The doctrines of the Orthodox Church are never based on a single verse. This includes the doctrine of the Trinity. While the verse on the Trinity in 1 John 5:7, known as the Johannine Comma, states clearly that “there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one” (NKJV), there are multiple verses that affirm the same doctrine. The doctrine that the Father and the Son are one is attested by multiple verses in the Gospel of St. John such as: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). As for the Holy Spirit, St. John states in the same chapter of his first Epistle that “this is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6). Jesus said about Himself to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Therefore, the Spirit is also God because it is Truth. Jesus also states that “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me.” In John 16:13–15 Jesus also says of the Holy Spirit that “He will take what is mine and declare it to you.” The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is therefore established by the Bible. However, there is solid evidence for the existence of the Johannine Comma in the original manuscripts of the New Testament.
First, the Johannine Comma is cited in the Vulgate which is the 4th century Latin translation of the New Testament [1]. The silent publication of the Johannine Comma in the Vulgate, with no objection from any of the early Church Fathers, gives the clearest proof that down to the Vulgate’s time the correctness of this text had never been disputed or questioned.
Second, the Johannine Comma has been quoted multiple times by the Latin Church Fathers in the first 4 centuries AD. The earliest reference to what might be the Comma appears by the 3rd-century Church father Cyprian (died 258), who quoted John 10:30: “Again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, ‘And these three are one” [2]. St. Clement of Alexandria c. 200 AD is thought to have quoted the verse in his Prophetic Extracts by stating that “every promise is valid before two or three witnesses, before the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; before whom, as witnesses and helpers, what are called the commandments ought to be kept” [3]. Tertullian has alluded to the verse in his writing in Against Praxeas by commenting on John 10:30 as follows
“So the close series of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other: And these three are one substance, not one person, (qui tres unum sunt, non unus) in the sense in which it was said, “I and the Father are one” in respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number” [4]
Finally, the King James Version of the Bible, which is the most authoritative English translation of the Bible, includes the Johannine Comma [5] together with the Geneva Bible which preceded the King James Version by 51 years.
In conclusion, the Johannine Comma is a Biblical verse that might have been absent from some Greek manuscripts, yet included in early Latin and some Greek Bible manuscripts, and quoted by the early church fathers. It is part of the inerrant word of God.
Sources:
- Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 81
- Catholic Encyclopedia, “On the Unity of the Church IV: ‘Epistles of Saint John’” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08435a.htm#section1
- Ben David, “Eclogae propheticae”, The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature, Volume 21. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Divinity School, 1826), 277.
- Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, John P. Galvin, Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 159.
- James R. White, The King James Only Controversy, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Publishing Group, 1995).
