The original Douay Rheims translation of the Vulgate into English was done in the late 1500’s (NT) and early 1600’s (OT). I do not know if that translation included the verses in question. Perhaps someone else knows.
Yes it does (spelling as in the original):
AFTER these things there vvas a festual day of the Ievves, and IESVS vvent up to Hierusalem. + And there is at Hierusalem vpon Probatica a pond vvhich in hebrevv is surnamed ‘Bethsaida’, hauing fiue porches.
In there lay a great multitude of sicke persons, of blinde, lame, vvithered, expecting the stirring of the water. + And an Angel of our Lord descended at a certaine time into the pond: and the vvater vvas stirred. And he that had gone dovvne first into the pond after the stirring of the vvater, vvas made vvhole of vvhatsoeuer infirmitie he vvas holden.
This is how the Clementine Vulgate shows the passage:
1: Post hæc erat dies festus Judæorum, et ascendit Jesus Jerosolymam.
2: Est autem Jerosolymis probatica piscina, quæ cognominatur hebraice Bethsaida, quinque porticus habens.
3: In his jacebat multitudo magna languentium, cæcorum, claudorum, aridorum, exspectantium aquæ motum. 4: Angelus autem Domini descendebat secundum tempus in piscinam, et movebatur aqua. Et qui prior descendisset in piscinam post motionem aquæ, sanus fiebat a quacumque detinebatur infirmitate.
This reading could not be too late, since Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 220 AD) was already familiar with this reading and
refers to this (
On Baptism):
If it seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example of what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention, was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida. They who were complaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for whoever had been the first to descend into them, after his washing, ceased to complain. This figure of corporeal healing sang of a spiritual healing, according to the rule by which things carnal are always antecedent as figurative of things spiritual. And thus, when the grace of God advanced to higher degrees among men, an accession of
efficacy was granted to the waters and to the angel. They who were wont to remedy bodily defects, now heal the spirit; they who used to work temporal salvation now renew eternal; they who did set free but once in the year, now save peoples in a body daily, death being done away through ablution of sins. The guilt being removed, of course the penalty is removed too. Thus man will be restored for God to His “likeness,” who in days bygone had been
conformed to “the image” of God; (the “image” is counted (to be) in his
form: the “likeness” in his
eternity: ) for he receives again that Spirit of God which he had then first received from His
afflatus, but had afterward lost through sin.
A
book written in 1848 also addresses this:
The whole of the doubtful passage is omitted in the
Vatican manuscript, in the
Ephrem, as first written, in two others of less note, in manuscripts of the Coptic version, and in some one or more of the Sahidic; and Nonnus, who, about the beginning of the fifth century, wrote a metrical paraphrase of the Gospel of John, says nothing of the descent of an angel, but speaks of the water as
rushing forth in spontaneous jets.
The fourth verse, beginning
For an angel, &c., is omitted in the Cambridge manuscript and one other; and is marked as doubtful in more than fifteen others. It is wanting in the manuscripts of the Armenian version generally, and in several of the old Latin versions. On the other hand, this verse being retained, the last clause of the third, waiting for the moving of the waters, is wanting in the
Alexandrine manuscript, as first written, the Codex Stephani η, and one other.
I find no historical remarks respecting the omission or insertion of the story of the descent of an angel. It is referred to by Tertullian, but it is not noticed in the extant works of any other Christian writer before Ambrose and Chrysostom in the fourth century…
I’m confused. This is very interesting.