Steven Avery

More likely Trinitarians in the Sabellian controversies.

S.C.Carlson

They presciently didn't believe in "King James Only".

Stephen

spin

You're having a great deal of difficulty distinguishing between the evolutionary thought regarding the trinitarian error and reference to an actual comma -- case in point:

A priori commitment is hard to overcome.

You have seen how Cyprian has erroneously used Jn 10:30. You should be able to see how he used 1 Jn 5:8.

Very creative. You are aware -- to use your word -- of "nascent" trinitarianism. In Cyprian it has latched onto both Jn 10:30 (probably from reading Tertullian) and 1 Jn 5:8 -- with their common notion of "being one" --, taking them both out of context.

Priscillian is further along.

That's easier than the contrary. First, you'll note that the comma doesn't fit its context. Second, you'll note that it contains the whacky idea, that tries to help fit it into the context, that the father, son and the holy ghost testify. (Wow, what do you think that really means?) We have the comma caught redhanded trying to muscle its way out of the margin into the text. With the ubiquity of the trinitarian error, there should be no difficulty to believe that its presence in the margin was just a scribal error and that it should be included -- and so it was.

Now please supply a coherent theory for how it didn't survive in any Greek text until extremely late.

With whom? Which modern scholars say that it "largely fell out"? You haven't shown that it was ever in the Greek.

Against Arian while he was living.

Get over your rhetoric and demonstrate your apparently unsupportable claim. Don't just try to insinuate it there as you have done with Cyprian for example.

Evidence of this hesitation? None.

You are at best guessing. You want it to be, so you make it so. Try and find a little evidence.

If the comma had existed, it would have been useful against Sabellianism... "there are three that testify", clearly separate entities, despite their being one.

This is not so tricky from you. You have nothing up your sleave, so you play this constant gear shifting. Firstly the trinitarian stuff can be seen developing in the Latin tradition and not in the Greek. Neither the manuscript tradition nor the Greek fathers allow you to insinuate the comma into the text. That there is no comma in the Greek text tradition is sufficient for you to stop and reconsider your position. We must always start from the text tradition.

Now that's meaningful. You need evidence that the comma was in the original text, not that you can guess where it might have been. The Arian controversy -- you know, against Arius at the beginning of the fourth century -- is an inevitable situation for throwing comma about. Nothing. Nothing at all. It would have been prime, juicy material to sink Arius, but it didn't exist at the time.

I can understand you saying that, you with the a priori belief that the text must have been the way you want it to have been.

We are dealing with the comma, not these other things. Focus.

Would you believe the Vulgate? You know the church commissioned translation into Latin. Can you get anything more authoritative of christian standard literature of the era?

With the ancestry of Tertullian and Cyprian and that ilk, it's not strange to see that which was cited by Priscillian as having been in that tradition. Even though Marcion was first to disseminate most of the Pauline letters, the church latched onto them. Don't pull the "eww, heretic, nothing his hands touch is clean" trick on me.

I see you're trying not to insult people again. You find it hard, right?

I know you have the a priori commitment that he must have cited it without using the words. He plainly knew 1 Jn 5:8 and the fact that "tres unum sunt", but you've shown nothing to indicated that he cited the comma

You take a later further era and attempt to project it into an earlier one. How many errors are you prepared to make to save your beloved comma?

The grammatical errors are not as transparent as you might hope them to be. That's why I asked you to make your best case, elucidating those errors and I will respond to your case. Avoiding the matter will only showe your half-heartedness.

You obviously aren't contextualising the comma at all, so you should bother. You've basically avoided your responsibilities...

You haven't shown anyone who actually cited the comma.

You haven't shown the comma within the Greek textual tradition.

You haven't shown the comma in the early Greek fathers, especially when there was a prime occasion to use the comma.

You won't defend your grammatical claims.

You can't give a coherent trajectory for how the comma was omitted from so many manuscripts.

The best you can do is to mutter that it might have been misconstrued as supporting Sabellianism when this is clearly not reasonable.

This is not a sufficient display of your beliefs, praxeus.

It's not enough to work from the development of trinitarianism and its use of 1 Jn 5:8. You must try harder. You're letting the side down.


spin

Iasion

Greetings all,

Regarding Cyprian and the Comma, here is a fairly informative page by Daniel Wallace :
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1185

The issue is what is quoted and what is merely stated by Cyprian in his own words. Here is the quote from Cyprian :

“The Lord says,
‘I and the Father are one’;
and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
‘And these three are one.’”

(Cyprian's words in green, Cyprian's QUOTES in purple.)

So,
we see that Cyprian quotes the words
‘And these three are one.’ as WRITTEN words about the trinity.

And,
he also states essentially the Comma:
' ... of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, ... '

Note well :
he does NOT quote these words, he merely STATES them.

Now, if these words WERE in the MSS he certainly would have quoted them in support of his argument for the trinity.

Thus, this passage is accepted as clear evidence that the Comma was missing from the MSS Cyprian knew.

But of course apologists claim the exact opposite.


Iasion

Iasion

Greetings,

It seems praxeus is still claiming the Council of Carthage quoted the Comma. Here is the passage :

CANON II.
Of Preaching the Trinity.
THE whole Council said: By the favour of God, by a unanimous confession the Church's faith which through us is handed down should be confessed in this glorious assembly before anything else; then the ecclesiastical order of each is to be built up and strengthened by the consent of all. That the minds of our brethren and fellow bishops lately elevated may be strengthened, those things should be propounded which we have certainly received from our fathers, as the unity of the Trinity, which we retain consecrated in our senses, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which has no difference, as we say, so we shall instruct the people of God. Moreover by all the bishops lately promoted it was said: So we openly confess, so we hold, so we teach, following the Evangelic faith and your teaching.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3816.htm

Yes,
this passage STATES part of the Comma.

No,
it does NOT quote the Comma as scripture, it does not mention 1 John at all.

Once again,
praxeus' claims do not stand up to scrutiny.


(And the Speculum is 8th or 9th C. As if that is relevant.)


Iasion

spin

Come to think about it, Cyprian's words are a clear indication that he wasn't citing the comma:

Et iterum de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto scriptum est: Et hi tres unum sunt

He doesn't say "Et iterum scriptum est:" then cite the comma. He separates the trinitarian thought of "de Patre et Filio et Spiritu sancto" from what he is actually citing which follows the "scriptum est", ie it is clearly not from the citation, but it is his effort. This is especially true, because 1) he mentions nothing about their strange "giving testimony" and 2) he doesn't use the comma's wording "de Patre et Verbo et Spiritu sancto" (o pathr o logou kai to agion pneuma).

Of course you might want to claim that Cyprian was citing from memory. In doing so you accept that it isn't an actual citation, which is what you need in this case. Otherwise you have no way of distinguishing your claim of citation from a non-biblical development of trinitarian thought which, out of the Johannine context, would find "son" easier than "word". So, again, no evidence of citation.

Scratch another false witness.

______________________________
ETA: I notice that Iasion was working on the same basic thought and beat me to the punch. Well done.


spin

Jack the Bodiless

This appears to be a waste of bandwidth. So why did you bother to type it? I have already pointed out that we know the Bible is false because of errors that appear in ALL versions, including the ones you're pretending are "the pure word of God".

So the shutters crash down, keeping out the unwelcome reality once more. It's a process I've observed many times, but I still find it bizarre.

Roller

Would another example be when he says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (emphasis mine) Matthew 24:36 (RSV)

Incidentally, someone didn't like this verse and changed it to a version where "nor the Son" is excised.

Here is one version with "nor the Son" missing: "But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Matthew 24:36 (KJV)

What gives?

John Kesler

Here is an explanation: