1 John 5:7-8 Johannine Comma - Tertullian Adversus Praxeas 25.1

The heavenly witnesses verse is completely redundant if my assessment of the ultimate referents is correct.
On the other hand, you are ascribing the masculine grammar with spirit, water and blood due to your allegorical understanding of their being the real meaning of spirit, water and blood.
 
[
No, because in Matthew 23:23 τὰ βαρύτερα is an adjectival substantive that follows a grammatical rule that stipulates concepts are neuter, with nouns of various genders in apposition.

So Matthew 23:23 is the other case?

the case where the gender of an adjectival/participle substantive appears discordant with nouns in apposition to it.

What gender for the participle would be non-discordant?
 
On the other hand, you are ascribing the masculine grammar with spirit, water and blood due to your allegorical understanding of their being the real meaning of spirit, water and blood.
The more mundane issue of the witnesses being in the nature of legal witnesses that will be used to condemn unbelievers on the day of judgement is sufficient to account for the masculine, as many scholars have stressed. Far be it from me to disagree.

I was further speculating about "ultimate referents" - i.e. what do the witnesses really denote in the last resort? Such isn't necessary to account for the masculine, though will undoubtedly reinforce the view that the masculine is appropriate.
 
This is not even relevant to the mixed gender nouns of Matthew 23:23.
Oh, I didn't realize your question related specifically to 23:23. So it's a "have you stopped beating your wife?" question.

Any gender other than the one it appears in (i.e. neuter) would be discordant. Neuter is non-discordant as it is the grammatically correct gender, for the reasons oft repeated above.

So my question is unanswered.
 
Hey guys.

This thread is on Tertullian, and specifically focused on Adversus Praxeam 25.1, and in the Early Church Fathers section.

Unless your going to comment on Tertullian's Latin grammatical argument based on John 10:30, could you pretty please (see I'm being real nice and polite) take your Greek grammar question to the appropriate thread. Because it's off topic here.

I have created a thread for the purpose of your discussion (Greek grammar of 1 John 5:7-8) below.

https://forums.carm.org/threads/1-john-5-7-8-johannine-comma-greek-grammar.11985/

Feel free to post your Greek grammar discussion on 1 John 5:7-8 over there, and keep this thread on Tertullian's Adversus Praxeam 25.1.

Thank you.
 
When you add to the Holmes book your personal commentary (and not just a verse number, you should add your initials. Or are you using an italics standard for your commentary? If so, you can say at the top, TNC comments in italics.

Can do. Can't edit what I've posted already, but in future I'll put emphasis and comments added by me.
 
Steven Avery's claim is quite simply wrong.

Tertullian makes absolutely no connection whatsoever with John's First Epistle, in situ, in Adversus Praxeam Chapter 25.1 (which is what this thread is about).

It's clearer than clear when read in situ.

Tertullian show's everyone exactly where he draws his EIS-EGESIS from.

Tertullian of Carthage

Adversus Praxeam

Translated By Peter Holmes

Chapter 25


"What follows Philip's question [John 14:8], and the Lord's whole treatment of it [i.e. Phillips question], to the end of John's Gospel, continues to furnish us with statements of the same kind, distinguishing the Father and the Son, with the properties of each. Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also, which He promises to pray for to the Father [John 14:16], and to send from heaven after He had ascended to the Father. He is called "another Comforter,"[John 14:16] indeed; but in what way He is another we have already shown, [i.e. in Adv. Prax. Chapter 13] "He shall receive of mine," [John 16:14] says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father's." (Emphasis, note, some verse refs, added by me)

Tertullian of Carthage

Adversus Praxeam

My Translation

Chapter 25 (continued)


"In this manner the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete is accomplished, three [masculine identities] that are connected together, each one originating from out of the other. But how these three are [Var. "sint" = "But how these three might be"] one [neuter thing], not a single [masculine identity], is simply as [Or: "is just as"] it says "I and the Father, we are one," [John 10:30] by the uniting of the substance(s) [Latin = plural], not by any singularity of number(s)"​

Though Steven desire's it, assert's it vehemently, and repeat's it etc, Steven Avery is mistaking Tertullian's own words (his own EIS-EGESIS) for an interpolation that did not exist in Scripture yet (a kind amphibological fallacy).

The grammatical nature of Tertullian's argument requires that his words "qui tres unum sunt, non unus" etc, be translated more explicitly into English than what would be required in either 1 John 5:7 and 8 Clause's D.

Tertullian simply reiterates the same grammatical argument which he made more explicit in a previous chapter.
 
Last edited:
Praxeas, by the time he's read Tertullian's letter up to the text in Chapter 25.1, most likely understood (at least) the sense of Tertullian's grammatical gender/number argumentation from John 10:30 in the text in question at Chapter 25.1, from the more detailed and far more explicit analysis of John 10:30's "Ego et Pater unum sumus" that Tertullian had wrote in previous chapters (one in particular) which (i.e. the grammatical gender/number points) are in fact directly related to the text in question at Chapter 25.1.

That's something Steven Avery isn't telling you, and doesn't want you to know.

Meaning, there's far more directly related context involved with this reference (i.e. Adversus Praxeam Chapter 25.1), that has very subtle and nuanced grammatical (and doctrinal) connections, which can be found scattered throughout the entire book of Adversus Praxeam than what Steven (i.e. his narrow and fallacious parameters which he artificially sets) is telling you.
 
Last edited:
Why did Tertullian only make a quotation of 1 John 5:7 Clause-D (if it is a quotation at all), and not the entire Comma Johanneum, if he had it in his Latin NT manuscript?
Because there was no printing press. Citations early on were meant to trigger the memory of the reader.

What is the point of your thread?
What would you like people know?
What difference does it make?
 
Back
Top