We now propose to review the evidence for and against a few readings of passages, respecting which there has been some important difference of opinion. Some have been already noticed incidentally. It will be convenient to arrange the evidence for and against them under the four heads separately, of Greek MSS., Versions, Fathers, and Subjective Considerations.

(1) --- The first text we will discuss shall be the famous one of the Heavenly Witnesses (1 John v. 7, 8). Are the words:---

en to ourano o Pater, o Logos, kai to Agion Pneuma. kai outoi oi treis en eisin. kai treis eisin oi maturountes en te ge

genuine, or not?
 
 

A} --- The evidence in favour of them is as follows:---
 
 

i) Cod. Montfort. (Evan. 61) [XVI], at Dublin; Cod. Ottobon. (Act. 162) [XV], in the Vatican; a marginal note by a (?) seventeenth-century hand in Act. 173; and Cod. Ravianus (Evan. 110), which is simply a transcript of the printed Complutensian.
 
 

ii) m r of the Vetus Latina, cav. tol. and many late MSS. of the Vulgate; ( in the earlier of these authorities the order of the verses 7 and 8 is inverted); some apparently, but few, Armenian MSS.; a few recent Slavonic.
 
 

iii) The earliest known evidence of the existence of the passage is found in the lately discovered writings of Priscillian, the founder of the Priscillianist heresy in Spain (d. 385). The African Latin Fathers, Vigilius and Fulgentius, of the fifth century, also quote the verses, the order being inverted in all three cases; and the Profession of faith presented by Eugenius, Bp. of Carthage, to Hunneric, king of the Vandals, was an official document also of the fifth century containing them. Two Greek writings of the fourth or fifth century, viz. a Greek Synopsis of Holy Scripture and the Pseudo-Athanasius, are said to "appear to refer it." This is more than can be said of Tertullian, and as much as can be said of Cyprian, whose words are "de Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto scriptum est, Et tres unum sunt": words which is own compatriot Facundus three hundred years later thought referred to the three earthly witnesses.
 
 

(2) --- The evidence against the passage is:---
 
 

i) It is omitted in every Greek MS. and Lectionary prior to the fifteenth century.
 
 

ii) It is omitted in every version of critical value except the Latin; for its occurence in good copies of the Armenian is very doubtful: and, as to the Latin, all but m and r of the Vetus Latina omit it; so do the best of S. Jerome's revision; so do the best of Alcuin's revision.
 
 

iii) No Greek Father quotes the passage, even in the numerous arguments on the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, where its value would have been immense.
 
 

iv) The numerous variations of text, amounting to twelve or more in so short a compass, and the variation in the order of the verses above mentioned, are by themselves enough to throw suspicion on the passage.
 
 

The conclusion from this evidence must be that the text has no claim to authenticity {1} or genuineness. The scanty evidence in its favour is practically all Latin, and seems to be confined to Spain and Africa. Thence it gradually spread.