Did Tertullian Quote the Comma Johanneum?

Did Tertullian Quote the Comma Johanneum? In his work Adversus Praxean, Tertullian states: “So the close series of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Paraclete makes three who cohere, the one attached to the other: And these three are one substance, not one person, in the sense in which it was said, ‘I and the Father are one’ in respect of unity of substance, not of singularity of number.” Tertullian, Adversus Praxean 25:1 Ita connexus Patris in Filio et Filii in Paracleto tres efficit cohaerentes, alterum ex altero. Qui tres unum sunt, non unus, quomodo dictum est: Ego et Pater unum sumus, ad substantiae unitatem, non ad numeri singularitatem. A number of pro-Comma works reference this quotation by Tertullian. Cf. Thomas Burgess, Tracts on the Divinity of Christ, (London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1820), 333-34; C. L. Pappas, In Defense of the Authenticity of 1 John 5:7 (Bloomington, IN: Cross, 2011), 122-23. Other claimants that Tertullian is citing the Comma include Timothy Dunkin (http://www.studytoanswer.net/bibleversions/1john5n7.html#patristics, Accessed 2 April 2016); Jeffrey Khoo (http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/resource/johanninecommakhoo.htm, Accessed 2 April 2016). The advocates of this position generally hold to some notion of KJV superiority, although neither Hills nor Holland mention Tertullian quoting the Comma. Because Charles Forster presents a detailed examination of the early witnesses, his argument here is cited as typical of those who claim that this is an allusion to the Comma: I proceed to show that the charge of the disputed text having been forged from the corresponding Patristic phrase ἡ Τριὰς, stands equally disproved by the same sure test, the earliness of its occurrence. For we find it in Theophilus of Antioch, A. D. 158-59, in Clemens Alexandrinus, A. D. 190-200, and in Tertullian, A. D. 180-220, prior to the host of Fathers who use it in the third and fourth centuries. Charles Forster, A New Plea for the Authenticity of the Text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses (Cambridge: Deighton Bell, 1867), 38. Forster references Tertullian’s quotation eighteen times in this work. Forster buttresses this argument by insisting upon a particular assumption about the early church fathers: Upon the subject of Scripture quotation, Tertullian and St. Athanasius may fairly be taken as representing the mind and ideas of the Fathers generally; for all alike act on the principle of sparing formal quotations. Now what is their common rule as regards Scripture quotations? Upon the very subject in question, the doctrine of the Trinity, both tell their readers that they do not task them with the Scripture proofs, leaving the Scriptures to speak for themselves: that they use the utmost brevity, noticing only one or two sufficing texts. Forster, A New Plea, xxv. This assumption is critical because it allows Forster to allege references to the Comma while ignoring the fact that such quotations are not distinct and therefore do not constitute evidence for the Comma. Forster also assumes that the church fathers only used Scripture to determine their verbiage. Referencing St. Basil, whose alleged citation of the Comma is not invoked today even by TR advocates, Forster states: That St. Matthew is here quoted, who will venture to question? but as certainly as the second Triad is taken from St. Matthew xxviii. 19, the first Triad of St. Basil is taken from 1 John v. 7. His substitution in the first clause of θεὸς for πατὴρ (probably to avoid the repetition) only strengthens the proof of reference to St. John's Epistle, because St. John himself makes this very change in a following verse, v. 9, where he twice speaks of the witness of the Father (ὁ πατὴρ) as the witness of God (ἡ ματρυρία τοῦ θεοῦ). I maintain, therefore, that this double enumeration of the Persons is a double quotation of 1 John v. 7, and St. Matthew xxviii. 19...To assume that, in a formal Confession of Faith, he could be guilty of changing our Lord’s word Υἱὸς into Λόγος without the authority of another Scripture, would be- to charge him with falsifying the Divine Formula of Baptism! I affirm, therefore, as a moral certainty, that the Λόγος of St. Basil’s first Triad of the Divine Persons is St. John’s Λόγος, v. 7; and that, by necessary consequence, this Triad of the Divine names is a tacit quotation of the three Heavenly Witnesses of that verse. Forster, A New Plea, 20-21. Forster’s work is replete with appeals to church fathers as proof of the genuineness of the Comma. Much of his argument depends on the assumption that any reference to the Trinity proves the father had the Comma before him. Forster appeals to phrases such as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and “these three are one” and considers them proof that a church father is quoting the Comma. In another instance he states, “If, therefore, any great Father is found using the term λόγος in treating of the Persons of the Trinity, the inference is inevitable that he takes this denomination of the second Person, where the three are spoken of together, from the seventh verse.” Ibid., 41. Note also that Forster has already anticipated the objection that such quotations are not verbatim, so he invokes an escape route by alleging that since Basil does not quote the text verbatim but substitutes θεός for πατήρ, this is actually a double proof that a church father is quoting from a different passage. Forster’s argument is free of ambiguity: any reference to the persons of the Trinity or to Christ as λόγος is proof the writer is referencing the Comma. There are numerous problems with this method, but a major problem is that there are at least two alternatives to Forster’s assumption: 1) a writer referencing Jesus as λόγος might be looking at the prolegomena to John’s Gospel; or 2) he may not be looking at his text at all. Despite these plausible alternatives, Forster insists all such writers must have 1 John 5:7 in their minds. Furthermore, Forster’s assumption that early church writers only made changes based upon the authority of another text of Scripture is at variance with every scrap of evidence available. I will present a more thorough critique in conjunction with the Cyprian quotation, but Richard Porson, writing nearly a century prior to Forster, addressed the claim that Tertullian quoted the Comma as briefly as can be summarized: If the three heavenly witnesses were in his copy of the N. T. why does he never appeal to them in the rest of this treatise, particularly in his twenty second chapter, where he insists, at length, on the expression Ego et Pater unum sumus; which he quotes five times in the whole book? His argument, on this subject, takes up half a page of your Appendix: yet he is content with a flight and transient allusion to a text, which is twice as important as the other, and by its peculiarity of expression, demanded a double share of his attention? Ought he not to have expected that the heretics would have endeavored to elude the force of this argument, and pervert it to their own doctrine, as they had perverted John X.30? Richard Porson, Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, (London: Egerton, 1790), 241-42. Porson’s point is clear. Tertullian references John 10:30 five times in this tome, but never once does Tertullian refer to 1 John 5:7. Given the strength of 1 John 5:7 to advocate the Trinity, what plausible alternative can be given other than that Tertullian did not have the Comma? This argument is strengthened by the fact that Tertullian never provides a commentary on the Comma as would be expected if he had it. Based upon this solitary quotation of Tertullian, the only thing that can be concluded for sure is that he was commenting upon John 10:30, not 1 John 5:7. Thus, the reference from Tertullian provides no evidence he knew of the Comma.