Of all numbers, the number three delighted the heathen most, as the whole mythological creeds of Greece and Rome testify.
[The government of the universe was divided among three of the Dii majores, but Jupiter was the greatest and best; and were not the minor deities, lx>th of the supernal and infernal worlds, generally grouped in threes, as the Graces above, and the Fates and the Furies below ?—Did not three female divinities contend for the prize of beauty ?—Were not the Muses three timis three?—And was it not from a three-footed stool that the Sibyl gave her oracular responses ?—But the heathen was never guilty of such foolery as to uy that three are one.]
Horsley says, "The notion of a Trinity, is found to be a leading principle of all the ancient schools of philosophy." He speaks of the joint worship of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, in the Capitol, and of the three mighty Ones in Samothrace, to which they may be traced. The doctrine of the Trinity, he thinks, rather confirmed than discredited by the suffrage of the heathen sages. He did well to seek it in any source, rather than the Bible; though we are not convinced that Samothrace and the Roman Capitol would not have felt dishonoured by having it imputed to them. Sure we are, that for any figment so monstrous as the Athanasian Three-in-One, heathenism is explored in vain. We are of opinion, that the doctrine of the divine unity, and of the unrivalled supremacy of the Father, is "rather confirmed than discredited by the suffrage of the heathen sages," and of all who gave to Jupiter the epithets Optimus and Maximus, best and greatest. A Roman poet, who knew as much of the Capitol as Horsley, could have taught the orthodox divine a lesson on this subject, and put his false theology to shame:—
Quid prius dicam solitis Parentis
Laudibus; qui res hominum ac Deorum,
Qui mare et terras, variisque mundum
Temperat horis?
Unde nil majus generatur ipso;
Nec viget quicquam simile, aut secundum;
Proximos illi tamen occupavit
Pallas honores.
Hor.
What nobler than my wonted theme,
The praise of Father Jove—supreme
O'er gods and men—o'er sea and land;
Who guides the various seasons bland;
From whom no power more high
Than Jove's great self, e'er springs to light;
None lite to him in glory bright,
No second rule» the sky.
Yet Wisdom, offspring of his love.
Next honours holds to sovereign. Jove.
We shall, prohably, be told, with a sneer, that this is poetry. Well—what then? We say, so much the better. The Psalms of David are poetry; so is the Book of Job, and the greater part of the Prophecies, and some parts of the Pentateuch, and of the historical books of the Old Testament—and in the New Testament may be found quotations from heathen poets, and fragments of hymns in Anacreontic verse. The heathen poetry which we have quoted, is more worthy of Christianity, than the orthodox prose, which it confutes. It shews, that a great fundamental truth of religion was better understood by a heathen poet, than by a Vaunted champion of Athanasianism; and that it is doing foul wrong to "the Capitol" to impute to it "the tremendous doctrine." Athanasius and his followers have an exclusive right to it, and let them enjoy it. It is not, however, denied that the first rudiments of a Trinity may be found among the heathen; but it is not the author's design to trace it through the dark labyrinths of tradition, contented as he is with knowing that it is not in the Scriptures. He may observe, however, en passant, that its most credible source is the philosophy of Plato, though, as Priestley has justly remarked, "It was never imagined that the three component members of his Trinity were equal to each other, or, strictly speaking, one." Many of the early philosophising Christians were greatly attached to the doctrines of that sage, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, all contributed to corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel, by amalgamating it with their Platonic reveries. Some of them imagined they could discover a similarity between certain expressions of the Scripture, and the Trinity of their philosopher. The idea being once suggested, was readily embraced, enlarged, moulded into proper form, and, in evil hour, adopted into the household of faith. Hinc prima mali labes. Pious frauds were practised to give plausibility to the figment—the meaning of Scripture was perverted—the genuine text corrupted by false readings, and by the introduction of new passages; among which is that famous one in 1 John v. 7, now admitted by the most sturdy Trinitarians to be an interpolation. Much ingenuity, false reasoning, misapplied talents, mystification, and terrorism, have been employed to prove it to be the legitimate offspring of truth—but in vain;—it is a corrupt branch of an evil weed, "grafted contrary to nature" on that heaven-planted tree, "whose leaves are for the healing of the nations," and its fruit has been as the apple of discord to the religion of Jesus.
He Rejects it, because the whole of its history, as far as he has been able to trace it, betrays its earthly and corrupt nature. It did not spring into existence like a being of celestial birth, full-grown and full-armed; but like a certain heathen personage, of far different origin, it was at first small through fear, and did not attain its full growth and proper proportions for many centuries. [It has been truly observed in a recent number of the Monthly Repository, that the three creeds of the law-established Church, mark the progress of the Trinity. The first and most ancient, which is Unitarian, speaks of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and Jesus Christ our Lord, his only Son. The second makes Christ, God of God; the third, Jesus Christ, God with God, equal in power and eternity to the Father.]
"First small with fear—she swells to wondrous size,
And stalks on earth, and towers above Hie skies."
Those who had any knowledge at all of Christianity were, at first, startled at the idea of ascribing to any being hut Jehovah, those attributes which are peculiarly his own, and, were still for maintaining his supreme "monarchy," The title of "the only true God," which our Lord appropriates to the Father, is never once given to Christ, even by the Post-Nicene Fathers, and the reason must be, that their understanding revolted at so strong and unwarranted an expression. Novatus A. D. 260, is said to be the first who wrote expressly on the Trinity, and his views of it appear similar to those of Origen, and very different from the modern doctrine. Sabellius, an African Bishop, about the middle of the third century, taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are only names and offices of the same person. Then arose various interminable disputes about the words substance and hypostasis. In a council held at Antioch, A. D. 270, it was proposed and rejected by a large majority, that Jesus should be decreed to be homoousios, of the same essence with God. Instead of that term, the Semiarians adopted another, which differed from it in a single letter, and said, that Jesus was not homoousios, but homoiousios, i. e. of a like substance. The Eunomians, in opposition to both, alleged that Christ was heteroousios, or of a substance neither identical nor similar to that of the Father. Each party anathematized the other, of course, and the less they understood their own and their opponents dogmas, the more violently did their hostility rage, and in louder and more incessant volleys were their spiritual thunders rolled.
The Nicene Fathers, in the first general council held at Nice, A. D. 325, adopted the creed which bears their name; but in its original form it said nothing of the personality of the Holy Spirit. Ten years only had elapsed, when a council, assembled at Jerusalem; decreed in opposition to one of the principal declarations of the Nicene Creed, that Christ is not of the same essence with the Father. The word ousia, or essence, soon became heretical, and hypostasis was substituted. A great dispute sprang up between the Eastern and Western Bishops, the latter contending that there should be three hypostases—the former only one. A council held at Sardica, A. D. 347, resolved that there should be only one both in the East and in the West; but a council at Alexandria, twenty-five years afterwards, decreed, that there should be three. In 364, Apollinaris becoming the leader of a new sect against the Arians, denied that Christ had any occasion for a human soul, and hence he was charged with maintaining that God suffered on the cross. Prior to this, indeed, Noetus of Smyrna, in the third century, had maintained that the Father united himself to the man Christ, and was born and crucified with him;—hence, the Patripassians, a sect not yet extinct. Half a century has not elapsed since Whitaker alleged, that the Jews crucified the God of the Patriarchs on Mount Calvary; and since his day, some have been heard to assert, that when Christ hung on the Cross, there was no God in heaven!
Basil in 370, is said to be the first who taught the full equality of the Son to the Father—the equal deity of the Holy Ghost with the Father and Son had not yet been asserted; but it was decreed in the second general council held at Constantinople, A.D. 381. This new discovery was added to the Nicene Creed—and thus, says Mosheim, "This council gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect; and fixed, in a full and determinate manner, the doctrine of three persons in one God." He appears, however, to have forgotten, says the Rev. Mr. Scott, of Portsmouth, "That neither the hypostatic union, nor the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father, had not yet been discovered." Pope Nicholas the First, A. D. 863, added the words, and the Son (filioque) to the Nicene Creed. ["The addition to the Nicene Creed of Filioque was projected in the seventh century, and not received by the Latin Church before the ninth." Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii. p. 62.] The Eastern Church would not receive this addition, and hence the Greek Trinity is less complete than that of the Roman and Lutheran."
He Rejects it, because it degrades the Father, and dishonours the Son. ["All the indignities offered to the person of Christ were done to Jehovah, who was joined to that person, and his final sufferings on the cross denominated him by the sentence of the law, cursed. It is false to say this is only applicable to the humanity of Christ, for none but Jehovah could sustain our execration!"—Abstract of Hutchinson's Works, p. 198.] It degrades the Father, by imputing to him such conduct as is in opposition to all the sentiments and principles of right and wrong, which he has himself implanted in the heart of man. It makes the Son his rival, and in generosity of of character, his superior. It dishonours the Son by giving him titles and epithets which he disclaims—representing him as a being which he never affirmed himself to be—and by frequently contradicting his own plain and most positive declarations:—"The Son," said he, "can do nothing of himself." Nay, says Trinitarianism, he can do all things by his own sovereign underived power. "Of that day and of that hour," says Christ, "knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Notwithstanding, replies Trinitarianism, he knows it as well as the Father himself; for he and the Father are one in essence. "My Father," says Christ, "is greater than I." Here, says Trinitarianism, he speaks not as a "whole and entire," but only as a part of himself; and when he says "I," we must not understand an individual being, as the singular pronoun I, in all other cases, signifies; but two beings, of one of which only, what he utters, can be true; for the other being is equal to the Father in all his attributes; and to deny it is an Arian and Socinian leprosy, and a soul-destroying heresy!
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