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VIII. To the Greek Fathers, who did not read the clause, is to be added Germanus of Constantinople, as his View of Ecclesiastical Affairs shows. The negative argument, in such an inquiry, cannot be rejected. It is of no weight in the case of one or two ecclesiasti- cal writers only ; it is of weight in the case of a great number, when they omit a clause so remarkable, and so singularly adapted to decide controversies. If the Africans in such numbers quote it, how is it that the Asiatics in as many instances refrain from quoting it ? The latter did not read it ; the former did.
XIX. John Lamius , in the treatise already quoted, pp. 260, 266, 284, mentions the Latin copies of the Florentines which do or do not contain the sentence. Moreover, so great is the antiquity, and so great the authority of the Latin Version, wherever Tertullian, Cyprian, and a portion only, but these forming a continuous series, of the Fathers follow it, that we are fully justified in depending upon it, and are not compelled to remain in suspense, although it is not yet clearly ascertained, what the following ages read in different parts of the East. They who have at hand those more abstruse versions are easily led to disparage too much the Latin Version, which is too much extolled by the Romanists.
XXI. The Florentine Manuscript, and that Laurentian one [= Amiatinus] which we have quoted from Burnet, is the same, if I mistake not, with that which John Lamius describes in the book quoted, p. 265. Other Latin manuscripts of the Florentines are added, which have that order of the verses, pp. 258, 268, 285. A writer also of the eighth century, Etherius , Bishop of Axima in Spain, has it, who in his first book against Elipandus, re- viewing a great part of this Epistle, thus sets forth the two verses : Because there are three , who bear witness on earth , the water and the blood and the flesh ; and these three are one : and there are three , who bear witness in heaven , the Father , the Word, and the Spirit ; and these three are one in Christ Jesus . Cornelius Jansenius , in his Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter 144, has imitated those who follow this reading, whether manuscripts or Latin Fathers. The seventh verse , in the judgment of Cameron, is to be enclosed in a parenthesis , and the sixth to be joined with the eighth. There is no need of a parenthesis : the sixth verse is of itself con- nected with the eighth.
XXII. That Manuel Calecas, a Dominican-, and the Lectionary of the Greeks, in this place undoubtedly interpolated, edited by Venetians, follow the authority of the Vulgate translation, is
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