Luther’s Textual Study of the Greek New Testament 53 Comma Johanneum In the autumn of the Middle Ages nothing predicted that the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5,7-8) would instigate an exegetical controversy in Western Christianity. Since no Greek evidence attested any words between οἱ μαρτυροῦντες (the ending of v. 7) and τὸ πνεῦμα (the beginning of v. 8), in his editio princeps Erasmus ignored that certain versions of the Vulgate inserted a text called the Comma Johanneum. The Polyglot, however, included the Comma which was translated from Latin into Greek. The Comma was used by Edward Lee (Leus) and Jacobus Lopis Stunica as a pretext to accuse Erasmus of a trinitarian heterodoxy31. Lee, who later became archbishop of York, criticised Erasmus’ Greek New Testament for departing from the Vulgate as a final and authoritative text of the Scripture. Stunica worked on the Polyglot project of which release was delayed and hindered by Erasmus’ legal steps. Therefore, their attacks against the Dutch Humanist were personal and brutal. Erasmus responded to both opponents, clarifying the textual status of Greek original and of various Latin translations (i. e. Itala and the Vulgate)32. In addition, he described how the church fathers appealed to 1 John 5,7-8. The Dutch Humanist emphasised that there is no Greek manuscript containing the Comma and that Latin translations are incoherent because among codices classified nowadays as pre-Jeromian (Itala namely Vetus Latina) some omit these words and some retain them either as a marginal note (gloss) or as a part of master text. The same is true of the Vulgate, yet Erasmus’ adversaries claimed that Jerome’s preface to the general epistles proves that Greek manuscripts with the Comma existed at Jerome’s time but were lost over the centuries. Actually, the said preface as recorded in Codex Fuldensis33 does not imply that according to Jerome any Greek evidence ever had the Comma but rather rebukes certain translators (probably of Itala) for omitting in 31 Bruce Manning Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 100-102 [II, III, I]. [William Orme], Memoir of the Controversy respecting the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John v. 7 (London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1830), 3-10 [Erasmus]. 32 Erasmus Roterodamus, “Liber quo respondet Annotationibus Eduadri Lei,” in Opera omnia emendatiora et auctiora, vol. 9, ed. Jean Le Clerc (Leiden: Vander Aa, 1706), 275-284 [XXV; 1 John 5]. Idem, “Apologia respondens ad ea quae in Novo Testamento taxaverat Jacobus Lopis Stunica,” in Opera omnia emendatiora et auctiora, vol. 9, ed. Jean Le Clerc (Leiden: Vander Aa, 1706), 351-353 [Ex Cap. V, Annot. I; 1 John 5]. 33 Hieronymus Stridonensis, “Prologus in Epistulas Canonicas,” in Codex Fuldensis: Novum Testamentum Latine interprete Hieronymo, ed. Ernst Ranke (Marburg and Leipzig: Elwert, 1868), 399.