“On every one of the 6 occasions on which St. John speaks of
the Christian as one who ‘has been born of God’ it is precisely so that he does
speak of him—as one who has been
born. In all 6 cases it is the perfect tense, or the perfect participle, that
is used…But of Christ’s birth from God St. John writes as of a specific event,
describing Him as ‘He who was born of God’…[This explains why in actual fact
St. John never speaks of ‘Christians’
as God born; nor again of any particular
Christian.] The point requires laboring because it has become blunted by
familiarity and obscured by prejudice [thus the one] keeping the faithful
[safe] was Himself born of God at a certain point in history [1 John 5.18]…Indeed,
in the New Testament…this particular phrase of St. John’s First Epistle is
unique. On the other hand…the earliest written witness to the text of John 1.13
shows that in the second century almost the identical phrase (Who…was born…of
God) was to be found in St. John’s Gospel also.”
External Evidence
“…the ‘singular’ reading [is] quoted by no less than four 2nd
century writers [Martyr, 1 Apology
22.2; 23.2; 113.10; Dialogue, 111;
116; Tertuallian, De Carne Christi,
19; 24; Irenaeus, Against Heresies,
3.16.2, 19.2; 5.1.3; Epistula Apostolorum],
from a text itself in all probability derived from Ephesus, is also
intrinsically far more probable than the current reading…the Verona Codex (Old
Latin) stands alone [among the 9 or 10 primary manuscripts—discovered thus far]
in having the reading of John 1.13 attested by Tertullian…[But as Streeter in The Four Gospels, p. 308, points out] ‘What
carries most weight—apart from considerations of the intrinsic probability of a
given reading—is not the number of manuscripts which support it, but the number
of local texts which the manuscripts supporting it represent, or the age to
which by patristic quotations it can be pushed back…even if every other
manuscript is against it.’…there is the question also of its distribution, that
is to say, of the area or areas in which it was current [2 representing Italy:
Tertullian, Martyr; 1 in Gaul/Spain: Irenaeus; 1 Ephesus: Epistolum]. In this connection, Streeter has some interesting
things to say about the Verona Codex, which is, he observes, ‘the typical
manuscript of the European Old Latin’. According to him, there is a certain amount
of evidence that this text and that used at Ephesus in the second century are
closely akin…
This digression on the connection traceable between the
reading ‘was born’ in John 1.13 and the birthplace of St. John’s Gospel will
have been worth making if it helps to show that what counts in manuscript
evidence is not quantity but quality. In any case it needs to be remembered
that there is no passage in the Gospels for which we have such early and such
explicit evidence as we have for the ‘singular’ reading of John 1.13…Thus the
antiquity of this reading is very great indeed…It is an exhilarating probability
that [Martyr], at the time of his conversion (in mature life, c. A.D. 130) had
spoken with men who had themselves known the author of the Gospel…It will then
appear less surprising [to have Harnack], in his lordly way…speak of the
singular reading, quite casually, and without deigning a word of explanation,
as ‘the true text’! [Date of Acts, p. 148: ‘These ideas [of the Virgin Birth
and of Conception by the Holy Spirit] are declared to be primitive by the fact
that at the end of the first century…they were the common property of
Christians, as St. John [Chap. 1, according to the true text] and Ignatius
teach us.’]”
Internal Evidence
“Now the ‘plural’ reading presents at least 3 obvious
difficulties.”
1. “There is the abrupt introduction of the phrase His Name into a context where no Name,
properly speaking, has as yet appeared.
Later in the Gospel we read of ‘the
Name of the only-born Son of God’ [John 3.18] or of ‘the Name of Jesus’ [John
20.31]. But such an expression as the
Name of the Light or the Name of the
Word is unexampled. In the singular reading, on the other hand, this Name
is defined—it is the Name of Him who was
born of God. Moreover, descriptive relative phrases in the singular number
are a marked characteristic of the Gospel—or rather of St. John’s style
generally.
2. The curious confusion of the past and present
tenses.
It is ‘those believing; or ‘those
who are believers’ or ‘those who persevere
in believing’—‘who were born’ [it’s necessary
to read ‘His Name’ instead of ‘the
Name of Him’, and ‘were’ for ‘was’ to
get the current text] When were they born? Were they born of God as a result of
their welcome of the Light: or did they welcome the Light because, first, they
were born of God? If the singular text is read, there is no such obscurity…the
Evangelist answers this urgent question without an instant’s delay. They, he
says, to whom this right was given, are ‘they who believe on the Name of Him
who was born of God’.
3. The way in which it conflicts with the direct
and simple yet delicately allusive style of the Fourth Gospel as a whole.
For the description there given of
‘the believers in the Name of the Light’ (itself an odd expression) is cumbrous
in the extreme. They were not born, it seems, of sexual intercourse, fleshly
craving, nor male will. On the contrary, they
were born—of God. In this form the passage does one or other of two things. It
either suggests that believers are not creatures of flesh and blood at all, or
else it laboriously points out that a spiritual birth—a birth ‘of God’—has nothing
to do with sexual intercourse, fleshly craving, or male will. But then who
could possibly suppose it had? Does it not become more and more odd the more
one ponders it that a birth which (according to this reading) was either the
cause or the consequence of receiving the Divine Light should be meticulously differentiated
(three times over) from the various stages or antecedents of physical
generation?
Nevertheless, if the ‘plural’ form
is authentic, it must be confessed that St. John’s touch has for once (inexplicably)
failed him. His style, his unique style—at once profound and delicate—has become
crude and clumsy; and that at the one point where delicacy and directness were
most to be expected…In addition, this reading fits the context. Not only is the
[Who…was born] picked up by the [Only-born
from a father or God only-born]
of John 1.14,18: besides this, the ‘and’ which joins v.14 to v.13 is then seen
to be adversative like the earlier ‘ands’ noted above—‘Not of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of a male, but of God was He born: and yet the Word
became flesh.’
What is interesting is that the
layman is so impressed by the conflux of manuscripts that he regards the fact
that the plural reading is grammatically easier as adding to the weight of evidence
in its favor. Actually, of course, the grammatical ease of the phrase would
admirably explain how a copyist could come to write [they] instead of [who]
(and then conform the verb by writing [were born] instead of [was born]). In that
case also (as the centuries passed and endeavors were made to secure a uniform
text) this unconscious corruption would the more easily be accepted as the true
text. [This is not necessarily to say that the Valentians deliberately altered
the text, as Tertullian accused them of doing. More probably, perhaps, they
exploited a text which had become accidentally corrupted because of the
grammatical ease od the alteration. After all, in Greek, the two English phrases ‘His Name’ and ‘the Name of Him’ are
identical. More easily than ‘the Name of Him’ a scribe would understand ‘His
Name’. Having done so, he would then be obliged to go back to ‘those believing’
for the antecedent to the relative. Once the change had thus, in innocence,
been made, the scribe (that is to say, the copyist, whose business precludes
deep thought) would prefer the plural reading because, as Sir Edwyn Hoskyns
well remarked, ‘the plural is grammatically easier’ [The Fourth Gospel, Vol. 1]…True, Tertullian, writing c. 208, bears
witness also to the existence of a ‘plural’ reading; but clearly that reading (whether
or not a forgery) was at least an innovation. Before then, the only text known to Tertullian (and his readers) was the
text which has the reading of John 1.13 with the relative and its verb in the
singular.
To us it is second nature to
assume that a birth ‘of God’ must be a purely spiritual birth and have nothing
to do with the flesh at all…the simple verb gennao
is never used in the NT of any other birth than a birth from the womb…Even in
its active form, ‘to beget’, it is only very rarely used except of physical
begetting [1Cor 14.15; Phil 10]…The fact is that gennao (especially on Jewish lips) is such a predominantly fleshly
word that it does not lend itself to metaphor except in context where any
confusion with physical birth or begetting would be quite out of the question…[For
both John and Paul Jesus was begotten] in the literal, bodily sense—born of God [1 John 5.18]…there has been
a Birth which, albeit a genuine birth from the womb, was none the less a new
Birth—the Birth of One, of whom it could be specifically
said that HE was born of God…
[Even John] does not record the
Virgin Birth [as such, like the Eucharist, his] constant identification of the
Christian with Christ in His Birth
corresponds to St. Paul’s identification of himself with Christ in His Death…An actual Crucifixion, and
an actual Birth ‘of God’, is presupposed in either case. In a word, St. John’s
whole proclamation of the Gospel assumes that Jesus was born of God in a sense
quite other than metaphorical. And this was not a private Johannine fancy, but
a public Christian fact…if the Virgin Birth was not common knowledge, the
arguments lose their point, while the phrases and turns of speech become
confusing instead of illuminating. [The conclusion being] that the Virgin Birth
is no theory, no induction, no poetic idea, but an integral element of a
Primitive, Apostolic tradition.”
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