Part I: Canonical Authority
Editorial headnote: This is the first portion of Disputatio textualis de tribus testibus coelestibus ex 1 Jo. V. v. 7 (Geneva, 1674), a disputation held under Francis Turretin's presidency and defended by Benedict Pictet. It is a separate work, not a chapter of the Institutio theologiae elencticae. The numbered theses and argument have been preserved. The English keeps a measured seventeenth-century Reformed cadence while modernizing spelling and punctuation.
The claims concerning manuscripts, versions, Fathers, and alleged causes of textual omission are Turretin and Pictet's own historical judgments. They are translated as such; no later theory is silently made to speak in their place.
Thesis I
Since this is the Catholic faith, as Athanasius witnesseth—namely, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity—and since this august mystery, inaccessible to reason and assailed by the blasphemies of many ancient and latter heretics, is a chief foundation of the Christian religion; the godly mind ought chiefly to give itself to a fuller persuasion of its truth, as it is set forth in the Word. And if it cannot comprehend that which is denied unto creatures, yet let it hold it fast, firmly and without wavering.
Thesis II
Now, of all the oracles of Scripture which teach this mystery, none is more clear and illustrious than the famous passage of John, wherein three heavenly witnesses are brought in as bearing witness. For this cause the orthodox have ever opposed it unto heretics as a principal testimony; and the adversaries also have spent all their industry and sharpness of wit in wresting it, that by some device or other they might evade its force.
We have therefore judged that we should do neither an ungrateful nor an unprofitable service unto lovers of the truth, if in this academic exercise we more narrowly inquire into its sense, and vindicate the certainty of this most holy mystery against the impious artifices of ungodly heretics.
Thesis III
The words of John are these, 1 John v. 7:
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
The Apostle's scope is to confirm the faith of the Gospel concerning the Deity of Christ and his mediatorial office. At the beginning of the chapter he had set down its saving fruits and effects: spiritual regeneration; love of God and of the brethren; the keeping of the divine commandments; and victory over the world.
“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”; “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”; and, “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”
Because it greatly concerned us that the certainty of this faith should be settled in our minds, John showeth that it hath an immovable stay in that manifold testimony which God would have borne unto it, both in heaven and upon earth. By this testimony we are invincibly persuaded that Christ the Lord is the true and eternal Son of God, begotten of the Father, and our Redeemer.
He handleth this testimony, first in general, at verse 6, when he saith that the Spirit beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth; that is, the Spirit sealeth in our hearts that the doctrine of the Gospel touching Christ and his benefits—the doctrine which is called “Spirit” in 2 Corinthians iii. 6—is most true. Thereafter he speaketh particularly and distinctly of both companies of witnesses: first of the heavenly, at verse 7; afterwards of the earthly, at verse 8. Thus he teacheth our faith most safely to rest in Christ alone, unto whom not two witnesses only, as the law requireth for the establishing of a matter, but many more, and witnesses above all exception, bear testimony: three in heaven and three upon earth.
Thesis IV
But the adversaries, that they may more easily free themselves from the argument which we hence draw for the proof of the Trinity, are wont to object that the passage is spurious and adulterate; that it was inserted by our side and was not written by John. Thus Socinus, in his commentary on the place, plainly insinuateth that these words are counterfeit, and were inserted by the Hemitritae, who desired by whatsoever means to defend and propagate their doctrine of a triune and one God. Eniedinus, Smalcius, Volkelius, and others sing the same song.
The canonical authority of this oracle must therefore first be established; and so much the more because certain even among the Romanists, as Cajetan, Erasmus, and others, speak of the place as doubtful and suspect. They do so because it is not found in divers Greek copies, is wanting in very many Latin copies, is not contained in the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic texts, and is not remembered by divers Fathers—Augustine, Hilary, Chrysostom, Cyril, and Nazianzen—though, as they say, it might have been of great use unto them against the Arians.
Yet many things establish the genuineness of this passage.
Thesis V
First, the testimony of the most approved and ancient copies plainly maketh for us. Jerome, in his prologue to the Canonical Epistles addressed to Eustochium, reporteth that it stood in Greek copies in his own time. Erasmus confesseth that it was found in a most ancient British codex, which carried such authority with him that, having omitted the verse in his earlier editions, he restored it in his later editions after a most careful review, as he himself writeth.
The most praiseworthy editions—the Complutensian, the Royal Antwerp, that of Arias Montanus, Robert Estienne, Elias Hutter, and Walton—which made use of the most approved and ancient copies, retain it. Whence, if it be wanting in some, this must be ascribed to the fraud and evil design of the Arians, who erased the text because it struck through their heresy to the very point, as Jerome testifieth.
Secondly, the connection of the text itself pleadeth for it. Unless this verse be admitted, the following words, “And there are three that bear witness in earth,” have no sense; for they plainly suppose that three other witnesses, bearing witness in heaven, have gone before. This is confirmed from verse 9, where mention is made of divine and human testimony: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” Doth not this comparison suppose the witness of God as well as the witness of men?
Thirdly, the authority of many of the more ancient Fathers, who retain and cite this verse, pleadeth for it: Cyprian in On the Unity of the Church; Athanasius, the well-known hammer of the Arians, in his disputation against Arius at a private Nicene synod and in his first book to Theophilus; Idacius against Varimadus; Jerome; Augustine in the third book against Maximinus, chapter 22; Fulgentius in his answer to Arian objections; and others.
Fourthly, the analogy of faith and the comparison of parallel places confirm what is here said, both of the testimony and of the unity of these three witnesses.
Thesis VI
Neither ought the variety of copies to be objected here, because far more, and more approved copies, retain the verse than omit it. Neither is the authority of the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions decisive, because versions must not be made equal unto their fountains, and it is sufficiently known that they are later.
Nor doth the silence of the Fathers already named prove the passage to be counterfeit. At most, it may show that it was absent from the Greek and Latin copies which they used; but there is no appearance of truth in the conclusion that it was therefore an interpolation, seeing that it might have been omitted through scribal negligence or erased by Arian malice.
Neither doth the course of the context avail the objection. It did indeed call for a description of the earthly witnesses—water, blood, and Spirit, of whom John had spoken in verse 6—but not for a new description of the heavenly witnesses, which did not belong in that place. The conjunction “and,” added in verse 8, showeth that the earthly witnesses are added unto the heavenly witnesses already named.
And when the matter in hand was the confirmation of the chief foundation of the Christian religion—yea, of the whole Gospel—the highest and most irrefragable testimony, which every person of the Trinity bringeth forth for the support of our faith, neither could nor ought to have been omitted.
Thesis VII
The canonical authority of the passage being established, the sense of its words must now be opened. Three things are to be weighed: the nature, operation, and unity of these witnesses.
Their nature showeth who they are: the Father, namely, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. Their operation declareth what they do: they bear witness in heaven. Their unity showeth their concord, and proveth that they are one.
Now, as in every testimony, regard must be had not only to that which is said, but especially to him who saith it; so John designateth these witnesses by the names of Father, Word, and Holy Spirit. All the orthodox, with one consent, confess that by these are to be understood the three persons of the most holy Trinity—distinct indeed in their manners of subsistence, yet one, in respect of essence, and the one eternal and true God.
The Father, who denoteth the first person, is not here taken merely in relation to creatures, in which respect the name pertaineth unto the whole Trinity and is often used in Scripture when God is called the Father of all creatures, rational and irrational. But he is taken personally and incommunicably for the first person of the Trinity, who from himself, by an ineffable and eternal manner, begat his Son, coeternal and consubstantial with himself.
Because no controversy is moved by the adversaries concerning the Father, we add no more concerning him, but proceed unto the second person, here described as the Word, concerning whom the controversy standeth between us and them.
The translation continues in Part II with the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the threefold testimony they bear.
Source note
Translated from Theses I–VII of Turretin and Pictet, Disputatio textualis de tribus testibus coelestibus ex 1. Jo. V. v. 7 (Geneva, 1674), pp. 1–5. The public-domain witness is held by the Bibliothèque de Genève: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-73333.