VERSION OF BIBLE AND THEOLOGY OF WESTERN CHURCH. 143 



would have been a most convenient text for them.* Nor does 

 it find place in the earliest and best MSS. of the Vulgate, nor is 

 it referred to by the Latin Fathers, such as Hilary, Lucifer 

 ( lalaritanus, Ambrose, Jerome, Leo, or Gregory the Great ; while 

 attempts to find references to it in Tertullian, Cyprian, and 

 Augustine have proved failures. The first definite reference to 

 it comes in the A/><>/<>//// of Priscillian, who was executed for 

 heresy in Spain in a.d. 385. This Apolo/jy, which was discovered, 

 and edited from a Wurzburg MS. of the fifth or sixth century, 

 by Dr. Schepss in 1889, was presented to a Synod of Bishops at 

 Saragossa in the year 380 ; the Bishops having demanded of 

 Prise illian and his followers an account of their belief. Pris- 

 cillian, however, in quoting the verse, places the clause as to the 

 Heavenly witnesses after that of the earthly witnesses, and the 

 earliest Vulgate MSS. which contain the clause, and which are 

 nearly all Spanish, have the same order. The earliest MS. which 

 contains the verses in the order familiar to us dates from the 

 eleventh century. This early order, as Dr. Kiinstle suggests, 

 may explain the origin of the verse ; the Heavenly witnesses 

 are really an interpretation of the earthly. " Spirit," " blood," 

 and " water " were referred to the three Persons of the Trinity : 

 " Spirit " to God the Father, for God was a Spirit ; " blood " to 

 the Son Who assumed our flesh and blood; "water" to the 

 Holy Spirit Who was given to the believer in the water of 

 Baptism. Then afterwards the inserted clause was found to be 

 useful as containing a clear statement of the full doctrine of the 

 Trinity, and was retained in the text, the Heavenly witnesses 

 being now placed before the earthly. 



The instance of the text I John iv, 3, has been pointed out 

 to me by Canon Girdlestone. Dr. Westcott's note on the 

 passagef is so complete that we can do little more than 

 reproduce its main points. All the Greek MSS., the Greek 

 Fathers (with the one exception of Socrates the Church 

 historian), and all the versions except the Latin, read — though 

 with minor variations among themselves — irav irvev^a b firj 

 OfjLoXoyet rbv 'irjaovv (+ Kvpiov + ^ipcarov KL, etc.) ; while 

 N KL add iv (rap/cl eXrjXvOora ; " Every spirit that confesseth 

 not Jesus ( + Lord, or + Christ) come in the flesh" . . . "is 

 not of God." There can be no doubt that this is the right 



* See throughout K. Kiinstle, Das Comma Ioanneum. (Freiburg, 

 1905.) 



t Epistles of St. John, p. 163. 



