Did Jerome comment on the absence of the Johannine Comma in a prologue to the Catholic Epistles? The short answer is no. There is a prologue to the Catholic epistles in many Latin Vulgate copies. This prologue is sometimes ascribed to Jerome (although, interestingly, it seems it is not explicitly so ascribed in the oldest copies). Currently, no list of the authentic works of Jerome (by any reputable scholar of Jerome) includes the material provided as a prologue to the Catholic Epistles (see this list, for example). This prologue can, however, be found in Migne, beginning at PL 29:863C. Migne provides the following (translation is my own, and not particularly good - Migne's original Latin can be found at this link):
That this prologue is not Jerome’s but of a man both of a much later age and almost of the lowest bench [trans. note: "bench" as an idiom for "authority"], more recent critics, and even Martianæus himself, prove with such certain arguments, that, if we should wish to show this very thing, we might seem to be doing what has already been done. For indeed the whole context of the speech cries out, badly patched together here and there from scraps of Jerome, the style itself unpolished where the Author adds certain things of his own, the sentences loose and smelling of later ages—such as is that first one concerning the order of the Epistles among the Greeks, who think soundly in all respects and follow the right faith; also new words, as when he says that these Epistles—which Jerome at once called “catholic”—are to be named “canonical”; and other things of that kind which it is long to pursue, and which you have at the end of the book refuted by the Benedictine Editor, but also long ago by Richard Simon in Critical History of the New Testament vol. I, ch. 18, and in the Itinerary of Fr. Martène, part II, p. 79 [trans. note: possibly this refers to Edmond Martène, "Voyage litteraire de deux religieux benedictins ...".
Therefore there will be someone to whom it would perhaps more have pleased to have rejected it entirely from here and consigned this writing among the spurious. But since both the manuscripts generally have it—among which also are ours, soon to be commended—and almost all the older editions of the Bible, such as the Nuremberg of the year 1475, the Venetian of the year 1498, the Basel of the year 1506, the Parisian of the year 1563, the two Lyons editions of the years 1520 and 1589, the Antwerp of 1617, etc.—it seemed better, with the Reader forewarned, to retain it.
Now, as far as our codices are concerned, none of the three of better note, which we have employed in consultation, bears Jerome’s name in the title. The first, however, older than the others as far as we have seen, is from the library once of Nonantola, now of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem at Rome; the second, from Verona, in the library of the Observant Friars of St. Bernardine—this book, although it contains the whole New Testament, nevertheless does not have the Apocalypse; the third is with us, which we received from some museum in Milan. But also it is often possible to find very many others of this sort in the libraries of Italy, and especially in Florence, in St. Mark’s and the Laurentian, as likewise others—although rarer—which, with more audacious falsehood, prefix Jerome’s name.
We will speak in its proper place below concerning others who either omit, or recite with some difference from the common reading, that verse in the Epistle of St. John concerning the heavenly witnesses, for the sake of producing which this preface was composed. These things, meanwhile, will suffice to remove the foulest of all slanders, with which Faustus Socinus, the head of his sect of evil name, sought Jerome—so to say—as the true author of this prologue; who, when he had, as he says, perhaps chanced upon some copy or even several copies in which that clause of the triple witness, namely of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit bearing witness in heaven, had been added, against the testimony of other copies both Latin and Greek, began to defend and to promote that clause as though genuine, complaining publicly that by the fault and fraud of heretics it had been erased from the common codices. For indeed Jerome wrote these things not at all, nor in his time had that clause fallen out from the Latin or Greek copies, nor at last had that monster of a man burst forth from the cavern of hell, who most often would drag into the calumniation of the sacred text the carelessness of scribes meeting him. Let us hear Martianæus:
The above is followed by a fairly length quotation from Martianaeus, who is - I believe - the well-respected scholar, Jean Martianay.
Martianay's comments were as follows (again, translation is my own, and not particularly good):
The censor’s rod of a recent writer has already been felt by this prologue to the seven canonical Epistles, in which same prologue the same author indicated that he also expected our observations, when he undertook a disputation concerning especially the manuscript of the Gospels at Cambridge. Therefore, thus provoked by him, we fear lest he who said whatever he wished may hear from us that which by no means he will wish. For we are not able to do anything against the truth, but for the truth; and if once he will have joined with us in zeal for it, whatever we shall demonstrate that he has written carelessly and not with full faith, he himself will be bound to confess simply and to amend. And because the pure light of truth could by no means shine upon the reader unless first the shadows of lies and of errors were removed, it will be the task of our plan first to note those things which in the recent Critical History of the New Testament are found discordant with the truth of the matters; but these having been examined, we shall set forth with highest faith and equal diligence how the matters are in the ancient books.
Therefore, that which he first observes concerning this preface, in the first volume of his Critical History of the New Testament, chapter 18, is not sufficiently accurate nor does it come near to the truth. For whereas he asserts that the present prologue is found in Latin copies written only six hundred years ago, but in other older manuscripts not so consistently repeated, either his trust in it wavers or something of diligence is wanting. For what is certain is that those most ancient codices of the Bible in which the prologue is lacking are rarer than those which have the same assigned. And lest anyone should think me to prolong the matter for the sake of shielding the writer of the critique with these words, I will cite most abundant witnesses of my assertion.
There are two most ancient manuscript codices of the sacred Scriptures in the Royal Library, and two likewise of the same age and dignity in the Colbertine Library, noted with the royal numbers 3561 and 3564; the Colbertine ones are numbered 1 and 158. All these copies are recognized as having been written before the times of Charles the Bald or in the same time, with no one gainsaying. Yet out of those four most excellent manuscripts of outstanding quality, three of the more notable have the aforesaid prologue written before the seven canonical Epistles. Whence an evident argument arises against the opinion of the recent critic—especially if to this authority there be added the same proof from again four manuscripts of our own library of Saint-Germain, where there remain to us both our own copies and those of the monastery of Corbie, of venerable antiquity, written on parchment more than eight hundred years ago.
As in the Royal and Colbertine codices, so also in ours is the result: for there is none among them, except that noted with the number 15, who does not have the prologue to the seven apostolic Epistles. Whoever will wish to consult them may have those designated by these numbers: 2, 4, and 23. Out of eight older manuscript codices, therefore, six are those which constantly retain the preface commonly ascribed to Jerome; but in the more recent, it is not always nor everywhere read as written— for it is lacking in the Colbertine codices numbered 6155 and 6180. Certainly, if I remember well, it is even more often lacking in ours than in the already-praised older ones.
For, when I once sought this prologue in many codices written more than four hundred years ago in Occitania long ago and in Aquitaine, it seemed to me, as far as my memory serves, to be often absent from them. But even if this were so, the absence of the prologue in some of the more ancient books contributes nothing to the proof of its falsity. For certain prefaces genuinely of Jerome are likewise absent in some of the most ancient manuscripts—for example, in the Royal manuscript number 3564, the preface to the book of Ezra is absent; and what you may marvel at more, in three copies of the Canon of Hebrew Truth the preface of Jerome to the Psalter translated from the Hebrew is absent. Yet it would be a small and petty thing, because of such carelessness of ancient copyists, to deny to Jerome the aforesaid little prefaces, which, with his inscription, are read written in so many other manuscript codices. Therefore, no force has the argument of the supposition of the prologue which the recent author strives to prove from its absence in some ancient codices.
He notes, in the second place, that neither Jerome’s name nor that of another writer was placed at the front of the prologue in some older manuscripts, and from this he infers that it is in accordance with reason to believe that the author of that little preface was not Jerome. But—with the permission of this learned man—I would say that those are little exercised in the reading of ancient codices who establish their opinion on such slight conjectures. For it is most manifestly verified that no name is more often affixed in the title of Jerome’s prefaces when, having been taken up by drowsy copyists, they are written out.
Of this kind are the following manuscript codices of the Bible: the codex of our monastery of Montmajour near Arles; the codex of Cardinal de Bonzi, which is found in his library at Narbonne; the Canon of Hebrew Truth of the Church of Carcassonne; finally, the codex of our monastery of St. Mary of the Daurade at Toulouse. In all these copies, whatever name of an author might have been inserted in the heading of the prefaces is omitted, and there it is read in this way: “Here begins the Preface to the book of Joshua”; “Here begins the Prologue to the books of Kings”; “Here begins the Preface to Job”; “Prologue to the books of Ezra,” and likewise for the others.
Nor do only these, but also the Royal, Colbertine, and Saint-Germain codices omit Jerome’s name frequently. The Royal 1564 thus entitles the prologue to Daniel: “Here begins the Prologue to the prophet Daniel.” The most ancient Colbertine, number 61: “Here begins the Preface to Jesus of Nave and Judges”; and for the book of Jeremiah: “Here begins the Prologue to the prophet Jeremiah.” Our Saint-Germain codex number 15, at the beginning of Paralipomenon, reads thus: “Here begins the Book Dabre lamim”; “Here begins the Prologue if the Seventy,” etc.
And so that I may not dwell longer in reviewing these, the Saint-Germain Bible codex number 164 retains the prefaces of St. Jerome as written, without any heading or inscription. Let our critic now see how far his conjectures differ from the actual experience of the matter and the practice of daily reading—that is, from the actual, verified truth of the facts.
In the third place, it is in agreement with the truth what he says, that this prologue is not found in the Royal manuscript codex number 3564; but he is entirely mistaken when he says that there are two manuscripts of the same age in our library of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in which the prologue to the seven canonical epistles is not read. For in all the manuscripts of that same library’s codices, diligently examined by us, if you except the one noted with the number 15, that prologue is found complete and entire and perfect in all its details.
The fourth error follows—if indeed it is one and not many—where he strives to show that the author of the collection of the Bible, who first embraced in one volume all the books of the Latin Vulgate, that is, of the Old and New Testament, placed the prologue at the front of the canonical Epistles. “It is certain,” he says, “that the little preface affixed in the copies of Charles the Bald at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles was not written for this purpose by Jerome, but is taken from his larger prologue, which we call the Galeatus, and is read conceived in these words: The Acts of the Apostles seem indeed to weave a bare history and the history of the nascent Church; but if we shall know, etc.”
It is manifest that this slipped out to him through thoughtlessness; for who does not know that in Jerome’s Galeatus prologue there is deep silence concerning the books of the New Testament? A blunder which the critic author would not have pardoned even to his own allies, if he had detected any one of them in a formal decree reciting the Galeatus prologue for Jerome’s letter to Paulinus.
On the occasion of this error there came to mind a ridiculous question, when once a man otherwise learned asked us how in the Canon of Hebrew Truth there was set the testimony of the First Epistle of John where the discourse is of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Truly it caused us shame to have found a learned man so unskilled in the field of the divine Scriptures that he sought the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of the Apostle John in the Pentateuch of Moses, or in the order of the Prophets, or of the Hagiographa.
But let us return to the proposition. The preface placed at the front of the Acts of the Apostles in the Royal manuscript of Charles the Bald is excerpted from the letter of St. Jerome to Paulinus, where, after a summary and mystical exposition of the Old Testament, he also briefly touches on the New Testament, cursorily indicating what each book contains. Of this letter we know those parts to have been taken which are read in manuscript codices written in the manner of a preface at the front of individual volumes both of the Old and of the New Testament. Whence by no means did the author of the collection of the Latin Vulgate lack some little Jerome-preface, so that he should be compelled to forge a new one according to the opinion of the above critic; for in that same letter to Paulinus, Jerome has these fine words concerning the seven canonical Epistles:
“James, Peter, John, and Jude have published seven epistles, as mystical as they are brief and succinct, and likewise long—brief in words, long in meanings—so that he is rare who does not stumble in reading them.”
In the Colbertine manuscript number 158 these words are read set at the front of the seven Epistles, although some unskilled corrector—unknown to me—attempted to expunge them. In the same place they are also written in three other manuscripts of the same Colbertine library, whose numbers are these: 2767, 3214, and 6419.
Therefore, the one who first compiled the books of the Latin Vulgate could have placed this very little preface before the seven canonical Epistles, just as he placed certain things at the front of Acts and the Apocalypse, taken from Jerome’s letter to Paulinus.
Therefore fall the massive arguments of our critic, because the whole of them hangs on conjectures in which we have shown him to have erred abundantly. We, however, having entered upon another path, will try to make clear the spuriousness of the prologue now under discussion by some stronger arguments.
The first argument is sought from the name “Canonical Epistles,” which was unknown to Jerome, as it is easy to prove from his own words, which are read in more than one place in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers.
Thus in Peter, that is, in the first chapter of this work, he writes in this way: “Simon Peter wrote two epistles, which are called CATHOLIC, the second of which is denied by many to be his, because of a style different from the first.”
In James he repeats the same thing, saying: “James, who is called the brother of the Lord, having been ordained bishop of Jerusalem, wrote only one epistle, which is one of the seven Catholic [Epistles], and this also is asserted by some to have been published under his name, although gradually, as time went on, it obtained authority.”
In Jude, finally, likewise adding about the seven Epistles, he composed the whole chapter thus: “Jude, the brother of James, left indeed a short epistle, which is one of the seven Catholic [Epistles]; and because he takes in it a testimony from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by many; yet by now it has obtained authority through age and use, and is reckoned among the Holy Scriptures.”
You see, therefore, reader, that the name “Canonical Epistles” was never employed by Jerome, but when he wrote anything concerning them, he always said, “which are called Catholic,” or “which is one of the seven Catholic [Epistles].”
But on the contrary, the contriver of the spurious prologue calls them in no other way than “Canonical.” “The order,” he says, “of the seven Epistles which are called CANONICAL is not the same,” etc.
From this designation there is no slight conjecture that the author of the prologue wrote after the age of Cassiodorus, who likewise calls these seven Epistles “Canonical” in the book On the Institution of Divine Letters, chapter 8: “The eighth codex,” he says, “contains the Canonical Epistles of the Apostles.” And again: “But when great thought about the rest of the Canonical Epistles was wearying us, suddenly a codex of Didymus, written in the Greek style, containing an exposition of the seven Canonical Epistles, was granted to us by the Lord’s favor.”
By this different usage of naming the seven Epistles of the Apostles, we easily detect in the prologue affixed to them an author different from Jerome and of a later age: he calls them “Catholic” with Athanasius in the Festal Epistle and with the author of the Synopsis ascribed to the same, but “Canonical” with Cassiodorus—this false Jerome, the writer of the suspect prologue.
However, the Synod of Laodicea called these same Epistles “Canonical” when it set forth the list and catalogue of the divine Scriptures. But under this name, so far as I know, they are nowhere enumerated by Jerome, who was always accustomed to call them Catholic Epistles. And hence we not obscurely prove that the writer of that disputed prologue—whoever he may have been, whether Victor of Vita or some anonymous person who first endeavored to bind together in one body all the books of the Latin Vulgate—is a different person altogether and plainly other than Jerome.
The supposition of this same prologue we can further prove to be unfounded from the fact that its author boasts, as if of some great achievement and benefit, that he procured for the Church of God no small service by restoring to their proper order the seven canonical Epistles, and says that their sequence is different among the Orthodox Greeks and in the Latin copies. For this latter is altogether false from canon 59 or 60 of the Synod of Laodicea, where the Epistles are read set down in this order: one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude. The same sequence of Epistles is observed by Athanasius in the Festal Epistle, and by the author of the Synopsis of the Scriptures among Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus in his poem on the genuine Scriptures, John Damascene in book IV On the Orthodox Faith, chapter 18, and Nicephorus in the end of his Chronology, from which Anastasius the Librarian thus rendered it into Latin: “Catholic Epistles: one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude—together seven—verses indeed 1,300.”
Whence, then, did that false Jerome get the claim that the order among the Greeks who think soundly and follow the right faith of the seven Epistles which are called Canonical is not the same as is found in the Latin copies, and that among them the two Epistles of Peter come first in the order of the rest? Who among the Greeks has followed the right faith more than Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, and John Damascene? Yet among them the order of the seven Catholic, or Canonical, Epistles is the same as in the Latin copies.
But what of such great importance can there be in that sequence of the Epistles in which the Epistle of James is placed first, that the author of the prologue equates the restoration of this order with the purity and integrity of the Evangelists—“But just as we have corrected the Evangelists long ago according to the rule of truth, so we, with God helping, have restored these to their own order”? This certainly contributes nothing to doctrine or to right faith whether the Epistle of James is placed first or last, provided we ascribe canonical authority to it with the Catholic Church; whether the Epistles of Peter are first, those of John last, with that of James in the middle and that of Jude following—nothing is gained by those who follow the right faith, nor is anything lost to those who have more reverence for the Word of God than curiosity in retaining the order of a peculiar reading.
We also know that this order of the canonical Epistles, which the false Jerome valued so highly, was neglected by the true Jerome in his edition, if Cassiodorus is to be believed. For that most studious man Cassiodorus, when he reviewed the various divisions of the divine Scripture, never once mentioned in them the order of the Epistles which the author of the suspect prologue calls his own. Rather, he gives a different one in chapter 12 of On the Institution of Divine Letters, whose chapter title is: “The Division of Divine Scripture according to Jerome.” In this Jeromean division, or catalogue of the books of sacred Scripture, after listing the Evangelists, we read thus in Cassiodorus: “After these follow the Epistles of the Apostles, of Peter two, of Paul fourteen, of John one, of Jude one, the book of the Acts of the Apostles by Luke, one book, and the Apocalypse of John, one book.”
If we believe that this series of books is true and proper to Jerome, and do not deny faith to Cassiodorus reporting it, it will be permissible to call impostor the writer of the prologue. Add to this the canon of Scripture in Augustine, book II On Christian Doctrine, chapter 8, where there stands this order of the canonical Epistles: “To these forty-four books of the Old Testament’s authority, the New Testament is added, which contains four books of the Gospel, fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, one, and the Apocalypse of John, one.”
And who does not know that Augustine preferred the Jeromean edition in the New Testament above all other Latin versions? How then is it that the perpetual praiser of Jerome’s edition of the New Testament, and one who always had it in hand, cared nothing at all for the order of the canonical Epistles, which the Catholic interpreter claimed, “with God helping,” to have restored? Therefore the author of the prologue set more weight on this restored sequence of Epistles than Augustine or Jerome are found to have placed on it in the cited passages; for this reason he is to be called other than Jerome, whoever he was, who sought to defend and prop up his own writing by the authority of that name.
It is true indeed that Jerome in the letter to Paulinus discoursed in the same order as they now stand in the Latin Bibles, concerning James, Peter, John, and Jude the Apostles. But it is one thing for an old man to follow the common and received order, or even diverse orders in different places; it is quite another to hope to have earned a very great reward of labor in restoring the supposed order of the canonical Epistles.
Nor are there lacking Latin codices in which these Epistles are written according to the Greek order, giving first place to the Epistles of Peter. For the Colbertine Library’s manuscript Bible, number 245, observes this order among the Epistles: two of Peter, one of James, three of John, one of Jude. In that same book, however, we read the testimony of the First Epistle of Blessed John, where it is said, “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are one.” From these things it is plain that our opinion is correct—that the arranger or restorer of the order of the seven canonical Epistles, and likewise the author of the prologue, was later in age than Jerome.
Now, if we should form a judgment about the author of the preface from the style, the fraud at once appears in his words. He could not express that Jeromean style and form of speech, but, amid the very tricks and the guise of another person which he fraudulently assumed, he shows himself far different from Jerome. The argument is similar in the preface of Jerome to the Twelve Minor Prophets, compared with the spurious prologue of the same to the seven canonical Epistles—dissimilar, however, are the phrases and periods found in each, unequal. At the beginning of the genuine preface Jerome thus writes: “The order of the Twelve Prophets is not the same among the Hebrews as among us; wherefore, according to what is read there, they are arranged here also.” But at the beginning of the false prologue the same sense is expressed differently: “The order is not the same among the Greeks, who think soundly in all respects and follow the right faith, of the seven Epistles which are called canonical, as is found in the Latin copies. And because Peter is first in the number of the Apostles, his Epistles also should be first in the order of the rest.”
I will confidently say that there is nothing in that whole compass of words which savors of Jerome’s phrasing and style. And where will you find in Jerome that phrase of the lowest Latinity, “quod quia” (“because that”)? So great a barbarism is utterly abhorrent to Jerome’s eloquence, and he himself abhors the many faults of speech which occur frequently in the context of that prologue. Whence he is to be considered false and spurious with justice, even though the name of the virgin Eustochium is heard there. For, as the false Ambrose says in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, “Falsifiers are accustomed, under the name of some renowned man, to invent an Epistle, so that the authority of the name may commend what in itself cannot be accepted.” Thus, under the name of Jerome many things are found to have been fabricated in the course of time, which are altogether unworthy of so great a man and could in no way fit his age. In two manuscript codices of our monastery of St. Andrew near Avignon I read in this way the inscription to a certain discourse concerning the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Here begins the discourse of Blessed Jerome the presbyter to Paula and Eustochium and to the virgins dwelling under her, concerning the Assumption of Saint Mary.” Therefore, in a false work the name of Jerome avails nothing, nor do the apostrophes to Paula and Eustochium confer any authority, when, along with many other arguments, the fraud of a forged and spurious writing is demonstrated.
Moreover, many manuscript codices, even old ones, inscribe this spurious prologue with the name of Jerome. The Corbie codex, number 23, in our library of Saint-Germain, retains the title written in red ink: “Here begins the prologue of Saint Jerome the presbyter.” In the same way reads a very old Bible codex which now exists in the Colbertine library under number 158, although the name of Jerome seems to have been added in it by a second hand. In two manuscripts of St. Andrew’s near Avignon, it is prefixed with these words: “Here begins the prologue of Blessed Jerome the presbyter,” and the more recent ones likewise. The others, however, without the name of any author: “Here begins the prologue to the seven canonical Epistles.” So much for the prologue and for its title.
Now let us proceed to the testimony of John, on the occasion of which the prologue falsely ascribed to Jerome seems to have been composed for us. But, avoiding the weariness of a ragged disputation and compressing words into brief compass, we point out to the reader that verse 7 of chapter 5 of the First Epistle of Blessed John is lacking in many very ancient manuscript copies, and in many of the same age is supplied in the margins of the books; but in more recent ones it is always present—yet not in the same order, because there most often verse 8, that is, the things which are read at verse 8 in the Latin Vulgate, precedes verse 7, according to the following arrangement of the sacred text:
“For there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.”
And in the same manner the testimony of the Trinity is supplied in many older manuscript copies, in which we have said it was omitted by the first hand of the copyists. The matter indeed is so in all the manuscript copies, both old and recent; but if we remember that omissions of this sort easily slip in by chance and involuntarily among the ancient scribes, the great discord of the old codices will move no one. For nothing is easier to do than to omit words which are read a second time and consecutively. Nor will you find any kind of books in which similar faults of omission have not sprung up. Jerome teaches in book VI of his Commentary on Jeremiah, chapter 30, that many things were omitted in the Seventy Interpreters because they were said a second time. That passage is notable which fully establishes our case, and so it will be helpful to set it forth entire with its sacred context.
Therefore, in Jeremiah chapter 30, verses 14 and 15, we read thus written:
“All your lovers have forgotten you; they will not seek you. For with the wound of an enemy I have struck you, with cruel chastisement, because of the multitude of your iniquity; your sins have grown hard. Why do you cry out over your destruction? Your pain is incurable. Because of the multitude of your iniquity and because your sins have grown hard, I have done these things to you.”
Jerome, illustrating this in his Commentary, fittingly observed among other things:
“And what follows,” he says, “ ‘Why do you cry out over your destruction? Your pain is incurable. Because of the multitude of your iniquity,’ is not in the Seventy, namely, because it is said a second time, ‘Because of the multitude of your iniquity and your sins have grown hard,’ which those who wrote from the beginning thought had been added.”
Four clauses, therefore, were omitted in the Greek copies of the Seventy Interpreters because the words were said a second time and repeated by Jeremiah the prophet.
But we have found a still more suitable passage, or an example more effective for the proof of our omission, in the book of Joshua, chapter 21, verse 36, according to the division and numbering of verses in the Vulgate. For the threefold repetition of those words “The cities and their suburbs” which are read in verses 35, 36, and 37, gave occasion for error to the scribes, who omitted the middle verse—that is, verse 36—deceived by the likeness or the identical close of the phrase, which not only dulls the eyes of the careless, but sometimes also of the diligent, in writing out books. Hence among the Hebrews there were many older manuscript copies in which the words of verse 36 were entirely lacking, just as they are absent in the more accurate Latin copies of Jerome’s version, which we wish to be consulted at this place in Joshua, column 275 and following of this our edition.
Since what happens among the Hebrews and among the Greek copyists of books not rarely happens, why should the prudent reader deny that similar omissions occurred among the Latins? The slip is indeed very easy in the First Epistle of Blessed John, chapter 5, verses 7 and 8, because of the same words which are said a second time, namely, “there are three that bear witness” and “these three are one.” For those who from the beginning wrote Greek copies of the New Testament, after they had set down in the middle μάρτυρες ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, that is, “because there are three that bear witness,” returning to the exemplar which they had before them, could easily join the earlier with the later, leaving out everything in between. And thus, by the error of the scribes, in very many books the two verses coalesced into one. And whereas there should have followed “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one,” immediately after the words already spoken ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν, etc., they placed those of another verse, ἐν τῇ γῇ τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν, that is, “on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three are one.”
Such incomplete copies were used among the Latins by those who, translating the Greek Epistle of John, omitted the whole verse where it is said that the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are one. Nor does the defect of a mutilated copy in any way hinder the emendation of Jerome, even if we grant that his own copy did not have verse 7 of chapter 5 of the First Epistle of St. John—just as it does no harm that in the true edition of the holy Doctor, in the book of Joshua of which we spoke above, the same passage was lacking which was not found in the copies of Hillel. On the contrary, defects of the translator’s version, not unlike the original exemplar, prove his fidelity. Nor indeed does he who is a faithful interpreter change anything concerning the truth of the Hebrew or the Greek by a few testimonies. Therefore, whether you say that one verse in the Epistle of John was omitted by Jerome or not omitted, you will gain nothing from it except the carelessness or error of ancient copyists, who in many copies join two verses into one.
But if it was not [in the text], why did the most holy martyr Cyprian write in the book On the Unity of the Church: “Of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written, ‘and these three are one’”? Where are these things written unless in verse seven of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of St. John? Why is that testimony cited by Victor of Vita, by Fulgentius, and by other more ancient writers? Would you say it was fabricated by them, or adapted to their own meanings, without the mark of rashness? Not so thought our predecessors, to whom it was a concern to gather many things from the Fathers in confirmation of that testimony which they read in the Epistle of John.
Witness is the very old Corbie manuscript codex, of the best quality, which contains the Acts along with the Apocalypse of John in one volume, and is marked in our library of Saint-Germain with the number 23. On its last page and an extra leaf, the writer of the volume appended these testimonies, so that the truth of the Scripture about which we are presently speaking might be confirmed. Thus, therefore, I found it written in it:
For there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus. And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
Likewise: These are they who bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
Athanasius: There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Word and the Spirit, and they are one in Christ Jesus.
Fulgentius: There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and the three are one.
We frankly confess that the simple faith and diligence of this copyist pleased us more than all that apparatus of words of the recent critic, with which he strives to lower the authority of the sacred text in the First Epistle of Blessed John. Nor can we see without some bitterness of spirit the author of the Catholic Commentaries striving with all his might to prove that these words in the First Epistle of John, chapter 5, verse 7—“For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one”—were added by the rashness of ancient scribes, and were not written by the hagiographer himself. Alas! thus the Church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, would be thrust upon us with the mere additions of scribes in place of the sacred text, especially in those sentences of Holy Scripture on which the faith of the most holy Trinity depends.
“But the authority of the Church,” says the author, “today presents to us that testimony as authentic Scripture.” As though indeed any authority of the Church of Christ could convert corruptions, interpolations, and other additions of scribes into the word of God and into canonical Scripture! Nothing, I say, is spoken more obtusely, nothing more destructive to the faith of the divine Scriptures.
Wherefore we wish sounder counsels for the learned man, who thought he was rendering service to God in his Critical History of Holy Scripture, although many things are found in his lucubrations which overthrow the traditions of the ancient Fathers and the authority of the Scriptures.
All these things said, what does the Prologue itself say? (yet again, translation is my own, and not particularly good)
The order is not the same among the Greeks, who think soundly and follow the right faith, of the seven Epistles which are called Canonical, as is found in the Latin codices: namely, because Peter is first in the number of the apostles, his Epistles also should be first in the order of the rest. But just as we have long since corrected the evangelists according to the line of truth, so we have restored these, God helping us, to their own order. For indeed the first of them is one of James, two of Peter, three of John, and one of Jude. Which, if as they were arranged by them, so also by the translators had been faithfully rendered into the Latin utterance, neither would they make ambiguity for the readers, nor would the variety of words clash against itself: especially in that place where concerning the unity of the Trinity we read it set forth in the first Epistle of John. In which also we have found that by unfaithful translators much has been strayed from the truth of the faith: placing in their edition only the words of three, that is, of the water, of the blood, and of the spirit, and omitting the testimony of the Father, and of the Word, and of the Spirit: in which chiefly both the Catholic faith is strengthened, and the one substance of divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is proved. But in the other Epistles, how far our edition differs from that of others, I leave to the prudence of the reader. But you, Virgin of Christ Eustochium, while you inquire from me more earnestly the truth of Scripture, you expose my old age in a certain way to be gnawed by the teeth of the envious: who proclaim me to be a falsifier and corrupter of the holy Scriptures. But I, in such a work, neither fear the envy of my rivals, nor will I deny to those asking the truth of Holy Scripture.
