1Jn 4:3
Καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη.
Over against this trueπνεῦμα[“Spirit”] the apostle now introduces the false one: to the Spirit of Christ is opposed that of antichrist. But we have first to establish thegenuine reading. It is generally admitted that the object denied is defined as simplyτὸνἸησοῦν [“Jesus”], and that the Χριστὸνἐνσαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα [“Christ has come in the flesh”]of theTextus Receptusis an addition. If, now, the right reading is πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃμὴὁμολογεῖτὸνἸησοῦν [“every spirit that does not confesses Jesus”], this must be so explained as to show that the apostle connects with the name Jesus the whole matter that he had announced in the previousverse. And, in fact, a confession of Jesus is impossible without the full substance of that: if I do not hold Him to be the Son of God, I may speak of Him and know, but I have then nothing to confess. To confess to aMANis a thing without meaning: it is nothing. But it is to me doubtful whether the reading given above is the genuine one. The old reading,πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃλύειτὸνἸησοῦν [“every spirit that dissolves Jesus”], appears to me to have more value than is mostly conceded to it. That it was quoted by Socrates as an ancient one is indeed unquestionable. The words referred to are these: [Nestorius]ἠγνόησεν ὅτι ἐν τῇ καθολικῇ Ἰωάννου ἐγέγραπτο ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς ἀντιγράφοις, ὅτι πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ λύει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν. Ταύτην γὰρ τὴν διάνοιαν ἐκ τῶν παλαιῶν ἀντιγράφων περιεῖλον οἱ χωρίζειν ἀπὸ τοῦ τῆς οἰκονομίας ἀνθρώπον βουλόμενοι τὴν θεότητα κ.τ.λ.[“Nestoriusdid not know that in the Catholic Epistle of John it was written in the ancient copies,‘every spirit thatdissolves Jesus, is not from God.’For to remove this understanding from the ancient copies is attributed to those wishing todissolvethe humanity from the divinity, etc.”] (Hist. Eccles. vii. 32).tn Düsterdieck supposes that it does not follow from these words that theverse so ran, as Nestorius quotedthem; he thinks that the phraseπεριεῖλοντὴνδιάνοιαν[“remove the understanding”] shows rather that he was only giving the sense of the text. But in this he is wrong. We cannot see what endthe mention of theπαλαιὰἀντίγραφα[LSJ][“ancient copies”] would serve if there was not in them something different from what the Nestorians read in these texts. If the heretics only by exegetical manipulation made themeaningof the passage favourable to their views, nothing was to be gained by a reference to the old manuscripts, and the wordδιάνοια[“understanding”] thus receives its rights. While the heretics changed the words,they did also in the judgment of Socrates change the sense of them. It cannot therefore be denied that we have the testimony of Socrates thatὃλύει [“which dissolve”], was the original reading. For the rest, indeed,the words are not to be pressed; in spite of the repeatedτὰπαλαιὰἀντίγραφα[LSJ][“the ancient copies”], we may not believe that all the manuscripts were collated by Socrates and found to give evidence of his reading. Further, it is to be observed that in the time of this Father even the manuscriptλύει[“to dissolve”] was no longer common, since, opposing Nestorius, he in a certain sense introduces the old reading as a novelty:ἠγνόησεν [“to be ignorant”]. In itself, therefore, the testimony of Socrates to a reading no longer found in any manuscript would have no great weight; but we have other witnesses. Among these we reckon Tertullian first. It is true that his citation inDe carne Christi,Chapter 24. (“certe qui negat Christum in carne venisse, hie antichristus est” [“he who denies thatChristhas come in the flesh, he is antichrist”]), seems on the first glance to support theTextus Receptus. But it is so only in appearance; for we have not here an exact quotation of our verse, but a blending of it with part of the preceding; the idea of thein carne venire [“come in the flesh”] was the chief thing with Tertullian, and must therefore be made prominent whether his copy readμὴὁμολογεῖ [“does not confess”] orλύει[“he dissolves”]. This passage, therefore, is decisive on neither side. But it is otherwise with the citation,adv. Marcion.5.16. Tertullian agitates the question as to whom St. Paul meant in2Th 2:3-4, and answers: “secundum nos quidem anti christus . . . ut docet Joannes apostolus, qui jam antichristos dicit processisse in mundum praecursores antichristi spiritus, negantes Christum in carne venisse et solventes Jesum, scilicet in Deo creatore” [“According to our view, he is Antichrist . . . and especially by the Apostle John, who says that already many false prophets are gone out into the world, the fore-runners of Antichrist, who deny that Christ has come in the flesh, and do not acknowledge Jesus, meaning in God the Creator”]. In these words he gives an extract from the first three verses of our chapter: the processisse in mundum [“gone out into the world”] refers to the first verse; the in carne venisse [“has come in the flesh”] to the second; the solventes [“acknowledge”] to the third. As the second verse specifies as a sign of the reception of the Holy Ghost, the ὁμολογεῖνἸησοῦνΧριστὸνἐνσαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα [“to confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”], he simply inverts this; the Antichrist denies that fact and confession. So, too, the change of Christ in the second, of Jesus in the third member, points to the fact that the former was to be the second, and the latter the third verse. Tertullian, therefore, had not, as some suppose, the true readings of the third verse before his eyes; but only the one, ὃλύει [“that which dissolves”], and what precedes was derived from the second verse. Nor is the solventes Jesum [“acknowledge Jesus”] to be regarded as a gloss or addition of Tertullian, for the construction of the sentence, dicit processisse negantes et solventes [“those who proceed to deny and not acknowledge”], manifestly indicates that the latter words also belong to his citation: it is only in the following scilicet that the gloss of the expositor enters. If we add to all this the quotation from adv. Psych, 1, “quod Jesum Christum solvant” [“acknowledge Jesus Christ”], and further, that Irenaeus, somewhat earlier than Tertullian, has the same reading (adv. Haer. 3.18), we shall find it impossible to doubt the existence of this reading. It will hardly be thought necessary to go further, and examine the testimonies of Leo and Augustine, the latter of whom does not certainly unite the two readings, as is thought, when he says, solvit Jesum et negat in carne venisse [“deny and do not confess that Jesus has come in the flesh”]: rather does he mark the meaning of the obscure and difficult solvere by adding the clause derived from the previous verse, which alone makes it intelligible. If in this citation of Augustine the solvere did not rest upon a reading in the text, but was inserted merely as an interpretation, it would have been more appropriately inserted, not before the negare [“deny”], but after it. Against the genuineness of this reading as the original one its early existence cannot be contended against after what has been said we have the fact of that earliest citation of our Epistle and of this passage of it in Polycarp, Phm 1:7 : Πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἂν μὴ ὁμολογῇ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθέναι, ἀντιχριστός ἐστιν· [“For every onewho shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is antichrist”]. When we weigh this narrowly, however, we find that even this citation says nothing against the existence of the ὃλύει [“that dissolve”]: were it not so, it would be of great significance against the reading, for Polycarp certainly was older than the παλαιὰἀντίγραφα[LSJ][“ancient copies”] of Socrates. We have, in fact, here no actual literal citation, but a paraphrastic interpretation of the passage: there is hardly a word of the third verse which is distinctly reproduced in the passage of Polycarp. The reason was the same which actuated Augustine and the others: the expression λύειν τὸνἸησοῦν [“to dissolve Jesus”] was found too difficult to make a clear sense as standing alone. To me, therefore, it seems highly probable that in fact the reading in dispute was in the original text, and that it was very early lost. But how? that question cannot well be answered of course: probably through the intrusion of an explanatory gloss. Certainly the Oriental manuscripts must at the time of the Nestorian controversies have contained the text of the Catholic manuscripts on the whole as we read them now; for otherwise they would assuredly not have forgotten to cast their falsification of the Scripture in the teeth of the heretics. Moreover, internal reasons strongly recommend the reading λύειν τὸνἸησοῦν [“to dissolve Jesus”]. The phrase μὴὁμολογεῖτὸνἸησοῦν [“does not confesses Jesus”] seems always to my feeling something harsh; one involuntarily expects an attributive definition of the object to be confessed. On the other hand, λύειν τὸνἸησοῦν [“to dissolve Jesus”] is an expression which, after the preceding verse, is as intelligible as it is pregnant: it signifies to rend asunder those two sides of the person of Jesus as they had been united in the phrase Χριστὸν ἐληλυθόταἐνσαρκί[“Christ has come in the flesh”], which referred preeminently, as we find in the explanation of 1Jn 4:2, to the denial of the divinity of Christ. Lastly, it is more in harmony with St. John’s manner not to make the two points in an antithesis simply contradictory of each other: he would scarcely write ὁμολογεῖν [“to confess”] and μὴὁμολογεῖν [“not confess”], but place in the second member something positive. The second half of the verse now declares that such a denial of the incarnation is not only a token that one is not of God, but a stamp also of positive anti-Christianity. As it respects the meaning, it is comparatively matter of indifference whether with each of the neuters, τοῦτο [“this”] and τὸτοῦἀντιχρίστου [“thespiritof the antichrist”], the πνεῦμα [“spirit”] is supplied; or whether we regard τὸ μὴὁμολογεῖν (λύειν) [“thespiritthat does not confess (disolves)”] as the contents of τοῦτο [“this”], and translate τὸτοῦἀντιχρίστου [“thespiritof the antichrist”] as the nature or characteristic of the Antichrist. Both are grammatically possible, though the former seems on the whole the more obvious. The Antichrist, concerning whom ye have heard that he will appear as the highest and most fearful error, and as the most bitter enemy of Jesus, has manifested himself in this denying of the divine-human nature of Jesus. He who was to come is already in the world: in the future he will be the final, perfected, and personal exhibition of the principle; now he is present in the first beginnings of the principle. footnotes tnThe textual variant λύειτὸνἸησοῦν ( = solvit Jesum in the Latin Vulgate) “dissolves,” “separates,” or “severs” Jesus, i.e., separates the divinity and the humanity of Jesus, aptly defines the Cerinthian heresy. It was much appealed to in later days against Nestorius. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica, 7. 32) says it was the primitive reading, and was altered by “those who wished to dissolve the humanity from the divinity.” μὴ ὁμολογεῖ is the reading in all known extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. ‖ λύει is found in some Latin sources, including itar,z Vulgate; Ir1739mg Cl1739mg Origen.
