The Comma Johanneum is a disputed passage found in 1 John 5:7-8 that refers to "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost" being one. It was inserted into the Latin Vulgate text based on a gloss, but is not found in any Greek manuscripts before the 15th century. While it was included in translations for some time, modern scholarship rejects it due to the lack of evidence in early manuscripts. The Catholic Church no longer maintains it as authentic Scripture.

1. 1 John 5:7-8
COMMA JOHANNEUM

2. WHAT IS IT?
 The Comma Johanneum is a comma (a
short clause) in the First Epistle of John
(1 John 5:7)

3. WHAT IS IT?
 This comma appears in the Latin Vulgate text
as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages,
based on Vetus Latina minority readings
dating to the 7th century.

4. WHAT IS IT?
1 John 5:7 (Douay Rheims)
 Translated from the Latin Vulgate: quia tres
sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo, Pater,
Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. Et hi tres unum
sunt.

5. WHAT IS IT?
1 John 5:7 (Douay Rheims)
 “And there are three who give testimony in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost. And these three are one.”

6. THE LATIN VULGATE BIBLE
 The Vulgate is a late 4th-
century Latin translation of
the Bible. It was largely the
work of St. Jerome, who was
commissioned by Pope
Damasus I in 382 to make a
revision of the old Latin
translations. By the 13th
century this revision had
come to be called the versio
vulgata, that is, the
"commonly used translation”,
and ultimately it became the
definitive and officially
promulgated Latin version of
the Bible in the Roman
Catholic Church.

7. THE VETUS LATINA
 Vetus Latina is a
collective name given to
the Biblical texts in Latin
that were translated
before St Jerome's
Vulgate Bible (382-405
AD) became the standard
Bible for Latin-speaking
Western Christians. The
phrase Vetus Latina is
Latin for Old Latin, and
the Vetus Latina is
sometimes known as the
Old Latin Bible.

8. THE INSERTION OF THE COMMA JOHANNEUM
 The Comma
Johanneum was
inserted into the Latin
text based on a gloss
to that text; the gloss
itself may date to as
early as the 3rd or 4th
century.

9. WHAT IS A GLOSS?
 Biblical scholars use the
word glossa or gloss, in
connection with glosses
of Biblical texts

10. WHAT IS A GLOSS?
 The English word gloss is
derived from the Latin
glossa, a transcript of the
Greek glossa).

11. WHAT IS A GLOSS?
 In Greek the word glossa
means tongue, or
language

12. WHAT IS A GLOSS?
 In time the word came to
mean an explanation or
addition to a biblical text

13. WHAT IS A GLOSS?
 In the example to the right,
the verse is on the right
and the gloss is on the left

14. INSERTION OF A COMMENT INTO THE TEXT
 At some point in the 200’s
or 300’s AD, a copyist
inserted a commentary on
the text of 1 John 5:7 into
the actual text itself

15. INSERTION OF A COMMENT INTO THE TEXT
 So the manuscript writer
copying out the text of the
Letter inserted what was a
comment on the original
text

16. INSERTION OF A COMMENT INTO THE TEXT
 From that point, those who
copied the text included the
inserted words into the First
Epistle of John

17. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
 The Dutch Catholic scholar
and humanist Desiderius
Erasmus wanted to
provide a Greek New
Testament which could be
used for translation into
vernacular editions as well
as for the study of scholars

18. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
 Beginning in 1516 and
using six manuscripts
which contained not quite
the whole of the New
Testament, Erasmus
began to put together his
critical Greek text

19. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
 Erasmus filled in the
missing portions of the text
from the Latin Vulgate
Bible which was the oldest
and most used text of
Scripture in Europe

20. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
 We should note that at this
time in history the greatest
manuscript discoveries
were yet to be made

21. THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
 Therefore, the Greek text
of Erasmus was flawed
from the beginning and the
Vulgate he was using itself
contained errors, such as
the Comma Johanneum

22. ERASMUS AND SCHOLARSHIP
 To his credit, Erasmus
actually left out the Comma
Johanneum from the first
edition of his published text

23. ERASMUS AND SCHOLARSHIP
 But this was a time of
theological infighting and
there was an outcry about
the missing text

24. ERASMUS AND SCHOLARSHIP
 The Comma Johanneum
supported the Doctrine of
the Trinity and because
Erasmus omitted the text it
was looked upon as an
attack on that doctrine

25. ERASMUS AND SCHOLARSHIP
 Therefore Erasmus
included the words in the
third and later editions

26. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 Erasmus intended to
produce a new critical
Latin translation of the
Vulgate when he began
his work

27. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 He gathered all the
manuscripts of the Vulgate
he could find in order to
produce a more
authoritative version of the
New Testament

28. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 The Greek texts available
to Erasmus were limited
and in many places he had
to translate backwards
from the Latin Vulgate or
the writings of the Fathers
of the Church into the
Greek of his new critical
edition

29. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 The texts that Erasmus
was using for the Greek
version of the New
Testament were very late

30. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 They all dated from the
12th century or later
making them far removed
from the most original
Greek biblical documents
used by St. Jerome and
the Fathers of the Church

31. THE “TEXTUS RECEPTUS”
 It was this flawed edition of
the Greek New Testament
that became the basis of
the translation into
vernacular languages,
especially for Protestant
editions, from the 16th to
the late 19th centuries

32. ERASMUS ON THE NECESSITY OF THE GREEK
TEXT
 Erasmus realized the
need to go back to the
oldest sources available
for an accurate
translation of the
Scriptures into a
vernacular language

33. ERASMUS ON THE NECESSITY OF THE GREEK
TEXT
 “…one thing the facts cry
out, and it can be clear, as
they say, even to a blind
man, that often through the
translator’s clumsiness or
inattention the Greek has
been wrongly rendered;
often the true and genuine
reading has been corrupted
by ignorant scribes, which
we see happen every day,
or altered by scribes who
are half-taught and half-
asleep.“ ~ D. Erasmus

34. PROBLEMS WITH ERASMUS’ TRANSLATION
 Because the
manuscripts that
Erasmus was working
on were so late, there
are mistakes in his
final version of the
New Testament

35. PROBLEMS WITH ERASMUS’ TRANSLATION
 In more than twenty
places the reading
supplied by Erasmus
in his text is supported
by the authority of no
known Greek
manuscript

36. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 The Comma
Johanneum was
initially widely accepted
in the translations of the
Scriptures and
continued to be
included in the text of
the Catholic Bible both
Latin and vernacular

37. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 With the rise of Biblical
Scholarship, the
Comma Johanneum
became just as widely
rejected as it had been
widely accepted

38. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 Among the reasons
cited for the rejection of
the Comma
Johanneum by the
Protestants are the
following

39. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 This text concerning the
heavenly witnesses is
not contained in any
Greek manuscript
which was written
earlier than the fifteenth
century

40. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 This text is not found in
any Latin manuscript
earlier than the ninth
century

41. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 This text is not found in
any of the ancient
versions.

42. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 This text is not cited by
any of the Greek
ecclesiastical writers,
though to prove the
doctrine of the Trinity
they have cited the
words both before and
after this text

43. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 This text is not cited by
any of the early Latin
Fathers, even when the
subjects upon which
they treat would
naturally have led them
to appeal to its authority

44. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 The Church was
slower to reject the
Comma Johanneum

45. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 The Council of Trent in
1546 defined the
Biblical canon as "the
entire books with all
their parts, as these
have been wont to be
read in the Catholic
Church and are
contained in the old
Latin Vulgate,"
meaning that the
comma was included.

46. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 Although the revised
Vulgate contained the
Comma, the earliest
known copies did not,
leaving the status of
the Comma
Johanneum unclear

47. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 On 13 January 1897,
during a period of
reaction in the Church,
the Holy Office
decreed that Catholic
theologians could not
"with safety" deny or
call into doubt the
Comma's authenticity.

48. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 On 15 January, 1897,
Pope Leo XIII approved
this decision but he did
not invest his full papal
authority in the matter,
leaving the decree with
the ordinary authority
possessed by the Holy
Office

49. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 On 2 June 1927, Pope
Pius XI decreed that
the Comma
Johanneum was open
to dispute

50. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 The updated Nova
Vulgata (New Vulgate),
given the recognitio by
Pope Paul VI

51. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 And published in 1979
by Blessed Pope John
Paul II following
Second Vatican
Council, does not
include the Comma
Johanneum

52. THE COMMA JOHANNEUM IN RECENT
CENTURIES
 The New American
Bible does not contain
the Comma
Johanneum simply
because there is no
evidence that the text
was ever present in the
most ancient
manuscripts