Back on January 13, 1897 the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (now termed The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a response to the question of whether or not a Catholic could deny that the Comma Joanneum was genuine. Their decision—approved by Pope Leo XIII—definitively answered in the negative. Canon Mancini's—Notary of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition—English translation follows:
"Whether it may be safely denied, or at least called in doubt, that the text of St. John, in the first epistle, chap. 5, vs. 7, which reads as follows: 'For there are three that bear witness in heaven: Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, and these three are one' is genuine?"
After having weighed everything in a most diligent examination, and taking a vote of the Counselors, the said most Eminent Cardinals declared that the reply was to be given: Negatively. On Friday, the 15th day of the same month and year, in a regular audience granted to the Reverend Father the Assessor of the Holy Office, after an exact report on the above to Our Most Holy Master Leo XIII the Pope, His Holiness approved and confirmed the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers. (English provided in Gregory's article referenced below; Latin text here.)
Ten years after the above mentioned decree affirmed that the Johannine Comma was genuine, an article published by the American-German theologian Caspar René Gregory called into question the integrity of that decree. The article opens with the following bold assertion:
The discussion of this text, the spurious character of which is beyond doubt, has of late taken a new turn. (Bold emphasis mine.)
A bit later, Gregory provides the full decree of the ‘Roman Inquisition’ (Latin and English), and then wrote:
The untutored mind, whether Roman or not, would at once say that that was a clear settlement of the question. To the question whether the passage can safely be denied to be genuine, or at least be called doubtful, the congregation replied that the question was to be answered in the negative. It is pertinent, of course, to observe that the denial or the doubting referred to is not something that takes place in the open market every day, is not in the least a popular question. The congregation knew perfectly well that the passage was rejected or called doubtful only by textual critics, and the congregation settled that it could not with safety be rejected or called doubtful, and Pope Leo XIII confirmed their decision. I take it for granted, however, that this opinion of the Pope does not come within the series of cases in which he is regarded as infallible. We must pass on; but I cannot omit to call attention to the extraordinary conduct of the Congregation of the Inquisition, which has such learned men at its back, and which nevertheless in the year 1897, only eight years ago, permitted itself to be advised on a textual question by men ignorant of, or incapable of judging of, the text-critical work of the last fifty years. (Bold emphasis mine.) [PDF - link]
Clearly, Gregory is not open to the possibility that the Johannine Comma may be genuine; he adamantly made the decision the Comma is “spurious...beyond doubt.” He is so convinced of this assessment that he labels those who maintain that the Comma is genuine as “ignorant” or “incapable”!
His article goes on to attack the authenticity of the Comma, referencing Catholic and Protestant writers who agree with his view. However, I find is quite interesting that he has completely ignored one Catholic scholar who defends the authenticity of the Comma—Dr. Thomas Joseph Lamy.
Dr. Lamy—who was later appointed by Pius X to the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1903—wrote a detailed article on the decree under the title, "The Decision of the Holy Office on the 'Comma Joanneum'", that was published in November of the same year as the decree (1897). From that article we read:
The modern editions of the New Testament, styled critical editions, notably the octava critica major of C. Tischendorf, omit verse 7 and retain only the second part of the text. According to German and English critics, the Greek manuscripts and the ancient versions have not verse 7, and critical science demands that it be expunged from the editions of the Vulgate, as an interpolation the retention of which in the text cannot be justified .
Accordingly, verse 7 has been omitted from the new English version, called Revised, which a select body of English and American exegetes prepared some years ago. Since the verse in question clearly teaches the distinction of Three Persons together with the unity of Their nature in the Godhead,we can realize its importance from a theological point of view. However, the passage is not essential to a demonstration of the dogma of the Trinity; the Gospels contain sufficient texts and testimonies for that purpose. On the other hand it would be folly to reject so explicit a testimony in behalf of a Catholic doctrine, unless we have very grave reasons for doing so. This has caused Catholics to have recourse to the authority of the Apostolic See, and to submit to the Congregation of the Holy Office the question, whether we can with safe conscience reject verse 7, or call it into doubt. The Congregation has answered: No; and the Sovereign Pontiff has approved and confirmed the answer. (PDF - link)
The rest of the article goes on to provide a robust defense of the authenticity of the Johannine Comma; a defense that demonstrates—to an objective reader—that Gregory’s one-sided assessment is not as unassailable as he portrays.
Before ending this post, I would like to reference a post-1897 Catholic scholar who believes the Johannine Comma is authentic—Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P:
The second text of St. John referring to the three persons together is the famous Johannine comma: "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one" (I John 5:7). A great controversy has arisen about the genuineness of this text. Those who attack the text argue from the fact that it is not found in any Greek codex of any authority, nor in many Latin codices and versions. From this they conclude that this "comma" was originally a marginal note which in the course of time was incorporated into the text. Consequently the text would enjoy only the force of tradition. The defenders of the text say that it was always in the Latin version, which is more ancient than the Greek codices, for it is found in many Latin codices and is cited by many of the Fathers, by Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine. The omission of this verse in the Greek codices is explained by the fact that the seventh and eighth verses begin and end in the same way and thus the scribes could easily have omitted the seventh verse. In the Latin version the seventh verse is: "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one." The eighth verse is: "And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one." (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Trinity and God the Creator, trans. Rev. Frederick C. Eckhoff, 1952, pp. 31-32; PDF - link)
Grace and peace,
David