84 Dan Batovici On this occasion, Eriugena seems to simply point to a plus of clarity in the Greek text. In the case of Jn 3:3 above, he shows that the Greek text has ἄνωθεν where the Latin has denuo (natvs fverit denvo) and suggests that desursum is a more accurate translation. Here, with regard to et nemo ascendit in caelvm of Jn 3:13, Eriugena points out that in Greek there is no ambiguity as to what tense ascendit is: in graeco praeteriti temporis est. Jeauneau considers this to point to ἀναβέβηκεν.39 This is altogether possible, and would be a reading with wide support elsewhere; it is also the text of NA28. Jn 3:33 ὅτι ὁ θεὸς] ἀληθής [ἐστιν Comm. III. xi. [...] qvia devs verax est. Quod facilius intelligitur, si graecus sermo legatur: Quia deus verus est, ut sit sensus: Qui accipit testimonium filii dei de seipso, quod filius dei sit et quod pro salute mundi pater suus eum misserit, ille firmiter credit quia deus uerus est, qui de seipso quod uerus deus sit, ueri dei filius, testimonium perhibuit. ‘[...] For God is truthful.‘ This is easier to grasp if one reads the Greek text: ‘For God is true,’ with the following meaning: he who receives the testimony of the Son of God about himself – namely that He is the Son of God and that his Father has sent him for the sake of the world – he believes more firmly that God is true, who bears testimony about himself – namely that He is true God, Son of the true God. In all probability, Eriugena is pointing here to ἀληθής, and this reading too has wide support elsewhere; it is the text of NA28. Conclusion Eriugena is clearly an author aware of and sensible to Greek variants of the text of John. Even when he can be shown to be idiosyncratic in his translation of the Greek text, there is nonetheless a witness to the variant we can reconstruct from his idiosyncrasy. In the two exegetical works dedicated to John, the Homily on the Prologue and the Commentary on the Fourth Gospel, Eriugena offers sixteen Greek variant readings of the Vulgate text of John, all presented explicitly. Most of them confirm our modern editions’ reconstructed text; four, however, are variant readings of the Greek text of John. 39 Jeauneau, SC 180, 222.