Giannozzo Manetti and the Johannine Comma

Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was arguably the leading expert on translation from Greek to Latin in the 15th century.  His translation of the New Testament remains (as far as I can tell) unpublished.  However, (as I've previously discussed here) his manuscripts are available to view online. 

Manetti's New Testament at 1 John 5:7-8 has the following:

(Pal.lat.45, 153r)

(Urb.lat.6, 236v)

Notice that 1 John 5:7-8 in his manuscript is this:

quia tres sunt qui in caelo testificantur, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. Et hi tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt qui in terra testificantur: Spiritus, aqua et sanguis 

Manetti's Greek source is available.  Here is his Greek text:

(Pal.gr.171, 115v)

The Greek text is identical the NA28 main text:

ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν. 

Why, then, does his Latin not agree with the Greek?  The short answer is that he was influenced by the Latin text he was aiming to improve.

Here is the Vulgate Latin text from which he was working:

(Pal.lat.18, 385v)

The Latin text is:

quia tres sunt qui testimonium dant in caelo, Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus. Et hi tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra: Spiritus, aqua et sanguis 

You may note the change that Manetti offers to the Vulgate text: a change from "[they] give testimony" to "[they] testify."  It seems to be a more word-for-word translation.  However, Manetti skates right past the absence of the JC in the Greek text.

You will note that contrary to the Clementine Vulgate and the KJV, the Latin text agrees with Alcuin's Vulgate (discussed here) against the Clementine Vulgate and KJV/DRB (link) in that it does not include a second instance of "these three are one" after the three earthly witnesses.  Again, he has to somewhat ignore his Greek text to do this.

In the previous post, we discussed issues related to Revelation 16:5, where "fourth angel" and "Lord" were included in Manetti's translation on the basis of the Latin, not the Greek (link).  So, it should not be very surprising that his Latin "translation" is more of a moderate improvement to an existing Latin text, rather than a fresh translation from Greek to Latin of his actual Greek text.