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eftJrfiltJ 4 he Evari 0 jlistir * - See Suidas , ixtideBthe ^ rorH AnoS ^ c . ThisJs aremarkable fact * as it implies'the existence jmd notoriety of the verse in the fourth century .
Cyril , towards the beginning of the fifth century , in his Thesaurus , attempts to prove that the Holy Spirit is God . With this view he extracts the 6 th and 8 th verses , but omits the 7 th ; yet he inserts an argument which demonstrates that this very verse lay before him , though he was afraid to use it . His words are to this
effect : " For having said , that it is the Spirit of God that witnesses , a little forward , John adds , The witness of God is greater . How then is he a creature , who is connumerated ivith the universal Father , and completes the number of the Holy Triad ?» The words in italics constitute the seventh
verse , which Cyril wished to quote , as being direct to his purpose , yet through fear he declined to produce It in express terms . This was in the fifth century . Time , however , removed the grounds of his apprehension ; and , in the course of seven
centuries after , Euthymiu 3 Zigabenus published a work called The Panoply of Faith , in which he quotes the words of Cyril , premising the disputed verse as it now stands in the copies of the Greek Testament .
-Gregory Nazianzen , in the year 381 , "Quotes' the substance of the verse , and piits upon the last clause the orthodox interpretation . Ili < r ^ v < ifjL € v to / abv ivecnq , —rot 8 e Tpja tai $
viro—acrsa-i—We believe them one in essence , but three in persons ;—* one in essence , in opposition to the Arians , who maintained them to be iv crvfjup&vip , one in consent . This writer felt the force of
the Anan interpretation ; and in order to silence the adversary , he adopts both : Tlis-EvofAEV ei <; ira-repcc , kcli viqv , koli 'KVEVfj . a . to dyiov , 6 fM& ( ria , koli o / xoSofa—JVe believe in the Father , and the Son and the Holy Spirit , one in substance and one in consent .
Augustine quotes the verse . " This man , " says the Quarterly Reviewer , No . LXV . p . 84 , " taught the African Church , with an authority only
inferior to that of the Apostles , that the Hoiuousian doctrine of the Trinity was contained in the words of St . 'Johil . Tr ^ s sunt qui f testimonium dant , spiritus , et aqua , et aanguia ; et
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hi tFes . umttn simt , " TJie terjja , ^^ < ru > v was first coined in t&e Nicejwa Council , and , as I have shewn , founded on the text of the three Heavenly Witnesses , for the purpose of assert * ing that they were one in essence in
opposition to the Arians , who taught that the Apostle meant unity of con . seat . If , then , Augustine taught the Homoiisian doctrine of the Trinity , he at once held forth his knowled ge of the verse , and concurred in the orthodox construction of it . It is in
vain to say that he extracted this doctrine by a mystical interpretation of the eighth ; because I have already shewn , that the allegory of the eighth was an artifice to cover the true meaning of the seventh , and that such an
allegory was too far-fetched , too foreign to , the context , and too absurd , and even impious , to have been thought of , had it not been suggested by the real presence of the seventh
verse . From the Works of Augustine , VIII . p . 514 , ed . Bened ., the Reviewer , p . 83 , quotes the following passage : Testes vero esse Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum quis Evangelio credit et dubitat , Dicente Filio , Ego sum qui testimonium perhibeo de me ,
et testimonium perhibet de me , qui inisit me Pater . Ubi etsi non est commemoratus Spiritus Sanctus , non tamen inteliigitur separatus . Sed nee de ipso alibi tacuit , eumque testem satis aperteque monstravit . Nam cum ilium promitteret , ait : Ipse testimonium perhibebit de me . Hi sunt
tres testjes ; et tres iinum sunt , qui unius substantiae sunt . If the reader will throw his eye on the words in italics , he will instantly perceive the text of the three Heavenly Witnesses
complete : for the Father , the Son and the Holy Spirit are connumerated—they are three witnesses—these vvitneases are one : and this is neither
more nor less than the verse of the Apostle John . Having thus in substance cited the text , Augustine goes to the Gospel of John to prove the truth of its parts taken separately : This is the very thing- that I have
done in my first letter on the subject ' , when I proved that the three [ fitnesses mentioned in the J&pistle of John are found also in his Gospel , and are found , too , the vert / pillars of the Gospel . It is observable further ,
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3 tjrg &en + Dav \ 4 on I Johi& v * $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1826, page 278, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2548/page/26/
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