by the fact that they share the words unum sunt. The phrase unum sunt in Christo [Iesu] subsequently occurs as a Trinitarian symbolum in two large-scale creeds. The first is the Reply to Pope Damasus, written in or before 384 (the year of Damasus’ death) by Priscillian or one of his followers.47 The second is the Expositio fidei chatolice, an orthodox creed written probably in Spain in the fifth or sixth century, in which this symbolum occurs as part of the wording of the Johannine comma.48
p. 39
... The fact that the form of the comma cited by Priscillian and the author of the Expositio fidei chatolice is identical ..
(SA: followed by Grantley speculations of formation of no real value)
Other variants in verse 8—aqua caro et sanguis (Priscillian) and tres in nobis sunt (Ps.-Athanasius, Contra Varimadus)
(SA: more speculation based on false interpolation theories)
(SA: next is a mini-reference to Eugenius at Carthage, one of the super-evidences, is that all he gives? Check my notes.)
41 A convenient survey of Priscillian’s life and thought is Chadwick, 1976. For the text of the Symbolum Toletanum I (400) and the Libellus in modum symboli (447) of bishop Pastor, see Denzinger, 2001, 95-98, §§ 188-209; for the letter Quam laudabiliter to bishop Turribius of Astorga (447), see Denzinger, 2001, 132-134, §§ 283-286; for the Anathemas of the Council of Braga (574), see Denzinger, 2001, 208-210, §§ 451-464.
42 Priscillian, Liber apologeticus, ed. Schepss, CSEL 18:6.
43 Künstle, 1905a, 8-9, 12-15; Künstle, 1905b, 60-61; Thiele, 1966, 363; Brown, 1982, 781-782; Strecker, 1989, 281; Strecker, 1996, 189. The sources reading caro are Madrid, Complutense ms 31; Dublin, Trinity College ms 52; Paris, BnF ms lat. 315; Vienna, ÖNB ms 11902; Contra Varimadum I.5; Beatus and Eterius, Contra Elipandum I.26; ps.-John II, Epist. ad Valerium.
44 Denk, 1906.
45 Babut, 1909, Appendix IV.3; Brooke, 1912, 160.
46 Brown, 1982, 781-782, 786; Strecker, 1996, 189.
47 Ad Damasum papam, cit. Künstle, 1905b, 59: “Pater deus, filius deus et spiritus sanctus deus. Hæc unum sunt in Christo Iesu. Tres itaque formæ, sed una potestas.” Künstle, 1905b, 67, contrasts this with the orthodox formulation in the creed Clemens Trinitas est una divinitas, also known as the “creed of St Augustine” (Southern France, fifth/sixth century; text given in Denzinger, 2001, 49-50, § 73-74). Although Clemens Trinitas does not contain the comma in its classical form, it contains the phrase tres unum sunt (here with the status of a symbolum) with an enumeration of the persons of the Trinity, creating an oddly ungrammatical sentence (Itaque Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, et tres unum sunt). In combination, these two elements are clearly moving towards the Johannine comma in its classical formulation. See also the Canons of the Second Council of Braga, PL 84:582: “LV. Quid in altari offerri oporteat. Non oportet aliquid aliud in sanctuario offerri præter panem et vinum et aquam, quæ in typo Christi benedicuntur, quia dum in cruce penderet de corpore eius sanguis effluxit et aqua. Hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu, hæc hostia et oblatio Dei in odorem suavitatis.” This document, which was subsequently absorbed into the Decretum Gratiani, first appears in the forged ps.-Isidorean collection, put together in the ninth century; it is consequently difficult to know whether the formulation genuinely reflects the thought of the late fifth century. In any case it is fascinating that this phraseology occurs in combination with the three elements of flesh, blood and water, which are found in Priscillian’s citation of 1 Jn 5:8. It is possible that the inclusion of this phrase in the Canons was suggested by the common interpretation of 1 Jn 5:6 as a reference to the sacraments.
48 Expositio fidei chatolice, in Caspari, 1883, XIV, 305: “[…] pater est ingenitus, filius uero sine initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem sanctus processet [procedit Caspari] a patre et accipit de filio sicut euangelista testatur, quia scriptum est: Tres sunt qui dicunt testimonium in cælo: pater, uerbum et spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu. Non tamen dixit: unus est in Christo Iesu.” The Expositio is preserved in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana ms I 101 sup., the same eighth-century manuscript that contains the Muratorian Canon. The date and provenance of the Expositio are disputed. Caspari, 1883, 304-308, the first editor of the document, suggested that it was written in Africa around the fifth or sixth century. Morin, 1899, 101-102, suggested less convincingly that it was written by Isaac Judaeus in the time of Pope Damasus (372). A more convincing explanation was offered by Künstle, 1905b, 89-99, who suggested that it was written in Spain in the fifth or sixth century against the position of Priscillian. In support of his contention that the Expositio is Spanish, Künstle noted that the same manuscript contains a Fides Athanasii, which is identical with the eighth chapter of the De Trinitate of ps.-Vigilius, and that the whole collection of documents in this manuscript is a suite of tracts belonging to the anti-Priscillianist movement. He concluded that Isaac cannot have written the Expositio, since he lived before the comma Johanneum is first attested, though this argument seems a little circular. Further on Morin’s hypotheses, see Lunn-Rockliffe, 2007, 33-62. It should be noted that the reading of the comma in Priscillian and in the Expositio is very similar to that later found in the biblical manuscripts Madrid, Complutense ms 31 and León, Archivio catedralicio ms 6.
=====================================================================
RGA - p. 50-51
De Trinitate attributed (erroneously) to Athanasius.68 ... the Spanish bishop Idacius Clarus (fl. c. 380), an opponent and accuser of Priscillian, as we learn from Isidore of Seville. The author of De Trinitate, like Priscillian, moreover claims to be quoting the words of John, which suggests that both authors had actually seen the words in a biblical manuscript.
This was missing in the whole major section about Priscillian! Amazing. It is critical information.
Is this the only Idacius Clarus reference?
RGA - p. 55
Moreover, Jerome suggests that the attendant speculations about the nature of the Trinity—Joseph Denk suggested that he may have had the followers of Priscillian in mind—were controversial, dangerous and presumptuous, tantamount to the speculations of an earthernware vessel on the nature of the potter who fashioned it.80
80 Jerome, Tractatuum in psalmos series altera, de Psalmo 91, CCSL 78, 424-429: “Relatum est mihi, fratres, quia inter se quidam fratres disputando quæsissent, quomodo Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus et tres et unum sunt. Videtis ex quæstione, quam periculosa sit disputatio: lutum et vas fictile de creatore disputat, et ad rationem suæ naturæ non potest pervenire; et curiose quærit scire de mysterio Trinitatis, quod angeli in cælo scire non possunt.” This section of Jerome’s commentary constitutes the incipit of Augustine’s Sermo de sancta trinitate, PL 39:2173 (Appendix, Sermo 232), as noted by Fischer, 2007, 119. Denk, 1906, asserted that this passage shows Jerome as “den klassischen Zeugen für die Existenz des Comma Johanneum in der spanischen Bibel des 4. Jahr., der es (gleichviel ob mit der Lesart tres oder tria) nicht für schriftwidrig hielt, trotzdem er es von seiner Bibelrevision ausschloß.” But this evidence is not at all compelling. As Denk himself admits, the passage Jerome himself provides to demonstrate the three persons of the Trinity is Mt 28:19, not the Johannine comma.
RGA - p. 430
There is evidence from the late fourth century that this explicitly Trinitarian interpretation of 1 Jn 5:8, especially the phrase “these three are one,” gained some currency as a credal statement, primarily in the Latin tradition. Accordingly, it is in the context of (Latin) creeds (such as Priscillian’s Liber apologeticus and the Expositio fidei chatolice) that we first find the Johannine comma fully articulated.
The false idea of placing Priscillian in the rogue's gallery creator of the verse came up on CARM and I gave the reference showing it was refuted by 1909. even though it pops up in writings today.
CARM
- Thomas Golda Extensive Research on 1 John 5:7
So clearly the heavenly witnesses verse was in the Bible of Cyprian. Since it was written about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this is clearly a reference to the heavenly witnesses. The alternative is speculating some absurd invisible allegorizing. Where Cyprian would be...
forums.carm.org
Even among contras that did not accept Tertullian and Cyprian, and did not yet know Potamius and other evidences, and believed the myth of the Vulgate Prologue being not by Jerome, this was dead and buried by 1909.
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