Raymond Brown & the Comma pt. 8
contra Arianos (Ad 10; CC 91, 93), and in his De Trinitate (1.4.1; CC 91A, 636). The Vandal movements in the fifth century brought North Africa and Spain into close relationship, and the evidence listed above shows clearly that the Comma was known in those two regions between 380 and 550. How and when was it known elsewhere?
To the period before 550 belongs a Prologue to the Catholic Epistles, falsely attributed to Jerome, which is preserved in the Codex Fuldensis (PL 29, 827—3 1). Although the Codex itself does not contain the Comma, the Prologue states that the Comma is genuine but has been omitted by unfaithful translators. The Prologue has been attributed to Vincent of Lerins (d. 450) and to Peregrinus (Künstle, Ayuso Marazuela), the fifth-century Spanish editor of the Vg. In any case, Jerome’s authority was such that this statement, spuriously attributed to him, helped to win acceptance for the Comma.
In Italy Cassiodorus (d. ca. 583) cited the Comma in his commentary In Epistolam S. Joannis ad Parthos (10.5.1; PL 70, 1373A), although it is not clear that he thought it belonged to the Bible and was written by John. The work of Cassiodorus was a channel through which knowledge of the Comma came also to France. As for England, no MS. of the commentary on the Catholic Epistles by Venerable Bede (d. 735) was thought to show knowledge of the Comma, although two inferior MSS. had the phrase “on earth” after “testify” in the standard text of I John 5:7—8. C. Jenkins has now found a late-twelfth-century MS. (177 at Balliol, Oxford) that does contain the Comma, but by that date it may well have been read into Bede from the Latin Bible.
Overall, then, the evidence from the writers of the period 400-650 fits in with the evidence of the Latin Bible where the Comma begins to appear after 600 in the MSS. known to us. (Isidore of Seville, d. 636, who shows knowledge of the Comma in his Testimonia divinae Scripturae 2 [PL 83, 1203C], if the work is genuinely his, may have served as a bridge to the biblical MSS., for his name is connected with editorial work on the Latin Bible.) The Comma was known in North Africa and Spain, and knowledge of it elsewhere was probably derivative from North African and Spanish influence.
2. The Comma In Writers before Priscillian (A.D. 200-375)
Let us now look in the other direction to see if there was pre-Priscillian knowledge of the Comma. On the one hand, del Alamo (“Comma” 88—89) [DEL ALAMO, M. “El Comma Joaneo” EstBi 2 (1943) 75-105 / 1943 Fr. Mateo del Alamo reviewed the history of “El ‘Comma Joaneo.’ “/ El Comma Joaneo y las Bibias españolas / por Fr. Mateo del Álamo this article was later condensed and published in “Los ‘Tres Testificantes’ de la primera Epistola de San Juan, V. 7,” in Cultura Biblica, IV, nr. 32 (Enero, 1947), 11-14.] gives evidence to show that Priscillian was quite free with biblical texts and might well have shaped the Comma himself by combining the original I John passage with the reflections of the North African church writers (e.g., Cyprian) on the Trinity. On the other hand, as we saw in A2 above and also in the INTRODUCTION (VI B), there were early Latin additions to I John for which there is little or no support in Greek MSS.; and one may wonder if the origins of the Comma are to be divorced from such earlier Latin textual expansions. (24) Moreover, Riggenbach (Comma 382—86) argues on the basis of variants (25) that Priscillian’s was only one form of the Comma which, therefore, must have antedated him. (However, Lemmonyer, “Comma” 71-72, points out that variants would have arisen when the Comma was still a meditation on I John 5:7-8 and before it became part of the Latin biblical text.) One way to control these theoretical observations is to check through the church writers before Priscillian for knowledge of the Comma; and because of subsequent history, particular attention must be paid to North Africa.
(24) Thiele, “Beobachtungen” 72-73, argues that since some Latin additions to I John may have been translated from lost Greek originals, we cannot deny the possibility of a Greek original for the Comma. I judge this quite implausible—see Al above.
(25) These may be seen from comparing the Comma In Priscillian’s Liber apologeticus, in Contra Varimadum, and in the Palimpsest of León.
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