Four Hundred Bishops

in 5th Century Carthage

Affirm the Comma

By Christian McShaffrey

In AD 484, the Vandal King Huneric called for a church council, hoping to convert the bishops of Carthage to Arianism.

The bishops rejected his heresy and appointed a man named Eugenius to defend classic trinitarian doctrine. During his speech, he said:

Moreover, that we may teach even more clearly than the light that the Holy Ghost is of one divinity with Father and the Son, it is proved by the testimony of John the Evangelist, for he says, “there are three which bear testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” [1]

This is a direct quote of 1 John 5:7 which the orthodox bishops obviously regarded as apostolic in origin.

Being from Carthage, Eugenius most likely had access to the writings of an earlier bishop from the same city, Cyprian (ca. 210-258) who wrote:

He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;” and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one. [2]

Is the comma authentic? Scripture only requires two or three witnesses to establish a matter. The church in Carthage has provided over four hundred.

1. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Cyprian. The Treatises of Cyprian, Treatise I “On the Unity of the Church”, section 6. [read online]

2. Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima, ed. Giovan Domenico Mansi, Vol. 7, columns 1141-1164 [read online]