Tischendorf on the New Testament Text [pp. 604-618]

1874.] TISCHENDORF ON THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT.
is true, to those of Sinai and the Vatican, "Church of the Lord"
should be placed.
In 1 Timothy, iii. 16, the Apostle did not write, as stands in
Luther's Bible, "God was manifest in the flesh," but "who was
manifest in the flesh." The divine sonship of Christ is not
thereby placed in any doubt in the Pauline epistles, for the
Apostle placed this very often in thle clearest light, especially
in the Epistle to the Colossians; but this p,ssage in Timothy
can no longer avail to prove that Paul plainly called the Saviour
"God."
The last passage which I cite shall be I John, v., 7. There
are found those clebratedl iwords: "For there are three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost; and these three are one." All of these words are, beyond any doubt, spurious. They are condemned not by one or two
of the oldest witnesses, but by every one of the Greek manuscripts and fathers of the whole first century. To these are to
be added from the Latin side, the most renowned old fathers of
the church, Tertullian, Ambrosius, Hilarius, Augustine, Jerome,
together with the two oldest Vulgate manuscripts, and many
others. Luther never received them into his Bible; it is owing
only to an unfortunate error of supposed Lutheran piety, that
they afterwards found a place in it. That Luther held fast with
his whole heart to belief in the divine Trinity, and nevertheless
was not moved, like the fickle Erasmus, "at the cry of the adversaries," to receive the already celebrated three-witness passage into his Bible, ought long ago to have restrained the uncalled-for zeal which has been brought to bear on this.
The adduced examples. which have multiplied under my
hands, will suffice to place in the right light the matter in
question. The misapprehension can easily be made, that the
results of the critical restoration of the genuine written text are
exclusively of a negative kind. In fact their character is more
obvious on this side. But in direct opposition to this, very
manay more of the important passages find confirmation. That,
in my opinion, is no less to be taken into calculation, as has
already been indicated, though this is not to be further considered here.
Finally, one word more, a short word on the question whether
the church is right in assuming the divine verbal inspiration
617