144 REV. H. J. WHITE, M.A., OX CONNECTION BETWEEN* VULGATE 



reading; the manuscript evidence alone is decisive, while the 

 correspondence with the previous clause {irav mrevfia b 

 o/xoXoyel *lrf<rovp \picrrov iv aapKL i\j]\v96ra 6K tov 0eor 

 iariv) absolutely demands it ; those simple impressive repeti- 

 tions are just in St. John's style. The writer is emphasizing 

 the paramount importance for the Christian faith of outwardly 

 confessing that our Lord Jesus Christ has appeared on earth 

 in the flesh, and he states this first affirmatively and then 

 negatively. 



The variant reading is irav irvevfia b \vei tov 'lr/croiv, omnis 

 spiritus qui solvit Jesuin, " Every spirit that dissolveth Jesus"; 

 this is not found in any extant Greek MS., but is mentioned by 

 the Church historian Socrates (fifth century) as being the 

 reading of the "ancient MSS." in his days (H.E. vii, 32). 

 Writing of Xestorius he says that he was ignorant that the 

 irdXaia dvrlypacba of this passage in St. John's Epistle read 

 irdv irvev^a b \vei tov '\-qcrovv diro tov Qeov ov/c €o~ti : and he 

 also accuses those who desired to separate the deity from the 

 humanity in Christ (i.e., the Xestorians) of removing this 

 thought from their Bibles, and notes that the ancient 

 interpreters were aware of this. Socrates certainly wrote in 

 Greek, but he does not say outright that the reading was found 

 in Greek MSS.. and \Vestcott thinks that he mav be referring 

 to some Latin MSS. and Latin commentators. For certainly 

 the Latin evidence for \vei, solvit, is as strong as the Greek 

 evidence is against it. It is found in Ireuams, Tertullian. the 

 Latin translations of Clement of Alexandria, and of Origen, 

 in Priseillian and in Augustine, and is the Vulgate reading. 

 Here, of course, the sense is different ; what is asserted is not 

 the broad fact of the Lord Jesus having appeared on earth in 

 the flesh, but the theological truth of the hypostatic union : to 

 " dissolve Jesus " is to assert that He was not both human and 

 Divine at the same time, so that although He be God and man, 

 yet He is not two but One Christ. Wesfccott himself seems to 

 think that \vf.l is an early gloss on fii) ofioXoyet ; but I venture 

 to suggest that it may be simply due to a scribes error 

 OAY€l for OAOr€l. the scribe's eye having passed over 

 OMHOM from the similarity of the letters). 



\Ve now come to cases of definite mistranslation, of actual 

 alteration in the text. Here we must be very cautious in 

 bringing charges against the Vulgate, for two reasons. The 

 first is that some of the popular charges are wrong, and the 

 second is that our own A.V. is not entirely guiltless. First, 



