Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
I have posted extracts defending the originality of the Johannine Comma in the past, so do not complain that I am being unfair in posting a quotation from the other side of the argument. Living in echo chambers is tempting, but it is unhealthy. I believe it is necessary to listen to both sides of the discussion in order to have an informed opinion one way or the other (Proverbs 18:13). Anyway, Cyril quotes this passage near the end of his Five Tomes against Nestorius. You will observe that the Comma is missing from his quotation:
Therefore the faith profits them who will hold it unshaken; how it profits, the all-wise John will assure us saying, Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not in water only, but in water and blood, and the Spirit is Truth; for three testify, the Spirit, the water and the Blood, and the Three are One. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God, because He hath witnessed concerning His Son: he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself, he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believed not the testimony which He hath testified regarding His Son. And how God the Father hath testified to His Son, the Divine-uttering John the Baptist will declare saying. And I knew Him not, but He That sent me to baptize with water, He said to me, Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, This is He Which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and have testified that This is the Son of God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore is witnessed to through the Father's Voice, that He is by Nature and in truth His Son, He is witnessed to no less through the water and the Blood and the Spirit. For by the holy water He purgeth away the sins of them that believe, He quickeneth through His own Blood and connecteth to God them on the earth: and since He is God by Nature He maketh also richly the grant of the Holy Ghost, pouring It forth as His own into the hearts of them who believe, and making them partakers of the Divine Nature, and crowning them with the hope of the good things to come.
Cyril of Alexandria, Five-Book Contradiction of the Blasphemies of Nestorius or The Five Tomes of S. Cyril (430), Book 5.7, trans. P. E. Pusey in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of the East and West, Translated by Members of the English Church. Volume 47 (Oxford: James Parker, 1881), pp 183-84.
N.B. It is possible that this translation of Cyril or the Greek edition on which it was based is unreliable at this point. If you have any relevant information concerning it, please post it in the below discussion.
Therefore the faith profits them who will hold it unshaken; how it profits, the all-wise John will assure us saying, Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not in water only, but in water and blood, and the Spirit is Truth; for three testify, the Spirit, the water and the Blood, and the Three are One. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God, because He hath witnessed concerning His Son: he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself, he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believed not the testimony which He hath testified regarding His Son. And how God the Father hath testified to His Son, the Divine-uttering John the Baptist will declare saying. And I knew Him not, but He That sent me to baptize with water, He said to me, Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, This is He Which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and have testified that This is the Son of God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore is witnessed to through the Father's Voice, that He is by Nature and in truth His Son, He is witnessed to no less through the water and the Blood and the Spirit. For by the holy water He purgeth away the sins of them that believe, He quickeneth through His own Blood and connecteth to God them on the earth: and since He is God by Nature He maketh also richly the grant of the Holy Ghost, pouring It forth as His own into the hearts of them who believe, and making them partakers of the Divine Nature, and crowning them with the hope of the good things to come.
Cyril of Alexandria, Five-Book Contradiction of the Blasphemies of Nestorius or The Five Tomes of S. Cyril (430), Book 5.7, trans. P. E. Pusey in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of the East and West, Translated by Members of the English Church. Volume 47 (Oxford: James Parker, 1881), pp 183-84.
N.B. It is possible that this translation of Cyril or the Greek edition on which it was based is unreliable at this point. If you have any relevant information concerning it, please post it in the below discussion.