Saturday, October 17, 2020

H.A.G. Houghton on the text of John 17:3 in Augustine's Writings

In tractate CV of his Tractates on the Gospel of St. John, Augustine changed the text of John 17:3 to include the person of Jesus as being included in "the only true God":

 

"And this," He adds, "is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The proper order of the words is, "That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent, as the only true God."

 

The following comes from H.A.G. Houghton in his book-length study of the text of John in Augustine’s writings:

 

 

Most remarkable is the treatment of John 17:3. Throughout the first half of Book I and all of Book II, every reminiscence of this verse includes the word solus, either as unus et solus deus (De trinitate 1.6.9, 1.6.10) or unus et solus et uerus deus (De trinitate 1.2.4, 1.6.19, cf. 1.6.11). This does not appear in any of the verbatim citations in the second half of Book I (De trinitate 1.8.17, 1.13.30, 1.13.31). As Augustine seems to have known two forms of this verse this (see p. 333) this detail seems to reveal the different stages of composition. (H.A.G. Houghton, Augustine's Text of John: Patristic Citations and Latin Gospel Manuscripts [Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 154)

 

John 17:3

 

Augustine's shorter references to this verse are of limited textual value and may have been influenced by credal statements. Nonetheless, it is clear that he knew it in at least two forms: unum uerum deum, preserved only in Codex Vercellensis, is found in longer citations and in at least eleven works, including De trinitate 1, De consenu 3.25.86, and Tractatus 3, 19, 21, and 101. A similar number of writings have the reading of most other gospel manuscripts, solum uerum deum, including not only the commentaries at Tractatus 105 and 106, but also De diuersis quaestionibus 35.2. Another early work, De duabus animabus 10, has the form solum et uerum deum, matching Codices Veronensis, Palatinus, and Monacensis, while Augustine's first two citations omit the first word completely. The unusual doublet form unus et solus (et uerus) deus in allusions in later parts of De trinitate 1 and 2 has also been considered above (p. 154). A few citations omit autem (e.g., De moribus 1.25.47, Sermones 217.1, 362.29.30); although this is likely to be flattening, it does correspond to a Greek variant. Enim in Enarratio 86.21 is unique. In his exegesis, Augustine is more concerned with punctuating or re-ordering the verse to establish the divinity of Christ than the rendering of μονον (cf. Contra Maximinum 2.15.4 responding to Maximinus at Collatio cum Maximino 15, Epistula 238.4.22, Sermo 217.1, Tractatus 105.3, De spiritu et littera 22.37). (Ibid., 332-33)