w/r/t
1Jn 5:7, while it wasn’t cited at Nicea, it was cited at Carthage a century and a half later with no evidence of a peep regarding its authenticity.
I'm not sure that this comment is quite right. There doesn't appear to be an obvious citation or quote of the King James Version of 1 John 5:7.
Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. I'm not sure that I am correctly following the argument. As I understand the issue, the comment above refers to a quotation by Cyprian.
First, Gregory of Nazianzus writes:
"
For I also will assert that Peter and James and John are not three or consubstantial, so long as I cannot say Three Peters, or Three Jameses, or Three Johns; for what you have reserved for common names we demand also for proper names, in accordance with your arrangement; or else you will be unfair in not conceding to others what you assume for yourself. What about John then, when in his Catholic Epistle he says that there are Three that bear witness, the Spirit and the Water and the Blood?"
Philip Schaff remarks: "This is the famous passage of the Witnesses in 1 John 5:8. In some few later codices of the Vulgate are found the words which form verse 7 of our A. V. But neither verse 7 nor these words are to be found in any Greek Ms. earlier than the Fifteenth Century: nor are they quoted by any Greek Father, and by very few and late Latin ones. They have been thought to be cited by S. Cyprian in his work on the Unity of the Church; and this citation, if a fact, would be a most important one, as it would throw back their reception to an early date. But Tischendorf (Gk. Test. Ed. 8, ad. loc.) gives reasons for believing that the quotation is only apparent, and is really of the last clause of verse."
In plain English, Gregory quotes John 5:8, not the disputed passage in the King James version 1 John 5:7.
In his Treatise I, Cyprian writes:
"
He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;” and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one.”
If I understand the argument correctly, the question is, is Cyprian alluding to Gregory of Nazianzus's quote, or is he alluding to a Greek manuscript, now lost to history, that contains the disputed phrase in the King James Version (1 John 5:7, For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.). Cyprian's remark is not a direct quote of the disputed text. Some take it to be an allusion to it, but many do not.
Jerome did not include the verse in his translation (though much later versions of the Latin Vulgate did pick it up).
The matter is in doubt. I personally am persuaded by the manuscript evidence that Erasmus' inclusion of the text (not in his original translation, but added in subsequent editions) and the subsequent inclusion of the disputed text in the King James Version are not authentic to the original Greek manuscript.
My major point is that the issue is inconsequential. Our understanding of the Trinity is informed by many other texts. The inclusion of 1 John 5:7 doesn't change our understanding of the doctrine and neither does it's omission. God has preserved his word.
Let each person be persuaded in their own mind.
