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divided the whole Christian world , entirely turned on the concluding member of the apostolic verse . Now , this Is a fact which of itself places the genuineness of the verse beyond all reasonable contradiction : for every church in Christendom had its
representative in these councils ; and though all the bishops and their clergy disputed the sense of the verse , not one appears to ha ^ e had the least doubt of its authenticity 5 or to have thought it possible that a tune should come when it would be called in question ,, These divines had all the best Greek
JVISS . from the apostles down to their own days , a space not exceeding two hundred and fifty years - in the number of these must have existed the very autograph of John ; and we are thus led to conclude , with full confidence that not one of those
manuscripts , nor that autograph , was without the text of Ihe three Heavenly Witnesses ,, 6 . The verse being now entirely excluded from general use by the as ~ cendancy of the orthodox party 9 the
providence of God brought about such a state of things as rendered it expedient ^ in the views of Jerome ^ to restore the text , about the middle of the -fifth century . Accordingly , in his revised edition of the New Testament .
he inserts it as the unquestioned and unquestionable production of John . In regard to its restoration , he says ., in express terms , that the text was excluded from the common editions ; and that he restored it on the
authority of the Greek MSS ., thus making It evident that , though the IViSS , which succeeded the fifth century , and are still extant , do not contain it , all the MSS . known to Jerome , which preceded that period up to the apostles , did contain the verse . 7 * After the revision of the
Vulgate by Jerome , a remarkable consequence followed , which at once proves the genuineness of the short prologue prefixed to the seven canonical epistles * and the restoration of the text as asserted in it . The Greek and
"Latin Fathers before Jerome quoted the text but partially , leaving out the parts prejudicial to their views ; but the writers who succeeded him cited it fuU " y and correctly , though they failed not to attach to it certain artifices . calculated to keep out of sight its true
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signification . Among these are Ca ** siodorus , Eucherius , Fulgentius an (| VigiluisThap&ensis , together with the four hundred orthodox bishops who at the command of Hunneric , assent bled at Carthage , and produced the verse in exact conformity to the
original * and without any comment of their own to disguise its meaning Hunneric was a violent Arian , and surrounded with all the bishops of that persuasion ; who were both read y and able to expose their adversaries ^ if any unfairness were practised ou
their part * This state of tilings rendered the forgery of the verse at that period morally impossible : and supposing the hostility and jealousy of the contending parties to be out of the question , it would be in the highest degree absurd to imagine , that four hundred men of different
countries , nations and tongues , all pretending at least to love and honour the truth—all leaders and guardians of the churches under their care , and therefore men who had a high
character to maintain , ( not to say any thing of the impracticability of bringing persons in other respects so discordant to unite In a palpable fraud , ) should concur in so gross an act of imposture , and thus hazard their re «
putation , where exposure was unavoidable . This quoting of the text , without reserve , after its restoration by Jerome , is a remarkable proof that he had so restored it . It had hitherto
been cited under the covert of the disciplina arcani . In spile of all , Jerome dissolved that discipline ; and the unreserved quotation of the verse was the immediate consequenceo 8 . The writers who . from the
second century and afterwards , quote the verse in part or fully are very * many , notwithstanding the confident assertion to the contrary . Those I have produced ( and more might be produced ) are Lucian , of Sarnosata , Theophilus , of Antioch , Tertullian , Ph < £ badius , Cyprian , Marcus
Celedentis , Fulgeotius , Cassiodorus , vigilius Thapsensis , Origen , Clement , of Alexandria , Athanasius , Cyril , Basilp Gregory Nazianzen , Diodorus , Eucberius , and lastly Augustine and the venerable Bede . The case of the two last is remarkable : both of them quote the text of the three Heavenly Witnesses ,, though the adversaries as-
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320 j 4 Summary of the Arguments against
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1826, page 320, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2549/page/4/
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