HIT:
● [Commentary 1 John 5] "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God, &c." He who believeth Jesus to be God, is born of God the Fathers; he without doubt is faithful, and he who loves the Fathers, loves also the Christ who is born of him. Now we so love him, when we keep his commandments, which to just minds are not heavy : but they rather overcome the world, when they believe in him who created the world. To which thing witness on earth
three mysteries, the water, the blood, and the spirit, which were fulfilled, we read, in the passion of the Lord; but
in heaven the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; and these three is one God.
(Cassiodorus, per Richard Porson, 1790)
(earlier had Commentary on the Epistles. 1 John 5; Translated by Dr. Lake)
○ Latin: Omnis qui credit quia Jesus est Christus, ex Deo natus est, et reliqua. Qui Deum Jesum credit, ex
Deo Patre natus est, iste sine dubitatione fidelis [1373] est; et qui diligit genitorem, amat et eum qui ex eo
natus est Christus. Sic autem diligimus eum, cum mandata ejus facimus, quae justis mentibus gravia non
videntur; sed potius vincunt sæculum, quando in illum credunt qui condidit mundum. Cui rei testificantur
in terra tria mysteria: aqua, sanguis et spiritus, quæ in passione Domini leguntur impleta: in coelo
autem Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus sanctus; et hi tres unus est Deus. (Cassiodorus, Complexiones in
Epistulas. 1 John 5; Migne Latina, PL 70.1373A)
• [Lamy] Tischendorf acknowledges that Cassiodorus, a man deeply versed in Holy Scripture, knew the text of the three
heavenly witnesses. In his [Cassiodorus’] work entitled Complexiones in Epistolis Apostolorum, which Scipio Maffei edited
from an almost contemporaneous manuscript, Cassiodorus thus expresses himself on I. Joan., v. [Latin] Cassiodorus, like
St Eucherius, mystically interprets water, blood and spirit, as three symbols concerning the Passion of Christ. To those
three earthly symbols in terra, he opposes the three heavenly witnesses in coelo, the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one God. Evidently we have here verse 7. Cassiodorus does not cite it textually, but he
gives the sense of it. He puts it in opposition to verse 8, for he contrasts in coelo with in terra. The last words: “And these
three are one” (Latin: Et hi tres unus est Deus) can be referred only to verse 7, since Cassiodorus refers “the three are
one” (Latin: tria unum sunt) of verse 8, to the Passion of Our Saviour. It is also to be remarked that Cassiodorus uses the
pre-hieronymian Vulgate and not the version of St. Jerome. Maffei's conclusion is therefore justified when he says: Verse
7 was read not only in Africa, but in the most ancient and the most accurate Codices of the Roman Church, since
Cassiodorus recommended to the monks to seek, above all else, the correct copies and to compare them with the Greek.
(Lamy, "The Decision of the Holy Office on the Comma Johanneum" in American Ecclesiastical Review 1897, p. 468)
• [Maffei] See this much talked-of place of St. John about the Trinity, about which there is a most vigorous battle at this
day. I even composed a book collecting those things brought forward to this question by most of the learned men. The
heavenly testimony, as they call it, that he approaches here finds of course a very valid defense from this work of
Cassiodorus; as in the end it corresponds to the fact that not only in the African, but also in the most ancient
codices of the Roman Church this verse is provided. About those of Africa, at least, there can be no doubt. (Maffei,
Istoria teologica delle dottrine, 1742, vol 1, p. 145, fn. a; Translated by Jeroen Beekhuizen, correspondence, March 2020)
Same translation as Porson c. 1790
https://books.google.com/books?id=wX0_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA58