▼ Several mss (Ƥ⁴⁶ D² Ψ Maj.) have πνεύματος (pneumatos, “Spirit”) instead of φωτός (fōtos, “light”). Although most today regard φωτός as obviously original (UBS⁴ gives it an “A” rating), a case could be made that πνεύματος is what the author wrote. First, although this is largely a Byzantine reading (D² often, if not normally, assimilates to the Byzantine text), Ƥ⁴⁶ gives the reading much greater credibility. Internally, the φωτός at the end of v. 8 could have lined up above the πνεύματος in v. 9 in a scribe’s exemplar, thus occasioning dittography. (It is interesting to note that in both Ƥ⁴⁹ and א the two instances of φωτός line up.) However, written in a contracted form, as a nomen sacrum (ΠMΝMΣ) - a practice found even in the earliest mss - πνεύματος would not have been easily confused with ΦΩΤΟΣ (there being only the last letter to occasion homoioteleuton rather than the last three). Further, the external evidence for φωτός is quite compelling (Ƥ⁴⁹ א A B D* F G P 33 81 1739 1881 2464 pc latt co); it is rather doubtful that the early and widespread witnesses all mistook πνεύματος for φωτός. In addition, πνεύματος can be readily explained as harking back to Gal 5:22 (“the fruit of the Spirit”). Thus, on balance, φωτός appears to be original, giving rise to the reading πνεύματος.

▼ Grk “in.” The idea is that the fruit of the light is “expressed in” or “consists of.”