Treason is the only criminal offense defined in the Constitution, and as such, allegations of the crime are sparsely levied. This infrequency is attributable to the specificity of the American definition, the difficulty in achieving the requisite standards of proof, and its codification in the inflexible national governing document—all of which serve to prevent the Treason Clause’s alteration and weaponization.1¹ Among other protections, Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution requires that an accusation of treason be substantiated by the corroboration “of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”2² The singular standard of proof, contrasting the conventional criminal-trial standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” further distinguishes the provision. It is of little surprise, then, that the two-witness standard is not an American innovation. The academic consensus locates the origin of the Constitution’s Treason Clause in two British statutes. This answer is incomplete. While the Treason Clause nearly duplicates these two statutes, Parliament itself borrowed the two-witness standard from the nation’s ecclesiastical courts, which in turn lifted the protection from the scriptures. Thus, the true origin of the Constitution’s two-witness standard is the Bible.

中文翻译：

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宪法双证人标准的圣经渊源

叛国罪是《宪法》中唯一定义的刑事犯罪，因此，很少对犯罪行为提出指控。这种不频繁的原因是美国定义的特殊性、难以达到必要的证明标准以及将其编入僵化的国家管理文件中——所有这些都有助于防止叛国罪条款的改变和武器化。^{1 1}其他保护措施, 宪法第 III 条第 3 节要求叛国罪的指控由“同一公开行为的两名证人或公开法庭上的供述”证实。2 ²单一的证明标准，与传统的“排除合理怀疑”的刑事审判标准形成对比，进一步区分了该条款。因此，双证人标准不是美国的创新也就不足为奇了。学界共识将宪法叛国罪条款的起源定位于英国的两部法规。这个答案是不完整的。虽然叛国罪条款几乎重复了这两个法规，但议会本身从国家的教会法庭借用了两个见证人的标准，这反过来又解除了圣经的保护。因此，宪法的两个见证人标准的真正起源是圣经。