Sir,
Since the discourses of some late writers have raised in you a curiosity of knowing the truth of that text of Scripture concerning the testimony of the Three in Heaven, 1 John v. 7, I have here sent you an account of what the reading has been in all ages, and by what steps it has been changed, so far as I can hitherto determine by records. And I have done it the more freely, because to you, who understand the many abuses which they of the Roman church have put upon the world, it will scarce be ungrateful to be convinced of one more than is commonly believed. For although the more learned and quick-sighted men, as Luther, Erasmus, Bullinger, Grotius, and some others, would not dissemble their knowledge, yet the generality are fond of the place for its making against heresy. But whilst we exclaim against the pious frauds of the Roman church, and make it a part of our religion to detect and renounce all things of that kind, we must acknowledge it a greater crime in us to favour such practices, than in the Papists we so much blame on that account: for they act according to their religion, but we contrary to ours. In the Eastern nations, and for a long time in the Western, the faith subsisted without this text; and it is rather a danger to religion, than an advantage, to make it now lean upon a bruised reed. There cannot be better service done to the truth, than to purge it of things spurious: and therefore knowing your prudence, and calmness of temper, I am confident I shall not offend you by telling you my mind plainly; especially since it is no article of faith, no point of discipline, nothing but a criticism concerning a text of Scripture which I am going to write about.
II. The history of the corruption, in short, is this. First, some of the Latines interpreted the Spirit, Water, and Blood, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to prove them one. Then Jerome, for the same end, inserted the Trinity in express words into his version. Out of him the Africans began to allege it against the Vandals, about sixty-four years after his death. Afterwards the Latines noted his variations in the margins of their books; and thence it began at length to creep into the text in transcribing, and that chiefly in the twelfth and following centuries, when disputing was revived by the schoolmen. And when printing came up, it crept out of the Latine into the printed Greek, against the authority of all the Greek manuscripts and ancient versions; and from the Venetian presses it went soon after into Greece. Now the truth of this history will appear by considering the arguments on both sides.
III. The arguments alleged for the testimony of the Three in Heaven, are the authorities of Cyprian, Athanasius, and Jerome, and of many Greek manuscripts, and almost all the Latine ones.
IV. Cyprian’s words1 run thus—“the Lord saith, ‘I and the Father am one.’ And again of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost it is written, ‘And these Three are One.’” The Socinians here deal too injuriously with Cyprian, while they would have this place corrupted: for Cyprian in another place repeats almost the same thing2. “If,” saith he, [“one baptized among heretics] be made the temple of God, tell me, I pray, of what God? If of the Holy Ghost, since these Three are One, how can the Holy Ghost be reconciled to him who is the enemy of either the Father or the Son?” These places of Cyprian being, in my opinion, genuine, seem so apposite to prove the testimony of the Three in Heaven, that I should never have suspected a mistake in it, could I but have reconciled it with the ignorance I meet with of this reading in the next age, amongst the Latines of both Africa and Europe, as well as among the Greeks. For had it been in Cyprian’s Bible, the Latines of the next age, when all the world was engaged in disputing about the Trinity, and all arguments that could be thought of were diligently sought out, and daily brought upon the stage, could never have been ignorant of a text, which in our age, now the dispute is over, is chiefly insisted upon. In reconciling this difficulty, I consider, therefore, that the only words of the text quoted by Cyprian in both places are, “And these Three are One:” which words may belong to the eighth verse as well as to the seventh. For Eucherius3 bishop of Lion in France, and contemporary to St. Austin, reading the text without the seventh verse, tells us, that many then understood the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, to signify the Trinity. And St. Austin4 is one of those many; as you may see in his third book against Maximus, where he tells us, that “the Spirit is the Father, for God is a Spirit: the Water the Holy Ghost, for he is the Water which Christ gives to them that thirst: and the Blood the Son, for the Word was made flesh.” Now if it was the opinion of many in the Western churches of those times, that the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, signified the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; it is plain that the testimony of Three in Heaven, in express words, was not yet crept into their books: and even without this testimony, it was obvious for Cyprian, or any man else of that opinion, to say of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, “it is written, ‘And these Three are One.’” And that this was Cyprian’s meaning, Facundus5, an African bishop in the sixth century, is my author; for he tells us expressly that Cyprian, in the above-mentioned place, understood it so, interpreting the Water, Spirit, and Blood, to be the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and thence affirming that John said of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, “these Three are One.” This at least may be gathered from this passage of Facundus, that some in those early ages interpreted Cyprian after this manner. Nor do I understand how any of those many who took the Spirit, Water, and Blood, for a type of the Trinity; or any man else, who was ignorant of the testimony of the Three in Heaven, as the churches in the times of the Arian controversy generally were, could understand him otherwise. And even Cyprian’s own words do plainly make for the interpretation. For he does not say, “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,” as it is now in the seventh verse; but “the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost,” as it is in baptism; the place from which they tried6 at first to derive the Trinity. If it be pretended, that the words cited by Cyprian are taken out of the seventh verse, rather than out of the eighth, because he reads not, “Hi Tres in Unum sunt,” but “Hi Tres Unum sunt;” I answer, that the Latines generally read, “Hi Tres Unum sunt,” as well in the eighth verse, as in the seventh; as you may see in the newly cited places of St. Austin and Facundus, and those of Ambrose, Pope Leo, Beda, and Cassiodorus, which follow, and in the present vulgar Latine. So then the testimony of Cyprian respects the eighth, or at least is as applicable to that verse as to the seventh, and therefore is of no force for proving the truth of the seventh: but on the contrary, for disproving it we have here the testimony of Facundus, St. Austin, Eucherius, and those many others whom Eucherius mentions. For if those of that age had met with it in their books, they would never have understood the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, to be the Three Persons of the Trinity, in order to prove them One God.