Note 137:3 — Chapter XII

"This strong expression might be justified by the language of St. Paul (God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, &c. I. Timothy, iii. 16), but we are deceived by our modern Bibles. The word which was altered to God at Constantinople in the beginning of the sixth century: the true meaning, which is visible in the Latin and Syriac versions, still exists in the reasoning of the Greek, as well as of the Latin fathers; and this fraud, with that of the three witnesses of St. John (I. John, v. 7), is admirably detected by Sir Isaac Newton." (Gibbon's Rome, iv. 496, note.) Dean Milman says: "The weight of authority is so much against the common reading of both these points (i. e., I. Tim. iii. 16, and I. John, v. 7), that they are no longer urged by prudent controversialists." (Note in Ibid.)