58 Matthew Oseka Ramifications A contemporary reader may be appalled to hear that in the age of the Reformation tools to do any textual research barely existed. Furthermore, Luther’s command of Greek grammar derived from the Byzantine standard55 and from the textbooks founded on it56. These works were sufficient to parse the Greek New Testament but were inadequate to explore the syntax57. Among ancient and mediaeval disquisitions on Greek, which are extant, only a piece of Dionysius Trax58 and a course of Roger Bacon59 correspond to our notion of a textbook meant for non-native speakers but they remained unpublished in the 16th century. Despite the Byzantine grammarians were native speakers of Greek, their comprehension of syntax was highly deficient from the viewpoint of contemporary non-native speakers. A history of Comma Johanneum, which Luther was unwilling to consider genuine or to accept as proof of the trinitarian doctrine, unfolds the power of a theological deception. The Socinian school of theology ventured to object to the authenticity of the Comma. However, even the later editions of the Racovian Catechism conceded that the Comma is missing in “most Greek manuscripts” for an evident forgery of Codex Montfortianus was not yet disclosed60. The said catechism recapitulated the previous arguments against the authenticity of the Comma and restated a theological difference between οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι (the Polyglot) and οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι (Erasmus’ editio ultima). 55 Emanuel Chrysoloras, Quaestiones grammaticae (Paris: Wechelus, 1539). Constantinus Lascaris, Grammatices graecae epitome (Venice: [sine nomine], 1495). Theodorus Gazes, Introductio grammatica, vol. 1-4, trans. Erasmus Roterodamus (Basel: Ex officina Valderiana, 1541). 56 Urbano Bolzanio, Institutiones graecae grammatices (Paris: Gilles de Gourmont, [1510]). Johannes Oecolampadius, Graecae literaturae dragmata (Basel: Cratander, 1518). Philipp Melanchthon, «Grammatica graeca integra,» in Opera quae supersunt omnia (Corpus reformatorum), vol. 20, ed. Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil (Braunschweig: Schwetschke, 1854), 3-180. 57 Paul Botley, Learning Greek in Western Europe (1396-1529): Grammars, Lexica, and Classroom Texts (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2010), passim. Federica Ciccolella, Donati Graeci: Learning Greek in the Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2008), passim. 58 Dionysius Thrax, “Ars grammatica,” in Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 7, ed. Johann Albert Fabricius (Hamburg: Felginer, 1727), 26-34. 59 Roger Bacon, The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon and a Fragment of his Hebrew Grammar, ed. Edmond Nolan and S. A. Hirsch (Cambridge: University Press, 1902). Idem, “Compendium philosophiae,” in Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, ed. John S. Brewer (London: Longman, 1859), 432-519 [VI-XII]. 60 Johann Crell, Jonas Schlichting and Martin Ruarus, ed., Catechesis ecclesiarum Polonicarum (Amsterdam: Per Eulogetum Philalethem, 1684), 37-38 [III, I]. Thomas Rees, ed. and trans., The Racovian Catechism (London: Longman, 1818), 39-44 [III, I].