Adam Ployd - Tres Unum Sunt: The Johannine Comma in Cyprian of Carthage

This study examines the way in which Cyprian deploys the Johannine comma in his ecclesiological disputes. Avoiding questions of the authenticity or origin of the comma, this study looks at the rhetorical function of the comma as part of a larger effort to shape and enforce the boundaries of communal church identity. Two texts are of particular interest: unit. eccl. 6 and ep. 73. Both of these texts promote the unity of the one true church in the face of laxist and rigorist opposition, respectively. Both texts also deploy the Johannine comma within the context of anti-heretical polemics that rhetorically align the opposing parties with the most “other” groups of Gnostics, Marcionites, et alia. Thus, I argue, the Johannine comma functions to link doctrinal orthodoxy with disciplinary adherence, demonstrating that any notion of a distinction between the realms of proper belief and proper practice are alien from the thought of Cyprian. Moreover, the way in which Cyprian incorporates the comma into his struggle for community cohesion suggests that, in the mid-third century, the church had so defined itself over and against “heresies” of one kind or another, that such doctrinal language represented the most obvious and natural mode for defending the boundaries of church unity and identity, even in more internecine conflict. Thus, Cyprian appeals to the comma not so much as a reflection on the Trinitarian nature of the church but simply as a rhetorical strategy to define those who would break the unity of the church as necessarily heretical and aligned not with the true faith of the church but with the church’s predefined doctrinal enemies.