For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
Three. Two or three witnesses were required by law to constitute adequate testimony. The only Greek manuscripts, in any form, which support the words, "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one: and there are three that bear witness in earth," are the Montfortianus of Dublin, copied from the modern Latin Vulgate; the Revianus, copied from the Complutensian Polyglot; a manuscript at Naples, with the words added in the margin by a recent hand; Ottobonianus, 298, of the fifteenth century, the Greek of which is a translation of the accompanying Latin. All the old versions omit the words. The oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate omit them, the earliest Vulgate manuscript which has them being Wizanburgensis, 99. of the eighth century. A Scholium quoted in Matthaei shows that the words did not arise from fraud; for all Greek manuscripts ("there are three that bear record"), the Scholiast notices, have "three," masculine, because the three things (the Spirit, the water, and the blood) are SYMBOLS OF THE TRINITY. To this Cyprian, 196, refers: 'Of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is written, "And these three are one" ' (a unity).
There must be some mystical truth implied in "three" х hoi (G3588) treis (G5140)] twice in the masculine, though the antecedents, 'Spirit, water, and blood,' are neuter. That THE TRINITY was meant is a natural inference: the triad specified pointing to a still higher Trinity; as is plain also from 1 John 5:9, "the witness of God," referring to the Trinity, alluded to in 'the Spirit, water, and blood.' It was therefore first written as a marginal comment to complete the sense; then, as early, at least, as the eighth century, was introduced into the text of the Latin Vulgate. The testimony, however, could only be borne on earth to men, not in heaven. The marginal comment that inserted "in heaven" was inappropriate. It is on earth that the context requires the witness of the three-the Spirit, the water, and the blood-to be borne: mystically setting forth the divine triune witnesses-the Father, the Spirit, and the Son. Luecke notices as internal evidence against the words, John never uses "the Father" and "the Word" as correlates, but, like other New Testament writers, associated 'the Son' with "the Father," and always refers "the Word" to 'God' as its correlate, not "the Father." Vigilius, at the end of the fifth century, first quotes the disputed words as in the text. The term 'Trinity' occurs first in the third century in Tertullian, 'adversus Praxean,' 3.