with truth. To rebut much of Porson’s insolent sophistry was easy, to maintain the genuineness of this passage is simply im- possible.” Tregelles gives a list of more than fifty volumes, pamphlets, or critical notices on this question. Porson, in the conclusion of his letters to Travis, says: ‘In short, if this verse be really genuine, notwithstanding its absence from all the visible Greek manuscripts except two (that of Dublin and the forged one found at Berlin), one of which awkwardly translates the verse from the Latin, and the other transcribes it from a printed book; notwithstanding its absence from all the ver- sions except the Vulgate, even from many of the best and oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate; notwithstanding the deep and dead silence of all the Greek writers down to the thirteenth, and of most of the Latins down to the middle of the eighth century ; if, in spite of all these objections, it be still genuine, no part of Scripture whatsoever can be proved either spurious or genuine; and Satan has been permitted for many centuries miraculously to banish the ‘finest passage in the New Testa- ment,’ as Martin calls it, from the eyes and memories of almost all the Christian authors, translators, and transcribers.”
8. Agree in one (els 7d & elow). Lit. are for the one. They converge upon the one truth, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh.
9. If we receive (e AawPdvopev). The indicative mood, as- suming such reception as a fact. If we receive, as we do, On the verb recewe, see on John iii. 32.
The witness of God is greater. Supply mentally, and therefore we should recewe that.
For (671). Not explaining why it is greater, but why the principle of the superior greatness of divine testimony should apply and be appealed to in this case. Supply mentally, and this applies in the case before us, for, etc.
This is the witness of God which (fv). The best texts read Bre that or because. Render that. This is the witness of God, even the fact that, etc.