The most significant fact regarding these MSS is that in both Vaticanus B and Sinaiticus Aleph, John 1:18 reads that Jesus was the only begotten "God" instead of the only begotten "Son". Now, that is the original Arian heresy! The most widely used Greek text in Bible colleges and seminaries today is Eberhard Nestle's Greek text. Nestle likewise reads ... only begotten "God", which means that God had a little God named Jesus who is thus a lesser God than the Father. This means that at first there was big God and He created a little "god".

Thus, Jesus comes out to be a created being, a God with a little "g", but at the incarnation a god was not begotten. God begat a son who, insofar as His deity is concerned, is eternal (Micah 5:2). This reading renders these MSS as UNTRUSTWORTHY and DEPRAVED! The Arian heresy resulted from Origen's editing the Greek manuscripts encountered in his travels and appears in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus Aleph which were derived from copying his work.

Modern scholarship purports that these two codices were copied around 350-380 A.D. The reader can see how well that fits in with the fact that Constantine told Eusebius to prepare the copies for him in 331. The material that Jerome used (Origen's Hexapla and, in places, his edited New Testament) was almost word for word like Sinaiticus Aleph and Vaticanus B, especially the former.

Helvidius,1 a great orthodox scholar of the fourth century and a contemporary of Jerome's, accused Jerome of using corrupted Greek manuscripts. Remember, Jerome was using Origen's work and from that he produced the Latin Vulgate. Likewise, Aleph and "B" have their roots in Origen. Thus Helvidius condemns them all, for even in his day that "fountain" was known to be corrupt.

Moreover, whoever copied out Vaticanus obviously did not believe he had the Word of God in his hands for there are misspellings, faulty grammar, numerous omissions, whole lines recopied, and lines and clauses omitted. According to nearly all scholars, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are "close brothers". They differ many times but they are of the same "textual type", using as they did Origen's fifth column and his New Testament.

ALEXANDRINUS "A"

A third manuscript often referred to in textual criticism literature is "Alexandrinus A". Dated as a 5th century witness, though it may be still earlier, "A" often follows the Traditional Text in the gospels. It reads like "B" and Aleph in Acts and the epistles. This MSS also contains the two "Epistles of Clement" in which Clement of Alexandria teaches that:

1. Men are saved by works (II Clem.2:12, 15);

2. Christians are in danger of going to hell (II Clem.3:8);

3. Christians don't get new bodies at the resurrection (IV Clem.4:2);

4. He was a prophet who wrote Scripture (II Clem.4:11); and

5. The male and female in I Corinthians 11:9 (speaking of Christ's being the head, then the husband, followed by the wife in the order or chain of authority) were anger and concupiscence (II Clem.5:4). Not believing the Bible literally, Clement both fantasized and spiritualized the Scriptures.

1 Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI, Philip Schaff and Henry Wace eds., (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1892; rep. 1983), p. 338.

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