Johannine Comma

According to Daniel Wallace, “The Comma appears in no Greek witness of any kind (either ms, patristic, or Greek translation of some other version) until AD 1215.” This means that if it was originally included in John’s Greek letter, it went missing from all subsequent Greek witnesses for more than 1,100 years. Its absence from the writings of early church fathers is likewise telling: Isaac Newton notes that if early defenders of the Trinity had known about this text, they would have used it in the many heated debates concerning this doctrine. However, the doctrine of the Trinity does not rest on the Comma Johanneum, since other passages of Scripture affirm the historical definition of the Trinity. 

Wettstein and Metzger argue that this clause originated as a gloss in a Latin manuscript. Such marginal notations can sometimes look like accidental omissions from the text, causing later copyists to “reinsert” the words into the main body. If anti-Trinitarian scribes omitted this phrase, it is unclear why they would have left other orthodox Trinitarian passages that are included in all extant witnesses today. No other rationale exists; had the lines originally appeared in John’s letter, someone might have subsequently removed them. (Miller, Jeffrey E. 2016. “Johannine Comma.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.)

It is a telling fact that such a great champion of the traditional text as Burgon never at any time sought to argue that there was any MS basis for the retention of these verses. (Cairns, Alan. 2002. In Dictionary of Theological Terms, 472. Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International.)