How can one avoid drawing from this designation the conclusion that [Jesus] is the one and only “God”? Several scribes of the early church adroitly handled the matter in what can be construed as an anti-Patripassianist corruption: the predecessor of codex Bezae and other Gospel manuscripts simply omitted the article. Jesus is divine, but he is not the one “God” himself. (p 266)

The 1^st letter of John’s “emphasis on the idea that Jesus had real flesh and shed real blood is occasionally heightened by orthodox scribes who found this view amenable to their own theology and sought to bring it yet more clearly to the fore. A striking example occurs in the Latin tradition of 1 John 5:20. When the author says that “We know that the Son of God has come,” several manuscripts of the Vulgate add “and [that he] was clothed with flesh for our sake, and suffered, and arose from the dead. And he took us to himself.” [et carnem induit nostri causa et passus est et resurrexit a mortuis adsumpsit nos.] p 235