markable, that the sentence in Greek is scarcely found at present in the Greek manuscripts ; and I have ascertained that we must add to these the royal Hafniensian Manuscript, the Ebnerian , and all those of Paris (Journal des Savans, June 1720), and many, which the celebrated La Croze (in his History of Christianity in India, p. 316, 2d Edit. Germ.) says that he has seen. In the Florentine manuscripts, which that illustrious man, John Lamius , mentions in his book respecting the learning of the Apostles, ch. 13, there are found twelve which contain the General Epistles, and yet are with- out this clause ; but all of them were written after the ninth century. We ought, on the other hand, to value the more highly the supple- mentary authority of that most ancient Version, the Latin Vulgate f from which this sentence was read and quoted by many fathers in a continued series, and afterwards was introduced into the copies of other languages, and at the present time is extant in the Latin manuscripts of the New Testament.
It is conjectured, but without any reason, from his silence, that Valla had read the clause in his Greek manuscripts. Valla also passed over (without notice) a remarkable difference in ver. 6, where in the Greek copies the reading is r'o Uvsvfia ( the Spirit ), in the Latin, Christus (Christ). And in ch. ii., Valla had without doubt read in the Greek copies the former part of ver. 14, which is want- ing in the Latin copies;1 2 and yet he passes it over in silence [et tamen in pausa est]. He has been very sparing in his notes on this Epistle.
The Council of Lateran , in that sentence, as it is found in SOME copies , does not refer to the whole of ver. 7, but to the clause of ver. 8, and these three are one : which clause, being met with in all the Greek copies, even of itself demonstrates that the Council is not speaking of Greek, but of Latin manuscripts, of which SOME only have the clause in question.
The Montfortian , or Dublin , or Hibernian copy, to which so much weight is attached in certain quarters on account of this clause, is new, and Latinizes ; being written in the West, as is proved by the Latin division into chapters. That the Berlin Manuscript is of no weight apart from the Complutensian editors, the candour of the people of Berlin admits.
1 In the absence of the oldest Greek MSS. we have a valuable substitute for them in the Vulgate.
2 Some MSS. of Vulg. omit eypx-^/ot vpi. war. to elpxTjf. In Beza’s Latin, the last clause of the 13th ver., “ scribo vobis, pueruli,” etc., is the first clause of ver. 14.— E.