After the text about the three Heavenly Witnesses in the First Epistle of St. John, no disputed reading in the New Testament has given rise to more controversy than the passage before us. Let us hope that the day is not far distant when there will be no more disputing about either text. The truth, though still doubted, especially in reference to the passage before us, is not really doubtful. In both cases the reading of the A.V. is indefensible. It is certain that St. John never wrote the words about the "three that bear witness in heaven": and it is certain that St. Paul did not write, "_God_ was manifest in the flesh," but "_Who_ was manifested in the flesh." The reading "_God_ was manifested in the flesh" appears in no Christian writer until late in the fourth century, and in no translation of the Scriptures, earlier than the seventh or eighth century. And it is not found in any of the five great primary MSS., except as a correction made by a later scribe, who knew of the reading "God was manifested," and either preferred it to the other, or at least wished to preserve it as an alternative reading, or as an interpretation. Even so cautious and conservative a commentator as the late Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln declares that "the preponderance of testimony is overwhelming" against the reading "_God_ was manifested in the flesh." In an old Greek MS., it would require only two small strokes to turn "Who" into "God"; and this alteration would be a tempting one, seeing that the masculine "Who" after the neuter "mystery," looks harsh and unnatural.[54] But here we come upon a highly interesting consideration. The words that follow look like a quotation from some primitive Christian hymn or confession. The rhythmical movement and the parallelism of the six balanced clauses, of which each triplet forms a climax, points to some such fact as this. It is possible that we have here a fragment of one of the very hymns which, as Pliny the Younger tells the Emperor Trajan, the Christians were accustomed to sing antiphonally at daybreak to Christ as a God.[55] Such a passage as this might well be sung from side to side, line by line or triplet by triplet, as choirs still chant the Psalms in our churches. "Who was manifested in the flesh, "Justified in the spirit, "Seen of angels, "Preached among the nations, "Believed on in the world, "Received up in glory."