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http://www.archive.org/details/ethnictrinitiestOOpainrich
ILebt lleonarD i^aine, 2E>* W>*
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF
TRINITARIANISM AND ITS OUTCOME IN THE
NEW CHRISTOLOGY. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
ETHNIC TRINITIES AND THEIR RELATION TO
THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY. Crown 8vo, $1.75
nei.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.
THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE
CHRISTIAN TRINITY
A CHAPTER IN THE
Comparative l^i^tor^ of Heligionsi
BY
LEVI LEONARD PAINE
WALDO FBOrSSSOB OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOBY IN BAKOOB
THEOLOOICAL SEMIKABT
.** The true criticism of Dogma is its history "
David Fbibdbich Stbauss
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
^l^e KlitierjjiDe ptt^^, ^Tamlinbge
1901
T3
COPYRIGHT, I90I, BY LEVI LEONARD PAINS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published September, igoi
GENERAL
TO
YALE UNIVERSITY
MY ALMA MATER
WHOSE FREE AND TOLERANT SPIRIT TOOK FULL
POSSESSION OF ME IN MY COLLEGE DATS, AND
HAS CONTINUED TO BE THE SPRING OP
MY INTELLECTUAL LIFE
AND TO
PROFESSOR GEORGE P. FISHER
DEAN OF YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL
WHO SO ADMIRABLY ILLUSTRATES IN HIS LIFE AND
WRITINCJS THE CHARACTER OF THE INSTITUTION
WHICH HE ADORNS, THIS LATEST FRUIT
OF MY HISTORICAL STUDIES
IS DEDICATED
101S37
PEEFACE
The comparative history of religions is the
latest and most productive field of investigation
and discovery that historical science has opened.
The field as a whole is vast in extent and complex
and intricate in its character. This book deals
with a single chapter of it. I was led to the study
of the Ethnic trinities by my previous studies in
the historical evolution of the Christian trinity, —
finding as I did that Christian trinitarianism is
only a part of a world-wide historical evolution
that goes back to the very origins of religion itself.
Thus, while the present volume is an entirely
fresh and independent work, it may properly be
regarded as a companion of my previous book:
" A Critical History of the Evolution of Trinita-
rianism, and its Outcome in the New Christology."
Its object is to carry the history of trinitarianism
back of its later Christian form of development,
and trace its primary sources as well as its histor-
ical evolution through the various Ethnic trinities
until it enters its Christian stage, and then to
compare with each other these different stages of
7i PREFACE
religious thought and draw from such comparison
its historical conclusions.
It may be made a point of criticism by some of
my readers that I have entered so deeply and fully
into the philosophical development of Greek trin-
itarian thought ; but my apology is that an accu-
rate knowledge of New Platonism, and above all
of Plotinus, is absolutely essential to the under-
standing of Christian mediaeval philosophy and
theology, and of the modern ideas that have been
evolved from them. Scholars are coming to real-
ize — what until recently has been little appre-
ciated — that Plotinus was the most original and
acute philosophical thinker since Plato and Aris-
totle, and that his influence to-day has eclipsed
that of his great masters. In fact, the Plotinian
pantheistic monism is increasingly regnant in mod-
ern philosophy, not to say in Christian theology.
It may be said that not a few of the historical and
metaphysical blunders that have had vogue in
past histories of Christian doctrine have arisen
from ignorance of those later transformations of
Platonism which are so clearly set forth in the
speculations of Plotinus.
While I have restricted myself to a single phase
of the general history of religions, it should be
borne in mind that the evolution of the idea of
God is central to all religious thought, and con-
PREFACE
vu
sequently that the subject-matter of this book will
be found to include more or less directly many of
the fundamental problems of theology. Like the
earlier volume it is purely historical and critical,
not dogmatic, resting entirely on the scientific
inductive method ; and it wiU, I believe, furnish a
new illustration of the truth of Strauss's words,
. adopted as a motto on the title-page : " The true
criticism of dogma is its history."
If there are any who have been indisposed to
accept the statements and conclusions of my previ-
ous book, I cannot doubt that the perusal of this
one will overcome such indisposition, unless indeed
their minds are proof against all purely historical
evidence ; while to those who are ready to accept
the divine revelations that are given in nature and
history this new volume will, I am sure, bring new
satisfaction. They will learn more fully perhaps
than ever before that the world as a whole, not
only in the reahn of nature and natural law, but
also in the history of man as a religious being, is
full of divinity and of the proofs of a divine move-
ment of love, and so will be able to read with a
new sense of their profound meaning Browning's
lines: —
" The earth is crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with GJod.'*
LEVI L. PAINE.
Banoob, Me., April, 1901.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Chap. Pacw
I. Preliminaky Survey 3
II. Special Causes of the Rise of the Ethnic
Trinities 14
^ m. General Character and Relations of the
""^ Ethnic Trinities 31
IV. The Hindoo Brahmanic Trinity ... 37
1^, V. The Persian Zoroastrian Trinitarianism . 64
^ VI. The Greek Homeric Trinity .... 92
VII. The Evolution of the Greek Philosophical
Trinitarianism 124
~ VIIL The Greek Plotinian Trinity .... 162
PART II
THE RELATIONS OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES TO THE
CHRISTIAN TRINITY
I. The External or Historical Relations . 191
II. The Internal Relations — Resemblances . 219
III. The Internal Relations — Differences . 270
rV. The Providential Mission of Christianity as
A World-Religion 281
V. The Unreadiness of Christendom for the Ful-
fillment OF ITS Mission .... 291
VI. Two Perils of Organized Christianity — I.
Ignorance 299
VII. Two Perils of Organized Christianity — II.
Insincerity 306
VIII. The New Problem of Theology in the Twen-
tieth Century 340
Index 371
PART I
THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
" Though all the -winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon
the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing
and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood
grapple ; who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and
open encounter ? Her confuting is the best and surest suppress-
ing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clear
knowledge to be sent down among us would think of other mat-
ters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed
and f abricked already to our hands. Yet when the new light which
we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose, if it
come not first in at their casements. What a collusion is this,
when as we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence " to
seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures" early and late, that
another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute ?
When a man hath been laboring the hardest labor in the deep
mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their
equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scat-
tered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adver-
sary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he
please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument ; for
his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a nar-
row bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though
it be valor enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice
in the wars of truth." — John Milton.
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY SURVEY
This book proposes a comparative study of the
Ethnic and Christian trinities. Recent investiga-
tions in the history of religions have given a new-
aspect to this subject, aud have entirely changed
the view to be taken of the historical relation of
the Christian ideas of God and those of other
religions, and especially of the trinitarian doctrine
of God as existing in a trinity of persons or of per-
sonal forms. This change has been brought about
in two ways. In the first place, scientific and his-
torical studies have developed new conceptions of
the unity that imderlies phenomena and events,
of the universality of law, and of the evolution of
aU things along the lines of natural and moral
causes. This principle of evolution first became
evident in the processes of the physical world, and
has been adopted as a cardinal axiom of science ;
but it has been proved to be equally a fundamen-
tal force in aU. historical events. A historical evo-
lution according to fixed historical laws is as surely
working in human affairs as a natural evolution
is working in all the movements of the material
universe. An essential difference, however, is to
4 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
be noted between physical and historical evolution.
The latter is moral, involving the element of hu-
man free agency, with its consequent variability
of human action, while the former is under strict
physical law, and so fixed and invariable. But the
moral kingdom is as truly one of law and evolution
as the natural. The power of free will is not a
mere erratic and unaccountable form of activity ;
it has its own mysterious laws, and these laws
work in harmony with all the laws of the imiverse,
and play their proper part in the grand evolution
of the world's history. For it must be recognized
at once that all recent scientific discoveries tend
towards a single result, namely, that one ultimate
law of life and movement includes every form of
existence, and produces one system of things which
we call the universe. The old Platonic idea that
this cosmos in which man has his place is an ani-
mal with a world-soul contains an element of
scientific truth. The universe is one living organic
whole, under the guidance of one active force or
combination of forces, and all individual living
things are held within its eternal sway. What is
called the law of natural evolution is simply the
last word and summary of all the scientific laws
and principles that aU recent investigations, from
Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, down to the
latest discoveries of the present day, have brought
to light. That law, in the very nature of things,
can allow no exception. To break it once is to
break it up forever, and dissolve the order of the
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 5
world. Evolution is a process, the result of life,
and so long as there is life, so long will it work
according to the divine laws of its own nature in a
ceaseless progress towards its highest ends. Man
is mysteriously included in this great world system,
and so we must expect that the law of evolution
wiU reveal itself in human history as well as in
physical science, and hence it is that what is called
the scientific and inductive method of study and
investigation is also the method of the true histo-
rian.
This universal evolutionary law or principle
finds special illustration in the history of the
world's religions. Comparative religion — almost
the youngest of the sciences, and which is destined
to revolutionize theology and philosophy in many
points, shedding new light as it does on the origin
and wide prevalence of ideas and beliefs supposed
to be unique, and the possession of a few favored
men — gives conclusive proof of the fact that all
f the religions of mankind have been the result of a
plow and wide development under a law of evolu-
/tion that is universal in its range. To this law
"Christianity, as a system of religious beliefs and
dogmas, forms no exception. Every article of the
Christian creed is the full flower of a long histori-
cal evolution. The dogma of the trinity is a con-
spicuous example. Whatever be the truth as to
the mode of the Divine Being, whether he really
exists in personal unity, or in personal trinity, or
is pluralized in aU the gods of heathen polytheism,
6 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
it is a historical fact which caanot be gainsaid, that
the Christian trinitarian dogma as set forth in
the Nicene Creed was the slow growth of centu-
ries, starting from a single new point of religious
belief, and unfolding itself step by step through
successive accretions of religious thought gathered
from various historical sources, passing from unity
to duality, and from duality to truiity, then mov-
ing on from a lower inchoate trinitarian stage to
one higher and more complete, until out of contro-
versy and schism tt^^ full Nicene homoousian doc-
trine was reached. / Thus the Christian dogma of
the trinity as a historical evolution is to be classed
with the other trinities of the Ethnic religions,
and should be studied with them, as together form-
ing a siQgle chapter in the comparative history of
religions^
This new scientific view of the historical relation
of the Ethnic and Christian trinities has been
amply sustained and illustrated by the recent his-
torical discoveries in the field of the Ethnic reli-
gions. That some of these religions contained
divine triads had been a recognized isuct of long
standing ; but its real significance was not appre-
ciated, and a scientific and critical study of the
trinitarian elements and an estimate of their
relation to the Christian trinity had never been at-
tempted. The new researches, however, go much
farther, xhey reveal triaities of varied forms and
developments in almost all the Ethnic religions.
Such trinities are found in the theogonies of the
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 7
Egyptians, the Chaldaeans, the Babylonians, the As-
syrians, the Hindoos, the Gaulish-Celts, the Teu-
tonic-Scandinavians, the Greeks and Romans, the
Phrygians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Ameri-
can tribes, Hawaiians, Polynesians. That trinities
should be so widely spread among the different
peoples and races of the world is certainly a fact
of great religious significance, and a historical
study of these trinities should yield some fruitful
religious and theological lessons.X, Such a study is
especially needful in view of the fact that Chris-
tian traditional theology is founded upon assump-
tions that are entirely at variance with the results
of the new science of comparative religion, partic-
ularly in the field of historical evolution. These
assumptions are centred in the idea that God
made a special, supernatural revelation of himself
and of his mode of existence to the first progeni-
tors of the race. Monotheism, or the doctrine of
one God, was supposed to be a part of that prime-
val revelation. Polytheism was regarded as a
perversion of the original faith, brought about by
human sin and depravity which darkened the un-
derstanding and corrupted the will. This doctrine
of the fall and original sinfulness of the race was
based on the acceptance of the account in Genesis
of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the ser-
pent as historical truth. Paul became the most
influential expounder of it. He was a true Jew,
and accepted the traditional Rabbinical theory of
the plenary inspiration of the Old Testament
8 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Scriptures. Hence his philosophy of heathenism,
namely, that sinful and fallen men " did not like
to retain God in their knowledge," so that God
gave them over to the delusions of polytheism and
idolatry. But these views of Paul, which have
been so influential with later Christian theologians,
have no historical basis. It is a piece of Jewish
traditionalism which the Jewish convert, Paul,
carried with him into the Christian church. Mono-
theism, so far from being the earliest doctrine of
God, is a late development of human thought. It
involves a long process of analysis and synthesis
in the observation and investigation of the external
world. In the beginnings of human experience
man saw only particular phenomena. The unity
of nature was unperceived. The world was filled
with separate causalities and agencies. The idea
of a first cause behind aU the original activities
of nature was a flight of reflective thought to
which those first children of the race were utterly
unequal. Polytheism was the natural and spon-
taneous religion of the primeval world. The sen-
tence, " In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth," — a statement that seems so
ancient to us, as we read it in the first chapter of
Genesis, — is in reality modem, when seen in its
true historical place in the long evolution of man's
ideas of God. The writer of that sentence had
behind him many centuries of Hebrew thought
and faith, and behind the oldest Hebrew was his
Chaldaean ancestor, with his polytheistic creation
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 9
myth left on record for us, fortunately, in the re-
surrected clay tablets of Nineveh. I have spoken
of the earliest members of our race as children.
Such indeed they were. Their gaze upon the outer
world around them was like that of the rustic in
Pollock's " Course of Time " who —
" Thought the visual line that girt him round,
The world's extreme ; and thought the silver moon.
That nightly o'er him led her virgin host.
No broader than his father's shield."
In that primeval time the imagination was the
chief interpreter to man of nature and its powers.
It was man's religious imagination that turned
the sun into a god, and filled sky, air, earth, and
sea with multitudinous divine beings. With the
development of the reflective and rational faculties
man began to read in nature the signs of order,
law, and unity. Then followed the tendency to
find a headship among the various divinities of the
vast polytheistic pantheon. Here the trinitarian
idea, which so many analogies and indications of
tripleness in nature and man had suggested, came
in to help. Trinities became the superior gods,
and this step became a half-way house to another,
namely, the idea of a first god among the three,
like Brahma in the Hindoo trimurti, Zeus among
the Greeks, and Jupiter among the Komans. But
monotheism was not easily made congenial to the
polytheistic mind, and remained the idea of the
cultured and philosophic few. The trinitarian
conception, however, was more easily accepted. It
10 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
satisfied the sense of plurality, and also met in a
degree the need of a higher unity. It was at this
trinitarian stage of polytheistic limitation that the
Ethnic religions mostly stopped. Only in several
of the Ethnic philosophies, as they should be
rather called in distinction from the popular reli-
gions that were based upon them, was a theistic or
pantheistic unitarianism reached. That such a
trinitarian half-way house should have been erected
between the most unrestricted polytheism and the
most abstract unitarianism, and have remained as
the traditional abiding-place of Ethnic religions,
is seen to be most natural, when we note how
easily Christian theologians were led to use this
device as a support of their own trinitarian doc-
trine. The Christian trinity was held up in early
Christian apologies as the golden mean between a
crude heathen polytheism, on the one hand, and
a stark Jewish monotheism, on the other. Even
modern apologists have employed the same device.
So astute and accomplished a theologian as Henry
B. Smith declares that the old Biblical and Pla-
tonic theistic doctrine of God as a uni-personal
being is in fact a form of deism, and he substitutes
for it a trinitarian theism of his own, namely, that
God exists as an absolute uni-personality, while not
uni-personal but tri-personal, — a form of doctrine
which seems to me utterly self-destructive, and is
a strange theism indeed.
The trinitarian idea has a similar relation to
the pantheistic philosophies which were developed
I
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 11
out of the original polytheistic religions. These
philosophies sought to bring the popular polythe-
ism into harmonious relation with the metaphysi-
cal conception of a divine unity. This was accom-
plished by an evolution theory according to which
one primal being became the original cause of all
multiform existence. All individual gods were
mere emanations from a single monad, — different
modifications of one divine Being. This logical
rather than scientific evolution — for it had no sci-
entific basis — started from a speculative unity,
but made no further use of it, except as a tran-
scendental background for the trinitarian stage to
which it moved at once, and which was made the
real ttov o-tw or centre of the whole system. Why
the triads should have had so prominent a place
in this pantheistic theory is not very clear, since it
was only a single step in a descending series. Yet
in fact the trinities of the pantheistic philosophies
are the most definite and fixed of all the Ethnic
trinities, and in them the line of division is sharply
drawn between the gods who form these trinities
and the other numerous gods who complete the
evolution. This is the case with the Hindoo trin-
ity, Brahma, Vishnu, Civa, and stiU more clearly
with the New Platonic or Plotinian " three hypos-
tases," TO eVf 6 vovs, rj ^v\y.
We have thus seen that monotheism, histori-
cally considered, is the end of an ascending series
of beliefs concerning God, rather than the be-
ginning of a descending series, and that history
inverts the traditional view.
12 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
The same result is reached in that modification
of monotheism which is found in the Christian
dogma of the trinity. This dogma has also been
traditionally held to be a part of the original reve-
lation of God to the race. It was supposed to be
found in the Old Testament. Christ was believed
to have taught the elements of it in his interpreta-
tions of the Scriptures concerning himself. Au-
gustine held that the first verses of Genesis con-
tained a trinitarian reference. This idea likewise
is without historical foundation. The Ethnic trin-
ities are a comparatively late development in the
history of religious thought when viewed from the
side of the remote past, though ancient when looked
at from the standpoint of later historical times.
It is to be remembered that the prehistoric ages
cover by far the longest period in the vast process
of the life of the world. All authentic history is
but a modern chapter of the earth's annals as a
whole. As to the Old Testament, it contains the
history of a vigorous and radical reaction from the
Ethnic polytheism to monotheism, and its strong
insistence on the doctrine of one God made the
development of the trinitarian dogma impossible.
The Christian trinity was historically a new devel-
opment out of Jewish monotheism, in consequence
of the doctrine that grew about the person of Jesus
Christ, though it obtained the materials from
which it was formed from earlier Greek philo-
sophical thought. It is also to be noted that the
Ethnic trinities as well as the Christian exhibit
PRELIMINARY SURVEY 13
long and definite stages in their evolution. The
most complete trinities are of late date. The
Hindoo trimurti did not reach its final stage till
the fifth or sixth century of our era, though its
origin dates from pre-Christian times. The Plo-
tinian New Platonic trinity, the most perfect trin-
ity as a speculative metaphysical theory that has
ever been conceived, belongs to the third century
A. D. So the Christian trinity required four cen-
turies for its complete development in the Nicene
and pseudo-Athanasian creeds.
CHAPTER II
SPECIAL CAUSES OF THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC
TRINITIES
From this preliminary survey we pass to a
closer investigation of the historical origin and
character of the Ethnic trinities. Their origin is
hid in the obscurity of the prehistoric ages. When
the Ethnic religions first appear under clear his-
torical light they are already polytheistic, and the
trinitarian feature is more or less fully developed.
In the latest authoritative book i on the Babylo-
nian religion and mythology, it is stated that " we
can thus trace back the existence of this great
triad of gods (Anu, Bel, and Ea) to the very
beginning of history." This is equally true of
the Egyptian and the Hindoo trinities. Thus an
investigation of the causes that led to their devel-
opment must be conducted with such side lights as
are afforded us from early man's religious nature
and environment and from the forms into which
these trinities were moulded. The radical ques-
tion is, why a trinity of gods, or a triune god,
rather than a duad or a quaternity of gods, or
a duo-une or quadrune god? Certainly there is
1 See Books on Egypt and Chaldea^ vol. iv. 1899, by Budge and
King, of the British Museum.
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 15
nothing peculiar in the number three to dis-
tinguish it from the other numerals. A triangle
is no more remarkable as a geometrical figure than
a square or a pentagon. Why, then, should three
have become the sacred number of deity? The
question might here be raised whether after all
trinity was so eminent in the Ethnic religions,
whether in fact too much has not been made of the
triads that have been found. It is true that
the Ethnic polytheism allowed a considerable lati-
tude to its trinitarianism. There were changes
from one triad of gods to another, also duplicates
of triads, and in the Egyptian religion there are
counted eleven triads. Professor Rawlinson finds
a quatemity of gods in some districts. But these
exceptional cases only prove and emphasize the
rule, and Bishop Westcott's avowal in his book on
" The Symbolism of Numbers " is substantially
true : " It is impossible to study any system of
worship throughout the world without being struck
with the peculiar persistence of the triple number
in regard to Divinity." Three, then, was some-
how held among the early races of mankind to be
a peculiarly sacred number, and as such especially
appropriate to deity.
That certain numbers have peculiar sacredness
was a very early tradition. Such were seven, ten,
as well as three. It was an ancient idea that
numbers had a deep and fundamental significance.
Pythagoras, the most famous and venerated name
in early Greek philosophy, built his whole system
16 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of the origin of the universe on numbers, finding
in them the first principles of order and beauty
and law. The peculiar sacredness of seven was
emphasized in Hebrew tradition and especially
recognized by the Mosaic laws, but was by no
means limited to that people. Christianity ac-
cepted the Old Testament idea, and the Koman
Cathohc Church has perpetuated it in its seven
sacraments, seven mortal sins, etc. It was a Py-
thagorean idea that odd numbers are more pro-
pitious than even numbers, and this superstition
has taken deep hold on men. The elder Pliny
declares : " Odd numbers have more power than
even ones." Virgil, in one of his Eclogues, sings :
" God takes delight in odd numbers." The Eo-
mans were very superstitious about unlucky even
days of the months. How far this explains the
early sacredness attached to three cannot be known.
But Plutarch tells us that "The Eomans were
very careful in their curses to repeat them three
times, — three being with them a mystic num-
ber."
There is a remarkable passage in Aristotle (" De
Ccelo," i. 1) in which he distinguishes line, plane,
and body as having magnitude in one, two, and
three directions. " Since body has magnitude in
three directions, it has magnitude in all directions :
hence three equals all, or is the complete or per-
fect number." He quotes the Pythagoreans to
the eifect that everything is marked off by threes :
"The end, the middle, and the beginning have
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 17
the number of the whole and are a triad." Hence
he adds : " Therefore, having received from nature
as it were laws of it (^. e. the triad), we also em-
ploy this number (three) for the holy rites of the
gods. Moreover, we apply predicates of common
terms in the same manner. For we call the term
' two,' or ' the two,' ' both,' but we do not style
them ' all.' But concerning ' the three,' we first
use this expression (all), and these forms of lan-
guage, as has been said, we follow because nature
herself thus leads the way.^^ This curious passage
plainly indicates that Aristotle found or thought
he found the number three to contain a unique
feature or principle of nature. The universe, he
conceived, is based on the principle of " the triad."
It is interesting to note how Aristotle connected
the laws of nature with those of religion and the
gods. The rites of religion in his day had appar-
ently some trinitarian features which he regarded
as somehow connected with the trinitarian char-
acter of nature itself. Aristotle does not pursue
this point farther, but plainly he started a line of
speculative thought which would have logically led
him to a trinitarian conception of God himself.
There is no trinitarian element in Aristotle's philo-
sophy, except so far as it may be drawn from the
general principles of Platonism, which he accepted ;
where, as we shall see farther on, a trinitarian
principle lurks. But plainly Aristotle must have
been struck with the evidences which nature
seemed to afford of a triadal character in the con-
18 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
stitution of things. Too much, indeed, should not
be made of this passage, which occurs, not in a
philosophical work, but in a treatise of physics.
Aristotle, on the whole, cannot be counted as in
any sense a religious trinitarian. He held to the
unity of God, whether theistically or pantheisti-
cally is not quite clear. His testimony, therefore,
is the more remarkable, and helps us to understand
how the ancient world should have singled out
tTiree as a number of peculiar sacredness. The
indications of a natural and divine constitution
which Aristotle discerned in the triple characteris-
tics of external things may also be found in the hu-
man soul and in its laws of thought and reasoning.
Psychology finds a tripartite division clearly distin-
guishable in the soul. The functions of the intel-
lect, the sensibilities, and the will are quite diverse.
Yet the soul is one, with a single self-consciousness.
So, also, the logical reason works in a threefold
way. AU thought in its development involves
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The Aristotelian
syllogism, which expresses the law of all logical
mental processes, consists of three parts : the major
premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion.
Augustine made use of such analogies drawn from
the composite nature of the soul and its activities
in his work on the Trinity. These tripartite dis-
tinctions which he finds in the faculties of man
are not of a very scientific character, but they
show that Aristotle's idea of a triad as a part of
the constitution of nature and as somehow symbol-
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 19
izing the divine existence was a fertile thought,
and found reception in other minds. A consider-
able portion of Augustine's treatise is devoted to
the comparison of God as existing in trinity and
man as having a trinity of faculties and modes of
thought and action.
The same line of defense of the mysterious, if
not contradictory, character of God, as triime or
tri-personal, has been adopted by many later theo-
logians. The position has been taken that in the
very nature of things God must exist in trinity,
and that such a trinitarian mode of existence is
essential to the full expression of the moral and
personal life of God. The point to be noted is
that it is an argument for the dogma of the trinity
drawn from the triune distinctions found in nature
and in man. One form of this argument is seen
in the so-called " social trinity " recently set forth
by Shedd, Fairbairn, and others, — a view which
seems to have a singular popularity. It seems to
be assumed that a person must be put into social
relations with some other person or persons in
order to the exercise of self-consciousness, and as
before creation God was alone he must have had
an interior triple personality as the basis of con-
scious existence. This theory is simply another
speculative effort to explain and defend the three-
ness of God; but it is psychologically unsound.
Self-consciousness, which is the condition of per-
sonality, does not require the actual existence of
any individual non-ego in order to its activity.
20 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
The Ego postulates its own subjective non-ego by
a psychological necessity. It is the mystery of
personality that the subject of it is self-conscious,
that is, has self-communion. God as a person is
a social unit, and needs no trinity of persons in
order to the exercise of his social nature. Man
certainly is not a "social trinity," yet the first
man Adam seems to have been very sociable with
himself before Eve was created to be a helpmeet
to him. When Robinson Crusoe, in the realistic
story of De Foe, was cast on a desert island with-
out human companionship, was it necessary that
his nature should be trinitarianized in order to the
continued exercise of his social, moral instincts ?
The simple suggestion of it carries on its face its
utter absurdity. What makes the story so true
to life is the natural way in which Robinson lives
alone, keeps a diary of his long solitude, and tells
us how he sighed and wept over his lonely lot.
Did it ever occur to any one that Crusoe was in
danger of losing his mind or capacity of seK-con-
sciousness during those twelve years of complete
isolation ? Rather, in fact, were not his faculties
of personality quickened into more vigorous activ-
ity by his lonely experience ? Such, certainly, is
the impression made by the story, — a story so
artfully told that it has all the verisimilitude of a
historical autobiography. And must we regard
the Divine personality as deficient in those quali-
ties of persistent self-consciousness which are so
plainly inherent in human persons ?
THE EISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 21
Of all the metaphysical or logical theories that
have originated in the effort to make rational
and comprehensible to faith the traditional dogma
of the Christian trinity as three persons in one
God, this one of a social trinity, though it has the
prestige of many distinguished advocates, is the
most illogical and fatuous. As an explanation of
the divine tri-unity, it is a more concrete form
of the metaphysical conception of trinity as in-
volved in thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, but it is
equally fallacious. Dr. Schaff confesses that the
distinction of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis gives
only a Sabellian trinity, and a " social trinity " is
not tri-personal, for God's self-consciousness is
uni-personal, as is that of every moral being. I
refer to these examples of later theorizing on the
question of the necessity of a trinity in God as
showing how easily speculative thought may take
this direction, since natural analogies seem to fa-
vor it.
But whatever view be taken of such speculative
arguments for a trinity in God, from psychologi-
cal, logical, or social analogies, there is no evidence
that they ever arose in ancient times. They be-
long to a highly reflective and philosophical age.
I am even inclined to doubt whether the Ethnic
trinities owe their origin and growth in any way
to such refinements of thought as are connected
with attaching a sacred and mystical character to
numbers. The Pythagorean doctrine that num-
bers form the substance of things is an after-
22 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
thought of a quite fully developed civilization.
The Etlinic trinities were a spontaneous evolu-
tion of the mythopoeic imagination of uncivilized
man, rather than a product of the speculative rea-
son, and their real causes must be sought in other
directions.
Recent anthropological investigations have
brought out into full light the fact that \hQ fam-
ily based on the union of the sexes is the original
foundation of human society. Such is the picture
given of the beginnings of social order in Genesis,
and it accords with the latest results of histor-
ical criticism. The most conspicuous and potent
principle of all life in the view of early man was
generation. This required the masculine and
feminine elements — the two uniting to produce
a third, namely, a son. Father, mother, son, —
these form the social trinity that lies behind all
human life and society. But this early interpreta-
tion of things did not stop there. Generation was
made equally the cause of the foundation of the
world. All the early cosmogonies and cosmologies
are built on this theory. Two original principles —
as, for example, the Heaven and Earth of Hesiod,
which are personified as male and female, or, in
the Chaldaeo-Babylonian religion, Ea, the god of
water, and Damkina, his wife, goddess of earth —
unite to produce through successive generations
the world. It is but a step further to introduce
a triad of gods as the generative source not only
of the world and man, but also of all the gods of
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 23
polytheism. And in fact this generative idea, with
its triad of Father, Mother, and Son, gives us the
keynote of the Ethnic trinities. Professor Sayce,
in his " Hibbert Lectures," declares : " The only
genuine trinity that can be discovered in the re-
ligious faith of early Chaldsea was that old Acca-
dian system which conceived of a divine father and
mother by the side of their son, the sun god ; " and
he further adds : " The keystone of Semitic belief
was the generative character of the deity. A lan-
guage which divided nouns into masculine and
feminine found it difficult to conceive of a deity
which was not masculine and feminine too. The
divine hierarchy was necessarily regarded as a
family, at the head of which stood ' father Bel.' "
The study of the other Ethnic religions discloses
the same fact. With many variations of form
the generative triad is the principle that binds
aU these religions together and gives us one key
to the explanation of their trinitarian character.
Here is the explanation of the origin of the term
father — so frequent a name of the first and high-
est god in all the Ethnic religions. The tradi-
tional idea that the fatherhood of God is a part
of the new revelation of the Christian gospel is
a historical error. It pervades the Ethnic reli-
gions, and lies at the foundations of the Ethnic
trinities. Homer's title of Zeus, " father of gods
and men," was a part of the religious inheritance
of the Aryan race; and behind the Hebrew Se-
mitic belief in Jehovah as the creator and father of
24 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
mankind was the earlier ChaldaBO-Babylonian faith
in " the sovereign father Ea." Plato showed his
reUgious conservatism in calling the creator of the
world and man, in his " Timaeus," " the great father
of the gods." Even Plotinus, pantheist as he was,
continually styles his first hypostasis, to li/, " Fa-
ther," paying so much of deference to tradition.
When Jesus of Nazareth taught his disciples to
pray, " Our Father, who art in heaven," he was
only following, though with new insight and clearer
apprehension, the well-nigh universal religious con-
sciousness of the race.
The feminine element, which was fundamental
in the generative theory, kept its place and func-
tion in the Ethnic trinities. The first and second
members of a triad are usually husband and wife,
thus preparing the way for the son, or third per-
son, who often becomes the chief object of faith
and worship, for a reason which wlQ soon appear.
The prominence of the female goddess is marked
in all the ancient religions. In the Homeric
Olympus, Here and Athene are closely connected
with Zeus in power and function. So in the
Roman religion, Juno and Minerva form with
Jupiter the Capitoline triad. In the Egyptian
trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, Isis, the wife and
mother, was the most popular member, and Isis
temples and rites became the fashion at Rome in
the Imperial times. Ashtaroth, whose name ap-
pears in the Old Testament, was, under the name
of Istar, a member of the Babylonian triad, and
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 25
had a Chaldsean origin. It is to be said, however,
that the feminine element is less prominent in later
Ethnic trinities, and in the latest and most fully-
developed examples, namely, the Hindoo and Plo-
tinian, it quite disappears, and a masculine mem-
ber takes its place. But while the aspects of wife
and mother faded out of view in many of the
Ethnic trinities, the aspect of son, as the third
member of the triad, grew continually in impor-
tance and conspicuousness, — supplanting often
the first god or father in popular favor and wor-
ship. Thus Marduk, the great god of the Baby-
lonians, is a god-son of " the sovereign father
Ea." Among his titles are " first-born son," " only-
begotten," " holy son."
The naturalistic character of the Ethnic trini-
ties here comes into distinct view. Among the
earliest, most remarkable, and widespread forms
of human worship was that of the sun or sun-god.
Traces of it are found in almost every known re-
ligion, and its popularity grew from age to age.
Never was it greater than in the latest Graeco-
Roman times. Constantine, before his conversion
to Christianity, was a devoted worshiper of He-
lios or Apollo, the sun-god, and Julian his nephew,
the last pagan emperor, made sun worship the
centre of his New Platonic religion. Thus, in
the Greek world Father Zeus had given place in
popular belief to his son, the sun-god Apollo.
The same was true in the Egyptian world, where
the sun-god Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris,
26 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
became the popular divinity. It is interesting to
note how easily the third member of the Ethnic
triad, the son, became metamorphosed into the
sun-god. The Babylonian Marduk was the sun-
god, like the Greek Apollo and the Egyptian
Horus, and thus the deep hold of sun worship on
men was transferred to the son of the generative
triad and increased his greatness and power. So
that it may be said that when Christianity began
to spread in the world, its most powerful competi-
tor and rival was that member of the Ethnic
triads which represented the product of the gen-
erative principle and which also represented the
latest relic of the primeval nature worship, the
sun-god, the god of light, heat, life, and blessing
to the world.
But there is another distinct line of causation
that played its part in the Ethnic trinitarian de-
velopment. The earliest religious attitude of men
toward the powers of nature, which they mytholo-
gized into supernatural divine beings, was one of
fear and supplication. But how could they reach
the ears of the sovereign Father of the gods, who
dwelt in the highest heavens? The need of a
mediating and intercessory being between man
and God — a point which Plato made so central
in his dualistic philosophy, and which was borrowed
from Platonism and developed more fully by Philo,
Paul, the author of the Fourth Gospel, and finally
by Plotinus in New Platonism — has been echoed
by all human souls from the beginning of time.
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 27
Ancient philosophy was largely employed in the
effort to explain how the deity is related to the
world and man, and how the bridge between them
can be crossed, and a basis be established for hu-
man prayer and worship and communion. Plato's
mediation doctrine, which has so deeply affected all
later thought, was anticipated in the Ethnic trini-
ties. Here came in the special function of the
son, the third member of the triad, or second mem-
ber, as he sometimes became. Merodach, the Baby-
lonian sun-god, " the son of Ea, the first-born of
the gods," was " intercessor between god and
man," " interpreter of the will of his father Ea,"
" the redeemer." So Agni, one of the most re-
markable and popular of the ancient deities of
India, — himself triune, also a member of a trin-
ity, namely, Dyaus, Indra, Agni, — a son of
Indra, is described in the Vedic hymns as "the
best friend of man among the gods," as " not far
off," as " house priest and friend," " chief sacrifi-
cial priest," "messenger," "a link between earth
and heaven," " man's guest." In a hymn to Agni
it is said : " May he bring the gods here to us."
" As a father to his son be easy of access to us."
It was these mediating deities, who were brought
by their functions into nearer and closer relations
with man, that became the great objects of popular
veneration and worship.
It is to be noticed in this connection that the
mediative idea by itself requires but two divine
beings, not a trinity. But even the mediating god,
28 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the son of the father, might easily be regarded as
still so distant as to need another mediating being
to fill, in some further measure, the void. It was
thus that Platonism introduced the doctrine of
subordinate gods or daemons to fill the middle
stage between God and man. So we find in one
of the Babylonian trinities Merodach raised to the
second place in the triad, and a second mediator
introduced as the third member. This helps us
to understand the later growth and greater indefi-
niteness of development of the third member of
several Ethnic trinities. The same fact occurs in
the history of the Christian trinity, and will be
noticed later.
If we compare the generative idea with that of
mediation as causes producing the Ethnic trinities,
both are found united in many of them, and that
very early in their history. In fact, the two ideas
run naturally together and form parts of one gen-
eral view. Sonship and mediatorship are closely
affiliated. Who can so well represent the father
of our race as his own son? Christianity laid
hold of this natural affiliation in its doctrine that
God sent his only begotten Son into the world to
be his messenger of love and mercy and to be a
mediator between him and his human creatures.
In considering the causes that have contributed
to the production of the Ethnic trinities we might
stop at this point, for we think the two great
causes have been brought to light. Generation as
the original force in the formation of the world
THE RISE OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 29
of gods and men, and mediatorship as the great
principle by which aU moral beings are brought
into relations of amity and fellowship with God,
— these afford a satisfactory historical explanation
of the Ethnic trinities, and we need look no
farther. But the survey is not quite complete
without considering a point or two more. We
have seen that in the Ethnic religions there was a
historical evolution from multiplicity to unity. In
this movement the Ethnic trinities were a sort of
half-way house, and it was natural that some of
them should stop there, while others moved on to
dualism, and others still to monism. It may be
even said of several Ethnic religions that they are
polytheistic, trinitarian, dualistic, and monistic.
This is especially true of the Persian Zoroastrian-
ism, one of the purest and noblest of them all, an-
ticipating in many of its doctrines those of Chris-
tianity. The Ethnic trinities were also a natural
stage in the pantheistic counter-evolution from
unity to multiplicity, which was an outgrowth of
philosophic thought, and is illustrated in Hin-
dooism and Plotinian New Platonism. Hindooism,
starting from unity in Brahm, proceeds to the tri-
murti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Civa, and thence on
down through the whole pantheon of divine beings
to man and the lowest forms of existence. So
Plotinus made his starting-point a pure abstrac-
tion, TO €v (the one), out of which he drew his
"three hypostases," which became the fountain-
head of an evolution that embraced all things. It
30 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
is a curious fact that the most recent effort of
Christian trinitarian theologians to set forth the
triple nature of God, as most completely satisfying
the speculative reason in its efforts to harmonize
the conflicting categories of unity and multiplicity,
or of sameness and difference, is precisely that
which marks the philosophic trinitarianism of the
Ethnic religions. Surely speculative philosophies
in their attempts to solve the mysteries of the uni-
verse often find themselves in strange company,
and the moral is that some mysteries which must
be accepted as facts can never be satisfactorily
explained. It is the old. story, so continually re-
hearsed, of the captive bird uselessly chafing its
wings against the network of the cage that holds
it with a relentless grasp. The common panthe-
istic tendency that lurks in all these vain attempts
is strikingly apparent.
CHAPTER in
GENEEAL CHAKACTER AND RELATIONS OF THE
ETHNIC TRINITIES
We pass now from the causes that united to
develop the Ethnic trinities to a more direct con-
sideration of their interior characteristics. The
facts at the basis of such a consideration cover so
vast a field that it is impossible to attempt any-
thing more than a cursory survey. It is essential,
however, to any adequate comparison of the Ethnic
trinities with the Christian trinitarian dogma, such
as is proposed, that this part of the subject should
be carefuUy examined, and, after a summary gen-
eral statement, I shall give a more minute account
of several of the Ethnic trinities that were more
highly developed, and that present interesting
points of comparison to the Christian trinity.
A comparative examination of the Ethnic trini-
ties reveals many points of clear resemblance and
also considerable variety of form and development.
The resemblances suggest the question whether
they do not all spring from a common root. That
there was such a common root in the form of a
primitive revelation to the first parents of the race
has been the traditional view of Christian theolo-
gians ; but it is completely overthrown by the
32 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
whole trend of historical investigation. The very-
differences, which are quite radical and appear in
the earliest historical times, indicate diverse and
independent origins. The old unscientific theory
of an original unity of the race, with a single an-
cestral abode, language, and religion, is contradicted
by the plainest historical facts. Such unity is the
still far-off goal of human civilization and pro-
gress, — still a political, ecclesiastical, and philoso-
phical ideal, not a fact of man's beginnings. The
pre-Adamite, pre-historical men were essentially
savages. Gradually populating and spreading
over the vast wilds of the earth, they roved in
small clans whither they would, until the nomadic
state gave place to the agricultural and stationary.
Meanwhile diverse languages, customs, traditions,
ideas, modes of social and political life, grew up
everywhere. Such a thing as a general wide-
spread social order was utterly unknown. SmaU
tribes lived in isolation or in frequent war, resist-
ing all intrusions from without. It was in such a
condition of human life that the different Ethnic
religions and trinities had their earliest begin-
nings. To explain them by intercommunication
and borrowing of religious ideas is impossible, for
they are found at the same time in all parts of the
world, in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, and the
islands of the Pacific. There is only one rational
way to account for them. They are the result of
the common religious instincts and needs of human
nature. At first sight it seems strange that so many
RELATIONS OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 33
independent trinitarian religions should have arisen
spontaneously among men. But the study we have
already made of the causes that worked toward
their formation goes far to solve the mystery.
These causes deal mainly with facts, laws, condi-
tions, needs, aspirations, of a universal character.
In truth, the prevalence of divine triads in the re-
ligions of the world is to be explained in the same
general way as the wide prevalence of sacrificial
cults, of idolatrous worship, of rites such as cir-
cumcision and baptism, of calendars of holy and
secular days, and especially of a seventh day of
peculiar sacredness. All these ideas, customs,
rites, institutions, are a natural and spontaneous
outgrowth of the common conditions and yearnings
of man's religious nature. They are not peculiar
to any one people or class of peoples, but are the
common inheritance of the race. The same is true
of a doctrine of God. The religious instincts of
man cry out for " God, the living God," and every-
where throughout the world, even among the most
degraded tribes, some conception of God has taken
shape iQ some form of religious faith and worship.
The Ethnic trinities are simply developments of
such religious impulses and cravings. Man cre-
ates God in his own image. He sees the genera-
tive force operative in all nature, and he builds
a theogony of deity in which Fatherhood and
Motherhood and Sonship play their parts. He
looks upon God as far distant in the heavens,
dwelling in sun, moon, and stars, and, fearing his
34 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
power, he builds a triad in whicli a son-mediator
may be a daysman between him and his Maker.
He sees or fancies he sees a triple character or
principle at work in the world, and so he invests
the number three with a peculiar sacredness and
reduces his divine pantheon to a trinity of beings
that somehow represents or includes the whole.
But while common religious instincts and wants
produced a common trinitarianism among numer-
ous separated tribes and nations, there are wide
divergences among them in the strictness and com-
pleteness of the trinitarian development. In some
of them it is loosely and hesitatingly set forth,
in others much more rigidly and definitely. This
usually depends upon the degree of intellectual
and philosophical advancement of the people. The
French archaeologist, A. Bertrand, in his recent
most instructive work, "La Religion des Gau-
lois," proves beyond question from archaeological
discoveries the existence of triads and trinitarian
ideas among the Gauls; but such ideas assumed
the crudest and most iUusive shapes, as, for in-
stance, in the tricephalous or three-faced heads of
divinities found on altars and vases. On the other
hand, among the more highly civilized Chaldaeans,
Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, triads of
^ods were a common and notable feature of their
theogonies. It is, however, among the three most
philosophically cultured peoples of the ancient
world that the most highly developed trinities are
found, namely, the Hindoos, the Persians, and the
RELATIONS OF THE ETHNIC TRINITIES 35
Greeks. The Zoroastrian, the Brahmanistic, and
New Platonic trinities are not only quite fully de-
veloped along the line of the trinitarian evolution,
but form component parts of highly elaborated
philosophical systems, reminding one of the subtle
theological speculations of the Nicene age on which
were built the wonderful metaphysical superstruc-
ture of the homoousian trinity.
Akin to this class of facts is the noticeable ease
with which the Ethnic trinities are modified or re-
adjusted to meet new circumstances or influences,
while still preserving their trinitarian character.
The names and offices of the three members of the
triad are subject to change. The earlier Accadian
trinity becomes reorganized among the Babyloni-
ans, and the Babylonian trinity in turn is amended
by the Assyrians. Egypt had numerous local
trinitarian cults. There was one triad at Mem-
phis, another at Thebes, another at Abydos, and
almost every district had its local triad. Even in
the same locality a triad had a fluxive character,
at least so far as names and functions were con-
cerned. The number three itself was sometimes
invaded or its significance extended. In some
Egyptian localities a fourth god was added, though
usually of a subordinate character. It was also
the case in Egypt especially, where the trinitarian
element was wholly subject to the universal poly-
theism, that there should be triple combinations of
triads, and even a further triplicity. The fam-
ily or generative idea that was so fundamental to
36 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
almost all the Ethnic trinities also tended to give
elasticity to the triads. Each of the gods in the
Babylonian triad had his wife, and wives were
common in many Ethnic trinities, thus in a sense
duplicating the number, though it is doubtful
whether the wives were thought of as separate from
their male companions. These peculiarities of the
Ethnic trinities are of course to be explained by
the common polytheism that underlies them all,
though this polytheistic feature is less obtrusive in
some cases than in others. As we have seen, a
triad of gods is a natural stage in any polytheistic
or monotheistic evolution. What is remarkable is
that, in any thoroughly polytheistic form of reli-
gion, the idea of a trinity should have had such
prominence or persistency. It helps one to realize
how deep must have been the impression made on
the ancient world by those phenomena of nature
and of man that led them to place generation and
mediatorship at the very basis of their religious
ideas of God and of his relations with themselves.
CHAPTER IV
THE HINDOO BEAHMANIC TRINITY
From this general survey I pass to a particular
description of the three great representatives of
the Ethnic trinities, namely, the Hindoo, the Zoro-
astrian, and the Greek. This chapter will be de-
voted to the Hindoo.
The Hindoo religion appears in the Vedas in
full polytheistic form, as a deification of the phe-
nomena and powers of nature. There were three
classes of divinities, the gods of the sky, of the
lower atmosphere, and of the earth. The earliest
worship made the sky gods most prominent, but
the tendency was towards the prominence of the
lower divinities, since they were supposed to be in
closer relations with men. Thus the earlier sky
gods give way to the atmospheric gods, and they
in turn to the earth gods. Varuna is supplanted
by Indra, and Indra in turn by Agni, who be-
comes the central deity of the whole Hindoo poly-
theistic pantheon, — a triune god, " the first trial-
ity," comprehending in himself the threefold unity,
typical of earth, atmosphere, and heaven. Here
already the pantheistic strain begins to appear,
which finally in later Hindoo philosophy triumphs
completely over the earlier polytheism. Of Agni
38 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
it is said, " in Mm are all the gods." It is this
peculiar character of earth god, including also the
higher orders of divinities, that invests him with
the mediatorial functions of which I have already
spoken. This triune feature of Agni is described
in language that reminds one forcibly of modern
Sabellian expressions concerning the Christian
trinity. " Threefold is my light." " He is aU
threefold, three are his tongues, his births, his
places of sojourn, thrice led about the sacrifice given
thrice a day." Meanwhile the trinitarian idea is
emerging already in the Vedic period, fluctuating,
however, in the names of the triad as the tendency
of popular thought and worship passes from the
higher to the lower gods, until it takes a more pro-
nounced shape in Dyaus, Indra, and Agni, which
may be called the Vedic trinity, as compared with
the later Brahmanic trinity of Brahma, Vishnu,
and Civa. This Vedic trinity illustrates the ten-
dency from the primitive subordination of the
lower deities to their equality with the higher and
to the practical substitution of the third member
for the first and second in the popular faith and
worship. It is Agni, the third member of the
Vedic trinity, who is creator of the world, and high-
priest and mediator and guest and friend of man.
This feature of Hindooism is the historical pre-
cursor of a similar development in the history of
the Christian trinitarian dogma, where the earlier
subordination element in the case of the second
and third persons is at length wholly obliterated by
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 39
Augustine and the Western Churcli, and a com-
plete equality is established. The pantheistic ele-
ment which is to be noted in the triune character
of Agni grows more and more pronounced in later
Vedic times. There is a tendency to a unification
of divinities, which prepares the way for the com-
plete pantheism of the Brahmanic period. The
language of the priests and philosophers reminds
us of the Stoic writers by whom the old gods are
still honored with the lips, and the polytheistic lan-
guage is retained, but whose figurative or allegori-
cal method of interpretation reduces it all to the
baldest pantheism. It is at this point that the
idea of the God-Father rises into notice, in a way
that is suggestive of Platonism, especially in its
New Platonic form.
The next stage in the evolution of Hindooism is
Buddhism, — one of the most remarkable move-
ments in the world's religious history. Gautama
or Buddha, " the enlightened," as he came to be
called, was not a radical reformer of the Vedic
faith, but a saint, or earnest seeker after personal
salvation. He opened a new " way " to heaven.
While Brahmanism sought the heavenly life
through knowledge or asceticism, Gautama sought
it by purity and love. Philosophically he was an
agnostic, but Buddhism as a religion became athe-
istic, acknowledging neither god nor personal im-
mortality. Gautama resembled Jesus in this, that
he was not a dogmatist but a moral teacher. The
similarity between the teachings of Buddha and
40 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
those of Christ is certainly striking. He pro-
claimed a free gospel for aU men, declaring against
all castes or priesthoods or aristocracy of know-
ledge. How strange in an age when the religion
of the many was so radically different from that
of the few to hear such words as these : " I have
preached the truth without making any distinction
between exoteric and esoteric doctrine, for in re-
spect of truth, Avander, your master, has no such
thing as the closed fist of a teacher who keeps
some things back." If one would realize how
full of reminders Buddha's teaching was of the
sayings of Christ, in its whole tenor and spirit, let
him read the Dhammapada, one of the canoni-
cal books of the Buddhists, which contains a col-
lection of the reputed sayings of Buddha. How
authentic this collection is it is impossible to say,
but certainly it was believed to be such by Bud-
dhists of a later generation, and it breathes a spirit
of religion "pure and undefiled," as realistic as
the Sermon on the Mount or the parable of the
sower. The " kingdom of God " for Buddha, like
Christ's, was " within." Righteousness was not a
matter of outward works, or ceremonies, but of
inward character. Let me give a few selections
from Buddha's sayings in illustration : " All that
we are is the result of what we have thought. If
a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happi-
ness follows him like a shadow that never leaves
him." " Hatred does not cease by hatred at any
time ; hatred ceases by love : this is an old rule."
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 41
" If a man conquer himself he is the greatest of
conquerors." "Bad deeds and deeds hurtful to
ourselves are easy to do ; what is beneficial and
good, that is very difficult to do." " Let a man
overcome anger by love ; let him overcome evil by
good." " Speak the truth, do not yield to anger,
give if thou art asked for little, and by these three
steps thou wilt go near the gods." " The best
of men is he who has eyes to see." " As a solid
rock is not shaken by the wind, wise people falter
not amidst blame and praise." " First of all let a
man establish himself in the good, then only can
he instruct others." " He who is permeated by
goodness, let him turn to the land of peace, where
transientness finds an end, to happiness." " A rest
like that of the deep sea, calm and clear, the wise
find who hear the truth." Surely, if these pas-
sages were incorporated bodily in Christ's Sermon
on the Mount, there would be no moral jar, rather
a complete rhythmic spiritual harmony. We shall
not be surprised now to find that Buddha taught
a gospel that was for all mankind. " The Exalted
One appears in the world for salvation, for joy to
many people, out of compassion for the world, for
the blessing, the salvation, the joy of gods and
men."
No authentic biography of Buddha has come
down to us. The earliest accounts were sayings
or logia placed in a historical setting of narrative
to explain the occasion of what was said, very
much as the Memorabilia of Socrates by Xeno-
42 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
phon were constructed, or the Synoptic gospels.
The later lives, which bear so close a likeness in
many ways to the gospel accounts of Christ, are
wholly legendary. One of the most remarkable of
these legends is that of Buddha's temptation by
Mara the Evil One. The earliest form of the tra-
dition was that Buddha, before setting out on his
public career, fasted for twenty-eight days. The
temptation was a later addition. Of course the
marvelous similarity of the account to that given
in the gospels of Christ's fasting and temptation
by the devil strikes every reader. Oldenberg well
says on this point : " It seems scarcely necessary
to observe that in both cases the same obvious
motives have given rise to the corresponding nar-
rative; the notion of an influence exerted by
Buddhist traditions on Christian cannot be enter-
tained." Neither can the opposite idea of a coun-
ter influence be considered ; for the Buddhist tra-
dition is certainly the earlier. Such legendary
accounts began to gather around the life of Buddha
not many years after his death. Buddha himseK
became deified and finally was made the supreme
deity, incarnating himself from time to time in one
and another human being. His birth was also
made miraculous, involving a divine as well as
human element.
Buddhism finally became a sort of exile from
India, but its leaven remained, and later trinitarian
Hindooism introduced Buddha into its pantheon
as one of the incarnations of Vishnu. This brings
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 43
us to the last stage of the development of Hindoo-
ism, the great sectarian trinity of Brahma, Vishnu,
and Civa.
The Hindoo trimurti grew out of the Brah-
manic pantheism, which was itself based on Vedic
polytheism with its triads. Brahma became the
absolute god of pantheistic Brahmanism, while the
old Vedic divinities were retained as forms or
creations of Brahma. The Maha-bharata, one of
the two great Indian epics, gives us the intermedi-
ate stage between Brahmanism and the more com-
pletely developed Hindooism of later times. In
this epic the pantheistic character of the trinity
is clearly visible. There is one absolute form of
deity, namely, Brahma or Brahm, but he appears
in three personal manifestations, Vishnu, Civa,
Brahma, " one form, three gods." Everywhere the
real identity of the three gods is implied. Krishna,
the hero of the epic, who is represented as an in-
carnation of Vishnu, declares himself to be " the
supreme being, having no beginning," "the pro-
ductive cause of the entire universe, and also its
destroyer," " the beginning, the middle, and the
end of beings," thus identifying himself with
Brahma and Civa as well as with Vishnu, and
uniting in himseK the functions of aU three. But
this strongly pantheistic reaction was followed by
an evolution towards a more systematized trinita-
rianism, in which the distinctly personal character
of the members of the trinity is emphasized. The
earlier epical definition of deity as " one form,
44 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
three gods " is inverted into " three gods, one
form." Such is the fully developed Hindoo tri-
murtL But it must not be supposed that the
sectarian trinity of later Puranic Hindooism is
any less pantheistic in fact than the older trinity
of the Epic, or of the Brahmanical books. The
question among the sects came to be which person
of the three is the true Brahma. This is the pecul-
iarity of the sectarian orthodoxy of later Hindoo-
ism. Under cover of it different sects could unite,
— each calling itself trinitarian, but claiming that
the trinity of Vishnu, Civa, and Brahma was
really contained in one or other of the three. This
pantheistic trinitarianism " was eventually repre-
sented under the symbol of a body with three
heads " — a mode of setting forth triunity which
was anticipated by the Celtic Gauls in their crude
altars and tombs called tricephales.
Such in brief is the history of the evolution of
the Hmdoo trimurti. Several points are notice-
able as we study its internal character. First, it
was a direct historical development of Vedic reli-
gious thought, and is rooted in polytheistic, and
not in monotheistic ideas, thus representing a stage
from multiplicity to unity — in this respect differ-
ing from the Christian trinitarian evolution, which
moved from unity to multiplicity, and agreeing
with all the Ethnic trinities. Secondly, the Hin-
doo trimurti represents a movement on philo-
sophical lines towards a pantheistic, not a mono-
theistic unity. It is impossible, within the limits
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 45
of this survey, to follow all the successive stages
of development. The old Vedic triads gradually
gave way to new ones, and to a more complete
poljrtheism, with a dim background of monothe-
ism. This principle of imity became a subject of
philosophic study, and in Brahmanism took a com-
pletely pantheistic form. Brahm was at first the
term for mere eternal absolute existence. This
impersonal form of deity subsequently became
personalized in Brahma, the masculine of Brahm,
and formed the First Person of the Hindoo trin-
ity. Brahma was the Creator and Father of all
things. As the Vedic religion starts with physi-
cal phenomena and its gods are personifications
of natural forces, so the Hindoo philosophical
trinity followed the same materialistic lines. AU
phenomena involve three laws or conditions of
existence, generation or creation, preservation, de-
struction and reproduction, and these forces are in
constant operation through succession and interac-
tion. The Hindoo triad laid hold of these trini-
tarian aspects of nature. To Brahma, the Creator,
was added Vishnu, one of the oldest Vedic sun
gods, who was raised to a higher rank as the
second person of the triad, the preserver. Then
Civa, also an ancient divinity, under the form of
the fire god, Rudra, became the third person, as the
destroyer and regenerator. Originally these three
gods were not regarded as forming three absolute
independent Beings, but as created and dependent,
while on an equality with each other, being com-
46 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
mon emanations from the Absolute One, thus in-
dicating their polytheistic background. But as
the evolution moved on the relation of the three
became more pronounced and close. The under-
lying pantheism of aU Indian philosophy became
the uniting element in the new Hindoo triad.
Brahma, Vishnu, and Civa ceased to be equal
gods or forms of one god, and became a trinity
in co-relation and subordination, though the pan-
theistic element still ruled it and merged the
three together in one common divine existence. As
this more complete trinitarian form became de-
veloped, the relations of the three members of the
triad were changed, and also the order of subordi-
nation. In the Purana period Vishnu is the high-
est and supreme god, Civa is second, unless treated
as a rival of Vishnu, while Brahma, who originally
was first in rank and authority, falls to the third
place, — a process which we shall see again and
again occurring in the history of the Ethnic trini-
ties, and which forms a curious chapter in the evo-
lution of the Christian trinitarianism. In the final
stage of Hindoo trinitarian development its pan-
theism is complete. For the Vishnuite Vishnu is
the absolute god, and the other two members of
the triad are merely forms or names of Vishnu.
The same is true of Civa for the Civaite. In
other words, Hindoo trinitarianism becomes sec-
tarian, and it is such a sectarian trinity within
whose pantheistic folds the two great Hindoo sects
have managed to live together down to the present
day.
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 47
But, thirdly, the most remarkable chapter in
the evolution of the Hindoo trimurti is the in-
carnation of Vishnu in the form of Krishna, the
god-man. The idea of a divine incarnation was
not new in Indian thought. It is a fundamental
element of aU mythologies. Gods are continually
appearing as human beings, assuming the form of
a man or woman, or even for the time personating
some actual man or woman, as, in the Odyssey,
Athene assumed the form of Mentor, and went
with Telemachus as his companion to the court of
Nestor. The theory of transmigration which is so
embedded in Indian thought has a clear affinity
with that of incarnation. The lines between the
brute, the human, and the divine worlds, between
the natural and the supernatural, were not sharply
drawn in those early unscientific times, as they
are to-day. There was nothing extraordinary to
the Indian thinker any more than to the Greek,
in the descent of the gods to companionship with
men, and in the assumption of human guise. He-
brew thought shows traces in the Old Testament
of the same anthropomorphizing tendency. Abra-
ham is represented as entertaining divine beings,
who appeared as men and ate at his table. But
the Vishnu-Krishna incarnation doctrine has one
peculiarity. It was not a temporary manifestation
of a god to men in a human form. It was a per-
manent incarnation of the Absolute Deity in a
divine man, who was born, and lived, and died like
other men. These incarnations of Vishnu were
48 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
indeed repeated according to human needs, but
each incarnation was a true birth into a true hu-
man nature. Krishna thus describes it in the
Bhagavat-Gita, or " Divine Song," to his friend
Arjuna : " Many births of mine have passed away,
O Arjuna, but thou hast not known them.
Though I am unborn and of essence that knoweth
no deterioration, though I am the lord of creatures,
still, relying on my own nature, I take birth by
my own powers of illusion. Whensoever loss of
piety occurreth and the rise of wickedness, then
do I create myself. For the 'protection of the
righteous^ for the destruction of evil-doers^ for
the sake of establishing piety, I am horn age
after age^ The Maha-bharata, or " Great Epic,"
represents Krishna as " born of a woman," living
an active human life among men, and finally as
suffering death like any other mortal. Yet in the
" Divine Song," which is included iu the " Great
Epic," Krishna again and again speaks in the
person of Vishnu, describing himself as the " Su-
preme Being." And Arjuna replying, after hav-
ing been allowed a vision of Vishnu in his divine
glory, addresses him, " I bow to thee, O chief of
the gods ; be gracious unto me. I desire to know
thee that art the primeval one." These passages
surely remind one of the Christian doctrine, and
irresistibly force on the Christian historical stu-
dent the question whether the Hindoo Vishnu-
Krishna incarnation doctrine is not borrowed from
Christianity itself. Some Christian scholars have
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 49
held to this view, but all recent investigations have
tended more and more strongly to the opposite
side, and to my mind there can be no historical
doubt as to the main lines of fact. Interpolation
has played a part in all ancient and mediaeval
literature. This is especially true of the so-called
sacred books of the world. The more sacred the
writing, the stronger the temptation to make addi-
tions in the form of new matter, or of new inter-
pretation of the old. The Indian sacred books
are not exceptional. The " Great Epic " is, like
the Old Testament as it now appears in Jewish
literature, the result of many recensions involving
growth and enlargement. It is a vast compound
of myth, legend, history, philosophy, and poetry,
gathered around the golden age of Hindoo tradi-
tion. Whether it contains any real historical mat-
ter is doubtful. Like Homer, it is mainly a com-
pendium of legendary traditions. These traditions
extend back into the origins of Indian history, and
are filled with the true Indian spirit. What may
be called the first edition of the " Great Epic " as
a written work may be dated certainly as early as
the third or fourth century B. c, but additions con-
tinued to be made to it down to the Christian era,
and afterwards on to the sixth century. Of course
there were opportunities for later borrowings from
the growing Christian traditions ; and these bor-
rowings can be easily discovered by plain marks of
internal evidence. Some of these are drawn from
the New Testament gospels, and others are copies
60 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
in spirit if not in the exact letter of the legendary'
apocryphal lives of Christ. But the nucleus and
substance of the Vishnu-Krishna incarnation is
just as surely pre-Christian and of native Indian
origin as the Hindoo Triad itself. It bears the
clear marks of Hindoo genius and thought. The
differences between it and the Christian dogma,
which are radical and essential, while the resem-
blances are more superficial, though startling at
first sight, — a matter that wiU be dealt with
more fully in a later chapter, — clearly indicate
an independent origin. One general point of dif-
ference may be properly mentioned here, since it
has to do with the radical character of the Hindoo
trinitarian incarnation doctrine, as compared with
all other like dogmas, whether Ethnic or Chris-
tian. The most notable and fundamental differ-
ence between the divine incarnation of Krishna
and that of Jesus consists in the fact that Jesus
was a real man with a veritable human life, while
Krishna was a purely mythical being. On its di-
vine supernatural side the Krishna doctrine quite
agrees with the Christian, but it utterly fails on
the human side. In other words, the Christian
doctrine of the divine incarnation, as it was evolved
in the early church, had its starting-point and
centre in a historical personage, namely, Jesus of
Nazareth, whereas the Indian doctrine is whoUy a
growth of Indian speculative thought, and has no
element of historical fact to bring it into closer
relation with actual human life. Thus these two
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 51
different modes of conception illustrate the two
general classes of incarnation theory into which
all such theories may be divided: (1) the class
which starts with deity, and by an incarnation re-
duces deity to humanity; (2) the class which
starts with a real human being and raises him to
the rank of deity, and then accounts for his human
nature by an incarnation of his deity. Vishnu-
KJrishna is an illustration of the first class. AU
purely mythological incarnations are of this class.
According to Darmesteter, the Avestan scholar,
Zoroaster was not a real historical man who was
afterwards divinized by his later disciples, but a
mythological creation who became incarnate in the
Persian theology. If this were true, Zoroaster
would belong to the same class with Vishnu-
Krishna. The second class is represented by the
Christ of Christian orthodoxy, the result of a his-
torical evolution, which has been unfolded in my
previous volume, "A Critical History," etc. In
this case a real man was divinized, and then a doc-
trine of incarnation was developed to account for
the presence of God in the flesh among men. The
same is true of Zoroaster, if the view of West,
Mills, and others, be taken, — the view which
plainly best accords with the most ancient of
Avestan texts, — namely, that Zoroaster is to be
regarded as a Persian sage and prophet, who ap-
peared as a reformer and founded a new religion,
and was afterwards divinized into a god and wor-
shiped. Then naturally followed the tradition
62 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of his miraculous birth and divine incarnation.
To the same class belongs Buddlia in the later
Buddhist religion. All efforts to turn the life of
Gautama into a myth have signally failed. Ideal-
ized as that life became in the growth of tradition,
so that it is difficult to separate fact from legend,
the outlines of a true historical person stand out
too distinctly to give any foothold for critical
skepticism. The historical Buddha was a real
man with a human biography, as I have already
described it ; but after ages developed around
his life and name a series of divine Buddhas or
incarnations of deity, of whom the historical Gau-
tama, " the enlightened one," or Buddha, was one.
A clear distinction should be drawn here be-
tween all incarnation theories and those mediation
ideas which we have found so characteristic of the
various Ethnic trinities. All incarnation theories
are based on the mediation principle, but a fuU
mediation trinitarian doctrine does not necessarily
involve the incarnation of a god into humanity,
and in fact it was not included in most of the
Ethnic religions, even where the mediation princi-
ple was quite fully developed, as, for example, in
the Platonic philosophy. Plato introduced the
mediation element into his dualistic transcenden-
talism. Philo developed out of Plato his Logos
doctrine, and gave to the Logos the name of medi-
ator, using the word /xco-rny? which afterwards went
into the Christian vocabulary. But the Greek
mediation doctrine never reached any theory of
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 53
incarnation. The Sot/xwi/ of Plato and the /Aco-trr;? of
Philo always remained supernatural divine beings.
Even Plotinus refused to borrow such a material-
istic doctrine, as he would have termed it, from
Christianity. His profoundly trinitarian mediation
system was completely idealistic and speculative,
and introduced no element either from mythology
or history. In this respect Christianity and Hin-
dooism including Buddhism stand apart from all
other religions, and it is this fact that gives the
Vishnu-Krishna doctrine such significance in the
history of the Ethnic trinities. This doctrine is
essentially the principle of a divine mediatorship
acting between God and men, in the interest of
human well-being, carried out to its completest
limit. Divine condescension could go no further
than to lead a god to enter the human condition and
to live a real human life from birth to death, enter-
ing life and leaving it in a true human way. This
is the simple meaning of the Krishna myth. It
was the last and highest word of Indian religious
philosophy on the mystery of the moral relation be-
tween God and man. It taught that the Absolute
Deity was in closest intimacy with humanity, that
human moral necessities and cravings for a moral
salvation were aU met and satisfied in a divine
movement of God towards his creatures which in-
volved, when the situation demanded, a real incar-
nation of God in the flesh, bringing him into the
closest possible nearness to the objects of his love,
so that they could see him somehow as he is, and
64 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
believe on him to the saving of the soul. A single
passage from the " Divine Song " well illustrates
the spirit of Hindooism in its purest form. Krishna
thus discloses to his friend Arjuna the ef&cacy of
faith in himself : " Fix thy heart on me alone, place
thy understanding on me. Hereafter then shalt
thou dwell in me. Exceedingly dear art thou to
me, therefore I wiU declare what is for thy bene-
fit. Forsaking all religious duties, come to me as
the sole refuge ; I will deliver thee from all sins."
How strongly like this is to the Fourth Gospel I
need not say. But, as we shall see, such sen-
timents are not peculiar to the " Divine Song " or
the Fourth Gospel. They are the deep spiritual
utterances of a common humanity, and have been
repeated again and again in the history of religion.
Nor is it so wonderful that this lofty speculation
should have been reached by Indian sages, when
we realize the conditions under which they wrought.
No historical people in the world, perhaps, can be
compared with the Hindoos in the region of ab-
stract religious thought. Even Greek philosophy
seems superficial and crude when put into close
critical comparison with the philosophy of India.
It must be remembered that recent philological
science has discovered the clear bond of tribal and
linguistic relationship between India and Greece,
and also the clear indication that the Indian civi-
lization and literature are much the older of the
two. The Vedas were written before Homer sang,
and the Brahman pliilosophers discussed the nature
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 65
of God and the soul before Thales developed his
crude theory that all nature originated from water,
or Anaxagoras suggested that behind all mixed
phenomena there must be something unmixed and
self-moved which he called the soul of things.
There is good ground for believing that Pythagoras
and Heracleitus owed some of their philosophical
ideas to India. Not till we come in Greek thought
to Plotinus and the later New Platonists do we find
a development of philosophical speculation that in
metaphysical acuteness and profundity rivals the
sectarian schools of the Hindoo trinitarianism. The
people of India have been from the earliest histori-
cal times on the whole the most intensely religious
and religiously thoughtful people in the world.
Their literature illustrates this. There is no his-
tory or science therein in the modem sense. It
all belongs to the sphere of ethics and religion.
Buddha, the consummate flower of Indian thought
and life, was a religious reformer and saint, and he
remains to-day one of the most striking religious
figures in the calendar of the world's noblest and
loftiest spirits. It is not so strange, then, that such
a redemptive incarnation theory should have arisen
in Indian theology.
From what has been said it is plain that the
Tnediation idea rules above all others in the Hin-
doo trinitarianism, and culminates in the divine
incarnation of Vishnu in the form of Krishna,
who appears as the divine-human friend and helper
of man. The precursor of this phase of doctrine,
66 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
in Indian religious tradition, as we have seen, was
Agni, a member of an early Hindoo trinity, namely,
Varuna, Indra, and Agni. But Agni was never
incarnate as a human being. His mediatorship
never reached the point of his humbling himself
and submitting to a human birth and even to a
human death. But this further step in the medi-
atorial office was natural and historically involved,
and the theological movement from Agni to Vishnu-
Krishna was along the lines not only of specula-
tive logic, but of the religious intuitions. If God
and man are morally related, and yet are meta-
physically separated in two diverse spheres of be-
ing, the truest union between them can be brought
about only by an incarnation of the higher being
into the fleshly nature of the lower, and the Hin-
doo Brahman reached this conclusion by the same
road as Athanasias, when he wrote : " God must
be made man in order that man may be made
God," that is, may be brought into completest spir-
itual unity with him. One step only remained to
be taken to exhaust this whole cycle of religious
thought, namely, that the subject of incarnation
should be an actual historical human personage.
But this was scarcely possible from the Hindoo
point of view. The Vishnu-Krishna doctrine and
its trinitarian accompaniment had their historical
source in the Vedic polytheistic mythology. But
mythology and history do not easily mix, or rather
it might better be said, they mix so easily that the
mythological carries the historical with it, so that
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 57
to the Hindoo thinker Krishna was as truly a his-
torical character as Komiilus was to the Koman, or
Adam to the Hebrew. The myth was in their eyes
as much fact as any event of history. In short,
there is no need of a historical incarnation of an
actual man from the mythological or ideal stand-
point. Myth or legend has become history for all
practical purposes. A reversal of this process must
spring from the opposite quarter, namely, from a
real human person who from sainthood is evolved
into divinity and then is raised into a preexistent
heavenly condition to become incarnate. It is cer-
tainly remarkable that in Indian history, where a
mythological and philosophic idealism so thoroughly
rules, a signal illustration should be furnished of
an incarnation doctrine based on a historical back-
ground. I refer to the case of Buddha and Bud-
dhism. What makes this case the more remarkable
is the fact that Buddhism is not a dogmatic re-
volt from earlier Yedistic or Brahmanic ideas. It
is simply a chapter in the history of the Hindoo
religion, — a new effort along old lines to solve the
mystery of human life and salvation, a wholly ethi-
cal reform, made vital, indeed, by the holy life and
character of Buddha himself. But just here is to
be found the true and easy explanation of what
seems at first sight so difficult of solution. The
vital force of Buddhism lay in the person and per-
sonal life of its founder. The new religion gath-
ered itself around the man Gautama. The first
and easy step of religious evolution was to make
68 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
this saint among men a superhuman being, and
finally an incarnation of the Absolute God. Such
was the historical starting-point in the evolution of
dogmatic Buddhism and its doctrine of numerous
divine incarnations in men like Gautama.
It is interesting here to note that in the history
of the Buddha doctrine and cult we have the only
clear and complete historical counterpart to that
of dogmatic Christianity. The Vishnu-Krishna
doctrine, as we have seen, lacks one radical point
of resemblance, in that it rests on no historical
footing. But this lack is supplied by Buddhism.
It is in India, then, that we find a thoroughly de-
veloped dogma of a historical incarnation of God
in a real human nature, closely analogous to the
Christian dogma, yet chronologically anterior by
hundreds of years, so that if there was any bor-
rowing it must have been on the Christian side.
Of this, however, there is no proof, and there are
differences, both in historical origin and in inter-
nal evolution and character, which stamp both
as wholly distinct and independent types of that
common mediation idea which is as old and uni-
versal as the human race. It is this need so deep
in human nature of some mediator or mediating
movement between God and man that unites all
religions together, whether Ethnic or Christian,
however distinguishable in other respects. Every
religious faith, as a rule, rests at last on a medi-
ating principle by which man may climb to God,
be it Marduk, or Agni, or Athene, or Zoroaster, or
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 69
Mithra, or Sosiosh, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the
"Word" of the Fourth Gospel, or the "tpvxn" of
Plotinus.
The question might be raised whether the Jew-
ish and Mohammedan religions are not exceptions
to this rule. It is true that these two religions —
both Semitic, and having the same original char-
acter, as reactions from polytheistic beliefs — agree
in rejecting all distinctly trinitarian forms of di-
vinity. The stark monotheism of these religions
prevents any such tendency; but it is far from
true that they lack all mediational features. Juda-
ism made much of the mediatorship of Moses.
Paul, himself a Jew, declared that the Jews re-
ceived the law from God at the hands of a /tco-mys
or mediator, referring to Moses. The Mosaic law
itseK was regarded as of divine origin and nature,
and the worship therein enjoined, first in the tab-
ernacle and afterwards in the temple, was made
the medium of communication between the wor-
shipers and Jehovah. It is true that Moses
himself was never deified; but his Law, and the
Temple, and the Temple cultus with the sacrificial
system, became veritable mediators between the
people and God. It was on the basis of their rela-
tion to the Law and the Temple that they regarded
themselves as the chosen people of God, while aU
the heathen were disowned and cast away from his
favor. The case is much the same with Moham-
medanism. Mohammed only proclaimed himself
a prophet like Moses, and his followers have never
60 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
treated him as more than man. Yet a principle
of mediation between them and Allah was estab-
lished in the view taken of the Koran, which they
regard as a verbally inspired communication given
to Mohammed directly from God, and so the chief
means of obtaining the divine favor. The Koran
has become the great Mohammedan fetich, though
some account must also be made of the Caaba, or
temple, at Mecca, with its legendary traditions
and consequent superstitions, such as the directing
of aU prayer toward Mecca, as if God would hear
and answer his worshipers only from that sacred
spot. The forms of mediation in these religions
certainly differ considerably from those of other
religions, but the mediation principle, as a way of
satisfying the religious needs of men, is found
equally in them.
It was Christ, if the testimony of the Fourth
Gospel may be accepted, who first promulgated in
its sharpest form what may be historically called
the Protestant doctrine, that no eternal mediation
of any sort is required between man and his Maker,
and that every human being may directly approach
God and commune with him face to face, when he
said : " The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father," " God is a spirit, and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit," that is, not
through outward mediational forms, or in any par-
ticular place, but directly anywhere and every-
where, with no bar between that needs to be re-
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 61
moved by any human or divine mediator. Christ
taught the same doctrine more authentically in his
parable of the prodigal son, where the erring peni-
tent returns on his homeward way and meets his
father face to face. Paul, too, had recognized,
though perhaps less clearly, the same royal truth,
when he declared that " God dwelleth not in tem-
ples made with hands, and is not far from any one
of us," " for we are also his offspring." But so
spiritual a vision was not easily discoverable by
men, and remained for ages the far off Holy Grail
of himian search and hope. None of the Ethnic
religions quite reached it. Only now and then
has some single solitary thinker, in some inspired
moment of religious meditation, caught sight of it
and left it to shine a lone star in literature. Such
was Seneca when he wrote : " It is not necessary
to raise the hands to heaven, nor to ask the temple
keeper to admit us to the ears of a divinity, as if
we could then be better heard. God is near to
you, he is with you, even within you ; yes, I may
say that the Holy Spirit has its seat within us "
(Sacer intra nos spiritus sedet. Ep. 41, ad Lucil.),
— words that remind us at once of Paul's in the
passage just quoted from his address on Mars HiU
in Athens, and make less surprising the tradition
that these two men met and afterwards had a cor-
respondence which has come down to us. It is
needless to say that the so-caUed " Letters of Paul
and Seneca " are whoUy spurious. But this fact
lies behind them, namely, that man's moral con-
62 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
sciousness may anywhere and at any time so open
itself to the divine incoming and presence that no
vail shall remain to hide God's face, and no medi-
ator be needed to bring him near to us. Such
foregleams of truth, however, have been rare. Job
is described as " a man of God ; " yet he prayed :
" O that I might know where I could find him."
Plato was the perfect flower of Greek philosophy,
yet he wrote : " God is hard to find, and when
found is difficult to make known to others." Ten-
nyson, who voiced, perhaps, beyond all others the
religious aspirations and acquisitions of our mod-
ern world, was a true prophet and seer when he
sang : —
" I hold it true with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.^'
Such " stepping stones," indeed, are the divine
revelations given in the successive stages of the
history of religion, — " The world's great altar
stairs that slope through darkness up to God."
That vision of spiritual truth which Christ caught
with such wonderful clearness, and which Paul
and Seneca had glimpses of, needed for its fuller
comprehension those fuller revealings of God in
the wonderful discoveries in science and history
of the last fifty years. Surely the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews builded better than he
knew, when he wrote : " God, who at sundry times
and in divers manners spake in time past unto
THE HINDOO BRAHMANIC TRINITY 63
the fathers by the prophets," "hath provided
some better thing for us, that they without us
should not he made perfect.'' How far short of
the real truth, as seen in the light of later his-
tory, did this writer come ? For him, plainly, the
" end of days " was near at hand. Comparing the
dispensation of the prophets with the messianic
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he was fully as-
sured that the new dispensation was ushering in
the grand consummation of mundane events.
How little did he realize that the gospel which
Christ had proclaimed was itself only a seed which
nineteen long centuries would quicken and unfold,
until in another " end of days " a new epoch
would be reached of higher and grander revela-
tions, itself in turn to be succeeded " at sundry
times and in divers manners " by still wider and
more splendid displays of the Divine beneficence ;
for even " we " in these far ojff last times have not
yet been " made perfect."
CHAPTER V
THE PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM
The Persian religion is closely connected with
the Indian in origin and early character. These
peoples not only had a common Aryan ancestry,
but their historical traditions indicate a common
migration from their original home, and a subse-
quent division into two bodies in their movement
southward, from which resulted two distinct nations.
In the dim prehistoric backgTound of Zoroastrian-
ism there are traces of a polytheism which bears
plain marks of affinity with the Vedic polytheism
of India. Zoroaster himself, if he was a historical
and not a mythical character, as on the whole
seems the best supported view, was a reformer
of the ancient religion in the direction of mon-
otheism. Zoroastrianism has usually been treated
as if based on a thorough philosophical dualism,
and as representing in an extreme form the dual-
istic theory of the origin of the universe, namely,
that the present system of things, with its mixture
of good and evil, is the result of the action of two
original, eternal, and independent principles, one
good and the author of all good, the other evil and
the author of all evil. There is a single short
passage in the Gathas which seems to teach this
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 65
view. But even the Gathas were not free from
interpolation. Mr. L. H. Mills, the Avestan
scholar, in his introduction to the Gathas, says :
" We may say, a priori, that all existing composi-
tions of antiquity are and must have been interpo-
lated," — a statement which seems somewhat start-
ling, but which all historical investigators must
accept as substantially true. Mr. Mills adds that
there are " less interpolations in the Gathas than
is usual." The Gathas in the Avestan sacred
writings correspond to the Synoptic gospels of the
New Testament. Mr. Mills regards the interpo-
lations in the Gathas as "the work of Zoroaster's
earliest disciples." There was a decided tendency
from the first, undoubtedly, in the Zoroastrian re-
ligion towards a dualistic doctrine, and it became
fuUy developed in the later Zoroastrianism ; but
it never reached the point of extreme dualism, as
was the case in Christian Gnosticism, which bor-
rowed its dualistic principle from Zoroastrian
sources, but converted it into something quite differ-
ent from the doctrine of Zoroaster himself or even
of his true followers. Zoroaster was a practical
reformer, not a speculator, and his reform was di-
rected mainly against polytheism, especially in the
form of the worship of evil spirits. This seems to
have led him to the assertion of a monotheistic
doctrine. Ormuzd was the one eternal good god,
surrounded by subordinate good beings. A good
god cannot be responsible for the existence of
evil. Such evil cannot be imputed to Ormuzd's
66 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
agency or permission. Whence, then, comes evil?
The Zoroastrian treated it as connected with " the
imperfection that is inherent in the nature of
things." Out of this inherent imperfection sprang
the kingdom of evil beings with Ahriman at their
head, ever at war with Ormuzd and his kingdom
of good. In this way arose the dual character of
the world and of man. A dualism of this kind is
consistent with a monotheistic doctrine, and is not
far from the doctrine of Christ and of Paul, not to
speak of the Jews after the exile, who had drawn
much of their new theology from their Persian
neighbors. Such a monotheistic dualism seems to
have been the basis of Zoroaster's reform. When
one seeks to scan more closely the details of Zoro-
aster's career, and to gain a clear picture of his
life, the path of the historical scholar is beset at
once with difficulties. If the critic's task is diffi-
cult in the case of Buddha, it is much more so in
the case of Zoroaster. While I am ready on the
whole to agree with Mills and West against the
brilliant and trenchant criticism of Darmesteter, it
must be avowed that the effort to separate even a
few grains of historical truth from the mass of
legendary additions is well-nigh ineffectual. But
if a full picture of Zoroaster cannot be portrayed,
at least the rough outlines of his life are plainly
discernible through all the mists and shadows of
legendary tradition.
Here as everywhere in historical research the
law of evolution comes to our aid. The canonical
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 67
Avestan books, which are our chief authorities for
what can be known of Zoroaster, were written at
various periods. The exact dates cannot be given.
The date of Zoroaster himself is wholly conjec-
tural, — the estimates of Avestan scholars ranging
from the fifteenth century b. c. to the seventh
century b. c. Haug ascribes the Gathas, the
earliest of the Avestan scriptures, to the twelfth
century B. c, the Vendidad to the tenth, the later
Yasna to the eighth, and the Yahsts, the latest of
them, to the fifth. This estimate allows about
eight hundred years for the completion of the
Avesta, — a period which Haug regards as " rather
too short than too long." Whatever view be taken
as to the correctness of these dates, they go to
illustrate the fact of the length of the historical
evolution which was involved in the growth and
final collection of the writings known as the Zend-
Avesta. But the evolution did not stop here. It
is continued a half millennium later in the great
Zoroastrian revival under the Sassanian dynasty,
when the Pahlavi translations and commentaries
were published. What opportunity was offered dur-
ing so long a stretch of years for interpolations
and legendary growth is easily seen. The question
now arises : What was the law of evolution in the
course of these twelve to fifteen centuries ? Darmes-
teter puts it thus : " The question is whether Zoro-
aster was a man converted into a god, or a god
converted into a man," We have seen how Darmes-
teter himself decided it, He regarded the Zoro-
68 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
aster story as purely mythical. But the more con-
servative view seems to best fit the course of devel-
opment as given in the Avesta itself, namely, that
a historical man became the subject of a legendary
evolution which finally invested him with semi-
divine attributes and functions. If we begin with
the oldest Avestan book, the Gathas, the picture of
Zoroaster there given, though only in incidental
touches, is thoroughly human, with no suggestion
of divine functions. He first appears as a reformer
and prophet, becomes a preacher of a purer faith
in God to his countrymen, converts many, includ-
ing the king, to his doctrines, and thus founds a
new reformed religion. In this work no super-
natural agencies are employed. No miracles are
wrought. Zoroaster is born in the natural way and
dies a natural death. There is, however, a single
hint of what is to come. The religious proclama-
tions of Zoroaster are declared to be prophetic
and inspired. He is a true priest of God, and
his words are divinely revealed and authoritative.
Thus we are prepared for subsequent legendary
additions. The scene soon changes as we pro-
ceed to the later books. Zoroaster's birth becomes
miraculous. Zoroaster himself becomes a miracle-
worker, and a supernatural atmosphere more and
more surrounds him. Instead of being a human
reformer, he appears as a divinely sent messiah
and mediator armed with divine power, and finally
is raised to the rank of a demi-god. This corrup-
tion of the original tradition marks a return to the
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 69
earlier polytheism against which Zoroaster himself
had protested. The new ethical monotheism which
he had preached yielded to polytheistic tendencies,
and the doctrine of evil spirits resumed its old
sway. The so-called dualism of the later Avestan
and post-Avestan Zoroastrian books is really a
polytheism of the most rigid sort, colored to a
deeper dye by the dualistic principle, though the
whole doctrine is redeemed from utter dualistic
pessimism by its eschatology, which proclaims the
final triumph of good and the everlasting destruc-
tion of evil.
The remarkable resemblances between events in
the life of Zoroaster and similar events in the Hfe
of Christ have attracted the attention of Christian
scholars. Like resemblances have already been
noted by us in the account of Buddha. No doubt
some of the more superficially striking resem-
blances are due to a post-Christian borrowing in
the later stages of historical evolution. But such
borrowing cannot account for those features of
likeness which are after all most radical and con-
spicuous. And if this is clearly true in the case
of Buddha, as we have seen, much more is it true
beyond all doubt and controversy in the case of
Zoroaster. The Avestan writings were completed
some centuries before the Christian era, and the
evolution of the Zoroastrian tradition was original
and independent of foreign influences. The most
remarkable coincidences in the lives of Zoroaster,
Buddha, and Christ are explainable in the same
70 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
way that so many coincidences of every kind in
history, in legend, and in folk-lore are explained.
Our present studies are seeking to explain by the
same critical historical process the remarkable co-
incidences in the trinitarian ideas of so many
ancient peoples, where the theory of borrowing
either direct or indirect is absolutely impossible.
The case is the same with individual lives as with
whole peoples. Legend works in the same way in
both cases. Take, for example, one of the most
striking incidents in the lives of Zoroaster, Buddha,
and Christ, — the temptation by the evil spirit. In
all three cases this temptation occurs at the most
critical period in their careers, the character of
the temptation is essentially the same, and the
tempter is the same wicked spirit of evil. The
superficial incidents in the three accounts vary,
but the radical elements of the transaction are the
same. What need of resorting to the theory of
borrowing when the evidence is whoUy against it ?
Human nature and human Hfe are essentially the
same in their exhibitions in all mankind. A great
temptation is inherent in the very nature of things
as a component part of a great character and
career. Similar temptations by the Devil are to
be found in other lives. Demonology has played
an immense part in legendary history. The hves
of the early Christian monks were filled with such
accounts. I might illustrate this point by other
like coincidences in the lives of these three men
who became the founders of three religions. One
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 71
example more must suffice. All these traditions
contain a miraculous birth through a divine par-
entage or power, but the Zoroastrian account goes
a step further. It makes the birth of the mother
of Zoroaster immaculate and miraculous, and,
though this development of tradition does not ap-
pear in the New Testament, it does appear in the
post-apostolic apocryphal legends that quickly
grew up around Jesus and his mother, and the im-
maculate conception of the Virgin Mary, as weU
as of her son, not only became an article of
Christian faith, but remains a dogma of the Catho-
lic church to this day. The doctrine and cultus of
the Virgin Mary, be it noted, is not peculiar to
Christianity. The virginity of the mothers of the
founders of a new religion is repeated again and
again in legendary history. Zoroastrianism has its
virgin mother ; so Buddhism ; and the list might
be lengthened. Illustrious men have been thus
partially deified by ascribing to them a divine
fatherhood. Plato, in the golden age of Athenian
culture, did not escape the fate of genius. Legend
made Apollo his father. Even mythology has its
virgins. Athene, the patron goddess of Athens,
was endowed with the special gift of virginity, and
hence the name of her great temple, the Parthenon.
It is natural to invest any great religious reformer,
especially in an uncritical age, with peculiar rela-
tions to the heavenly world. First he becomes a
special messenger or prophet of God. The next
step is easy, viz., to impute to his message a divine
72 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
inspiration. How natural, then, to believe that his
birth was not ia the ordinary way! Human
motherhood explains the reality of his humanity.
Divine fatherhood explains what is supernatural
and miraculous in his life and charaxjter. Incarna-
tion is an obvious coroUary. A demi-god or god-
man is the logical result. These stages of legendary
evolution, so easily developed in the times of a
credulous and superstitious faith, have been re-
peated again and agaiu in the history of religion.
No trinity had yet appeared in Zoroastrianism,
but one feature of the developed Zoroastrian doc-
trine was preparing the way for a trinitarian tend-
ency, namely, the raising of Zoroaster from the
rank of a human reformer to that of a divine
messiah and mediatorial demi-god. The religion
of Zoroaster himself, if we may judge from the
Gathas, which purport to record many of his say-
ings, was one of remarkable spirituality and
purity. Righteousness, sin, moral agency, free
will, moral law and its sanction, involving pun-
ishment and reward, the spiritual and immortal
character of the soul, and final judgment, with
its everlasting issues, — such radical truths of
the moral consciousness seem to have been cardi-
nal in Zoroaster's own religious faith. Naturally
his reform was laid on the lines of a redemptive
movement of God for the healing and saving of
mankind from the miserable condition into which
they had fallen through the evils inherent in their
natural condition. The key-note of his gospel was
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 73
redemption. It was a divine offer of help and
salvation through a human instrument. So close
is the analogy between the Zoroastrian prophetism
and messianism and that of the later Jews, that
one cannot help surmising some historical connec-
tion between the two ; and when we remember that
the Jewish messianism in its fully developed form,
as it appeared in the two centuries before Christ,
was post-exilic, the inference becomes not at all
improbable that the Jews of the Captivity gathered
many of their later messianic ideas from Zoroas-
trianism. This is quite surely the case with the
Jewish eschatology. The book of Daniel is post-
exilic. The doctrines of the immortality of the
soul, of the resurrection, of evil spirits, especially
of Satan the arch fiend, of heaven and hell, which
appear in later Judaism, are quite clearly of
Zoroastrian origin.
It is in the second stage of Zoroastrian evolu-
tion that the element of mediation and redemption
through a divinely commissioned savior becomes
more marked. As in the evolution of the Chris-
tian trinitarian dogma, a human messiahship gave
way to a semi-divine mediatorship, so with the
Zoroastrian movement. But here occurred a pe-
culiar chapter in this evolution. A new actor ap-
pears on the scene in the person of Sosiosh, " the
benefactor " or savior. Let it be noted in pass-
ing that this term " savior," in a religious sense,
is not original in the New Testament. The Zend
word Sosiosh clearly corresponds in meaning to
the Greek word o-o)T^p (savior).
74 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Plutarch, writing about the time of the reduc-
tion of the oral traditions of Christ's life and
gospel to written form, styles the gods o-wrijpcs, or
saviors and friends of men. So, in the New Pla-
tonic school, ^sculapius, the god of medicine and
healing, became the centre of a special religious
cult, and came to be conmionly designated among
his worshipers as 'O o-corrjp, that is, " The Savior."
In the Zoroastrian tradition this person, who ap-
pears under the title of Sosiosh, is purely mythical.
He is represented to be a son of Zoroaster, but
he is to be supernaturally born from a wife of
Zoroaster at the very end of the world, when the
measure of its miseries is full. Then his saving
work as a messenger of Ormuzd will be completed,
in raising the dead, rewarding the righteous with
everlasting happiness, and annihilating the whole
kingdom of the wicked. This account of Sosiosh,
so plainly mythical, yet so closely connected with
Zoroaster's life, is one of Darmesteter's strongest
points against the historicity of Zoroaster himseK,
and I confess that it well-nigh breaks down the
historical probability of the whole Zoroastrian
tradition, though I do not even yet give up the
view of West and Mills. But in either case it is
clear that in the later parts of the Avesta we have
passed completely out of authentic history into
the region of legend. The part played by the
law of evolution is well illustrated by the Sosiosh
myth. In the earlier Avesta Sosiosh is mentioned,
but only in a general way. The later writings
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 75
grow more and more explicit and particular. His
supernatural character and mission from Ormuzd
is fully set forth. It is declared of him that he
" will come from the region of the dawn to free
the world from death and decay," " when the
dead shall arise and immortality commence."
Darmesteter believes this to be a nature or solar
myth, and suggests that Zoroaster was originally
a storm god. Already in the Zend-Avesta Sosiosh
is a son of Zoroaster, to be supernaturally born at
the end of Time, but, when we pass from the
Avesta to the Pahlavi Bundahish, Sosiosh becomes
the last of three prophets, or divine messengers of
Ormuzd, each of whom is to reign a thousand
years, — the name Sosiosh being given especially
to the last. These Zoroastrian millenniums have
an interesting historical connection with the mil-
lennium of Jewish expectation and hope which
passed over into Christianity. The third and last
millennium, which Sosiosh will inaugurate and
conclude with the resurrection, judgment, and
destruction of death and heU, became the great
rallying point of Zoroastrian faith.
We have already referred to the connection be-
tween the Jewish messianism and millennium and
the Zoroastrian ideas. Quite as remarkable are
the coincidences between the Zoroastrian doc-
trine of "last things" and the Christian. The
Christian eschatology, beginning with the second
coming of Christ, followed by the resurrection of
the dead and the general judgment, and conclud-
76 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ing with the eternal rewards of heaven and the
eternal punishments of heU, is so completely a
repetition of the Zoroastrian " last things," that a
borrowing from one side or the other seems almost
a fact to be accepted at once, were no historical
relation directly traceable. Certain similar escha-
tological elements indeed are to be found in other
Ethnic religions, as for example the dogmas of
personal immortality, of heaven and heU, which are
clearly set forth in the Greek mythology and later
Greek philosophy, and are made familiar to us in
Plato and Plutarch. But the doctrine of a bodily
resurrection through the instrumentality of a di-
vinely sent mediator is surely unique in aU Ethnic
religions, and the direct historical connection that
can be clearly traced through Judaism between the
Christian and the Zoroastrian dogmas seems to re-
move all ground for doubt. It is my own growing
conviction that much of the eschatological language
of the New Testament can best be explained by ref-
erence to the Zoroastrian Persian messianism and
eschatology. The Jewish post-exilic and pre-Chris-
tian writings are full of eschatological ideas and
language plainly suggestive of Persian sources, and
these same ideas and expressions reappear in the
sayings of Christ and the letters of Paul. What
a Zoroastrian ring there is in Paul's words in
the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, " The last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death." The book
of Revelation simply gathers up all the Zoroas-
trian, Jewish, and Christian figurative language in
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 77
its vivid portrayal of the eschatological faith of the
age in which it was written. The prominence of
fire all through the New Testament as the element
of destruction and punishment is a pecuharly Zoro-
astrian reminiscence. The description in the Sec-
ond Epistle of Peter of the final conflagration, in
which " the earth and the works that are therein
shall be burned up," is an exact transcript of the
Zoroastrian theory of the mode of the ending of
this present world. The apocalyptic lake of fire into
which death and Hades are cast is also Zoroastrian,
except that, while the fire of the Zoroastrian the-
ory involves annihilation, the apocalyptic fire burns,
without annihilating, forever. I will only add that
the Devil or Satan of the Bible is the Ahriman of
the Avesta, and was, we cannot doubt, a direct im-
portation from Persia, though the allusions to the
Devil and his kingdom in the Fourth Gospel and
Johannine Epistles are apparently Gnostic in char-
acter. But Gnosticism is distinctly Zoroastrian in
origin and is directly based on the Persian dualism.
We now come to the third stage in the trinita-
rian development of the Zoroastrian doctrine. It
is to be noted that no full triaity has yet emerged.
The doctrine of Sosiosh as a semi-divine mediator
and savior has indeed prepared the way for such
a result, but the movement here paused and in fact
was never so fully completed as in other Ethnic
trinities. We may well here ask the reasons why ;
and they are close at hand. To begin with, ori-
ginal Zoroastrianism was a monotheistic reaction
78 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
from the polytheism out of which it sprang, like
the Hebraism of the Old Testament. The history
of Judaism shows how little ground there is in such
a monotheism for a trinitarian development. The
natural soil of a trinity of gods is polytheism rather
than monotheism, as we have seen in the history
of the Ethnic trinities, all of which sprang from
polytheistic sources. It was once a favorite idea
of conservative scholars such as Hardwick and
Rawlinson that the Persian dualism was the off-
spring of an original monotheism ; but recent in-
vestigations in philology and comparative rehgion
have shown it to be utterly without foundation, as
also the kindred idea concerning the earliest doc-
trine of the Hebrew people. The monotheism of
the Old Testament beginning with the first chapter
of Genesis is a reformed version of an older poly-
theistic myth which the Chaldaeo-Babylonian slabs
of the resurrected library in Nineveh have laid
open before our eyes, and which cuneiform scholars
are already learning to read.
It is not, then, surprising that Zoroastrianism,
with its strong leaning to a monotheistic-dualistic
rather than polytheistic view of deity, shoidd stop
short of a full trinity, which is a direct step back-
wards towards the ground once left behind. Such
a step could be taken only when a religious cor-
ruption and decline had set in.
There is another reason for the incompleteness
of the Zoroastrian trinitarianism even in its fullest
development. Persia at its highest point of civil-
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 79
ization never rose to the same rank with India or
Greece. Its culture included poetry, art, chron-
icle, and ethics, but never reached the still higher
sphere of abstract speculative thought. No school
of pure philosophy ever flourished there. Thus
the Persian religion was never subjected to a meta-
physical and scholastic treatment. Its religious
system was theosophic rather than philosophic,
— a work of the imagination rather than of the
pure speculative reason. It would be idle to ex-
pect, under such circumstances, the evolution of
a complete theological trinity, and we shall not
find it; but, as we have seen, a step was taken
which went a long way toward such a conclusion,
and a trinitarian shadow was cast which will
finally give us a mythological triad, if not a phi-
losophical trinity. This step was its Sosiosh me-
diation doctrine. The idea of a mediator between
God and man is a fundamental element in every
trinitarian dogma, and it became central and reg-
nant in Zoroastrian belief. This doctrine of a
divine mediator does not demand a trinity as a
philosophical necessity, but it naturally leads to it
unless counter ideas are in the way. Just such
a counter idea was in the way to the Zoroastrian
believer, namely, his deep prejudice against the
old animistic polytheism. Only when this preju-
dice was suffered to decline and die out could the
trinitarian evolution have free way. This was
precisely the historical course which the Persian
religion took. The Avesta itself clearly discloses
80 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
a revolutionary polytheistic tendency. The over-
throw of the Persian empire by Alexander intro-
duced Greek influences and ideas. The rise of the
Parthian kingdom with its semi-barbarism still
further disorganized and demoralized the old Per-
sian religious faith. The ancient Zend language
in which the Avesta was written grew corrupt,
and out of it emerged the new Persian dialect
called Pahlavi. Thus the Zoroastrian sacred
scriptures ceased to be read by the people, and the
Zoroastrian monotheism gave way rapidly to the
polytheism which reigned around it. Its very his-
tory became more and more obscure. Not till the
new Persian empire of the Sassanidae in the third
century A. D. was a new chapter added, and a new
movement given to the mediating principle which
had characterized it from the beginning. But the
significance of this new chapter lies in the fact
that it leaves the original Zoroastrian starting-
point and line of evolution and reverts back to the
Madzean polytheism out of which Zoroaster him-
self arose.
The two earliest stages of Zoroastrian trinitarian
evolution, as we have seen, were the outgrowth of
the mission of Zoroaster, — a historical character.
Though they quickly passed from history to legend,
and then to myth, they at least started from his-
torical ground. Not so with the third stage. It
was mythological from the beginning, and gathered
around one of the most ancient of the Aryan di-
vinities, Mithra. Mithra, or Mitra, first appeal's
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 81
as a sun god in the Indian Vedas in close associa-
tion with Varuna, the great heavenly sky-god, and
already his mediatorial function is visible. He is
" the giver," " the generous one," " the friend," of
man. It is in a similar form and function that
Mithra appears in the Avestan writings. He is a
creature of Ormuzd, " the created light," that is,
a sun-god. As such he is " a servant and organ "
of Ormuzd, mediating between him and man. But
through the Avestan period Mithra remains in the
background. First Zoroaster himseK, and next
Sosiosh, his semi-divine son, are the chief instru-
ments through which Ormuzd carries on his be-
nevolent designs for the amelioration and final
salvation of man. Not till the decline of the ori-
ginal Zoroastrianism has fairly set in does Mithra
appear as the great mediating divinity, at last
supplanting, not only Zoroaster and Sosiosh, but
even Ormuzd himself. The history of this curious
evolution, involving entirely new cyclic movements
on new lines, is obscure. Enough here to say that
it gathered force as the original Zoroastrianism
declined, without any apparent opposition. Even
in the latest Yahsts of the Avesta Mithra is plainly
rising into greater prominence. He is thus de-
scribed, in the prayer called Mihir Yahst, as
" holy, the most beautiful of creatures," all-seeing
and all-powerful. Especially is he " the protector
and patron of truth-loving men " and "the dis-
penser of blessings." He is also the "most victo-
rious " servant of Ormuzd against the Kingdo;
82 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Evil. Ahriman trembles before him. He " pro-
tects the poor and oppressed," and " defends the
faithful against evil spirits, against death, and
leads them toward immortality." It is remark-
able that in this very period, when a new medi-
ating god is coming to the front, the first sign of
a divine triad should display itself. One of the
Persian kings, Artaxerxes Mnemon, rededicating a
Zoroastrian temple which Darius his ancestor had
built, solemnly declared : " By the grace of Or-
muzd I have here established Anhita and Mithra.
May Ormuzd, Anhita, and Mithra protect me."
This new trinity plays no great part in the later
Zoroastrianism. Mithra becomes the central figure
of it, absorbing more and more the functions of
Sosiosh " the savior," as is seen in the application
to him of the term " mediator." Such is the tes-
timony of Plutarch, who wrote in the first century
of the Christian era. Describing the Zoroastrian
dualism, Plutarch says (Isis and Osiris, 46) :
" Mithra is between the two (Ormuzd and Ahri-
man), for which reason the Persians call Mithra
' the Mediator ' (/xetrtnys)." Thus Zoroastrianism
proper gave way to the new Mithraism. Mithra
as " Mediator " became the centre of a new cult
which in the second and third centuries A. D. was
very popular and widespread in the Eoman world,
patronized by emperors, and with special temples
in Rome itself. It was the mediatorial character
of Mithra that gave his worship its popularity —
a popularity so great that at one time it threat-
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 83
ened to rival and even eclipse Christianity itself,
which was also making rapid strides with its own
Christian mediation doctrine. Mithra, in the eyes
of his worshipers, was the "living and abiding
link between the visible and the invisible." He
was " the secondary principle of good," " the con-
ductor of departed souls " to the narrow bridge
which must be crossed to reach the heavenly
world. As the dualistic doctrine of evil in all its
forms had a primary place in Mithraism, and was
in harmony with the pessimism and religious reac-
tion of the age, it is not wonderful that the Mithra
cult should have assumed a strongly sacrificial
and bloody character. Mithra himseK became the
great high priest in these sacrifices. He was re-
presented as slaying a bull, in virtue of his atoning
function. The tauriholium was the most solemn
sacrificial rite of Mithraic worship, symbolizing
and efficiently procuring for the suppliant for
whom it was performed remission of sins and re-
generation to a new spiritual and heavenly life.
It was indeed a baptism by blood. The subject
of it was placed naked imder the altar of sacrifice,
so that the blood of the victim might be shed
directly upon him. A strange transaction indeed,
and strangely like to the doctrine of the Epistle
to the Hebrews ; " Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission ! " Strange, I say, when we
consider the character of the period in which it
occurred. It is a suggestive proof of the terrible
power of sin and of its remorseful workings upon
a soul.
84 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
I have already referred to the fact that Mithra,
who was originally subordinate to Ormuzd, and
even reduced to the third place in the triad, sub-
sequently rose practically to the first place, sup-
planting Ormuzd himself. Such a process, by
which the mediating member of the trinity, as the
special friend and savior of men, should become
first and nearest in the thoughts, and affections,
and hopes of men, and hence in time first in the
divine order of the gods, is most natural, and we
have already found it a marked feature of the his-
torical evolution of most of the Ethnic trinities.
Thus in the Babylonian triad Marduk, the me-
diating sun-god, usurps the place of Ea, his
father. The same was true of Vishnu-Krishna in
the Hindoo trinity, who, in his capacity of god-
man and mediator, reduced Brahma to almost a
shadow. So Mithraism pushed Ormuzd back into
a place of inferiority, or rather he was quietly dis-
placed and forgotten. The triad was practically
reduced to unity in the Mithraic faith. I must
refer to my earlier work, " A Critical History,"
etc., for a complete account of the remarkable
evolution of the Christian trinity in the same di-
rection, by which the original subordination doc-
trine of the early Greek church was transformed
into a theory of triunity in which the three were
made absolutely equal, or rather were reduced to
personal unity manifesting itself in a plural form,
— a view which at last reached a result curiously
similar to the Mithraic, namely, that the Father,
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 85
the first and most exalted person of the Patristic
Trinity, has become practically swallowed up and
lost in the absoluteness of the deity of the Second
Person, the incarnate Son, known on earth as
Jesus of Nazareth. To make the analogy more
complete it only needed that Zoroaster himself,
the founder of the reformed Madzean religion,
should have remained the central figure in its evo-
lution as he was at first.
One radical difference between the Mithraic
and the Christian conception of mediatorship is
clearly discernible. Mithra was a mediator be-
tween Ormuzd and Ahriman, while the Christian
scheme made Christ a mediator between God and
mankind. It is true that Origen taught that
Christ paid a ransom to Satan and so released
mankind from his power, and this thoroughly
materialistic view became the traditional church
doctrine for nearly a thousand years. Augustine
accepted it without any questioning, and his au-
thority carried it on into the Middle Ages. Anselm
and Abelard seem to have been the first to ques-
tion it. But the doctrine of Paul and of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, though essentially differ-
ing in other respects, agreed in this, that the me-
diation wrought by Christ was between God and
sinful men, and both views were founded in the
Old Testament sacrificial system, which knew no-
thing of Satan as a party to the transaction, and
made much of God's holy law and of man's viola-
tion of it, beginning with Adam the head of the
86 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
race. Anselm, the true founder of the substitu-
tional theory of atonement, was in harmony on
this point with the Old Testament and PauL
Whence Origen derived his theory of mediator-
ship between God and the Devil is not clear. But
he was weU acquainted with the Gnostic dualistic
ideas of his day and found them even in the Fourth
Gospel, and thus might easily have been influenced
toward a view which quite harmonized with the
tendencies around him. It was in this very period
in the history of Christianity that the doctrine of
Satan and his Kingdom of Evil became especially
prominent in the faith of the church, not only in
its creed but also in its life. Monasticism, which
started from a strongly dualistic conception of
the world, in its earlier history is full of illus-
trations of this view of Satan as sharing this world
with God, and in the legendary lives of the more
famous monks the Devil and his demons and the
powers of good contend on almost equal terms. I
have already stated my opinion as to the histor-
ical background of this whole phase of Christian
thought, including the eschatology of which it
forms a part. It is Zoroastrian and Persian, and
I am prepared to believe that Origen's theory of a
ransom paid by Christ to Satan was somehow
drawn, though perhaps indirectly, from this source.
It was characteristic of the Zoroastrian dualism
that it viewed Ormuzd as the representative of
goodness, and light, and joy. All badness and
darkness, physical, intellectual, or moral, all the
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 87
miseries and sorrow of this world, including sick-
ness and death, were the work of Ahriman.
Ormuzd was always the beneficent friend of man,
and revealed his beneficence through mediating
instruments such as Zoroaster, Sosiosh, and Mithra.
The conception of a mediator who should propi-
tiate such a being by offerings of appeasement was
wholly foreign to Zoroastrian thought. The Mith-
raic cult illustrates the growing sense of the moral
evil and misery in the world, and of the power for
evil of Ahriman and his allies. The tauroholium^
though so materialistic in form, was a means to-
ward a moral regeneration and new spiritual life
in this world and the next. The myth which lay
behind it of Mithra's slaying a buU with his own
hand was based on the conception of Mithra as the
great mediating power between good and evil, be-
tween man and his arch enemy Ahriman. He was,
in the eyes of his worshipers, the sole regenerator
and savior from sin and death, and all moral evil.
One cannot study deeply the Zoroastrian Mithraic
faith without a growing sense of its lofty, pure,
and spiritual character. It is no wonder, in an
age when the moral nature and instincts of men
were being aroused to a new eagerness for religious
light and truth to heal the moral maladies of the
declining empire, that this Oriental reformed cult,
behind which was the dim but attractive figure of
one of the world's saints, should have arrested and
drawn the hearts of many seekers after truth, and
even rivaled that other religion, coming from the
88 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
same Oriental quarter, whose teachings and offers
of spiritual good were in such general harmony, —
both working for the regeneration and salvation of
men.
I have alluded to Origen's conception of the
work of Christ in the atonement, so strangely sug-
gestive of the Mithraic doctrine. It is interestiug
to note that in another direction he was led toward
a similar Mithraic conclusion. M. Jean ReviUe, in
his " La Religion sous les Severes," has weU said
that " the cult of Mithra offers very great analo-
gies to the cult of the Gnostics." The Gnostics
were in fact essentially dualistic Zoroastrians in
Christian disguise, and we must not forget how
widespread were the Gnostic heresies in the
Christian church in this period. Irenseus recounts
about a hundred different Gnostic sects. Origen
and his Alexandrian school formed a sort of medi-
ating position between the church and the Gnostic
parties. Origen himseK was inclined to a free and
tolerant speculation. One of his speculations, which
afterward was used to his discredit, was his theory
of the final restoration of aU souls. Even Satan in
his view might be restored to holiness. This idea
was based on his doctrine of God as good and de-
siring the salvation of all moral beings, and of free
will by which all such beings could be recovered
from sin if so disposed. Now both these ideas
are in complete accord with Zoroastrian theo-
logy. This is not the place to discuss the matter
further. I wiU only add that Origen's influence
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 89
was great and pervasive in the early development
of Christian theology, and it is my own belief
that the Zoroastrian religion explains not only the
widespread Gnostic heresies, but also the dualistic
element which entered so deeply into Christian
soteriology and eschatology, and which has contin-
ued to leaven Christian theological thought even
to the present day.^
The subsequent triumph of Christianity and ex-
tinction of Zoroastrianism in its later Mithraic
form used to be regarded by Christian historians
as evidence of the superiority of the former, and
of its miraculous and divine origin. In fact, the
decisive blow was struck by Christian emperors.
Their whole policy — from the time of the politic
and tolerant Constantine, with the exception of
Julian the New Platonist and perhaps that also of
Valentinian, who, according to Ammianus Marcel-
linus, though a Christian, stood evenly balanced
between the two religious parties — was directed
to the suppression of all the Ethnic religions and
rites. In 377 the prefect of Rome ordered the
temples of Mithra to be closed ; and when Theodo^
sius in 394 entered Rome a conqueror he issued
1 Outside of distinctively Christian ideas the dualistic explana-
tion of the world and its moral mysteries has of late had a strong
attraction for philosophical thinkers. James Mill, according to
the statement of his son, J. S. Mill, agnostic as he was on the
whole subject, regarded dualism as the most satisfactory and prob-
able of all the theories in vogue. I may add that the French histo-
rian Michelet, in a little book, Bible de VHumanite, concludes
a review of the leading creeds of the world by expressing his own
decided preference for the dualistic Zoroastrian.
go THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
an edict commanding the entire suppression of aU
pagan worship. Every temple was shut, and many-
fanes made sacred by ancient tradition were ruth-
lessly violated. Perhaps the most violent act was
the sacking of the House and Temple of Vesta in
the Forum, whose cult had come down from the
very origin of Rome itself, and was held in the
highest veneration. The worship of the goddess
was broken up. The vestal virgins were driven
out. Their House, that had been sacred from all
intrusion for a thousand years, was ransacked,
its treasures scattered, and the doors barred.
Whether Christianity itself in this period of its
prosperity and growing power could have endured
such treatment and outlived it cannot be told,
since, fortunately, no imperial pagan reaction
came. But Gibbon's remark seems historically
just, that no religion can long survive when its
outward worship is completely suppressed ; and the
conjecture of Kenan in this connection is not with-
out warrant : " One might say that if Christianity
had been arrested in its career by some mortal
malady, the world might have been Mithraistic."
Force and violence have played a great part in the
religious conquests of the world. The acts of
Theodosius were repeated by Charlemagne in the
conversion of the Saxons, our own ancestors, only
with increased wantonness and barbarity. And as
one gazes to-day on the ruins of the Temple and
House of Vesta which the spade of the archaeologist
has opened to our view, with its statues of vestals
PERSIAN ZOROASTRIAN TRINITARIANISM 91
once famous in history, one is reminded irresistibly
of similar ruins of beautiful English abbeys, with
like statues of famous abbots and monks, that were
suppressed and dismantled by the strong, tyran-
nical hand of Henry VIII., their inmates driven
out and suffered to wander and die in penury, and
their very names given over to calumny and re-
proach, until at last a new revision of history has
done them too tardy justice. The forcible over-
throw of Zoroastrian Mithraism and of English
monasticism may have been for the providential
good of the world ; but the manner in which it was
done is no less abominable and worthy of condem-
nation. It is, and always must be, against good
morals to " do evil that good may come," and the
verdict of the Apostle against all such iU-doers re-
mains unchallenged : " whose damnation is just."
But again history has its revenges, and I confess
to a high satisfaction in being able to contribute
my mite to such a result in this study of the Zo-
roastrian religion ; and with this thought in mind
I cannot better close this chapter than by quoting
a single passage from its sacred books : " We wor-
ship the souls of the holy men and women^ horn
at any time and in any place^ whose consciences
struggle^ or will struggle^ or have struggled for
the good,^^
CHAPTER VI
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY
We now pass to the third Aryan chapter of
trinitarian evolution, — in some respects the most
remarkable of all, and of special interest to the
Christian scholar in view of its direct historical
relation to the evolution of the Christian trinity.
The Greek religion first appears in Homer and
Hesiod as a fully developed polytheism. The
instinct and love of the beautiful in nature and
in art, which so distinguished the Greek people,
is well illustrated in their polytheistic mythology.
On the ethical side the Greek gods and goddesses
do not appear to advantage when compared with
those of other Ethnic religions, especially with the
Indian or Zoroastrian divinities. Plato prohibited
the reading of Homer in his ideal republic because
of its immoral stories. How far this charge may
be explained away by considerations drawn from
the naturalistic origin and symbolical character of
the Greek mythology cannot here be fully dis-
cussed. There is no doubt, however, that recent
philological and archaeological studies have done
much toward setting the matter in a new light.
But, from the hterary and artistic point of view,
the superiority of the Greek mythology to all
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITf 93
others known to history is unquestionable. The
Iliad and the Odyssey are filled with narratives
and pictures in which the Greek gods and god-
desses are the chief figures that are unrivaled in
ancient literature. Greek art, which remains even
in its ruins to-day the wonder of the world, had its
birth in the Greek religion, and it continued to
draw its inspiration from this source throughout
its golden age. The sublimest forms of Greek ar-
chitecture were temples, its most perfect statues
were of the patron divinities of these temples, and
its lost art of coloring was lavished on their deco-
ration. The Parthenon, built in the days of Peri-
cles, was a miracle in stone of the religious genius
of Greece.
I have aUuded to the symbolism which char-
acterizes the Greek mythology. Such symbolism
is equally characteristic of aU mythologies, and
it is in part the key to a correct interpretation
of them. The grotesqueness, and even hideous-
ness, to our refined taste, of some mythological
incidents and sculptures connected with the Ethnic
mythologies seem to indicate the comparatively
barbarous character of the people among whom
they originated. Like men, like gods. The
artistic superiority of Greek mythology simply
proves the keener artistic sensitiveness and crea-
tive power of the Greek mind. In comparing the
different Ethnic mythologies, the question is not
so much one of morals as it is one of artistic men-
tal development. It has not been clearly under-
94 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
stood, until quite recently, how fundamental
symbolism is in human thought and language, and
how deeply imbedded certain symbols are in the
traditions of the race. It may seem strange that
the immoral stories in Homer should not have
been sifted out in the long course of years in
which those poems were being gathered and edited,
or that the uncouth descriptions and images of
divinities, such as are found even in Indian poly-
theistic literature and art, should have held their
ground, and even grown more and more grotesque
as Hindoo culture advanced ; but it must be re-
membered that nothing is so tenacious in its grasp
on tradition or popular faith as the use of symbols
which have become venerable by time, however in-
artistic they may be, if they are only expressions
of some truth that is held in reverence. Language
itself, which is the great vehicle of all communicar
tion among men, is essentially a system of symbols.
Every religion is full of symbolism, not only in its
forms of worship, but also in its dogmas.
This is weU illustrated in the sign of the cross,
which in Christian times has been made so es-
pecially significant of Christian truth. It may be
a surprise to some of my readers to be told that
this symbol of the cross is as old as history itself.
Indeed, its origin is hidden in prehistoric times.
The Greek or Maltese cross, with its four arms
of equal length, which is worn by Koman Popes
on the breast, appears on the breasts of Assyrian
kings nine or ten centuries before the birth of
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 95
Christ, as is witnessed to by Assyrio-Babylonian
cylinders in the British Museum. If these clay
tablets were unaccompanied by vouchers their
genuineness might well be suspected, but when we
learn that evidence which cannot be gainsaid and
which has come to us from every quarter of the
world is at hand in marvelous abundance, aU doubt
becomes unavailing. Perhaps there is no more
important, and surely no more wonderful, archaeo-
logical line of recent discovery than that which has
dealt with the subject of symbols and the deep-
seated character of their influence on mankind
from the beginning of human life on this earth.
These symbols are almost entirely of a religious
and sacred character, representing human concep-
tions of the mysteries of nature and life and divin-
ity. We have seen how prominent in all the early
Ethnic religions was the worship of the sun as the
great representative in the visible world of divine
power and life and blessing to men. The sun-god,
by whatever name he was called, in the different
languages or mythologies of nations, was the most
universally venerated divinity in the whole pan-
theon. It is no wonder, then, that symbols of the
sun should be found to be the most ancient and
universal of all. These symbols were varied in
form, according to the aspect of the god repre-
sented. The circle and the wheel are illustrations,
representing the form of the sun and his course
through the heavens, and also his vitalizing power.
The wheel suggests motion, and its spokes suggest
96 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the sun's rays which penetrate everywhere, impart-
ing heat and life and light in every form. These
religious ideas were the nuclei of others. A whole
theology and philosophy might be symbolized by
the circle and wheel. How easily they may sug-
gest eternal motion and its eternal source, and
hence the eternal divine power and goodness and
benevolence? But among all these symbols the
cross stands out as supreme in its dignity and in
the universality of its use. It is to be found in all
parts of the world, from Iceland to the Ganges,
and in both hemispheres. Historical investiga-
tions have wholly failed to trace its origin. Anti-
quarian excavations have revealed it everywhere.
Schliemann found it in the ruins of prehistoric
Troy. It has been figured not only on the breasts
of Babylonian kings, on the vestments of Greek
gods and goddesses, — on the tunic of Athene and
on the breast of Apollo, — but also on tombs and
altars in Gaul, Spain, and Scandinavia. If its
exact significance cannot always be ascertained, its
general character is clear beyond dispute. The
conclusion forced upon us is that the cross, as a
sacred symbol, belonged to the earliest traditions
of the race, and represented religious ideas which
formed the original credo of the ancestors of man-
kind.
The old idea that this sign is original with
Christianity is of course exploded. The new sig-
nificance that was given to it and the way in which
it was developed after the time of Constantine in
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 97
the fourth century are matters of Christian his-
tory into which I cannot go at length. For the
sake of those, however, who are not critically ac-
quainted with the historical origins of Christian-
ity, I wiU say that the symbol of the cross in its
original and ancient significance is to be entirely
distinguished from the meaning that came to be
attached to it in Christian tradition. The new
Christian symbolism was connected with the man-
ner of Christ's death. Whether the wood on which
he was impaled was cruciform is uncertain. The
Greek word a-Tavp6<s means an upright stake. A
cross-piece was not essential. The more common
form of it in Christ's day seems to have been a T.
This ignominious instrument of punishment came
to be idealized by Christian believers into a sign
of glorification and triumph. Whether there was
at first any direct historical connection between
the old Ethnic symbol and the new Christian sign
is quite obscure. Probability is against it, for
the two figures on which the symbolism was based
were at first quite unlike. There was little resem-
blance between the equal-armed cross which was
the usual religious symbol of the Ethnic religions
and the cn-avpds or upright stake, even with the
added cross-piece at the top, such as was used in
crucifixion. The so-called Latin cross, which was
distinguished by the lengthening of the lower arm,
was a much later Western form : while the cruci-
fix in which Christ is represented as hanging on
the cross did not come into use as a symbol until
98 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
as late as the seventh century. Thus the very-
forms of the Ethnic and Christian crosses suggest
a whoUy different origin. No doubt the Christian
symbol was at first whoUy independent of the pa-
gan, deriving its significance from the method of
Christ's death. But when we take into view the
fact that the Christian church grew largely out of
pagan soil and that many ancestral pagan ideas
and customs were merely transformed and adopted
into the new faith, it ceases to be surprising that
the Ethnic symbol of the cross and even its forms
should gradually become blended with those of the
new Christian religion. Certainly the original
difference between the significance of the Ethnic
symbolism and that of the Christian was radical.
The pre-Christian cross, in its various forms, has
nothing to do with death or any mode of it: it
rather symbolizes life, material and spiritual. One
of its most common forms, found everywhere, is
the so-called swastika or gammated cross — a
Hindoo word taking its name from the bending of
the four ends. It has been suggested, and with
not a little probability, that the curving of these
ends is intended to represent the idea of motion
or gyration, like that of the wheel. These two
symbols of the cross and the wheel are closely
related and are often found together, and some-
times were united into one composite emblem ; and
it is my own impression that the original idea be-
hind both symbols is that of motion as the starting-
point of all life and of the world itself. The idea
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 99
of God as the divine mover is not far off. This
view of the origin of things, which was thus ex-
pressed by the imaginative faculties of early man
in symbolic forms, was adopted by Aristotle and
made the key to his philosophy, in his view that
the eternal movement of the world necessarily im-
plied an eternal mover and that such a principle
of motion could be none other than God,
I have referred to the obscurity attaching to the
way in which the Ethnic cross, which was a sacred
symbol of life, motion, the world, and Deity, be-
came confounded with the Christian cross as a
symbol of Christ's redeeming death. The early
Christian Fathers frequently allude to the form of
Christ's death, and the term cross becomes a com-
mon expression for it. They also distinguish this
term from the pagan cross, with which they show
themselves acquainted, — expressly denying that
they are chargeable with any superstitious use of
the cross as an image or symbolical figure. The
practice of making the sign of the cross with the
hand appears quite early. Tertullian describes it
as common in his day, but the use of material
crosses is considerably later. Constantine set this
fashion by affixing a cross to his laharum or ban-
ner, and also by putting crosses on churches and
palaces. From Constantine's day the cross be-
came the great symbol of Christianity as a power
of life through death, — the instrument of death
being thus transfigured into the sign of a redeemed
and glorified life. As the Ethnic religions grad-
100 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ually decayed and finally became well-nigh extinct
in the Roman world, the Ethnic conception of the
cross as a sacred sign or symbol faded out and the
Christian view took its place, or it may rather be
said that the two conceptions were gradually and
unconsciously blended together.
It is interesting to examine the remains of
Christian art in the catacombs or early Christian
burial-places, and in early churches, and there note
the curious mixture of pagan and Christian sym-
bols of the cross. For example, there is figured
on a Christian monument together with the mono-
gram of Christ the swastilca or gammated cross,
which is a purely Ethnic symbol and which tended
to disappear in subsequent Christian times. This
peculiar form of the cross, with its four ends bent as
if to symbolize motion, is found again and again in
the catacombs ; but the most remarkable example,
perhaps, is a mosaic of Christ represented as the
Good Shepherd, on whose tunic the gammated
cross is twice pictured. These paintings show that
the artist had either confounded or consciously
blended together Ethnic and Christian ideas.
Such amalgamations are not isolated cases; they
are common in early Christian art. In the cata-
comb of Saint Calixtus the pagan Orpheus is
painted as captivating the wild beasts with his
lyre directly under the Virgin Mary and the Child
Jesus ; and the pagan myth of Cupid and Psyche
is found pictured on Christian sarcophagi. These
examples only illustrate the persistence of ancient
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 101
survivals, especially in the form of religious sym-
bolism. Perhaps the most curious of them all is
seen in the custom of the Popes of Rome, continued
to this day, of wearing on their breasts the Greek
cross, — a close imitation of the cross worn by As-
syrian kings in the ninth century B. c. We should
expect a Roman Pope to wear a Latin cross ; yet
the Greek cross is a direct historical survival of
the Assyrian cross. Christianity was the off-
spring of Judaism, as Judaism was in its turn the
offshoot of the Assyrio-Babylonian Chaldaeism.
Abraham " The Hebrew," through his descendants,
is the direct historical connecting link between the
Assyrian king and the Roman Pope.^
^ A good example of a similar transfer of a pagan symbol to
Cliristian use is the nimbus or aureole, which began to be used as
a Christian sign of saintliness or divinity in the fifth or sixth cen-
tury. Before this it had become common as a sign of dignity on
the heads of emperors and empresses. Its origin is hid in anti-
quity. Seme regard it as derived from India, where it encircled
the heads of the Hindoo mythological gods. In Ethnic Greek
and Latin literature the nimbus represented the glory that in-
vested a divine being. Thus Virg^ describes Juno as " nimbo
succincta" Later Christian art made it a special symbol of
Christ's divine nature. The Virgin Mary soon received the same
sign, and subsequently it became a perquisite of all specially holy
personages. There is, no doubt, a close relation between the
Ethnic cross and the nimbus as sacred symbols. Both seem to
be connected with the sun, and represent different aspects of it.
It is not a far cry that they should be transferred to Christian
symbolism as signs of the " Sun of righteousness." A curious il-
lustration of the amalgamation of the two signs and of their com-
mon derivation from Ethnic sources is given in a mosaic of the
sixth century in a Christian church at Ravenna, where the Em-
peror Justinian is painted with a nimbus around his head. Near
him stands the Archbishop Maximianua, who holds a LcUin cross
102 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
I trust that this digression has not been with-
out its interest and instruction. I have been led
to introduce it in order to enforce the fact that
the Ethnic polytheistic mythology was essentially
a system of symbolism. This was preeminently
true of the Aryan rehgions, which were forms of
nature worship. Their divinities were largely im-
personations of natural forces and phenomena ;
and in this personifying process the Greek genius
found f uU play. In fact all the Ethnic theogonies
and cosmogonies are mythological stories which
are the work of the imagination of early man,
using for material the natural phenomena in the
midst of which he lived. The only difference
in his hands, while a soldier near by grasps a wheel-shaped shield
on which is figured the monogram of Christ, — the six limbs of
the monogram clearly representing the spokes of the wheel.
But more sig^nificant still is the opposite mosaic of the Empress
Theodora. She also has a nimbus around her head, and, further,
two Greek crosses distinctly marked on her breast ; while the
garments of one of her attendants are covered with small Greek
crosses, and a curtain has for its chief ornament fig^ures of the
swastika or cross with bent arms. Whether consciously or not,
here are brought together in a single series of Christian mosaics
symbols of most diverse origin in form and meaning — the circle,
the wheel, the Greek cross, the gammated swastika, the Latin
cross, the decussated cross or monogram of Christ. Perhaps the
most interesting feature of all is the Greek cross on the breast of
Theodora. It is another historical link between the Ethnic As-
syrian kings and the Christian Popes, giving further evidence
that the tradition of the Ethnic cross as a sacred religious symbol
was never broken, but only changed in its symbolical character
with the lapse of time. For a full account of the history of the
cross as a mystical symbol and of the persistency of such sym-
bolical survivals, with many illustrations, see La Bdigion des
Gaidois, par Alexandre Bertrand, Paris, 1897.
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 103
between the Greek myth-maker and his Aryan
or Semitic or Turanian neighbor was that his
imaginative fancy was somehow of a finer mould
than theirs. Whether his religious consciousness
was more fully developed is another question, the
answer to which must depend on a deeper study of
the Greek character and religion. Certainly the
two great poems known as the Homeric belong to
a class of literature that immensely out-distances
all the products of the other Ethnic religions in
the mythological age, and make us wonder whence
they came, and what was the real source of their
inspiration.
Opening the Iliad with the view of seeking the
trinitarian elements which may be found, at first
sight its polytheism seems to overshadow the
whole scene. Gods without number, and of all
sorts and conditions from the highest to the lowest,
are inextricably mingled with demi-gods and heroes
and human beings. But ere long a principle of di-
vision among them appears. The oldest Greek
trinitarianism seems to have arisen from the trinal
character of nature, as it appeared to unscientific
minds, with its three regions of land, water, and sky.
Hence the first nature-trinity, consisting of Zeus,
Poseidon, and Hades, — Zeus being the great god
of the sky, Poseidon the god of the sea, and Hades
the god of the earth and of the underworld. The
generative, or family idea, also appears in this first
triad. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were brothers
who divided among themselves the common inher-
104 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
itance. Such is the myth as given more fuUy in
the Theogony of Hesiod. But though it is plainly
found in the background of the Homeric mytho-
logy, it is already supplanted by a later trinitarian
evolution, namely, the trinity of Zeus, Here, and
Athene. Of the older triad only Zeus remains,
which means that the Olympian brother, that is,
the sky-god, has reduced his rival brothers to a
sort of subjection, and has installed himself at the
head of the whole pantheon. Zeus is henceforth
the "father of gods and men," and supreme over
all things. In this second stage of trinitarian
movement the naturalistic principle yields to the
generative or family idea. The members of the new
trinity are aU sky-gods, and are united together by
the closest family relationship. Here or Hera is
both the sister and the wife of Zeus, and hence
shares with him his regal supremacy and honors.
Athene also is the daughter of Zeus, being doubly
related to him, since she is " dvSpoOia," that is, a
" man-goddess," which means that she was bom
directly through her father's agency without a
mother, — the legend being that she sprang from
the head of Zeus. This rather startling myth is
only the opposite side, carried to its extreme, of the
very common myth or legend, illustrated in many
cases, of a parentage from the mother without a
father except in some unnatural way. The close
connection between Here and Athene is visible all
through the Iliad ; and their common subordination
to Zeus is clearly defined. But the subordination
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 105
principle is also carried to the third person of this
Homeric trinity. Athene is as much subordinate
to Here as Here is to Zeus, and here in this relation
of subordination comes already to view the media-
tive principle which we have found so characteristic
of the Ethnic trinitarianism, and which will have
a remarkable development in the further progress
of Greek thought. In the Iliad, Athene is usually
the messenger sent by Zeus or Here on errands of
help and mercy. Thus Here sends her to the
Grecian host on an embassy of peace, " With thy
gentle words restrain thou every man." She is
often made a mediator between men and Zeus.
Prayers are offered to her by Greek heroes on the
eve of battle. Thus Diomede prays : " Rejoice, O
goddess, for to thee, first of aU the inunortals in
Olympus, will we caU for aid." And so Odysseus :
"Harken, goddess, come thou a good helper of
my feet." The helpful and gracious character
of Athene is thus made conspicuous. Once she is
compared to " a mother."
Turning next to the Odyssey, at once we per-
ceive a notable change. Plainly it is a work of
later date than the Iliad, and represents a later
stage of trinitarian evolution. Zeus remains still
at the head of the Homeric trinity, but Here re-
tires into the background, being mentioned but
twice, and Athene, who was so subordinate in the
Iliad, becomes from the outset the central divine
figure of the epic, and remains such to the very end.
It is noticeable also that ApoUo, who in the Iliad
106 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
held the fourth place in the order of the heavenly
gods, in the Odyssey rises to the place of Here.
He is a son of Zeus, and especially favored by him.
Four several times Apollo is united with Zeus and
Athene as forming a sort of trinity in adjurations
and prayers, as, for example, when Telemachus
addressed his mother, Penelope, " Would to Father
Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo that the wooers in
our haUs were even now thus vanquished." The
order of the triad we note is also changed. Athene
has risen from the third place, which she always
held in the Iliad, to the second, and she holds this
rank in every adjuration. Thus her very position
in the trinity seems to fit her for the mediating
mission which she assumes and sustains through-
out |the poem. It sheds a new and interesting
light on the mediatorial character of the second
Person of the Christian trinity, when we find the
same mediating function joined to the second Per-
son in so many Ethnic triads; for example, Mar-
duk in the Babylonian triad, Vishnu in the Hin-
doo, Mithra in the Zoroastrian, and Athene in the
Greek Homeric.
This chapter in the Greek trinitarianism is so
suggestive and important that it demands a some-
what closer study. The Odyssey, as compared
with the Iliad, is much fuller of human interest.
The Iliad is a true martial epic, enacted on a wide
stage, with a grand superhuman machinery at
work to carry out the counsels of Zeus, in the
midst of the plottings and coimter-plottings of
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 107
divine, superhuman and human agencies. The
Odyssey is no less an epic, but it revolves around
a single person, Odysseus, who is the true hero of
the poem, and gives it its name. The great theme
of the whole action is the adventures of this Greek
hero in his efforts to return to his home in spite
of the machinations of Poseidon, the ruler of the
waves. Thus a personal human interest gathers
around the story from the start. But this human
element is made still more powerfid by the en-
trance of another person, whose sad fortunes, grow-
ing more and more pathetic to the last, form one
of the sweetest idyls of all literature — the noble
and lovely Penelope, the patiently waiting wife of
the long-lost husband. No wonder her story has
touched the hearts of men as few others have. In
the ruins of Pompeii there stiQ is to be seen, on
the walls of a room, in colors as fresh as if painted
yesterday, a picture of Ulysses and Penelope when
they first met after his return home. He has not
yet made himseM known to her. Disguised as a
beggar, as he was, she plainly struggles in her
thoughts and feelings between despair and doubt
and growing hope. It is a scene that is entran-
cing in its simple human realism. The face and
attitude of Penelope is one that haunts the specta-
tor ever after.
Yet the true central personage of the Odyssey
is neither Ulysses nor Penelope. They are but
counters in the divine game which has for its
source of interest and meaning the active agency
108 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of the goddess Athene, mediating between heaven
and earth, and representing the divine compassion
and love in her efforts, crowned at last with tri-
umphant success, to save a sorely tried man from
the toils of harsh fate, and restore him to home,
wife, son, and happiness. I have spoken of Pe-
nelope as perhaps the most attractive woman in
Greek literature, but her human picture fades be-
fore the sublime form of the "man-goddess" as
she plays her part of a divine mediator and mes-
senger and friend of men. Such a story ought not
to be given in any abstract, but read in full, to
feel its real force and significance ; but I will try
to set forth its pith, keeping in mind the point of
view from which I have approached it.
When the action of the epic begins, Ulysses has
been a wanderer for ten years. Penelope is nearly
at her wit's end in her devices to postpone a deci-
sion concerning the wooers who are wasting her
substance and daily becoming more imperious in
their wooing. The poem opens with a council of
the Olympian gods, in which Athene intercedes
with Zeus for Odysseus: "My heart is rent for
Odysseus the hapless one, who far from his friends
this long while suffereth affliction on a sea-girt
isle." The heart of Zeus is touched and he con-
sents to assist his daughter in her mission of res-
cue. Athene at once descends to Ithaca to stir up
Telemachus, Odysseus's son, to attempt to find his
father. In this mission she assumes " the sem-
blance of a stranger. Menus, the captain of the
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 109
Taphians." This is the first of several assump-
tions of a human form, or divine incarnations.
She next appears as Telemachus himself, going
around among the citizens and inciting them to
assist him in his quest. Her third appearance is
in the form of Mentor, an old friend of Odysseus,
and in that form she accompanies Telemachus as
his adviser and friend, in his search among his
father's comrades for some knowledge of his where-
abouts. These incarnations are repeated contin-
ually in various ways throughout the poem, and
illustrate the directness of Athene's mediatorial
agency in her relations with men. She does not
remain " in the heavenly places," but breaks the veil
between heaven and earth and comes into visible
contact with the object of her care, now as a man,
now as a woman, anon as a bird. Could the com-
pleteness of the divine condescension be more viv-
idly disclosed ? One of the most suggestive touches
of the Homeric realism is where Athene, in the
form of Mentor, accompanying Telemachus to Py-
los, the home of Nestor, is invited, as if a mortal
man, to take " the cup of honied wine " and offer
it in prayer " since all men stand in need of the
gods," and herself prays to Poseidon that " Tele-
machus and I may return when we have accom-
plished that for which we came hither with our swift
black ship." "Now as she prayed on this wise,
Jierself the while was fulfilling the prayer J^ Or
is anything more touching than what soon follows,
when the aged Nestor, indulging in reminiscences
110 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of the Trojan war, and striving to comfort the
young Telemachus concerning the wooers that were
" planning mischief within the halls," uttered these
words in the very presence of Athene herself:
"Ah, if but gray-eyed Athene herself were in-
clined to love thee, as once she cared exceedingly
for the renowned Odysseus in the land of the Tro-
jans where we Achaeans were sore afflicted, — for
never yet have I seen the gods show forth such
love as then did Pallas Athene standing manifest
by him, — if she would be pleased so to love thee
and to care for thee, then might certain of them
clean forget their marriage," aU unconsciously
declaring what was already true, and soon to be
manifested in the wooers' doom.
But now the scene changes. Meanwhile the
wooers are becoming more and more clamorous,
and the heart of Penelope is growing sadder and
more despairing. She prays to Athene, who " hears
her prayer," and rushes to her help. This time
she " fashions a phantom, after the likeness of a
woman," who comes into Penelope's sleepless
chamber and cheers her with the assurance that
"a friend who hath power, even PaUas Athene,
pitieth thee in thy sorrow, and hath sent me forth
to speak these words unto thee." And now again
the scene changes to Odysseus, himseK, who has
been detained for eight years by the nymph Ca-
lypso, and is vainly sighing to be permitted to
continue his voyage home. Athene has instigated
Zeus to interfere again in his behalf. Odysseus
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 111
once more resumes his course homeward and
reaches the shore of Phaeacia. On his way to the
city of Alcinoiis the king, Athene meets him in the
guise of " a young maiden carrying a pitcher," and
offers to conduct him to her father's palace. As
they walked through the midst of the Phaeacian
mariners, the goddess "shed a wondrous mist
about him, for the favor that she bore him in her
heart." The king receives him kindly, and the
long story of his ten years' adventures follows.
Then Alcinoiis sends him on his way and he is
landed on the shores of his own country. Here
the last great act may be said to begin. To at-
tempt to describe it would only mar its thrilling
beauty and charm. Enough to say that Athene
now comes into the foreground more completely
than ever and becomes the inspiring mover and
conductor of the whole final line of action by
which Odysseus is made known to his son and
friends, the wooers are vanquished and slaugh-
tered, and Penelope, the constant wife, is restored
to her husband's arms and to the old life and
joy. Not a single step is taken, not a deed is
done, but " by the grace of Athene." The closing
scene is full of the divine aspect of mercy. The
Ithacans determine to revenge the death of the
wooers, and atta<}k Odysseus and his friends,
but through strength given by Athene in answer
to the prayer of the aged Laertes the attack is
repulsed, and all the attacking party would have
been slain had not Athene, once more in the
112 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
form of Mentor, called aloud : " Hold your hands
from fierce fighting, ye men of Ithaca, that ye may
be parted quickly without bloodshed." Thus the
battle was stayed. The Odyssey closes with these
words: "Thereafter Athene set a covenant be-
tween them with sacrifice, she, the daughter of
Zeus, lord of the sBgis, in the likeness of Mentor
both in fashion and in voice." It cannot be lost
sight of in this sweet cantata of " Peace on earth,
good will to men," that Athene, who has wrought
this peaceful result and sealed it with a covenant,
leaves the scene " in fashion as a man." I know
not how this sketch may affect others, but for
myself, as I lay down the Odyssey, I do it with the
clear conviction that as a religious poem it stands
unrivaled in Ethnic literature. Surely its picture
of the divine character, as revealed in the Homeric
trinity, especially in its two foremost members, is
one of marvelous dignity and power, shading con-
tinually into an ineffable lovableness and grace.
Who the creator of this wonderful poem was can-
not be known. It comes to us out of the shadows
of the prehistoric world. But the creation itself,
in its three chief characters of Odysseus, Penelope,
and above all Athene, is in my view par excellence
the supreme vision of Aryan faith. The Homeric
conception of Athene reaches the highest water
mark of Greek religious thought, -^schylus and
Sophocles may have struck a few deeper and
higher notes, but the Odyssey remains the true
Greek Bhagavat-Gita, the " Divine Song."
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 113
I cannot leave this great religious poem without
alluding to one other instructive feature of it,
namely, that Athene, the second mediating person
of the Homeric trinity, is a woman, thus repre-
senting the feminine element in human nature.
The introduction of a woman into the central
place of mediator in the triad is a new step of
evolution in the Ethnic trinitarianism. It wiU
appear later in the Egyptian triad of Osiris, Isis,
and Horns, where Isis, the sister and wife of
Osiris, will assume a sort of mediatorial role, and
will become one of the most popular of the foreign
divinities in later Roman times. But Isis is only
a faded image of Athene. In the Greek " man-
goddess," " the eternal womanly " of Goethe's
Faust finds its highest expression. If Christ, ac-
cording to Paul's description of him, apparently
drawn from Philo, is "the man from heaven,"
Athene is "the woman from heaven" as truly.
When we seek for the completest expression of
that form of mediatorship which manifests it-
self most clearly and attractively to satisfy our
human needs, is it not the form of motherhood?
Scripture itself bears us out in this affirmation.
The prophet makes God to say that he will com-
fort us as "one whom his mother comforteth."
No figure surely is fuller of the divine love and
compassion than this one. One cannot read the
Odyssey without being struck with the true
motherly character of Athene. Once she is di-
rectly compared to " a mother." How mother-like
114 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
she broods over Odysseus in all his misfortunes
as if he were her own child I And she acts the
same part in her relations with Telemachus and
Penelope. AH through the poem she is always
the same sweet, gracious, dearly loving, seK-for-
getting woman, playing the mother's part, how
well ! I cannot help regarding this conception of
mediatorship in its feminine form as the highest
touch of rehgious faith and feeling, even in the
Odyssey itself. There is but one other figure in
religious history or literature that can compare
with it, that of Mary the 'mother of Jesus. And
is it not remarkable that both Athene and Mary
should have received, as a unique cognomen, the
same term " irapOevo^ " or virgin. Athene was the
virgin queen, as Mary became the virgin mother.
And, from this point of view, is it any wonder
that Mary the mother of Jesus, in after times
when her son had been elevated in the faith of
his followers to a divine rank, should have been
transfigured into a hallowed virginity, and even
raised to that place of mediatorship and interces-
sory power and grace which her son had once held ?
How natural, from a human point of view, it was
that as the masculine element of mediation in the
second Person of the trinitarian dogma was more
and more confounded with that of absolute and su-
preme deity, the feminine element should be pushed
forward in the person of Mary the virgin mother
until finally she has become to all Catholic hearts
the real mediator between man and God, and the
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 115
immediate object of intercessory prayer. Nay, the
wonder ceases that in the old historic Catholic
Church, represented to-day in the Roman Com-
munion, the mother of Jesus is being recognized
as true queen of heaven, enthroned by the side of
Christ himself, and that already Catholic theolo-
gians are seeking to add a fourth person to the
divine trinity . In that new dogma, Goethe's " eter-
nal womanly," imaged in far off ancient times in
the Homeric Athene, will have found its true
place to all Catholic souls. Nor can the question
be avoided what the Protestant position must be.
If a divine mediation through a masculine human
incarnation be accepted as a revealed truth, why
not also a feminine incarnation as well? Does
not the one suggest and logically include the
other? Certainly all true moral mediation in
human experience has a double form, based on the
duality that exists in human nature. Fatherhood
and brotherhood are not enough. Motherhood
and sisterhood must be added to complete the ties
which bind all human society. Must not the
same be true of the highest form of moral in-
fluence and union, namely, that between man and
God. Why, then, should not a divine mediator-
ship appear in fashion as a woman as weU as " in
fashion like a man ? " As a matter of fact the
dogmas of the divine Christ and the divinized
Mary sprang from the same historical source and
rest on the same fundamental moral grounds.
Protestants have long since laid aside the dogma
116 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of Mary, as it was developed in Christian tradi-
tion, and classed it among the superstitions of the
dark ages ; but they do not all see that the same
historical process which overthrows the faith in
Mary as the virgin mother and queen of heaven
must overthrow the kindred dogma of Christ's
deity.
Before leaving the Greek mythological trinita-
rianism and passing to the development of the trin-
itarianism of the Greek philosophy, some space
should be devoted to what may be fitly called an
appendix to the Greek mythological chapter,
namely, some account of the trinitarian elements
in the Eoman religion. A common Aryan back-
ground lies behind the historical accounts of both
Greek and Eoman religious ideas, and there are
some plain indications of a direct influence exer-
cised by Hellenism upon that remarkable prehis-
toric chapter of Etruscan civilization, both in art
and in religion, which in its turn seems to have
had much to do in the moulding of the primitive
Roman forms of religious faith. In later historic
times, when Eome had extended her dominion
over the Greek world, and had deeply imbibed the
Greek culture, there resulted an amalgamation of
the Eoman and Greek mythology and polytheism,
so that there was a heterogeneous fusion of Latin
and Hellenic divinities both in character and in
name, and the term Graeco-Eoman properly cov-
ered the whole religious as well as political field.
But while all this is true, it is equally true, and to
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 117
be distinctly and carefuUy noted, that the Roman
religion as it first appears in history was a com-
pletely original and indigenous evolution out of
Italian soil. This religion was as characteristically
polytheistic as the Greek, but more abstract and
less the result of the poetical imagination. Ro-
man mythology had no Homer or even Hesiod to
record in imperishable verse its religious flights of
fancy. Such genius was clearly wanting to the
Roman character. So complete was its polytheis-
tic tendency that, as Mommsen weU says : " The
number of gods became as great as the incidents
of earthly life." The Roman was practical rather
than idealistic, and his religion became " shriveled
into a dreary round of ceremonies." It is not
surprising, then, that in place of a Hesiodic Theo-
gony, or a Homeric Epic, we should have a Roman
Calendar, with its meagre record of sacred and
secular days and their accompanying festivals, as
our chief historical guide to a closer acquaintance
with the Roman religion. But as we study this
calendar and its history concerning the chief reli-
gious festivals that filled the Roman year, while
the completely and widely polytheistic character
of Roman religious faith is vividly brought out,
another fact emerges with equal prominence,
namely, that at the official head of the whole poly-
theistic pantheon there was a triad of gods,
Jupiter, Jimo, and Minerva, to whom a special
worship was accorded. In fact, the whole Roman
religious faith and cult was centred in one spot,
118 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
with its temple and ritual, and in one great day
and rite. That spot was the Capitoline Hill, on
which was built the three-celled temple, with its
three altars and images of Jupiter CapitoHnus,
Juno, and Minerva. These three divinities " con-
stituted the official triad of the Roman religion."
They were by eminence the " Dii populi Romani."
Special " prayers were addressed to them for the
public prosperity." Especially on one great festi-
val day, — the " Dies natalis templi Capitolini,"
or " Lectisternium," as it was popularly called,
from the most striking scene in the pageant, — the
images of the three Capitoline divinities were
brought out of their several cells, placed on
couches and carried about the city, and then
feasted together. The origin of this unique reli-
gious custom and of the trinitarian feature which
chiefly distinguishes it is obscure. Scholars trace
its source to the Etruscan kings, who brought to
Rome their own religious ideas and worship as
well as civilization. The architectural division of
the Capitoline temple into three parts, with three
special cells, seems to be Etruscan. A curious
passage in Servius, a commentator on Virgil of the
fourth century, supports this conjecture : " Those
wise in the Etruscan discipline say that among the
Etruscan builders cities were not considered as
truly complete in which three gates were not dedi-
cated, and also as many temples of Jupiter, Juno,
and Minerva." Fergusson, in his " History of Ar-
chitecture " (i. 282), gives a plan of an Etruscan
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 119
temple which is divided into three parts, a central
nave and two aisles, with three corresponding
doors, and three ceUs for the divinities. There is
no doubt a direct historical connection between the
Roman basilica of Imperial times, with its three-
fold division, and the Etruscan temple, as there
plainly is between the Roman basilica and the
early Christian church, with its final development
into the Gothic cathedral. It is indeed a curious
and noteworthy inference which appears inevi-
table, if these premises are well founded, namely,
that the trinitarian idea reaUy lies behind that
threefold principle of division which has been the
ruling feature of Graeco-Etruscan, Roman, and
Christian religious architecture from prehistoric
times to the present day. A side view is thus
opened of peculiar significance into that tendency
of the primitive Aryan man to recognize a trini-
tarian character in all things, and to give it ex-
pression in public and sacred buildings. It is quite
well established that the Roman Capitoline trinity
was of Etruscan origin, and that the Etruscan reli-
gious and artistic ideas were derived from Greece.
This explains the correspondence of the Capito-
line trinity — Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva — with
the Homeric trinity of Zeus, Here, and Athene ;
for Jupiter is the equivalent of Zeus Pater or
Father Zeus, while Juno, though in name merely a
feminine counterpart of Jupiter, — being origi-
nally Jovina, the feminine of Jove — represents
in character and function the Greek Here, and
120 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Minerva is a Latinized Athene, the goddess of wis-
dom. In Virgil the Capitoline triad has become
more fully identified with the Greek, Juno has be-
come the sister-wife of Jupiter, as was Here that of
Zeus, and Minerva has taken on more completely
the various attributes of Athene, as inventress of
the arts and as the friend of mankind. It is a
question, however, whether in the original Italian
religion these divinities corresponded so closely to
their later Greek counterparts, or had such fuUy
developed personal qualities. But such a question
need not concern us here. This at least is true,
that very early in Roman history, and long before
Greece directly influenced Rome, the Capitoline
triad and its cult was f uUy established on that hill
which became the hearthstone and religious centre
of the Roman commonwealth, and remained ever
after the point around which the whole religious
system of Roman rites and festivals revolved.
After the political union of Rome and Greece was
consummated in the second century b. c, the
amalgamation of the two religions went on apace.
Still, it was never quite complete.
Virgil well represents the Roman religion at
the beginning of the empire. Jupiter, Juno, and
Minerva in the ^neid are everywhere recognized
as the Latin equivalents of Zeus, Here, and Athene.
Yet there are marked differences of character,
showing that the old Latin ideas persistently held
their ground. The Jupiter of Virgil is more just,
perhaps, than the Zeus of Homer, but he lacks the
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY
121
humanness of Zeus which brings him so much
nearer to human hearts. This is especially true of
Minerva as compared with Athene. In the ^neid
she is a wise counselor and helper of men, but she
somehow lacks that gracious and tender bearing
which makes the Athene of Homer so lovable in
the eyes of all whom she approaches to succor and
save. The ^neid represents a higher conception
of moral law and its predestined consequences, —
Jupiter himself being under its fatal power, — but
the larger moral freedom of the Greek Homeric
theology elevates it to a plane of moral activity and
responsibility that certainly more than compensates
for its allowance of aberrations from the stricter
fatalism of the Virgilian dogma. In the introduc-
tion to the translation of the ^neid by Messrs.
Lonsdale and Lee a statement is made with which
I quite agree : " The author of the ' Christian
Year ' has said that, next to Sophocles, Virgil is
the most religious of the poets of heathenism. The
word religious is ambiguous, and it would be diffi-
cult to agree with this opinion, if the word reli-
gious is taken in its usual sense. But if by religion
is meant a belief in fate, then it is quite true that
the ^neid is the epic of destiny. We might take
as a motto for it Virgil's own line thus rendered
by Dryden : —
* But ah, what use of valor can be made,
When heaven's propitious powers refuse their aid ? '
No Stoic dissertation can set forth the power of fate
more determinately." But if the ^ueid is " the
122 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
epic of destiny," quite as truly is the Odyssey the
epic of moral freedom. Virgil was a true poet of
the Augustan era, with aU its splendid civilization
and culture. His great poem is its noblest epitaph.
But Virgil was a child of his age. The Eoman
world of his day had lost the simple faith of youth,
and had fallen into that state of cold doubt and
skepticism which may be seen in its best form in
the writings of Cicero. The last religious refuge
of such an age is the doctrine of fate. It was out
of such a fatalistic reaction that the Stoic panthe-
istic philosophy arose, with its lofty but cheerless
ethics of unconditional resignation. Virgil had
been educated under Epicurean influences, but in
later life his religious sympathies tended toward
the conservative reaction set on foot by Augustus.
His epic poem is an effort to reinstate the ancient
religion among the " doubting Pilates " of his day.
In a sense the effort was a splendid success. He
painted the mythological polytheism of early Italy,
in its later HeUenized form, in colors whose bright-
ness and richness time cannot dim. But after aU
they were the colors of the sunset, and the ^neid
wiU ever remain the pathetic vision of a dying
faith. To attempt to compare such a poem with
the Odyssey is reaUy unjust to both. They belong
to two utterly different spheres of religious thought.
The pessimistic and melancholy temper of the
Augustan age is reflected in Virgil himseK and in
his profoundly sad verse. A sympathetic critic
speaks of "his majestic sadness, his grace and pity."
THE GREEK HOMERIC TRINITY 123
Such in truth is the impression which the JEneid
leaves on the reader. From beginning to end it
is bathed with the sober hues of a fatalism that
broods darkling over aU skies. The joyous spring-
time of the Homeric world, with its evergreen isles
and bright many-voiced waves of ocean, has" gone
forever, and in its place are the melancholy autum-
nal days of an age that is disillusioned and waits
hopelessly for what may come. If the Odyssey is
the Bhagavat-Gita or " Divine Song " of the Eth-
nic Bible, the ^neid is its Book of Ecclesiastes.
CHAPTER VII
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHIC AL
TRINITARIANISM
The Greek mythological age may be said to
have ended with the Persian wars at the beginning
of the fifth century B. c. These wars were fol-
lowed by a rapid upward movement of Greek civil-
ization which quickly culminated in its famous
golden age, producing the most wonderful out-
burst of social, literary, artistic, and religious de-
velopment that the world had yet seen. It was
the age of Herodotus, ^schylus, Sophocles, So-
crates, Pericles, Thucydides, Xenophon, Phidias,
and Polygnotus. What makes it especially note-
worthy for us in our present study is the fact that
it prepared the way for that remarkable evolution
of metaphysical thought which resulted in the philo-
sophical idealism of Plato and Aristotle. It was
by these great thinkers, who borrowed their inspi-
ration from Socrates, that the educated Greek
world was carried over from the old mythological
and polytheistic conception of divinity to that new
ground of philosophical theism which became the
foundation of all later theologies. A single para-
graph from Plato's Timaeus (40 Steph.), in which
with the most exquisite irony he politely bows out
GKEEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 125
of existence the old polytheistic gods, may be
truly said to mark the epoch-making transition
from that theory of divine multiplicity which had
hitherto characterized more or less completely aU
Ethnic thought, to the new conception of God's
essential unity, which was henceforth to rule in
philosophy. But while Plato was a philosophical
theist or monist, he left a way open for the admis-
sion of a multiplicity of divine and semi-divine be-
ings in the ideal sphere by his dualistic mediational
doctrines. Dualism lay at the basis of Plato's
spiritual philosophy. It was essential in his view
to the defense of all real spiritual existence that a
radical line of division should be drawn between
spirit and matter. The earlier Greek philosophers
from Thales to Anaxagoras had built their systems
on the assumption of an original material monism.
Heracleitus indeed started out on a reactionary
dualistic path, but failed to foUow his own lead.
Anaxagoras took a step further, declaring that
behind motion in the phenomenal world there must
be a mover, but left his pregnant suggestion with-
out critical analysis. It was reserved for Socrates
and Plato, his great disciple, to subject this sugges-
tive hint of Anaxagoras to critical dialectic treat-
ment, out of which came the idealistic dualism of
Plato and his school. This doctrine rests on the
assumption that there is a radical and eternal dis-
tinction in fact as weU as in thought between the
ideal or spiritual sphere and the phenomenal or
material. This dualistic view is modified by an-
126 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
other assumption, namely, that the ideal world is
the truly real, and is the pattern and cause of aU
temporal and phenomenal things ; so that duality
is but a development in time of an original unity
above time. It is noticeable here that the radical
line of cleavage is between spirit and matter, or
between the eternal and the temporal. Man, as a
creature with a body, belongs to the material and
temporal. Hence he is naturally separated from
God and the heavenly realm. Now appears the
ground for Plato's mediation ideas. How can God
be brought into moral relation with men? For
Plato believes in the divine personal goodness and
disposition to care for his human creatures. But
God himself " cannot mix with men." Thus a
mediative system is needed, and such a system of
mediating instrumentalities forms a leading fea-
ture of Plato's philosophy. This system begins in
the very process of creation itself by which the
material world is brought into being. In the
Timaeus, which contains Plato's cosmogony, three
principles or classes of natures are described : 1.
Intelligible or ideal being which is uncreated and
eternal. 2. The generated imitation or copy of
ideal being, that is, phenomena or the created
world. 3. Matter, which with Plato is without
positive qualities, and means simply space viewed
as the receptacle or "nurse of generation." It is
by the union of the first and third principles,
namely, eternal ideas and infinite space or matter,
that the phenomenal world is generated or pro-
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 127
duced. How can this be done ? Here the neces-
sity of the mediating element is seen. This prin-
ciple of mediation on which all creation depends is
called by Plato soul (t/^x^). Soid is itself a pre-
liminary creation of God, which Plato conceives as
a sort of mixture of idea and space, or rather per-
haps an emanation from the divine mind (vovi)
which under spatial or material conditions becomes
personalized into a mediating being who thus is
made the agent in the production of the world.
This curious piece of pure speculation shows to
what shifts Plato was driven by his dualistic
theory. Mediation is its necessary corollary, and
this principle of union and communication between
the upper and lower worlds is steadily employed
throughout his metaphysical writings. He has a
system of demonology which forms a sort of medi-
ating bridge between heaven and earth. These
demons, or good angels, are the bearers of com-
munications from one side to the other. Through
them prayers are carried up to God, and divine
responses are given to men. Even nature is in-
troduced into this mediating system. Hence 5uch
oracles as that at Delphi, where priestesses were
inspired by vapors issuing from a cave, Plato's
doctrine of divine inspiration, in which he seems to
have implicitly believed, was founded upon the
mediative principle. Here, then, in the very nature
of the Platonic philosophy, a foundation was laid
for a trinitarian development. In fact, no such
development was clearly visible in Plato himself.
128 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
The signs of it which some Christian writers, like
Cudworth, have found, belong to dialogues that
are now known to be spurious. But a germ lay
concealed there which later Platonists were sure
to bring to light. Plato was no trinitarian in the
fuU sense of the word ; he had no trinity of gods ;
he was a strict monotheist. But his mediation
theory, so fundamental in his dualism, was a direct
pointer, as we have seen so often in other Ethnic
religions, to a trinitarian result. Out of it came
at last the famous logos (Xoyos) doctrine which has
played so prominent a part in Christian theology.
I have already briefly discussed this logos doctrine
in its rise and evolution in pre-Christian thought,
in my previous volume on the " Evolution of Trin-
itarianism ; " but it is now necessary that it should
receive a more extended treatment, in order that
one may f uUy understand the historical background
of the later New Platonic trinity of which Plotinus
was the great expounder. The term Xoyos was
ordinarily employed in classic Greek in the sense
of reason or the faculty of intelligence, and also
for the expression of reason and thought in lan-
guage, namely, word or speech. The first is its
constant meaning in Greek philosophy, and such
is its significance in the logos doctrine. It was an
unfortunate error in the Vulgate Latin version of
the New Testament that the Greek term Aoyo? in
the proem of the Fourth Gospel, which was plainly
used in its philosophical sense, and should have
been translated by the Latin equivalent ratio, was
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 129
translated by the term verhum, whicli fails wholly
to give its real meaning. This blunder was per-
petuated in the King James English version, and
a strange spirit of reverence has led recent scholars
to adhere to this error in the new revised version.
The true translation is: "In the beginning was
the reason or intelligence of God." Such was its
meaning as used by Plato, and by Greek philoso-
phers before and after him. With this meaning
it came to be employed for such forms or fruits of
intelligence as law, order, especially the divine law
or order of things. Such was its use by Heraclei-
tus, who may be said to have introduced the word
into philosophical language. Whether Heracleitus
ever gave to Aoyos a personal meaning is not clear.
My own impression is against it. Heracleitus
scarcely rose to any full philosophical conception
of a personal God, or of a reason of God. By
reason (Ao'yos) he meant the principle of eternal
order and law which he found behind all the
changes and movements of the material world.
Even Plato's use of it is not personal as a rule ;
it is only an attribute of personality. His more
usual term for the divine intelligence is vovs (mind),
which he sometimes substitutes for Oeoq (God),
since the divine intelligence is the essential interior
principle of the Divine Being. Plato, however,
frequently used the term Xoyos (reason) as the
equivalent of vov^ (mind). In the later Platonic
school the two terms came to be used synonymously,
and finally the three terms, ^€os, voOs, Xdyos, were
130 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
aU employed to mean the Divine Being in Ms es-
sential eternal character. The term in Plato for
the mediating principle is never voOs or Aoyos, but
ilrvxn, namely, the world soul, which became the
author of aU other individual souls and mediated
between them and God. A sort of semblance of
trinity might be suggested as existing in Plato, in
his use of ^€os, vors, and ifrvxn ; but what has been
said shows that Plato had no such idea in his
mind. He made no personal distinction between
^€os, voOs, and A.oyo9, and his world soul Qlrvxv) was
not an eternal divine being, but a created mediat-
ing being whom God made to be the connecting link
between himseK and created things, or, in more phi-
losophical language, between idea and phenomena.
How, then, came the logos doctrine of later
Greek philosophy with its trinitarian appendix to
be traced to Plato ? The answer to this must be
found in one of those common evolutions of lan-
guage by which words gather new meanings and
even change places with other words, — a lin-
guistic process due attention to which would have
saved Christian theologians from not a few mis-
takes. The evolution began in the gradual substi-
tution of Xoyos for vovs as the divine reason or
intelligence. This change appears prominently in
Philo, — the famous Jew of Alexandria, — and
also in the early Christian Alexandrian philoso-
phers, especiaQy the Gnostics ; and through such
channels it went into Christian theology. It is in
this form that it appears in the Fourth Gospel.
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 131
Along with this hnguistic evolution went another,
namely, the substitution of \6yos for if/vxy, as the
great Platonic principle of mediation. Aoyos, as
has been said, was never used by Plato to repre-
sent the mediation element, "^vxrj was his philo-
sophical word always for such mediation. In his
more popular dialogues he sometimes substitutes
such terms as Sat/xwv or epo?, but these personificar
tions are drawn from the mythological vocabulary
of his age. Here, again, Philo is the principal
medium of evolution between Plato and later times.
Philo substituted Xoyos for xlruxrj as the central
principle of mediation between God, the transcen-
dent ineffable One, and his creatures. In fact, the
kayo's of Philo is the strict counterpart, on the
mediational side, of the ifruxn of Plato. On an-
other side a clear difference is to be observed, but
this difference is to be explained by the fact that
Philo has left the strict theistic position of Plato
and anticipates the monistic evolution which will
culminate in the pantheism of Plotinus. It can
now be easily seen how the Aoyos mediation doc-
trine can be traced through the evolution of the
Platonic dualistic philosophy back to Plato him-
self, although he did not use the term Aoyos, but
ilruxv^ for his mediating principle. On the whole,
it may be said that Philo is the historical founder
of the Aoyos theology. He placed the Aoyos as the
great principle of divine mediation in the forefront
of his philosophical system, and introduced the
word /xco-mys (mediator) into theological language.
132 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
To the Philonic school Paul plainly owed his own
use of this term, which became the keynote of his
mediating system. The same is true of the un-
known author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
remarkable proem of the Fourth Gospel ceases to
be so remarkable when its historical source is thus
discovered. How the dogma afterwards took shape
in Christian theological thought and finally re-
sulted in the complete trinitarianism of the Nicene
Creed my previous book unfolds. The very cen-
tre and heart of that creed is its A.oyos mediation
doctrine, and history shows that this doctrine has
its source in, and is directly evolved out of, the
Platonic philosophy.
But even in Philo we have not yet reached a
philosophical trinity. Philo is religiously a true
Jew, and still holds to one personal God. Yet
his Xoyo^ as mediator (fiea-Lrrjs) has already assumed
a prominence that threatens to make God abdicate
his old throne as the direct Father and Savior of
his chosen people. The Aoyos has become the mes-
senger, the high priest, " the man from heaven,"
the " first begotten son," the medium of prayer
and offering, the friend of man. No such doctrine
is to be found in the Old Testament. There God
himself directly approaches men and deals with
them as their own heavenly Father and Redeemer.
Whence, then, did Philo, true Jew as he was,
gather his mediation ideas and foist them into his
interpretation of the Old Testament writings ?
The answer has been already given. A Jew in
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 133
religious faith, Philo was educated in Greek
schools, where he had drunk deeply of the Platonic
philosophy. But if no trinity yet emerges in Philo,
two things only are wanting to bring about such a
result. 1. That his " reason " (Xoyos) or " media-
tor " (fieo-tTiys) should become a strict person ; and
2. that a third being should be added. As to the
first point, already in Philo himself there is a re-
markable wavering between a personal and imper-
sonal " reason," so that there is great diversity of
opinion among scholars as to which view should be
taken. To me this question has no special interest.
Philo's half-personal, half -impersonal use of " rea-
son" (Xoyos) is simply an evidence of the wavering
and hesitancy that appears throughout his writ-
ings, indicating the half-unconscious drift of his
thought from theism to pantheism, or from the
personal to the impersonal view of divinity. But
so strongly personal at times is his language in re-
ference to the mediator that Christian writers such
as Paul, the writer to the Hebrews, the author of
the Fourth Gospel, Origen and his school, were
easily led to regard it as denoting a personal medi-
ating being. Thus the foundation is already laid
in the Platonic Philo for a second person in the
Godhead, and when later the doctrine of a third
person, the Holy Spirit, began to grow in the
Christian church, it was not difficult to find the
germs of it in Philo himself as weU as in the Old
Testament.
If Philo was in a sense the founder of the Xoyos
134 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
"doctrine, which by a curious fate became trans-
planted into Christian theology, and paved the
way for the Christian trinity, it was Plutarch who
more truly formed the historical bridge between
the older and newer Platonism, and prepares us
for the final evolution which will give us the full-
fledged New Platonic trinity of Plotinus.
With Plutarch we reenter the direct line of
evolution of Platonism, — Philo representing a
side line which has become famous because of its
unique influence upon Christianity. Before di-
rectly taking up this last chapter of the Greek
philosophical trinity, it will be well to notice its
peculiar character in general, which consists in the
fact that it rests entirely on a speculative basis,
and allows no strictly mythological element to
enter in to qualify or corrupt it. As we have al-
ready seen, Plato eliminated from his metaphysical
scheme all fabulous materials. He sometimes
illustrated his doctrines by myths and polytheistic
traditions, but these were mostly a mere literary
garniture ; and if he seemed to accept them as con-
taining something of truth, he held them loosely
as remaining shreds of his traditional faith, not as
constituent elements of his metaphysical specula-
tions. This character which was given to Plato-
nism at the start was preserved to the end. It is
owing to this cardinal fact that the later Greek
philosophical trinity as finally set forth by Plo-
tinus will be the most logically consistent and
completely speculative piece of metaphysical con-
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 135
struction that has ever appeared in the world.
When it is compared with the two other Aryan
trinities, the difference from this point of view wiH
be readily seen. Zoroastrianism from beginning to
end is full of mythological elements. It is hardly
known whether Zoroaster himself was a historical
or a mythical character. Sosiosh, the Zoroastrian
" savior," was a complete myth, and Mithra, the
" mediator," was originally a mythological divinity
of the prehistoric polytheism. The only philoso-
phical rival of the Plotinian trinity is the Hindoo
TrimurtL But though this trinity becomes as
plainly metaphysical and pantheistic as that of
Plotinus himseK, its whole historical basis is laid
in the earlier mythology, and the very names of
its triune members are those of mythological gods
who had done duty in the earlier polytheistic cult.
But this fact wiU find its best illustration in the
analysis I shall give of the Plotinian trinity ; and
I refer to it now that it may be kept clearly in
view as we pass on to trace the historical evolution
which culminated in Plotinus.
Plutarch lived in the first century of the Chris-
tian era. There is no evidence in his writings of
any acquaintance with Christianity. He called
himself a Platonist, but he represents the philoso-
phic current of his age which was moving strongly
towards a monistic view of the world. This move-
ment had its chief philosophical exponent in Stoi-
cism, and Plutarch, while opposing the Stoics at
different points, shows how much he was influenced
136 THE ETHNC TRINITIES
by the pantheistic atmosphere around him. The
ruling feature of Plutarch's Platonism is its medi-
ation system. Mediation is his one solvent for
every philosophical dilemma. It was this me-
diation principle in Plato's dualism that made
Plutarch a Platonist. But his treatment of this
principle is original and peculiar. Plato had in-
troduced mediating elements to bridge over par-
tially the great chasm that existed between his
two orders of being, the ideal and the phenomenal.
But the chasm still remained. With Plutarch
the real chasm no longer exists. The mediating
powers have completely filled it. Dualism has be-
come monism. The new philosophic key, used
also by the Stoics, is evolution. The creation in
time of Plato has given place to an evolution from
eternity, and this evolution has no gaps in its pro-
gress from the original first principle of existence
to the lowest form of matter. This, of course, is
what we call New Platonism, and its path is
straight henceforth to its extreme result in Ploti-
nus. Yet Plotinus, as well as Plutarch, called
himself a follower of Plato, because starting with
Plato's idealism he, with Plutarch, adopted to its
fullest extent the associated principle of media-
tion. The three test words of New Platonism, as
a philosophy, are idealism, mediation, evolution.
The first two belong to Plato himself, while
the third is the new note which changed Platonism
into New Platonism. This change was radical;
for the new evolution principle led to a magnify-
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 137
ing of the mediation principle, which metamor-
phosed the dualism that Hes at the foundation of
theism to a monism which is the direct road to
pantheism. How far Plutarch was aware of this
profound change one cannot tell. He gives no
sign. But his work entitled " Isis and Osiris " ^
is interesting as showing how ready he was to ac-
cept a trinity, such as he found in the Egyptian
religion of his day, from the standpoint of the
Platonic dualism. The " Isis and Osiris " gives
evidence that Plutarch found in Platonism a sort
of a trinity. But how ? one may well ask. I can
conceive of but one answer, from the philosophic
point of view. It was the new evolution keynote
that enabled Plutarch to accept so easily the idea
of a trinity of gods, thus forming a convenient
bridge between the original One^ the Father of
Plato, and the many mediational divine and semi-
divine beings which filled the chasm between the
two worlds of eternity and time. We shall find
this very bridge employed by Plotinus in the re-
markable chapter of the " Enneads," entitled " The
Three Hypostases " (*0t rpcts vTroorao-cts).
The " Isis and Osiris " of Plutarch is so curious
and suggestive, as a stage in the evolution of
Greek trinitarian ideas, that it demands further
notice. This work is an attempt from the media-
^ I assume the genuineness of this production ; for, whether
genuine or not, it harmonizes with the general tone and character
of Plutarch's genuine writings, and, if not from the hand of
Plutarch himself, must be the work of a disciple.
138 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tional and eclectic point of view to explain the
Egyptian polytheism. Plutarch assumed that all
religions are essentially one in spirit and aim, and
that a conunon truth underlies all the diversified
forms of religious faith. This eclectic liberalism
had its root in the original spirit and philosophy of
Plato, — a spirit drawn from the inquisitive and
critical method of Socrates, — but it grew more
and more into a vital principle of judgment and
conduct with the evolution of Platonism into New
Platonism, which sought to find in philosophy a
common ground of agreement and harmony for
the divergent religious systems in the world. This
irenic, tolerant element characterized the later
New Platonic writings, and is the secret of their
undying charm, — a charm that sheds a halo
around the writings of Plutarch himself, and has
placed him in the calendar of pre-Christian saints.
The subject-matter of the " Isis and Osiris " is
a myth concerning three Egyptian gods which had
become popular in the later religion of Egypt, and
also among the Komans who were inclined in Plu-
tarch's day to accept foreign cults, — Egypt being
now a Roman province. As a Platonist Plutarch
seeks to find the esoteric truth which this exoteric
myth contains. The warp and woof of the essay is
a comparison which is instituted between the triple
myth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and the three fun-
damental principles of Platonism. Thus the basis
is laid for a philosophical triad, which Plutarch
discovers under the disguise of the Egyptian poly-
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 139
theism. It is interesting to observe how ready-
Plutarch is to accept a trinitarian view of things.
" The better and more divine nature," he says, " is
made up of three principles ; " " and we may con-
jecture that the Egyptians reverence the most
beautiful kind of triangle (the right-angled), be-
cause they liken it to the nature of the universe."
He proceeds to call three the " perfect " number.
He suggests that in Hesiod's Theogony " the first
^YQ elements of creation " are reducible to three,
and this recalls to him " the fable of Plato's which
Socrates has related in the Symposium," in which
three persons. Wealth, Poverty, and Love, figure.
Thus Plutarch brings Hesiod, Plato, and the
Egyptian myth into philosophical harmony by
means of a trinity which he finds in the very nature
of things, — a passage which reminds one of the
extract from Aristotle previously quoted, in which
he describes a principle of threeness in nature, and
suggests that it lies behind the trinitarian rites in
the worship of the gods. Plutarch was thus pre-
pared from his own philosophic background to em-
ploy a trinitarian key in the interpretation of the
Egyptian polytheism. Such a key is for him the
best bridge from unity to multiplicity and vice
versa; and the same philosophical assumptions, I
may here say, which induced Plutarch to build
such a trinitarian bridge, lie behind aU the philoso-
phical trinities of history. Let me now describe
this bridge as Plutarch built it.
The Egyptian myth included a fourth god, Ty-
140 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
phon, who represented the evil principle. Plu-
tarch here applies the Platonic dualism, and treats
the Egyptian Typhon as equivalent to the Platonic
principle of matter, which is the spring of what-
ever is defective and evil in the world. It is to be
noted, however, that Plutarch goes beyond Plato, —
becoming almost if not quite a Zoroastrian. Plato's
matter was wholly negative in character. For him
there is only one positive principle of life and be-
ing, namely, the good. But Plutarch seems to
hold to two eternal active principles, one good, the
other evil, and refers to Zoroaster as holding the
same view. In this Plutarch leaves the track of
his master. Probably the explanation is to be
found in the character of Typhon, as given in the
Egyptian myth, which made him an active agent
for evil. But in explaining the rest of the myth
Plutarch returns to thoroughly Platonic ground.
Osiris, Isis, and Horus represent the trinal charac-
ter of " the better and more divine nature."
Plutarch plainly supposed himself to be simply
following out Plato's own principles, for he speaks
of Plato in this connection as " adopting into his
system chiefly the religious notions of the Egyp-
tians." Whether Plato actually borrowed from
the Egyptians or not, Plutarch plainly thought so,
and accordingly regarded his own trinitarian inter-
pretation of the Osiris myth as a genuine product
of Platonic principles. It is not necessary to our
purpose to go at length into Plutarch's curious
adaptation of the Platonic philosophy to the Egyp-
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 141
tian mythology. A simple statement of it will be
enough to show how far advanced already we are
on the philosophical trinitarian road towards the
complete New Platonism of Plotinus, and that the
root and seed of it all is traceable to Plato him-
self.
Plutarch makes Osiris the superior principle of
good, the eternal reason or intelligence (Xoyos), the
fountain head of aU intelligence in aU things, and
the final as well as efficient cause of the world.
As such Osiris corresponds to Plato's Zeus or
Father, " idea of the good," the " intelligible
One." Hence Plutarch calls Osiris " the first
god," al^o " the benefactor." Isis is made the sec-
ond or female principle, being passive, receptive,
the mediating instrument of generation. Hence
she is called the wife of Osiris, being the medium
of the active agency of the first god or Xoyos, and
so termed " nurse " and " mother." Here Isis is
made to correspond to the Platonic principle of
matter as a purely passive, negative element, and
not a direct, efficient cause of evil. Horus repre-
sents the result of the united action of the first
and second gods. He is thus the son of Osiris and
Isis, made in his Father's image, son of the Aoyo?,
the sensible image of the intelligible being or idea
of good. In this view Horus represents Plato's
phenomenal world, which was created or generated
from the divine or eternal reason, by the mediation
of the world soul, which was a prior creation of
that reason (vovs, Xoyos). It can be seen at once
142 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
that Plutarch leaves out of his comparison of the
Platonic and Egyptian trinitarianism the world
soul or mediating principle, which plays so large a
part in Plato's system, and, further, confounds the
negative material element of Plato with Typhon,
the active agent of evil in the Egyptian myth.
He seeks to cover these gaps by his doctrine of
Isis, who is made to represent Plato's matter, the
passive nurse of generation, and also his " world
soul," or active mediating principle. Isis thus has
an active as well as passive aspect, is mother as
well as wife, the active soul Qpvxn) ^-s well as
medium and " nurse " of the generating activity of
the first god (vovs, \6yo%). The result of this skill-
ful manipulation is that he is able to bring the
three principles of existence of Plato, namely, 1.
Intelligible being or idea, 2. Phenomena or indi-
vidual things, 3. Matter or space as the receptacle
or nurse of generation, into apparent harmony
with these three mythical beings, Osiris, Isis, and
Horus. How far he was successful in his inter-
pretation does not here concern us : the point of
interest is that in his interpretation Plutarch gives
us his construction of Platonism, which in his view
has a trinitarian basis, and is in essential philoso-
phical accord with the Egyptian triad as philoso-
phically explained.
As to the character of this trinity which Plu-
tarch finds in the Platonic philosophy and the
Egyptian religion, it is to be remarked that it dif-
fers considerably from the mythological triads of
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 143
the earlier Ethnic religions. Had Plutarch treated
the myth of Osiris, Isis, and Horus in a historical
and critical way, he would have found many in-
teresting points of relationship between it and the
mythological triads of his Graeco-Roman ancestors.
The Osiris of Egypt is the Zeus of Homer in
one aspect. So Isis closely corresponds in some
of her attributes to Athene. But Plutarch did not
approach the subject as a critical historian. His
standpoint was that of a philosophical eclectic,
and his consequent effort to harmonize an Egyp-
tian myth with a Greek speculation must be ac-
counted a failure. It failed to do justice to either
side. Plutarch's triad has no real affinity with
the Egyptian mythological trinity, and is equally
a spurious development of the Platonic dualism.
As I have said, Plato was no trinitarian. His
construction of deity was whoUy theistic without a
tinge of real tritheism. His philosophical dualism
led him to his doctrine of three ultimate principles
of existence ; but his duaKsm left his theistic doc-
trine of God untouched. If any question could
arise, it would be whether his dualism did not in-
volve pantheism, not whether it led to tritheism.
The historical significance of Plutarch's " Isis and
Osiris " is, that it so clearly shows which way the
theological winds around him were blowing. A
trinitarian theory of the universe and also of deity
is somehow in the air, and Plutarch takes kindly
to it. He is ready to mould his Platonism into a
trinitarian form, and the Egyptian myth just suits
144 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
his purpose. But why is he so ready to turn his
own philosophy into a trinitarian direction ? Be-
cause his Platonism, as I have shown, has admitted
a new evolution principle which has radically
transformed it, and a trinity of some sort is the
very bridge he needs as a passageway from the
unity of original being to the multiplicity of the
phenomenal world. In the history of Greek phi-
losophy Plutarch stands midway between Plato
and Plotinus. He opened the path from theism
to pantheism, which Plato hesitated to enter, but
which Plotinus carried through to its logical re-
sult, employing the philosophical materials fur-
nished by Plato himself. Plato had never ad-
justed his theistic faith to his idealistic, dualistic
philosophy. If he was conscious of the contradic-
tion which existed he gives no hint of any such
consciousness. He could leave this hiatus the
more easily since he made no pretense of forming a
philosophical system. His dialogues contain other
similar speculative inconsistencies, which were
only partially hidden under the veil of irony in
which he so often indulged, on purpose, appar-
ently, to afford a suitable hiding-place whenever
he needed it. Thus it became the great aim of
Plato's disciples to systematize the fruitful but
unadjusted speculations of their master. It was
this motive that developed the New Platonic evo-
lution. From Plato to Plotinus this effort is the
sovereign note everywhere visible. It does not
come within the scope of this survey to trace this
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 145
evolution any further than is required by the
trinitarian factor which so essentially belongs to
it. Enough to note here that only one of two
courses was open to Plato's disciples, — either to
surrender the Platonic metaphysical idealism and
fall back on a crude dualism as the basis of the
Platonic theism, or to surrender Plato's theism
altogether and to allow his metaphysical ideal the-
ories to run their logical course into a consistent
pantheism. The latter alternative was the one
accepted. Thus the further history of Platonism
is marked by the steps taken in this direction.
Plato's metaphysical speculations were made the
basis of further speculative thought, while his
theism gradually dwindled to a mythological meta-
phor, — theistic terms being employed with a pan-
theistic meaning. Two steps especially are to be
noted in this pantheistic advance.
First, Plato treated God as a personal being,
the Creator and Father of the world, representing
him, however, in his ideal theory as the "idea
of the good." But how can an idea, which is a
pure abstraction, be a person or a seK-conscious
agent ? Plato left the knot as he foimd it ; but
his followers avoided the dilemma by a logical step
which eliminated it. Behind Plato's concrete per-
sonal mind (voGs or \0y05) the New Platonist placed
the abstraction of simple existence (^rb Iv, to ov),
— a purely logical formula, without attributes or
qualities, and possessing nothing but a subjective
reality ; for how can an abstract idea exist except
14f$ THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
in a concrete mind endowed with the power of
abstraction ? But such a logical starting-point of
being suited the speculative tendencies of this
profoundly metaphysical age. Moreover, the basis
of it had been laid by Plato himself. In his
" Republic " Plato had described the " idea of the
good" as the "universal author of all things
beautiful and right, parent and lord of light in
this world, and the source of truth and reason in
the other " (Rep. 517), thus plainly identifying
the " idea of the good " with God himself ; and yet
in another passage (509, B.), he had described this
same " idea of the good " as " above aU essential
or individual being " (to iTriKuva t^s ovo-tas). This
isolated expression, which Plato had casually
dropped from his pen without explanation or repe-
tition, became the New Platonic definition of the
highest or first deity. Evolution of a pantheistic
sort, as we have already seen, explained the rest.
Plotinus, as we shall see, made great use of this
definition. His first hypostasis (vTrocrraorts) or
principle of being is a pure impersonal abstraction,
" the one " (to Iv), a simple principle of unity
without a single quality of any sort ; yet he again
and again calls this abstraction God or Father,
and, in describing it, uses the personal pronoun
in the masculine gender. Unless this peculiarity
of Plotinian nomenclature is borne in mind, the
reader of the Enneads will often be led astray.
The second step grew out of the question
whether the eternal ideas of Plato's metaphysical
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 147
world were interior to the divine reason or ex-
terior and independent. I am aware of the oppos-
ing views entertained by critics concerning this
vexed question which lies at the very root of the
Platonic philosophy ; but the more thoroughly one
enters into Plato's point of view, the clearer grows
one's conviction as to his real position, and what
the study of Plato's dialogues plainly indicates is
amply sustained by the later Platonic evolution.
The key to that evolution is to be found only in
the right understanding of Plato's own doctrine of
ideas, which was incontestably, that they are not
apart from and independent of God, but are inte-
rior to the divine reason (vow or Xoyos), and are
employed by God as the patterns and causes of aU
phenomena. This is the doctrine of the Republic,
where Plato made the " idea of the good," which
he placed at the summit of the ideal world, to be
identical with God himself. So, also, in the
Timaeus, God the father and creator forms all
things after the pattern of the eternal ideas con-
tained in his own reason (^Xoyo';'). But New Pla-
tonism tended to the opposite view. As it reduced
the first absolute God to mere oneness without
attributes, it could not look upon the ideas which
were the types and causes of things as inhering in
this first God. The world of ideas was located in
the mind of a second God, who was himself the
principle of intelligence (vovs) generated by a nat-
ural evolution from the first God.
These two steps led the way to the fuUy devel-
148 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
oped New Platonic trinity. This trinity first ap-
pears in a crude shape in Numenius. Numenius
was a philosophical writer of the latter half of the
second century, and thus stands midway in time
between Plutarch and Plotinus. He claimed to
be a regenerator of philosophy, and sought to re-
turn to the pure fountains of Pythagoras and
Plato. In Socrates and Plato he thought that he
found a real divine trinity. This trinity he de-
scribed as " three gods," — a " first god," who was
the absolute one (vovs), self-conscious yet unable
to create or actively employ the ideas that inhered
in the divine intelligence ; a " second god," who by
generation from the first god became the active
embodiment of the eternal ideas and the Demiurge
or maker of the world ; and the " third god," who
was generated from the second god, and was the
active intelligent principle of the created world.
Thus we have for the trinity of Numenius, 1, the
Supreme Deity ; 2, the Demiurge ; 3, the Cosmos
or world. It will be seen that this view of the
principles of the divine being differs considerably
from that of Plato. Plato did not distinguish the
Demiurge or Creator from the Supreme God. His
strict theism prevented it. He treated the eternal
ideas which were the patterns and causes of things
as immanent in the divine being, and actively op-
erative in the divine mind in the construction of
the material universe. How Numenius could have
read his evolutionary pantheistic ideas into Plato
it is impossible to guess, as but a few fragments
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 149
of his writings have come down to us. He may-
have seen a spurious " Epistle " which was attrib-
uted to Plato and contained a passage that dis-
tinguished a " jfirst," " second," and " third " god.
This spurious epistle was plainly the work of some
New Platonic disciple. Whatever be the truth
about this, one fact becomes more and more clear,
that the whole Platonic school, from Plutarch on,
was drifting steadily toward a trinitarian panthe-
ism. The special significance of Numenius lies in
the fact that he pushed the trinitarian element to
the front, and thus directly prepared the way for the
Plotinian trinity.
A word or two more is required concerning the
speculations of Numenius, that the connection be-
tween him and Plotinus may be more clear. The
most marked peculiarity of the Numenian trinity
is its generation doctrine. Numenius calls his
three gods, TraTTTros, cKyovos, and aTroyovos, — literally
"grandfather, immediate offspring, and more re-
mote offspring," or, as it might be put, "Father,
son, and grandson." Thus the whole evolution of
the world is regarded as a generative process from
beginning to end. We have seen the generative
principle playing an important part in the Ethnic
mythological trinities. We also found it early in
the development of Platonism into New Platonism,
though not in Plato himself. Plato makes God an
active creator, not a passive instrument of genera-
tion. But the generative idea appears in Philo in
Lis Xoyos doctrine, and still more fully in Plutarch,
160 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
who makes the third member of the triad the gen-
erated son of the first and second members. It
was reserved, however, for Numenius to apply the
generative principle to the whole trinity, and to
make the Supreme Being father of the second god,
the Demiurge, and grandfather of the third god,
the world. We shall see how completely Plotinus
accepted this fertile suggestion.
There is one other point in Numenius's scheme
which demands a word of explanation. What
does Numenius mean in calling the world a god,
and a member of tjie divine trinity ? Of course
his pantheism explains it in part. In his view the
whole universe, from the highest to the lowest
forms of existence, is one substance, and contains
one essential divinity. But a further word should
be added. Numenius derived from Plato the idea
that not only what we call the material world, with
its earth, sun, moon, and stars, was an animated
being as a whole, but also that each individual
body, earth, sun, or star, was an animal or living
intelligent being, deriving its animated life from
the world-soul, which dwelt in the universe as the
soul of man dwells in his body. How fruitful a
germ of pantheistic tendencies this theory was
needs no unfolding. The truth is that Plato's
idealistic dualism was a seed-bed of the most di-
verse philosophical tendencies. His doctrine of
nature was both idealistic and hylozoistic. Aris-
totle, in this respect, was a consistent disciple, and
GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL TRINITARIANISM 151
hence we shall see in our further studies how phi-
losophical schools of the most antagonistic charac-
ter can claim these two great founders of Greek
speculative thought as their masters. We now
pass to Plotinus.
CHAPTER Vni
THE GEEEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY
There is a close historical connection between
Plotinus and Numenius. Porphyry, Plotinus's
disciple, tells us that the writings of Niunenius
were among those that were read in the school of
Plotinus for discussion and criticism ; but he takes
pains to add that Plotinus was not a mere fol-
lower of Numenius, but developed a " more accu-
rate " philosophy. This is plain at a glance. The
differences between Plotinus and Numenius are
palpable and radical, and show that Plotinus pro-
ceeded upon entirely original lines of philosophic
thought. Two points are sufficient to illustrate
this. First, Numenius made the Demiurge or
world-maker the second principle or member of
his trinity ; while Plotinus transfers the work of
the Demiurge to the third principle of the triad.
A second point of difference is still more radical.
Numenius made the Cosmos or world a member of
his trinity, — a rude device, showing how chaotic
and incomplete was his trinitarianism, and how
far he failed to understand the idealistic dualism
of Plato, whom he regarded as his forerunner. It
was Plotinus who revived the central truth of
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 153
Platonism and raised upon it a speculative meta-
physic in which the spiritual world as the eternally
real is carefully distinguished from the phenom-
enal. This fact is revealed in his new trinity, from
which the Cosmos or visible universe is discarded,
and in its place a new spiritual principle is substi-
tuted. On the whole, it is evident that Plotinus
was under no special obligations to any of his pre-
decessors, except so far as this, that he was a wide
student of Greek philosophy on aU sides, having
spent his early life in Alexandria, the headquar-
ters of all the Greek schools in the third century.
The two philosophers who most influenced him
were Plato and Aristotle. His references to Plato
are numerous, and he plainly regarded him as
his philosophical master. How far he was con-
scious of his wide variations from Plato it is not
easy to say. My own judgment is that he re-
garded himself as a true follower of Plato, but ex-
ercised freely the functions of a critic, and looked
upon his own philosophical system as a legitimate
and logical unfolding of Plato's speculations. In
fact, as has already been mentioned, while he ad-
hered to the spiritualistic idealism of Plato, he
dismissed entirely the Platonic element of person-
ality as fundamental to the spiritual realm, and
built the most complete metaphysical system of
idealistic pantheism that the world has seen.
The influence of Aristotle upon Plotinus is also
marked. His chief deviations from Plato are on
Aristotelian lines, especially his whole theory of
IM THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the origin of the world as an evolution of phenom-
enal movements and activities, which involve an
unmoved and motionless mover or principle of
motion. Plato made God an active causal agent
in the formation of the world, which had a begin-
ning ; while Aristotle held that the world must be
eternal, since the principle of all motion must be
eternal, and so eternally productive of motion in
the physical universe. Plotinus accepted the view
of Aristotle, and made it the basis of his trinita-
rianism. But while Plotinus shows a thorough
acquaintance with aU the great thinkers before
him in the Greek world, and even adopts many of
their ideas, it still remains true that his philoso-
phical system is essentially original. This is pre-
eminently true of his trinitarianism.
Before I proceed to a description of the Ploti-
nian trinity, I wish to emphasize this fact, so that
the profound significance of Plotinus as a religious
thinker, and of his religious system as compared
with other systems, may be duly impressed on the
minds of my readers. Of no other trinitarian
system can it be said that it is the creation of a
single religious genius. AU other Ethnic trinities,
as we have seen, were the slow result of a long
evolution, and their origins are hid in the darkness
of the primeval world, out of which they finally
emerged into the light of historical times. Neither
Zoroaster nor Buddha nor any single Hindoo sage
laid the foundations of the Zoroastrian or Hindoo
triads. The Greek mythological trinity which
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 165
forms so tender a background to the story of the
Odyssey had floated down into the Homeric world
from an unknown past. Plato was, on the whole,
the most creative trinitarian thinker before Ploti-
nus, and sowed the speculative seed which finally
produced the Plotinian trinity. But Plato himself
was not a trinitarian in any sense. He was a
monotheist; and before a trinity could emerge
from his theistic philosophy, the whole character
of it had to be changed. I have already traced
that change through Philo, Plutarch, and Nume-
nius. Not till the Platonic monotheism had become
a New Platonic pantheism could a metaphysical
trinity be built on Platonic foundations. This was
the truly original work of Plotinus. It is a his-
torical fact worthy of careful attention and remem-
brance, that the two great philosophical trinities of
the ancient world, the Hindoo and the New Pla-
tonic, are essentially pantheistic, and could have
been developed only from pantheistic principles.
Two words describe the essence of Plotinianism,
pantheism and trinitarianism, and in the Plotinian
system each element involves the other. It is in-
deed true that Plotinus does not baldly assert his
pantheistic ideas, though they lie at the basis of all
his thinking; but he places his trinity in the fore-
front of his philosophy, and makes his three hy-
postases or principles of being the root and centre
of his whole explanation of the universe, includ-
ing man in his origin, character, and destiny, and
also nature from the highest to the lowest forms
166 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of phenomenal existence. What establishes and
stamps as genuine the originality of this wonderful
system, viewed simply as a product of speculative
thought, is its completely metaphysical and trans-
cendental character. Every trinity before that of
Plotinus has mythological, legendary, or historical
elements incorporated more or less completely in
its composition. Even pliilosophers like Heraclei-
tus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Plato himself,
frequently f eU back on mythological ideas in order
to bridge the speculative gaps in their thought.
But no such " wood, hay, stubble " are mixed with
the pure metaphysics of Plotinus. His " three
hypostases," The One, The Mind, The Soul (to If,
6 vovs, rj ^vxn), are in no sense mythological and
have no mythological background ; they are wholly
transcendental creations of the speculative reason,
— the result of the sublimest flights of abstract
thought, dealing with the great mysteries of the
world and man and God. Hence, although the
mediative principle drawn from Plato is conspic-
uous in the Plotinian trinity, it remains wholly
transcendental, never lowering itself to the point
of a divine incarnation. There is nothing in Plo-
tinus to remind one of the God-man, Krishna, in
the Hindoo trinity, or Sosiosh or Mithra in Zoro-
astrianism, or the Virgin Athene of Greek mytho-
logy. This fact grows the more remarkable, when
one considers that all the historical elements that
have entered into the development of the various
Ethnic trinities appear in the Plotinian, namely,
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 167
the peculiar significance of three^ the family or
generative principle, and the mediation principle.
Why, then, we may weU ask, did Plotinus leave
out the natural idea of a divine incarnation ? The
answer becomes plain only when the character of
Plotinus himself and of his speculative system is
clearly understood. The more I study the man
himself and his writings, the more fully I compre-
hend how aloof and apart he was from all external
influences, and how original was the character and
scope of his genius. Less creative and poetic than
Plato, he far excelled him in the rigid consistency
and reach of his speculations. No ancient thinker
has ever looked so steadily and unweariedly into
the face of eternal and spiritual realities as Ploti-
nus, — a man in truth of the sublimest faith in
the imseen God. Such a man, living so entirely
in the upper world, would naturally have developed
out of idealistic premises an abstract and logical
metaphysic that would have no room for any de-
scent to earth and time such as an incarnation of
God demands. In short, an incarnation is logi-
cally impossible in any strict and consistent meta-
physical scheme. Such a scheme must complete
itself on purely metaphysical lines. It cannot
descend from the metaphysical to the physical,
phenomenal, historical plane without violating its
own cardinal principles. And here is revealed the
secret of Plotinus's power as a thinker, and of the
tenacity of his grip upon critical thought. While
mythologies and speculative systems that are
168 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
founded upon legendary traditions are fading out,
like a shore fog under the morning sun, the rigid,
logical, and intensely metaphysical system of Plo-
tinus is proving itself to be the most vital and
indestructible of the world's speculative treasures.
Whether it is to stand or faU, one thing is certain,
that neither scientific nor historical criticism can
directly touch it ; for it starts and remains far
above all merely phenomenal events, though in-
cluding them as shadowy and subordinate incidents
of its wonderful panorama of existence. With my
own historical instincts developed and fortified by
a life of historical study and teaching, I confess to
a strong disinclination to enter and tread such an
airy path. The Plotinian solution of the universe
is not for such as I. But at aU events the histor-
ical critic cannot treat it as he can mythological
and legendary cosmogonies. He can only acknow-
ledge that it lies whoUy beyond his own historical
and critical sphere. Yet this can be said ; if meta^-
physics shall prove to be the master key to the
world's enigmas, — which I am not yet ready to
grant, — commend me to the optimistic trinitarian
idealism of Plotinus.
I hope that I have in some measure, by these
preliminary statements, prepared the way for the
direct consideration of the Plotinian trinity. I
shall not attempt to unfold the subtleties of Plo-
tinus's speculations, except so far as may be neces-
sary for the explanation of his trinitarian views.
Strange as it may seem, the great aim of Plo-
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 159
tinus in aJI his metaphysical writings is wholly
practical and religious ; it is to defend the reality
of man's higher and immortal nature against the
materialism and skepticism of his age. Epicure-
anism, though decadent, still haunted men with
its denials of a future spiritual existence. Even
Stoicism, with aU its lofty ethical ideas, sanctified
and embalmed in the noble writings of Epictetus,
Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, rested on a mate-
rialistic basis that could give no clear assurance of
a personal immortality. Against all such ideas
Plotinus sought to raise a solid barrier in his meta-
physical philosophy. This aim animates him aU
through his speculations, even in their most trans-
cendental flights, and imparts to them an intense
moral earnestness. No more serious explorer after
religious truth ever lived. In this respect Plotinus
belongs to that select class of " seekers after God,"
" if haply they might feel after him and find him,"
which includes such thinkers and seers as Buddha,
Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, and Marcus
Aurelius. Equally for them all the great object
of their intellectual efforts was to find a resting-
place for religious faith, — a solid basis of security
and comfort mid the moral evils and mysteries and
uncertainties of this mortal life. At times in Plo-
tinus this moral enthusiasm breaks forth in pas-
sages of marvellous mystical insight and beauty,
which raise his strangely harsh and involved style
of thought to a rhythmic heavenly strain that sur-
prises and almost startles us. This moral and
160 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
religious quality is well illustrated in the famous
chapter (En. V. 1.) : " Concerning the three sov-
ereign hypostases or principles of being" (HcptTwv
Tptwv apxiKiov vTToo-Tao-tcov), to which I now call spe-
cial attention. The very first sentence strikes the
ethical note which remains as a minor key through-
out, and at the close gathers every single various
chord into one grand melody : " How happens it
that souls become forgetful of God their Father,
though they have sprung from him and are wholly
of him, and are thus made ignorant of him and
also of their own divine nature ? " The question is
answered by tracing this obliviousness to the union
of the soul with matter, as a consequence of which
man is turned away from his divine source toward
lower corporeal things. "Hence souls seeing
neither God nor themselves despise themselves
through ignorance of their divine lineage." Plo-
tinus next proceeds to point out the true remedy,
namely, that they should be converted from things
below them " and be raised to the highest, the one
and the first." It is immediately after this exor-
diima that Plotinus develops his trinitarian doc-
trine as the one only divine method by which souls
thus fallen are redeemed, and, having finished it,
he returns to his starting-point, thus showing that
it has been in his mind aU along. Noting the dual
character of the soul as having a power of choice
between things within and above and things exter-
nal and inferior, he thus closes : " It is necessary,
therefore, if the soul would apprehend what is
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 161
higlier, that its attention should be turned inward.
Just as when any one, desiring to hear a voice that
pleases him, separates himself from other voices,
and opens his ear to the sweeter sound as it draws
near ; so here also it is necessary for the soul to dis-
miss external and sensible sounds, except so far as
may be needful, in order to keep pure and ready
for use its introspective power, with a view to
hearing voices from above."
Such, then, is the point of view from which Plo-
tinus proceeds to unfold his divine trinity. He
starts with the assumption that the human soul is
spiritual and consequently immortal. It has in-
deed become oblivious of its divine origin because
of its connection with the body. But this is only
a temporary condition. The true higher life of
the soul does not begin with temporal things or
end with them. This leads Plotinus to set forth
his doctrine of the soul. It has in its present
state two sides or aspects, — a lower side which
concerns itself with phenomenal and temporal
things, and a higher side that is turned toward the
intelligible and divine. Here Plotinus assumes
the truth of the Platonic dualistic idealism. He
distinguishes the eternal world of ideal spiritual
beings from the temporal world of phenomena.
This dualistic line between the spiritual and ma-
terial is drawn in the sharpest manner possible.
Soul and body belong to two different spheres of
being. The body has a material origin, while the
soul is descended from the spiritual world. But
162 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
how are these two diverse spheres of being related
and bound together? Here Plotinus draws his
premise from Plato, but moves on to a more con-
sistent metaphysical conclusion. This premise is
one of the most curious speculations in the history
of philosophy, and to this day plays no small part
in philosophical thought. Let us see how Plato
was led to it. The question was how to find a
standing-place for the dualistic theory, and make
it harmonize with the unity of the world. It is
easy enough to assume dualism as a fact. The
fundamental differences between mind and matter
are patent to every thinker. But how to adjust
these differences and explain metaphysically the
nature and origin of the union between such di-
verse forms of being is and always has been the
Gordian knot of philosophy. In considering
Plato's manner of dealing with it one must re-
member his whole point of view. He lived in a
period of strong reaction from the Ionian physi-
cists, who had sought to find in nature and its
phenomena the origin of the world. Anaxagoras
had suggested that behind all phenomenal motion
and change there must be a mover or principle of
motion, and that such a principle must be simple
and beyond all mixture or change. This principle
he called mind (voCs). Out of this pregnant
thought was evolved the dualistic school of Socra-
tes and Plato. Its whole aim was to resist the
materialistic skepticism which in the Sophistic
schools was becoming more and more popular, and
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 163
to build on metaphysical foundations a spiritual
philosophy. The suggestion of Anaxagoras was
made the starting-point. Behind matter is mind.
Above the physical is the metaphysical. The true
eternal realities are ideal, not phenomenal. The
visible world has its basis in the invisible. All
individual concrete things are only copies in time
of God's eternal ideas, which are the patterns and
causes in the divine mind of this phenomenal uni-
verse. Plato shows little regard for scientific
studies. What little science there was in his day
was superficial guesswork, and led to no conclu-
sive results. Plato sought " a more excellent way,'*
— the way of metaphysical speculation. He
boldly entered the unseen transcendental sphere,
and established himself on the speculative princi-
ple that all real truth is eternally existent in the
mind of God. This is his famous theory of ideas.
But Plato was not a pure idealistic monist. He
held to the secondary reality of matter. He could
not, even from his idealistic point of view, deny
the facts before his eyes as to the temporal reality
of the visible world. How shall he unite the two
worlds? How shall God, with his eternal ideas
or patterns of things, become a creator? Plato
might have jumped the whole mystery in the He-
brew fashion, and declared that God created the
world by a simple fiat, " out of nothing," as it was
explained by Jews and Christians in later times.
But Plato was not to be caught in such a meta-
physical trap. "Out of nothing nothing can
164 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
come " was as familiar to him as to Epicureans of
a later day. Here there appears the curious spec-
ulation on which he dares to risk his whole meta-
physical system. The facts to be explained and
harmonized are those which involve two separate
and seemingly radically different worlds. What
is the tie between them? How can dualism be
sustained? In this wise. The ultimate fact of
the material world is multiplicity involving motion
and change ; the ultimate fact of the spiritual
world is unity, and sameness, and unchangeability.
These two facts are the opposite poles of aU exist-
ence. But it must be remembered that such facts
are only subjectively and logically true. " Same-
ness and otherness " are mere abstractions and
generalizations of the mind, and are logically true
only so far as they are abstracted in thought from
real objects in nature and experience. But Plato
made this principle of logical division a metaphy-
sical one, and treated it as if it were an objective
cardinal truth in the nature of things.
This purely speculative and barren assumption
was adopted by Plotinus. " Sameness and other-
ness," he says, "are the first of things "(xptora).
How so logical and rigid a thinker as Plotinus
could have been willing to stand on so slippery a
speculation need cause no surprise. Let him who
has not sinned in this way cast the first stone.
But in judging him we must not lose sight of his
great object in laying down such assumptions.
He wishes to build a metaphysical system on
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 165
wMcli lie may rest his doctrine of the soul. Is
the soul mortal or immortal, of earth or of heaven ?
If immortal and of heavenly origin and mould,
how has it been so closely united with a mortal
body ? " Sameness and otherness " is the " open
sesame." Plotinus, like previous Greek philoso-
phers from Thales to Plato, started with oneness
as the ultimate principle of nature and the world.
Whatever that principle be, water, air, fire, the
imlimited, number, it was essentially one. All
schools down to Heracleitus allowed this. But
how explain the changes and processes of pheno-
mena ? " Otherness " involving multiplicity is the
counter principle through which nature acts, and
to which God himself is subject as the Demiurge
or world-former. Plato in the Timaeus represents
God as making the world-soul before the world it-
self, out of two elements : " the unchangeable and
indivisible, and the divisible and corporeal." Thus
was formed " an intermediate essence partaking of
the same and of the other ^'' By " the same " Plato
meant the eternal spiritual world " which always
is and has no becoming " or change, and by " the
other " he meant the material substratum of things
which Plato conceived as a purely negative princi-
ple, sometimes called by him " space," which, how-
ever, was a necessary condition of creation, " the
receptacle, and in a manner the nurse of aU gen-
eration." Thus the world-soul was formed out of
the two fundamental principles of things, "the
same and the other," and became the mediating
166 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
element in the creation of the phenomenal world.
Such was Plato's dualistic conception of God, the
world-soul, and " the corporeal universe which was
formed within and around her." These Platonic
speculations are imbedded in the Plotinian philo-
sophy.
But we are seeking in all this curious transcen-
dentalism the germs of the Plotinian trinity, and
we are now ready to ask what trinitarian germs, if
any, does Plato's view contain. First, we have
the Supreme God, who is represented by Plato as
the principle of intelligence (voC?), of reason (\6yos^j
and of goodness, and the maker of a good world.
With this intent God first formed the soul (t/^x^)
as an intermediate being to be the instrument of
creation. Thus there emerges a second member
of the triad, namely, the Demiurge. But here the
evolution pauses. Let us now see how Plotinus
completes his trinity on Plato's foundation. It is
first of aU to be noted that Plato does not make
the world-soul an eternal principle of being. So
that he after all remains firmly monotheistic. The
world-soul is a creation in time, and not therefore
to be placed on a par, in any sense, with the eter-
nal God. In truth, Plato's world-soul which he
constructs so fancifully out of " sameness and
otherness " is simply a deus ex machina extempo-
rized for the purpose of bridging the troublesome
chasm between two separate worlds. It is just
here that Plotinus deviates from his master, and
the deviation is radical and profound. It is the
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 167
step already noted from theism to pantheism.
Plato's God was a self-conscious intelligent per-
sonal being, possessing reason (vovs, Aoyo?). Plato
called him Father and Creator. His first creative
act was the forming of the world-soul to be the
mediating instrument in the formation of the
world. This whole cosmogony disappears in Plo-
tinus, and gives place to a thoroughly pantheistic
view. Plotinus cannot conceive of the first prin-
ciple of the world as a personal mind (yovs), intel-
ligent and active. Such intelligence and activity
involves a primary principle behind it. Here Plo-
tinus introduces the AristoteKan axiom that motion
implies a mover who causes motion but is not
moved. The first principle or Absolute God of
both Aristotle and Plotinus is not an active being
who by his intelligence and causal energy brings
the world into existence, but a pure deus ex
machina, like Plato's, devised to fill the gap in
their philosophy. Aristotle stopped at this point ;
he did not take the further logical pantheistic step
and hold that the first principle was above all lim-
itations or qualities of any sort, and hence imper-
sonal. He described God as a mind (yov's) eter-
nally occupied in self-contemplation, and then left
him as it were swinging in the metaphysical air,
to be the football of philosophical critics who have
ever since wrestled over the never settled question
whether Aristotle was a theist or pantheist or
atheist. The truth is that Aristotle left this point
where he found it, since it lay beyond the field of his
168 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
inquiries, wliicli were scientific rather than specu-
lative. But Plotinus was not satisfied with such
an iUogical result. If the first god is not subject
to motion and active intelligence, he cannot be a
truly intelligent being. Intelligence and the ex-
ercise of the eternal ideas which are the patterns
and causes of aU lower forms of life must belong
to a second and derived god. Thus the way is
prepared for the fuU-fledged Plotinian trinity:
"The One, The Mind, and The Soul" (rh Iv, 5
voi)s, ^ ^vxrf)' Behind the First God and Father
of Plato (6 lov or 6 voOs) another god is inserted by
Plotinus (to Iv), so that Plato's one and only God
becomes in Plotinus a second principle. The com-
pletely pantheistic character of the Plotinian sys-
tem is here seen. His First God is not a person
or even an active principle. Activity proceeds
from him, since he is the first cause of aU activity,
but the first principle itself can be defined only as
" The One." It is " superior to all essence," for
aU essence or active intelligent being is derived
from it, and what is derived must be inferior to
the cause of such derivation. I need not dwell on
the curious argument of Plotinus in defense of his
position that " The One " is the only proper name
of the " first hypostasis " or god. It is purely spec-
ulative, logical, and subjective. Most curious of
all, perhaps, is his idea that the first god is " The
One " because he is above or superior to number^
as to everything else. But is not one a number as
much as two or three ? Why, then, is the first
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 169
principle any more superior to number than the
second or the third, and why is the first principle
any the less an essence than the second or third ?
Of course " one " is the actual initial terminus
of all numbers, and so Plotinus was compelled to
accept it as the logical basis of his trinity. It is a
remarkable evidence of his sense of the unreality
of his logical definition of " The One " that he so
constantly applies to it another name, namely,
« The Good ; " for what is " The Good " if not a
moral and personal being ? Plotinus was led to
this second definition of his first god by his Pla-
tonism. Plato's ideal theory culminated in " the
idea of the good," which Plato himself identified
with his personal God. Plotinus avoids this logi-
cal contradiction, — for ideas are abstractions, not
persons, — by separating all conscious ideas from
the First God and placing them in the Second God
(o vovs). Thus his First God is without ideas of
any sort, — a mere principle of unity and nothing
more. Why, then, did he so often style his first
principle " The Good " (^rb KaXw), thus taking
away with one hand what he had given with the
other? There is but one answer possible. In
every rigidly metaphysical system there must lie
somewhere, more or less concealed, a premise which
involves a logical break. In Plato it was his the-
ory of ideas which he treated as real entities inde-
pendent of and apart from aU individual pheno-
mena. But an idea is an abstract universal and
cannot be individualized. Yet Plato jumped this
170 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
logical chasm, and identified his highest universal,
" the idea of the good," with a personal God. Plo-
tinus avoided this dilemma by adopting the pan-
theistic view of God, which placed him above all
personal qualities, but the same logical antinomy-
met him at another point. If God is above all
moral qualities and limitations, how can he be
called " good ? " But how could Plotinus build a
moral system issuing in a moral universe, with souls
that are on an upward road toward the highest
holiness and blessedness, without a moral or good
first principle? For according to his own fre-
quently expressed axiom, whatever is derived must
be inferior to its cause, and how then can an un-
moral first cause produce a moral world ? We must
not forget that Plotinus was from first to last a
moral and religious thinker. In the end metaphy-
sical consistency, in his case as in that of so many
others, had to give way to the interests of religion.
The^rs^ and second principles of Plotinus hav-
ing thus been developed out of Plato's one God,
the way is prepared for the third. In his doctrine
of " The One " and " The Mind," one metaphysical
question has been answered, namely, how an intel-
ligent active cause of the world can be specula-
tively connected with the eternal first principle of
aU being. But a second question now emerges :
how can the divine Mind put into operation the
ideas which are the patterns and causes of aU cor-
poreal phenomena and bridge the chasm which
separates mind from matter ? A third principle
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 171
is needed, inasmucli as the second principle is not
competent for this work by itself, since, as Ploti-
nus conceives, its sole activity and life consists in
turning itself toward the first principle and receiv-
ing its eternal energy of being and good. Only
by the generation out of Mind of a third principle
can the end be secured. This third principle is
the soul (^^vxrj^, which, being derived from Mind,
is inferior to it, and so is conceived of by Plotinus
as endowed with a double capacity, namely, to turn
towards Mind as its generative cause of life and
activity and also towards the material element
which Plotinus, as a Platonist, holds to be eter-
nally existent as a pure capacity or possibility of
life when a^ted upon and vitalized by " The Soul."
But where, we may ask, does Plotinus get this
double aspect and capacity of the soul ? If the
second principle of being, the Mind, has only a
capacity of turning toward its superior and cause,
— the first principle, the One or Good, — why
should not the same be true of the third principle,
the Soul ? But this natural question does not
seem to trouble Plotinus. The inductive method
of reasoning, which demands some basis of fact or
evidence from experience, was far from his sphere
of thought. It was enough for him that his grand
pantheistic scheme demanded it. Beyond his
three eternal metaphysical principles of being hov-
ered a secondary principle of matter on which the
three immaterial principles must operate, if the
world is to be formed, and it was the third subor-
172 THE ETHiTIC TRINITIES
dinate principle, Soul, that was necessitated to do
this work. It is the same old problem which the
dualist always has to solve: how get across from
mind to matter. Plotinus cuts the knot by giving
to the third hypostasis, soul, a double character
and faculty. Soul, he says, has two or even three
parts. " One part of it always abides on high, an-
other part is conversant with sensible or corporeal
things, and another stiU has a subsistence between
them." Of course it is now easy for the soul to pre-
serve its relation to the two principles from which
it is generated and to which it must always turn,
and yet be " drawn downward " by its closeness to
matter, and become the generator of the material
world, and even temporarily forgetful, at least in
part, of its divine origin. Just here is the precise
point where the Platonic theism becomes the Plo-
tinian pantheism. Plato bridges the dualistic
chasm by a purely creative act, leaving the meta-
physical higher world stiU separate from the lower
phenomenal world ; but Plotinus fiUs the chasm
which he allows to exist in the nature of things by
extending over it the same generative power and
activity which he makes the essential bond and
force of his metaphysical trinity.
We have seen how important a part this theory of
generation has played in all trinitarian views ; but in
Plotinus for the first and the last time it is not only
made the fundamental characteristic of his trinita-
rianism but also is carried forward to the further
evolution of the whole universe. His whole evolu-
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 173
tion doctrine is founded on generation. The second
principle, Mind, is generated from tlie first princi-
ple, the One, and the third principle, the Soul, is
equally generated from Mind. He defends this
view by declaring that the very perfection of God
requires that he should generate an image of him-
self, catching his idea from Plato, who declared
that God, being good, must manifest his goodness
in the creation of a good world. But Plotinus goes
still further. The soul, too, since it is a true image
of God, must generate a true image of itself. This
image must be inferior to its pattern ; and as the
soul is the lowest form or principle of the spiritual
world, and as that which is next below it is matter,
its generative power must be exercised on matter,
and produce the material world. This generative
process is conceived by Plotinus as without begin-
ning. Not only does the Plotinian trinity exist
by eternal generation^ but the world is equally
eternal. The principle of progression which the
terms generation or evolution would seem to in-
volve is, with Plotinus, as he directly asserts, logi-
cal, not chronological. Closely connected with the
Plotinian theory of generation in the trinity is
that of subordination. The one is, in fact, involved
in the other. Hence the second principle is infe-
rior to the first, and the third to the second. So
the temporal or phenomenal world is inferior to
the ideal world, and in the lower world itself the
same law works through a downward movement to
the lowest possible forms of nature.
174 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Two things are especially to be noted in this
scheme of the universe. In the first place, Ploti-
nus draws the line sharply, as we have seen, be-
tween the metaphysical and the physical at the
point next below the soul. His trinity is wholly
metaphysical. The soul itself is whoUy of spirit-
ual origin and nature, and even when individual-
ized in human bodies it may recognize its divine
parentage and know in its own moral conscious-
ness that it is homoousios (complete in likeness)
with God. After aU, then, it may be asked, is not
Plotinus a true dualist rather than a pantheist?
But note where his doctrine of generation carries
him. AU generation involves the transmission of
the essential nature of the author of generation.
If the soul, as the third principle of divinity, has
generated the world, then the world thus gener-
ated must contain the essential principle of divin-
ity, though in a lower form ; and this is precisely
the view of Plotinus. His reported last words
show this : " I go hence to carry the divine in me
to the divine in the universe," — a phrase which
contains the very essence of pantheism.^
The second thing to be noted is this. It is curi-
ous to find Plotinus contending against the Chris-
tian Gnostic sect, which held to a long series of
divine emanations of which the preexistent Christ
in the form of vovs or Xoyos was the first, that such
a series of emanations must be limited to three,
^ See critical note on Plotinus's pantheism at the end of this
chapter.
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 175
In short, lie held that the forms or principles of
the eternal divine being were in the very nature
of things confined strictly to a fixed number,
namely tJiree^ and that no increase or diminution
was possible, and he entered into a detailed argu-
ment to prove it. It is needless to say that Plo-
tinus here perhaps surpasses himself in this specu-
lative spinning of spiders' webs. But why was he
so solicitous to guard his doctrine of " three hypos-
tases ? " Was not his whole system Gnostic in
its essential character ? Had he not bridged the
dualistic chasm more completely than the Gnostics
themselves? Without the slightest doubt. Why,
then, did he go out of his way to attack them ?
The reason is clear. He feared the result of his
own speculations. How could he answer the ques-
tion inevitably raised concerning his system,
whether any real dualism was left ? His reply is
found in the line that he draws so insistently be-
tween " the three hypostases " and the rest of the
universe. But the question remains and will
not down : Why, from the Plotinian pantheistic
point of view, should the number of the divine
principles of being stop with three ? What subtle
metaphysical significance in the number three is
there which should make it give absolute law to
the mode of existence of the divine nature ? And,
further, why, on the Plotinian theory, should the
line of division between mind and matter occur
just at this point ? Why should not the descend-
ing force of generation lose itself so gradually and
176 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
secretly in lower forms of life that it would not be
possible for any keenest metaphysical eye to see
it? Plotinus gives no answer. He does not even
seem aware that any answer is needed. But while
he was intent on preserving the form of dualism
by his doctrine of three hypostases, it must be re-
cognized that his trinity is as pantheistic as the
rest of his system. His three principles of being
" The One, Mind, and Soul," are not three per-
sonal individual beings. Plotinus did not employ
the term vTrooT-acris (hypostasis) with the meaning
afterwards applied to it by Athanasius or by Ori-
gen. I must refer the reader to my previous vol-
ume for an account of the changes of meaning that
this word underwent in the theological nomencla^
ture of the fourth century. Enough here to say
that to Plotinus, as to Plato and Aristotle, vTroa--
Ttto-is meant the underlying essence or principle of
things. He conceived of three such essential forms
as lying at the basis of aU existence. To the " one
or good " he would not allow even any hypostatic
character, since it was " superior to all essence "
and could not be numbered, as all individual be-
ings can ; so that we must regard his employment
of the term hypostasis to designate " the one " as
a yielding to the necessities of language, and to be
interpreted in an improper or metaphorical sense.
The second principle, mind, in the Plotinian trin-
ity was an hypostatic being, though not person-
alized, but only separated from " the one " by
" otherness " or difference. Hence Plotinus's spec-
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 177
Illation that " mind, essence, otherness, and same-
ness are the first existences," by which he meant
that " the one," being without aU qualities or defi-
nition, was beyond essence, and hence not a true
hypostasis or being, though " the first cause " of
aU being. The use made by Plotinus of the Pla-
tonic term " the same and the other " is curious.
No such distinction can apply, he thinks, to " the
one." It first begins to emerge in the second
hypostasis. Mind, and appears in the ideas of the
Mind, which can be numbered ; hence Mind is
essence, since it " can be circumscribed." But it
is in the third hypostasis, the soul, tha,t " oth-
erness " has fullest play. For soul comes into
contact with matter in which " otherness " or mul-
tiplicity has its true abiding-place. It is in tliis
way that " otherness " becomes a part of the bridge
over which Plotinus is able to pass from "the
one," which is only " the same," and hence un-
changeable, to " the many," that is, the pheno-
menal world. How airy and unsubstantial such
a speculative bridge is needs no argument. To
build on it a whole philosophical system would be
impossible to any one who had not a complete
faith in metaphysics as the key of all knowledge.
Such, indeed, was the faith of Plotinus, and having
constructed out of his own speculations this meta-
physical passageway from earth to heaven, which
might well be compared to the Zoroastrian bridge
of Chinevad, — so narrow that even the righteous
could not pass over it alone, without falling into
178 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the abyss below, — lie traveled it with a confidence
that is sublime.
It may be asked whether the trinity of Plotinus
is, after all, anything more than a playing with
words. Certainly it is not a tri-personal trinity. In
this respect it differs, as we have seen, from all the
mythological triads of the Ethnic religions, and
can be compared only with the Hindoo Brahmanical
trlmurti. But even in the Hindoo triad there is
a mythological basis and element, so that the Plo-
tinian trinity remains to this day the solitary ex-
ample of a pantheistic trinitarianism, which is
wholly consistent with itself. At a later point in
our study we shall compare the trinity of Plotinus
with that of the Christian religion. I may, how-
ever, anticipate that comparative survey so far as
to say that the logical tendency toward pantheism
which is inherent in every philosophical form of
trinity is illustrated in the Christian dogma in its
later Augustinian SabeUian form, and especially
in the present efforts of theologians who still wear
the trinitarian mask to harmonize their so-called
trinitarianism with a monistic philosophy. It is
interesting to observe that the old Platonic-Plo-
tinian speculative device of " sameness and other-
ness," with all its pantheistic implications, is still
employed as though it were really something more
than a metaphysical snare to catch the unwary.
I cannot leave this analysis of the Plotinian
trinity without once more bearing testimony to my
profound sense of the moral fervor of Plotinus's
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 179
writings. Such a brief analysis as has been at-
tempted can convey no adequate idea of the im-
pression which the Enneads make on the mind-
I have given a mere skeleton of the Plotinian
trinitarian philosophy. To see it clothed in its
proper body, and arrayed in the fair form of the
Plotinian mystical idealism, one must study deeply
and patiently that wonderful compound of specu-
lative thought which was gathered into the En-
neads by Plotinus's great disciple. Porphyry.
The extremely metaphysical character of Ploti-
nus's writings seems, at first sight, to indicate an
excessive intellectualism. But such is not the fact.
Metaphysic was for Plotinus the highest form of
truth, and truth was equally for him the life of re-
ligion. The words put by the author of the Fourth
Gospel on the Hps of Christ, " I am the way, the
truth, and the life," caught their idealistic mean-
ing from the same headspring that fed Plotinus's
soaring spirit. AU the loftiest spiritual natures
have always drawn their visions of divine truth
fi'om faith in an unseen ideal world, and from a
metaphysic that gives a foundation to the doctrine
of the soul's essential spirituality and divinity. I
do not forget the criticism of Augustine upon
"the Platonic books," in which, no doubt, the
works of Plotinus were included, as he compared
them with the scriptures, namely, that though
these books gave a vision of heavenly things and
" the land of peace," they failed " to show the way
thither." But surely such a view of " the land
180 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
that is very far off " as Plotinus held up before
the soul has no small part to play in the enkin-
dling of its immortal yearnings and energies, and in
its true awakening from forgetfulness of its divine
original and home ; and such, in fact, is the effect
of a thorough study of this marvelous thinker.
Airy and unsubstantial though his metaphysic
may be, yet, once the bridge is crossed from
earth to heaven, the soul feels that somehow its
true eternal resting-place is reached. No one can
drink deeply of Plotinus without becoming con-
scious that the Plotinian stream was somehow
drawn from the fountains of eternal truth, how-
ever much we may criticise the channels through
which its living waters have flowed. Surely such
words as these with which the Enneads close have
a far off and supernal ring : " Such is the life of
the gods, and of divine and happy men free from
all external things here below, — a life above the
senses and its pleasures, — a flight of the Alone
to the Alone Q^vyri jxovov Trpos fiovov).
I have alluded to Porphyry, who wrote the life
of Plotinus and to whom we owe the preservation
of his master's teachings. A letter of Porphyry
to his wife Marcella, recently brought to light, is
a beautiful illustration of the New Platonic reli-
gious spirit. No more pious, or sweet and touch-
ing revelation of a man's inner spiritual life can
be found in epistolary literature, — written as it
was in aU the freedom of a private correspondence,
in a season of forced absence. With a pathetic
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 181
tenderness he turns the thoughts of his life-com-
panion away from his earthly self, whose separa^
tion from her she is mourning, to that higher
spiritual self that is ever present with her, and
with which she may continually commune; and
from this point of view he leads her upward into
the larger spiritual life that is open to all good
and loving souls. The whole epistle is redolent
with the pure atmosphere of heaven. The writer
seems to live habitually in the clear vision of di-
vine things, while earth and time and all their
petty affairs fade out of view. Is it aU fine writ-
ing, a sort of " Epistle to Posterity ? " I cannot
think so. I would rather believe that Porphyry,
like his master Plotinus, was one of those seekers
after God who found Christ's own words true:
" Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be
opened unto you."
In concluding this survey of the Ethnic trini-
ties and before proceeding to a comparison of
them with the Christian dogma, I wish to call at-
tention to the remarkable freedom of the Ethnic
trinitarian ideas from gross and degrading super-
stitions, and to the growing elevation and moral
purity of Ethnic thought in the progress of the
ages. The study of comparative religion has done
much to remove the traditional Christian preju-
dice concerning the real origin and character of
these religions. It has been the custom in Chris-
tian ecclesiastical history to apply the terms " pa-
gan " and " heathen " to them in a bad sense, as
182 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
if they were essentially evil and false, — the
work of evil-minded men and even of diabolical
supernatural beings. Such views were born of
historical ignorance. Our survey shows that the
Ethnic religions, especially in their ideas of God
and of the supernatural sphere, are the result of
the earnest efforts of men, in the dawn of moral
consciousness and under the dim light of the earli-
est divine revelations, to learn the truth concern-
ing God and his relations to this world. The
crudeness of their ideas, as seen in the oldest
mythologies and cosmogonies, does not lessen our
sense of the truly moral and religious character of
such efforts to find God and to bring him down
within the reach of human scrutiny and faith and
worship. Rather our sympathy grows for these
ancestors of our race as we realize more fully how
meagre was their religious light compared with
ours. Surely there were men of great faith among
them, even if the objects of their faith seem to us
so allied to error and superstition. One cannot
read the Odyssey, or the JEneid, or the moral say-
ings of Buddha or Socrates, or the writings of
Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius,
or Plotinus, or Porphyry, without feeling assured
that these men had somehow learned the great se-
cret of communion with the higher world. Paul's
stern indictment against heathenism in the first
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans applies
equally to a degenerate Christianity. The wicked
practices of heathen men are no worse than those
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 183
of nominal Christians, and are not to be con-
founded with the efforts, often made with the lof-
tiest spirit of sacrifice, of either Ethnic or Christian
saints, to realize the moral ideals that flitted before
their aspiring souls. As we push back our inves-
tigations into primeval times, the religious light
grows dimmer, and religious ideas and beliefs
grow more naturalistic, and fanciful, and tinged
with a childish spirit of fear, but the reality of
this early religion is none the less clear, and from
it are plainly drawn whatever moral sanctions
have had power with men. Further, the upward
progress of the religious beliefs of men is equally
clear as the path of history from the beginning
is traced. Compare, for example, the early reli-
gious ideas of Egypt with the idealistic philosophy
of Plotinus. The passage from the Egyptian ani-
mal worship to the Plotinian transcendentalism
involves a religious evolution that is vast indeed,
outstripping, perhaps, any other like evolution in
human experience, whether in science, in history,
or in philosophy.
CRITICAL NOTE ON THE QUESTION OF PLOTI-
NUS'S PANTHEISM.
Mr. W. R. Inge of Oxford, England (Bampton
Lecturer, 1899), in a valuable and suggestive article in
the " American Journal of Theology," April, 1900, on
" The permanent influence of Neo-Platonism upon
Christianity," holds that Plotinus was not a pantheist.
He says (page 336) that Plotinus sought to " save per-
184 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
sonality while insisting on unity." Does Mr. Inge sup-
pose that the " three hypostases " in the view of Ploti-
nus were individual personal beings? If so, I must
disagree with him entirely. In the Plotinian vocabulary
hypostasis (vTroo-racrts) did not mean an individual or
person. Plotinus used the term in the sense of Aristotle
as an underlying principle (apxr]) of existence. " The
One, Mind, Soul," were in no sense persons. They
were super-personal. Personality and separate individ-
uality for Plotinus involved connection with matter.
They had no place in the intelligible or ideal world
(Koa-fio? vorp-6<s) . Here the dualism of Plotinus signifi-
cantly appears. The two worlds are " separated "
(xoiptcrOeyTo) from each other : but the hypostases " are
not separated from each other " (V. 1, 6.) , because there
is nothing between them. Separation involving individ-
uality begins with the union of spirit and matter. Ploti-
nus supports his position with the assertion of Aristotle
that " the first principle is separate from matter."
Moreover, he declares that what is true of the first and
second principles is equally true of the third, the soul,
viewed in its higher aspect. " We must not inquire
after a place (xwpa) where we may establish it, but it
must be assigned apart (c^o)) from all place." Only
when the soul has become embodied in nature is it in-
dividualized and personalized. It is in harmony with
this view that Plotinus treats the human soul as descend-
ing from a pre-incarnate impersonal form of existence, to
awaken, when united with the body, to a self-conscious
state as an individualized person, and at death, as re-
turning from this separated corporeal condition to the
eternal unity of the all in all. I suspect that Plotinus's
use of the phrase " sameness and otherness " has mis-
led Mr. Inge. In one place (V. 1, 6, end) Plotinus
says that " the second principle, being generated from
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 185
the first principle, is present with it in such a way as to
be separated from it by otherness alone" The term
" separated " here must be interpreted in the light of
the preceding statement already quoted, where Plotinus
insists that the two principles are not separated. The
vacillation in language here observable illustrates the
speculative difficulty in which Plotinus as well as Plato
was involved. To defend his dualism he must intro-
duce separation somewhere. He begins with its nega-
tive or idealistic presence in the intelligible world, as a
sort of shadowy anticipation of its real existence in the
form of multiplicity and separateness in the phenome-
nal world. The assertion of Mr. Inge, that " the true
sign of individuality is nx)t separation hut distinction"
as applied to God in trinity, certainly savors of Sabel-
lianism, and, as applied to created moral beings, as
truly savors of pantheism. At all events, such lan-
guage is wholly foreign to Plotinus. For him, personality
with individual self-consciousness involves separation,
and separation is the attribute of matter. Hence his
doctrine of the ideal world and of its trinity is wholly
pantheistic. He allows a " distinction " in " the three
hypostases," to wit, of " otherness ; " but not of separate
personality. Persons belong only to the material world
of multiplicity and change ; but even their personality
is rather an accident than a fundamental attribute of
being. The human soul, on leaving the body, its tem-
porary abode, drops with the body all the accidents of
its bodily existence and returns to its previous ideal
state, where aU separation ends and where the one (to
€v) is the all (ttolv) and the all is one. The whole of
the Enneads is saturated with the Plotinian panthe-
ism; but I would call special attention to the fourth
and fifth Books of the sixth Ennead and will give a few
extracts in support of what I must regard as the only
186 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
possible interpretation. In En. VI. 4, 15, Plotinus,
speaking of the relation of the soul to the body, and of
the comparative good and evil growing out of such a
relation, says : " Why is the liberation of the soul from
the body good ? Because while it is not of the body in
its nature, yet when it is spoken of as such through
union with it, it becomes somehow partial (fiepLKrj) rather
than universal (ck rov Travros) : for its energy is no
longer devoted to the whole, although being itself of the
whole. Just as if one who is learned in all knowledge
should confine himself to a single department of it. For
each soul when wholly separate from body is no longer
an individual (iKcto-ny) : but when separated from the
ideal world, not in place but in energy, it becomes some-
thing particular (to Kaff iKatrrov) and is a certain por-
tion of the whole rather than the whole itself, though
in another manner it is universal ; but when it presides
over nothing material and particular it is wholly uni-
versal, though retaining its capacity of partition." I
must here call attention to Mr. Inge's apparent misun-
derstanding of the use made by Plotinus of the term
cKacTTos (each) . He says : " Plotinus asserts personality
-— Sei (EKaarrov cKaorov cTvat." But Plotinus in the pas-
sage which I have quoted above confines the application
of the term l/caorrov to the world of matter ; it has no
place in the world of spirit. Does Mr. Inge mean that
" Plotinus asserts personality " in this present world
merely ? If so, I have no controversy with him. But
this is far from proving that Plotinus was not a panthe-
ist. No one of course denies that human souls in the
present bodily state are personal, in the sense of being
self-conscious beings. The question between the pan-
theist and the theist is whether such personal self-con-
sciousness is a temporary and accidental phenomenon
or an essential element in all moral existence.
THE GREEK PLOTINIAN TRINITY 187
But if any doubt could remain, the following extracts
would seem decisive. " It is universally believed among
men that the one and same in number is everywhere
also a whole, since aU men from the movements of their
own free moral consciousness declare that God (t6v
^eov) is in each of us as one and the same." " Under-
stand, then, that this God is not in one place or another,
but equally everywhere ; but if God is everywhere he
cannot be divided into parts, since, then, he would no
longer be everywhere, but individual parts of him (eKao--
Tov avTov fiipos) would exist in different places," and no
longer form one whole. Besides, God would then be a
body (a-Mfjia). But if this cannot be, then it must fol-
low that in every particular man God is present with
him, and at the same time exists everywhere as the
imiversal whole." Plotinus proceeds to extend this
view to the whole trinity of the ideal world. "For
since there are in the intelligible world three several
classes of being in a certain order, suspended, as if in
one sphere from one point, without being separated by
intervals but all united with one another, it results that
where the first class of being is present, there also the
second class is, and also the third." Passing now to the
soul as existing in a human body and so to a certain ex-
tent separated from the ideal world, Plotinus enters into
a curious description of such a soul as belonging to both
worlds and illustrating both sameness and otherness.
And here he touches that key which he is continually
striking in his whole philosophy, namely, the soul's true
divinity. " As to us men our truest possessions and we
ourselves belong to real being (cts to ov), and naturally
ascend to it, being originally derived from it, and we
intuitively perceive the realities of that world, not need-
ing images or types of them, but directly discerning
them. From which it follows that we truly belong to
188 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
that world (ta-fiiv eKctva)." " Hence as pure souls we
are one and aU {iravra apa ta-yiev hi). But when we look
without ourselves to the external world rather than to
that ideal world whence we came, we become ignorant
of our true condition as one (Iv ovTci). But should any-
one be able to turn himself in that upward direction,
either by his own power or through the aid of Athene,
he will perceive himself to be God and the aU (Otov tc
Kot ainov koX to irav ot/rerat)." Such is the bold con-
sistent pantheism of Plotinus. Some one may inquire
whether the soul's " perceiving itself to be God " does
not allow individual personality. Of course it does, for
Plotinus is here dealing with the soul in its present state
of separation and multiplicity. When, however, its re-
lease from the body occurs, all the conditions of its sep-
arated life will disappear and it wiU become like God
himself, the one-all whom Plotinus describes as neither
beholding himself (ovSc BXcn-ct 8c kavTov)^ nor exercis-
ing any intellectual apprehension, and of whom nothing
can be predicated or known by perception or intelli-
gence (En. VI. 7, 41). Pantheism can go no further.
Mr. Inge says: "Plotinus is no Buddhist." If he
means that Plotinus did not hold to the final absorption
of the soul's present conscious personal life at death
into the super-conscious Nirvana of pantheistic Bud-
dhism, how does he interpret the above quoted pas-
sages, or in fact the Enneads as a whole, for they are
marvelously consistent throughout in their fundamental
premises ?
PART II
THE RELATIONS OF THE ETHNIC
TRINITIES TO THE CHRISTIAN
TRINITY
" The conversion of ecclesiastical and confessional Christianity
into historical Christianity is the work of Biblical science." —
Hbnbi-Fbedbbic Amibl.
" The true historian — he who most sympathetically, as well as
correctly, reads to the present the lessons to be derived from the
experiences of the past — I hold to be the only latter-day prophet.
That man has a message to deliver." — Charles Francis Adadis,
President of the Massachusetts EKstorical Society.
CHAPTER I
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS
The law of historical evolution is universal and
knows no break in its line of continuity. This is
a first principle of the scientific or historical
method. It holds true as weU in the history of
religion, as in that of nature or of human life, in
its practical, social, or intellectual movements.
Otherwise there could be no history of religion.
Our previous studies have given ample evidence
that the religious ideas of men, from the earliest
times, have moved along the same line of historical
evolution that has governed all other earthly things.
The consideration upon which we now enter can-
not therefore he treated as exceptional. The rela-
tions of the Ethnic trinities to the Christian
dogma have a plain historical foundation. The
close internal relations which wiU be considered
later, both of resemblance and difference, naturally
suggest and involve a common external back-
ground and source in history. Already, in our
survey of the Ethnic trinities, indications of such
relationship have appeared, having their basis and
spring in the common religious nature of man.
But when we enter the field of Christian origins
192 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
such indications become the very material and
substratum of religious history itself. No histori-
cal breach occurs, but the old evolution moves on
in the ordinary historical channels, though provi-
dential changes and reformations of a remarkable
character take place. Such changes and reforma-
tions were not new in the history of religion at the
time of Christ's coming. Witness the Hebrew
monotheistic reformation under Moses, the great
Persian religious movement in the time of Zoro-
aster, the founding of Buddhism, one of the most
remarkable religious epochs in human annals, and
finally, that wonderful period of intellectual and
moral iUuminism in the Greek world, heralded by
Socrates, and developed into immortal literary
form by Plato, by means of which the old super-
stitious faith in an idolatrous polytheism was
shattered, and the basis of a spiritual doctrine of
God and the soul laid in the Platonic idealistic
philosophy, and the way thus providentially pre-
pared for the reception of Christianity. This new
religion was a natural outgrowth of the earlier
Mosaic reformation and of the Jewish monotheistic
faith which was built upon it. At the beginning
of the Christian era, Judaism had become cor-
rupt and the needed reformer appeared in Jesus
of Nazareth. No more truly historical event has
ever occurred than the advent of the Nazarene.
He was of Jewish ancestry and training, and came
forth from his Galilean home filled with a true,
evangelistic zeal, as a religious reformer, against
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 193
the false religionists of his day. His great effort
was to revive the older prophetic teaching, in all
its living spiritual power, in place of the dead,
formal, and hypocritical orthodoxy of the later
Jewish Pharisaism. Further on I shall dwell more
fully on the character of his messianic mission.
My present object is to mark the fact that this
new religious epoch began in a completely histor-
ical way and was a natural development out of
previous chapters of religious history. The ap-
pearance of Jesus Christ can just as easily be
accounted for, from a historical point of view, as
that of Zoroaster or Moses or Gautama or Socra-
tes. One divine providential purpose and move-
ment, working through history according to one
universal law of good, though " at sundry times
and in divers manners," lies behind them all.
The mysteries of the divine selection and call-
ing and administration by which such religious
epochs are brought about are closed to the his-
torian's ken ; but the earthly human movements
themselves, with aU their religious results, are
wholly within the range of historical research,
and, thanks to the new science and history, are
being brought out more and more clearly into the
light of open day. Should any one here bring
forward the legends concerning a miraculous birth
of Christ, in the opening chapters of Matthew and
Luke, or the philosophical proem of the Fourth
Gospel, concerning a divine incarnation, the histor-
ical reply must be that such legendary and philo-
194 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
sopMcal growths did not first gather around the
life of Christ, but were the common accompani-
ment of all remarkable religious epochs and
characters, as our previous studies have illustrated
in the case of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Plato. Later
legends represented them aU as miraculously bom
of virgin mothers through a divine parentage ; and
one of them, Buddha, became also the medium of
a divine incarnation. It is needless to add that
such ideas form the common stock of all ancient
mythologies, which show how ingrained they were
in the earliest traditions of the race. For a fuller
critical account of the Christian legends and the
way in which they arose, I must refer my readers
to my earlier volume. Such legends do not come
directly within the historical field, but must be
cast aside as misgrowths of a credulous and un-
critical age. Even were they accepted as true, it
would not affect the position which the historical
student must take, namely, that the evolution of
religion in its ordinary natural movement is able
to explain in a strictly historical way the appear-
ance of Christ and his religion.
I proceed, then, to trace the evidence of histor-
ical relations between the Ethnic trinities and the
Christian dogma. Such evidence seems scarcely
necessary when it is considered that the Christian
religion has hitherto been regarded as, beyond all
other religions, a historical one and based on his-
torical facts. The traditional dogmatic apologists
of Christianity have made much of the assured
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 195
fact that the chief articles of the Christian creeds
were actual historical events, while the Ethnic
religious ideas were purely subjective delusions
bom of the mythological imagination or specula-
tive reason, which alike were under the control of
a fallen and depraved nature. Frequently in
theological literature such matters as the virgin
miraculous birth of Christ, his resurrection and
ascension, his incarnation and his preexistent con-
dition as the second person of the trinity, and
even the trinity itself, are described as historical
facts in contrast with similar legends and dogmas
current in the Ethnic religions, which are treated
as inventions of Satan, or at least as superstitious
and wicked forms of error. So recent and learned
a writer as Rev. J. K. lUingworth, the Bampton
lecturer for 1894, and the author of a work on
"Divine Immanence," published in 1898, in a
chapter of the latter book, on " The Incarnation
and the Trinity," allows himself to use such
language as this ; " Viewed, then, in the light
of its history, the doctrine of the trinity is no
metaphysical invention, like the Platonic 'ideas'
or the Aristotelian 'form,' but simply the ex-
pression in philosophical language of what had
entered the world as a statement of fact — the
fact that there is plurality, triune plurality, in
GodJ^ " Accordingly, it wiU be noticed that Hil-
ary here, like Augustine after him, bases the doc-
trine of the trinity on the simple fact, namely, the
baptismal formula of the Christian church." I
196 THE ETHNIC TKINITIES
confess that I marvel as I read these statements by
a prominent English divine, — not merely in view
of the confusion of the dogmatic and the meta-
physical and historical points of view so curiously
revealed, but even more at the apparent historical
ignorance so naively displayed. Yet Mr. lUing-
worth must be aware that the baptismal trinitarian
formula was not " a simple fact " of original Chris-
tianity, but the result of a historical evolution
from the original norm which was simply a baptism
in the name of Christ. The evolution from the
one name to three names accompanied the corre-
sponding evolution of monotheism into trinitarian-
ism. As to Mr. lUingworth's assertion, that the
trinity philosophically expresses "a fact," and is
therefore " no metaphysical invention, like the
Platonic ' ideas,' " I will only ask the reader to
postpone judgment to the conclusion of this his-
torical survey. But it has not been my object, in
referring to Mr. Illingworth's book, to criticise it,
so much as to illustrate with it the insistence of
Christian apologists on the real historicity of the
Christian religion. Allowing, then, its true his-
torical character, it must foUow that Christianity
forms an essential part of the history of religion
as a whole. It is true that the counter-assump-
tion has usually been implied, namely, that all
other religions are wanting largely in this note of
historicity or historical credibility. But recent
studies in comparative religion have demolished
completely all such assumptions. What do we
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 197
mean when we speak of a religion as historical?
Do we mean that its doctrines, as philosophical
formulas, are historical events ? Such a statement
carries its falsity on its very face. Philosophical
formulas are ideal abstractions, whether true op
false ; but abstraxstions are creations of the mind,
not concrete historical events. The history of
theology, both Christian and Ethnic, shows how
such abstract doctrines concerning God and man
and the world have been slowly evolved as civili-
zation has advanced. But to call such notions of
God and man and nature "facts of history" is
an abuse of language which one seeks for in vain
outside of theologians themselves. History and
historical credibility, in the scientific meaning of
these terms, apply equally to all rehgions. Bud-
dhism, Zoroastrianism, Mohammedanism, are as
truly historical religions as Christianity. Every
religious idea that ever appeared in the world is
historical, just so far, and so far only, as it has
succeeded in propagating itself among men, who
are the only mediums of historical events. Mor-
monism, for example, is having a very concrete
historical place in any complete survey of the
world's religions, as American history conclusively
shows. It is not, then, the truth or falsity of a
religion that is the test of its historicity, but
whether it entered human life, with all its truth
or falsehood, as a hard, concrete fact, and became
a blessing or bane to human souls. Comparative
religion as a historical science deals only with
198 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
matters of historical fact. A complete historical
survey of the world, as far back toward the origins
of mankind as research allows, reveals a multitude
of religions and of religious ideas, infinitely diver-
sified, and yet wonderfully homogeneous ; and it
has been the task of the historical student to seek,
by a comparative and discriminating analysis,
the elements which look toward community of
origin and faith on the one hand, and toward diver-
gence and complexity as the result of differences
of environment or of free speculative thought,
on the other. The gain not only to science, but
also to religion itself, of such a comparative study
must be plain to every candid mind. But such a
study, to be fruitful, must rest on a purely scien-
tific and historical basis. All religions alike must
be treated in their purely historical aspects, and
accepted as equally having a place in the provi-
dential history of the race. As a historical
religion, then, Christianity must come under the
same historic laws of natural, providential evo-
lution as any and every other. Almost all
the more recent religions of the world have
started from a single historical founder whose new
conceptions of truth have been historically devel-
oped into philosophical and dogmatic systems of
one sort or another. These different systems
have frequently affected each other and led to
modifications which have resulted in new lines of
theological evolution. In this respect it will be
found that Christianity is no exception to the
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 199
general rule. In a passage wMch reveals a pro-
foundly philosophical and critical spirit, H. F.
Amiel in his " Journal Intime," says most truly :
" What we call Christianity is a vast ocean into
which flow a number of spiritual currents of dis-
tant and various origin, — certain religions, that
is to say, of Asia and of Europe, the great ideas
of Greek wisdom, and especially those of Plato-
nism. Neither its doctrine nor its morality, as they
have been historically developed, are new or spon-
taneous. What is original and specific in Chris-
tianity is Jesus, — the religious consciousness of
Jesus.^^ It has been the traditional dogmatic view
that Christianity, with all its accretion of dogmas
and rites gathered in the course of centuries, was
a new religion throughout, introduced into the
world by Jesus of Nazareth, who broke the con-
tinuity of history and of historical religions
through a divine incarnation which miraculously
transcended aU ordinary natural laws and became
the witness and seal of a direct and perfect reve-
lation of God, who in Jesus himself was thus ac-
tually " manifest in the flesh " to men. This view
made the person of Jesus the very substance of
truth. The imknown author of the Fourth Gospel
makes Christ say : " / am the truth." Of course,
then, Christ's teachings, in contrast with those of
aU other religious prophets and sages, were of
heavenly origin, and hence infallible ' and perfect.
Christianity thus became differentiated from aU
other religions as the one divine gospel, with the
200 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
seal upon it of God himseK, while those religions
were of human fabrication, — the work of men
who " did not like to retain God in their know-
ledge." Christianity, therefore, was the only true
religion, and other religions were false. How en-
tirely without historical foundation this whole view
is I need not here do more than simply declare.
Every page of history contributes its quota of evi-
dence in its refutation. That it should have been
accepted as true, unhistorical as it was, in the
Dark Ages, when civilization almost expired, and
the Christian religion itseK became a system of
degrading superstitions, is not surprising. How
could it have been otherwise, when earth and air
were filled with supernatural beings whose diabol-
ical nature and power were mostly exercised in
tormenting and terrifying poor humanity, and God
had, to human view, almost left his own world.
It was in such an age that Christianity completed
its dogmatic and ritualistic forms, — a time of in-
tellectual and moral gloom, when history became
a " lost art " and legend and fable filled the
whole horizon of human life with delusion and
fear. The real surprise begins when, in the
closing days of the nineteenth century, under the
light of a new science and history which has so
thoroughly dispelled the ghosts of past ignorance,
men with professed historical learning could uphold
so groundless an assumption.
Going back now to the historical origin of Chris-
tianity in the life and teachings of its founder, we
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 201
ask : What was its historical starting-point ? In
other words, wherein did Jesus of Nazareth show
himseK a religious genius and leader, and what
was the new truth which became the seed of a new
religion ? Certainly the answer is not to be found
in any new dogmas which he gave to the world.
Christ's teaching was ethical rather than dogmatic.
So far as he had what we may call a theology, it
was derived from his Jewish ancestors and from
their Scriptures. His doctrine of God, man, sin,
a future life, heaven, hell, was not original at all,
but was a part of the accepted creed of his own
day. As to those later Christian dogmas, such as
incarnation, miraculous virgin birth, trinity, etc.,
which were the result of a slow evolution and can-
not be attributed to Christ himself, should it be
claimed that as Christian doctrines they originated
in Christ's own teachings, and should the claim be
allowed, even then history shows that such dogmas
were not original with Christianity. Miraculous
births and divine incarnations were common ap-
pendages of new religious movements ages before
Christ's day. As to the trinity, though Mr. lUing-
worth claims that " it was implicit in the Chris-
tian creed," and " was not borrowed from Plato or
any other Ethnic source " (Bampton Lectures,
1894, p. 66^, I can only express my surprise
that any scholar in these days should dare to make
such a claim, and refer my readers, for the abun-
dant evidence in disproof, to my " Critical History
of the Evolution of Trinitarianism " and to the
202 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
fuller testimony of the book in hand. I will
simply add that if there is one historical fact that
is more assured to me than any other in the his-
tory of Christian theology, it is the fact that the
Christian trinitarian dogma, with its cardinal
logos doctrine, is the direct lineal descendant of
the Platonic dualistic idealism.
Nor, again, does the newness of the gospel con-
sist in its philosophy. To caU the " good news "
which Christ proclaimed to men a new philosophy
is a gross misrepresentation of the whole spirit
and method of the great teacher. Christ had not
been educated in any philosophical school, whether
Jewish or Greek. There is no evidence that he
had any acquaintance with the metaphysical ideas
which were floating in the intellectual atmosphere
of his time. Not even the rabbinical thought of
scholastic Judaism seems to have affected him any
further than to draw forth his aversion and antag-
onism. He did not teach " as the scribes.*' His
whole spirit and method were different from theirs.
While they were under the yoke of a theological
tradition, he spoke out of the free spontaneous in-
tuitions of his own moral nature. Even less, if
possible, was he affected by the various Greek
philosophical schools that were beginning to break
down the partition walls of Jewish isolation.
Neither Palestinian Sadduceeism nor Alexandrian
Philonism ever disturbed with their skeptical or
mystical clouds the intellectual serenity of his
Galilean soul. No wonder that dwellers in Jeru-
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 203
salem should have " marveled " as they listened to
a gospel so strange to their ears, and should have
said : " How knoweth this man letters, having
never learned?" And Christ's reported answer
shows this at least, that he regarded his gospel
not as the product of education or philosophy, but
as the immediate offspring of his own moral rela-
tion with God : " My teaching is not mine but his
that sent me." It is true that Christianity was
afterwards developed into a philosophical creed, as
is true of all religious ideas, but this historical
process cannot be traced to its founder. Paul, as
we shall see, was the historical bridge between the
" good news " of Jesus of Nazareth and the specu-
lative philosophy of the Nicene Creed.
Nor, again, was the Christianity of Christ a
new system of ethics. Much has been made of
this point in the traditional apologies and polemics.
But here, also, historical comparative investigation
has disillusioned the whole religious field. If
purity of ethics was to be the great test of reli-
gious systems, there are other religions that would
not suffer greatly when compared with Christian-
ity. Innumerable passages can be quoted from
the reputed sayings of Zoroaster, Confucius, Gau-
tama, Socrates, and Plato, inspired with a purity
and sweetness of moral temper that strongly re-
mind one of Christ's own teaching. Surely human
ethics reaches its highest form in the doctrine of
universal love and benevolence, or in the kindred
doctrine that the great aim and end of moral life
fl04 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
should be to become like God. Yet the former
doctrine is written on every page of Buddhistic
literature, while the latter doctrine was emphasized
by Plato in words that stir every ethical sentiment
of the soul. Christ's " new commandment " that
men should love one another was not " new " in
history, though he by his own life and teaching
gave it a new meaning and power. Righteousness
is the central ethical word of the Bible, but where
can a purer or more searching delineation of it be
found than in the second book of Plato's Repub-
lic ? To devote one's whole life, even to its end, in
a death of martyrdom, to the work of contributing
in the highest possible degree to the moral welfare
and progress of one's feUow-men, is surely the
highest ideal of a moral life ; but where can a
more touching example of such a life be found
than that of Socrates as given in the Memora-
bilia of Xenophon and in the Phaedo of his dis-
ciple Plato ? Does the life of Jesus of Nazareth,
devoted to these same high moral ends, ecHpse all
others, the secret of its superior attraction does
not lie in a new ethics, but elsewhere. What is
this secret ? What is it that is original and
unique in the beginnings of Christianity ? There
is but one answer, — and he that runs may read
it, — when, dismissing all traditional conceptions,
one holds up directly before his eyes the actual
historical Hfe of Christ and catches the spirit that
moved it as a principle and spur of moral action.
Surely it was, as Amiel wrote, Christ's "moral
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 205
consciousness," full to overflowing of his sense of
relationship to God as his Father, and to man as
his brother, involving a double mission of obe-
dience to God in doing the work given him to do,
and of ministry to men who were equally the chil-
dren of the common Father in heaven and the
common heirs of his love and grace. Here is the
headspring of the gospel Christ preached. The
parable of the prodigal son sums it all up in one
wonderful story. This was the keynote of Christ's
messiahship. There was no theology, or philosophy,
or ethics in it, but simply a new exposition of the
moral character of God and of man's moral rela^
tionship to him, — an exposition that was born in
the religious consciousness of Jesus himself and
filled his life more and more blessedly with its
precious revelations. These revelations, brought
to light in his own moral experience, were the sub-
stance of his teaching. And what was the doc-
trine that formed its centre and circumference ?
Simply this : God's moral character is summed up
in love, and as such is revealed in all ways to all
his moral creatures : and hence the highest form of
morality in man, who was made in God's moral
image, is to grow in the divine likeness, so that
the whole moral law of the gospel is summed up
in the "new commandment," "Love one another."
Love, then, in Christ's teaching, became the es-
sence of religion. For religion, as its very name
indicates, is a binding and unifying principle.
Hence its essential element cannot be dogma or
206 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
philosophy, which separate into sects and schools.
But love, on the contrary, is the great harmonizing
force in the moral kingdom, and by it Christ's
words are fulfilled " that they all may be one."
Moreover, love has in it a moral principle which
becomes a passion and inspiration for action. The
author of " Ecce Homo " has well described it as
" the enthusiasm of humanity." It is not a " dry
light " like a metaphysical or ethical formula, but
a flame of fire, the fire of a moral nature all alive
with a moral consciousness that is in constant liv-
ing conununion with God, and longs to pour out
its ardent life in a loving ministry to needy hu-
man souls. Here, then, we stand at the fountain
head of the Christian religion, and can mark the
true beginnings of its history.
Jesus was a Jew of Semitic race. His teaching
was in the Hebrew- Aramaic language, a dialect
kindred with the Phoenician and Arabic. It is
true that a few disciples seem to have been
gathered out of the Greek and Roman world into
which Judaea had been politically incorporated;
but during the life of the founder the proclama-
tion of his gospel was confined to Aramaic Pales-
tine, so that Christianity was, at the outset, an
Aramaic Semitic religion. The original apostles
were all Jews and of Aramaic speech. It is an
interesting though not a practical question, what
the fortunes of Christianity would have been had
not the dispersion of the Jews in other coun-
tries, and especially throughout the Graeco-Roman
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 207
Empire, brought large numbers of them into
close acquaintance with the Greek language and
culture. Had Judaea remained closed to outside
influences and been kept in political and linguistic
isolation, what human probability that the religious
reformation attempted by Christ would have suc-
ceeded in Palestine or been carried forth into the
Greek world ? The Jews, we know, rejected him
en masse, and no avenue would have been opened
for the preaching of his gospel to the Gentiles.
Christ's religious movement might have been
stifled in its very birth. Here are to be seen two
of the " divers ways " in which the divine provi-
dence has worked in history for the evolution of
good to mankind : first, in the wide dispersion of
the Jews among the Gentiles, and the breakdown
of the political barriers which made them for ages
" a peculiar people ; " and secondly, in the remark-
able training of Paul, who, though a Jew, was
born and educated in a Greek city, Tarsus, and
thus was made acquainted with both the Hebrew-
Aramaic and Greek languages, and also with
Jewish-Rabbinic and Greek philosophical ideas.
Without Paul, we may say that the whole history
of Christianity would have taken an entirely
different shape. So much sometimes seems to
hang on a single individual. So far as history
can speak, no other individual appeared in his day
that could have taken his place, or have done the
unique work that he did. Never perhaps was the
hand of providence more conspicuously revealed in
208 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
human affairs. For Paul, as has already been
said, was the great historical bridge from a pro-
vincial Aramaic religious movement to its oecumen-
ical extension over the world. If Christ was the
true founder of the Christian religion, Paul was as
truly the founder of the Grseco-Roman Christian-
ity. He gave the original Semitic gospel of
Jesus its new philosophical setting which prepared
the way for its entrance into Aryan thought and
faith. This is well illustrated by the term fna-LTrjq
(mediator), which is the central keynote of Paul's
theology and which he plainly borrowed from the
Greek Platonic Philonism.i It was through Paul,
the "Apostle to the Gentiles," that Christian
churches were planted in the non-Semitic Aryan
world, — in other words, among a people who
spoke Greek (or Latin) instead of Aramaic.
This significant change is marked by the fact that
the New Testament has come down to us in Greek
rather than in Aramaic-Hebrew. The tradition,
whether historical or not, that the gospel, after-
wards ascribed to Matthew, was originally written
in Hebrew, has a historical basis in this fact.
The full significance of such a transfer cannot be
realized until it is understood that the centre of
political power and the great historical currents
which were chiefly to mould the world's future had
already passed into the hands of the European
Aryan people. The question whether the Semite
1 See note at the end of this chapter for reply to Dr. Lyman
Abbott's criticism on my view of Paul.
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 209
or the Aryan should rule and direct the civiliza-
tion of the human race was settled in the war
between Rome and Carthage, when the world's
fortunes for the moment seemed to hang in the
balance as swayed by the military genius of one
man, " the wily Hannibal." The battle of Zama
settled the question in favor of the Aryan.
Even Mohammed, with his Semitic Arabian reli-
gious reaction, was not able to reverse the issue.
And as the political and social character of man-
kind was to be moulded through the Aryan mind,
so was it to be with its religion. Paul was him-
self a true Semitic Jew, but he was born in a
Greek city and received an Aryan education, and
thus was fitted to translate a Semitic gospel into
Aryan forms of thought and speech. It is not
needful to dwell at length on the historical con-
sequences of Paul's work. What is here to be
kept in view is the fact that this transfer of
Christ's religion from Aramaic Palestinian soil to
the Aryan Grseco-Roman world was a radical and
critical point in its whole history, and further that
it was brought about whoUy by ordinary historical
processes. Neander has introduced his " History
of the Christian Religion " with an account of
what he caUs " the preparations for Christianity."
No historical religion was ever more wonderfully
prepared for by thoroughly historical providential
movements than Christianity itseK. And an ap-
peal to such visible historical preparation is the
true basis of every Christian apology.
210 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
With the entrance of Christianity into the
Greek world, a new chapter in its history begins.
It became the religion of Greek communities, and
at once was modified by Greek social, political,
and philosophical ideas and usages. It is in-
deed difficult to realize how much is involved in
the passage of a religion from one race and
language to another wholly distinct race and
language. Mr. Flinders-Petrie, in a course of
lectures on " Keligion in Ancient Egypt," seeking
to place his English hearers at the right point of
view, well said : " We must feel that the greater
part of mankind has had systems of language
which would be wholly incapable of expressing our
ideas." The reverse, of course, is equally true.
The differences between the Semitic and Aryan
languages are radical. They belong to two com-
pletely distinct types of speech. The very roots
and forms of inflection are wholly diverse. Not
only so, the histories of the Semitic and Aryan
peoples have been on lines as diverse as their
languages. Two different types of civilization
were developed by them. Here is the historical
reason why the Semitic Phoenician Carthaginians
could never amalgamate with the Aryan Greeks
or Romans when they came into contact. One or
the other must yield. In fact, the Aryan race
and language showed itself the stronger, both in
war and in peace. Equally was the Aryan type
of religious thought and faith to prevail in religion.
How could it be otherwise? Religious beliefs
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 211
have their basis in the ideas of men concerning the
cardinal questions of philosophy, namely, the views
held concerning the world and man and God.
When Christianity entered the sphere of the
Greek language and culture, its very philosophy
suffered a radical change. Paul himself caught his
new philosophical keynote of a mediator, as has
been already explained, from his acquaintance with
the Greek language and thought. His immediate
Christian theological successors, Justin Martyr,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, were steeped in
the Platonic Greek philosophy and drew from it
the metaphysical groundwork of their Christian
theology. Justin Martyr who was, after Paul, the
true founder of that Greek type of Christianity
which ultimately prevailed over the original Se-
mitic Ebionitic type, was a Platonic philosopher
before he became a Christian, and it is to him
that we owe, so far as history sheds light on the
subject, the introduction of the logos doctrine
into the dogma of the trinity. The effect of this
new Greek logos mediation idea was radical. The
whole Jewish conception of God and his relations
to men which Christ as a Jew had retained in his
new gospel was modified, and the Ethnic Greek
conception which rested on the need of a meta-
physical divine mediation principle supplanted it.
Thus Christianity from the middle of the second
century passed through a complete metamorphosis
and became Aryan to the core. What saved to it
a Semitic leaven which remained indeed vital in
212 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
many ways, was the fact that the Jewish Old
Testament writings, on which Christ had built his
religious reform, became the Christian Bible, and
has remained an essential part of the sacred books
of Christianity down to the present day. The
part, however, that was played by the Old Tes-
tament in early Christian dogmatics was com-
paratively small. Thanks to Paul's Greek educa-
tion and to the Hellenic character of the early
Fathers from Justin Martyr to Origen, Christian
theology became thoroughly HeUenized. In the
course of a century or more, the Semitic religion
of Christ was evolved into a completely Aryan
form. The fuU account of this historical move-
ment may be found in my previous book. It is
only needful here to remind those who have read it
that the central dogma on which everything else
hangs is that of Christ as the true logos of God
and the divine mediator between God and man ;
and that this dogma had its historical origin in
Greek philosophy.
1 have thus made sufficiently clear, I trust, the
fact of a close historical connection between the
Ethnic religions and Christianity. Christ's gospel
sprang out of Judaism, and forms a special chap-
ter in the history of the Old Testament Jewish
religion. Judaism in its turn had its historical
beginnings in the Ethnic Babylonian-Chaldaic re-
ligion of the ancestors of Abraham, who emigrated
from "Ur of the Chaldees." With Paul a new
chapter begins when the Judean gospel was trans-
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 213
lated into the Greek language and thought, and
its further history is inextricably mixed with that
of Ethnic-Greek religious ideas, at first in the way
of opposition, and later in that of combination
and absorption. No Christian theologian of the
second, third, or fourth centuries can be under-
stood without a full acquaintance with the Ethnic
philosophy of his day. This is especially true of
those who laid the foundations of the leading
Christian philosophical schools, and helped to
frame the creeds which became orthodox and
oecumenical. Justin Martyr, Origen, Athanasius,
Augustine, were first of all philosophical thinkers,
building their theories of God, man, and nature
on a philosophy which they borrowed from Plato,
Aristotle, Plotinus, and the Stoics. We are thus
prepared to proceed to a consideration of the in-
ternal relations between the Ethnic trinities and
the Christian trinitarian dogma.
Note (see p. 208). — A review of " The Evolution of
Trinitarianism '* in " The Outlook " (December 15,
1900), presumably by Dr. Abbott, takes issue with my
view of Paul's mediational Christology. Dr. Abbott
declares that I make Paul an Arian. This can be
true only in the sense that all the early Fathers were
Arians. The mediation theory Hes at the very founda-
tion of the whole Greek theology. It was drawn,
as we have seen, from Plato through Philo, and was
fuUy developed in the logos doctrine. Athanasius held
it as strongly as Arius ; both were equally dualistic.
The question between them was not whether Christ
214 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
was a mediator between God and man, but just how
much was metaphysically involved in such a function.
Both of them held to the subordinationism of Origen,
but while Athanasius was disposed to lessen it to a
minimum, Arius reacted toward the opposite pole, and
thus was led to declare that Christ was not derived
from God by eternal generation, as Athanasius held,
but was a creature of God, with a beginning in time,
though the highest of all creatures and the instrument
of their creation, and hence capable of assuming medi-
ational functions. This is what is known in church
history as Arianism. To confound Paul's mediation
ideas with the fourth century doctrine of Arius argues
a strange want of acquaintance with the history of
the evolution of the Greek trinitarianism. Whatever
Paul's ideas were concerning the metaphysical charac-
ter of the relation of Christ to God, he gives no clear
theological statement of them. Certainly he was no
Arian. The time had not come for such a step. It
took three centuries to develop it. Paul was a prac-
tical, not a speculative thinker. He laid hold of the
dualistic mediation theory as a good practical basis for
his faith in Christ as the true Saviour of men. Whether
he regarded Christ as metaphysically more than a
man is doubted by such scholars as Pfleiderer, and
certainly several passages in his Epistles look strongly
that way. I refer especially to 1 Timothy ii. 5 and 1
Corinthians xv. 47. But other passages, such as Phil,
ii. 5 and 1 Corinthians xi. 3, seem to me to show con-
clusively that Paul regarded Christ as superhuman
and of heavenly origin, though it is equally plain that
he never thought of making him identical with God
himself, or in any sense an Absolute Being. Thus one
class of passages serves to correct and limit the inter-
pretation to be given to another class.
EXTERNAL OR HISTORICAL RELATIONS 215
Dr. Abbott criticises my use of 1 Timothy ii. 5,
because of its doubtful genuineness. But if 1 Timothy
ought not to be quoted in behalf of my view of Paul's
Christology, what right has Dr. Abbott to base his own
view on another passage in the next chapter of the
same Epistle ? He defends his use of it by declaring
that it " has been rightly accepted as a true summary
of the Apostolic doctrine," but such a defense would
be equally good for my use of the famous passage
"There is one God, one mediator between God and
man, himself man, Christ Jesus : " for it gave the key-
note to the later Greek Christology, though, as I have
shown, the term /Aco-tn/? (mediator) gave way to
another Philonic word, logos, which became the com-
mon term for Christ as mediator. Thus Athanasius
employs the term fxecrirrjs but once, so far as I am
aware, while the term logos is sprinkled all over his
writings. But I am not so ready to give up the genu-
ineness of the Pastoral Epistles as Dr. Abbott seems
to be. No letters of Paul are more full of internal
evidence of Pauline authorship. The Pauline flavor runs
all through them. Take the passage, " For I am ready
to be offered," etc. ; if Paul did not write it, my faith
in the authenticity of all the so-caUed Pauline Epistles
would be greatly shaken. I am quite ready to believe
that these Epistles have suffered interpolation along
with other New Testament writings ; but there is not
the slightest evidence of the interpolation of 1 Tim.
ii. 5. In fact, it is to my mind a decisive proof of its
genuineness that it harmonizes so completely with
Paul's other Epistles which are full of the mediation
view, with its natural corollaries of subordination and
personal distinction. And this, I take it, is the real
point of Dr. Abbott's objection to my interpretation of
Paul's Christology. He holds that " The New Trmita-
216 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES.
rianism " was Paul's trinitarianism, namely, that Christ
was the manifestation of God in the flesh, in the sense
that God's real being and divinity was incarnated in
Jesus of Nazareth, so that, so far as Christ was divine,
his divinity was identical with God's divinity. Hence
his dislike of the fxea-iTT)^ (mediator) doctrine, which as
a Platonic dualistic theory has always in Greek trini-
tarianism involved a metaphysical subordination of
the second person to the first person. Dr. Abbott
thinks that on this point I " misunderstand Paul and
also the modern trinitarianism," and he believes that
*^ orthodoxy has returned, after traveling a long circuit,
to the spirit of Paul." This may be so, but surely not
in Dr. Abbott's way. To make Paul square with
" Modern Trinitarianism " one must do exegetical vio-
lence to the whole drift of Paul's teachings. Take the
famous Kenotic passage in Phil. ii. To make it har-
monize with Dr. Abbott's view, one must distort it
from end to end. Its plain natural meaning is that
Christ, as subordinate to God, though of divine nature,
obediently accepted the mediatorial function and be-
came incarnate, and as man humbled himself to die on
the cross ; and that on this account God " highly
exalted him,^' etc. This is the historical Christian
doctrine of mediatorship as held by all the early Greek
Fathers, including Arius and Athanasius. To read into
this passage the Augustinian Sabellianism or the
latest " New Trinitarianism " would require a heroic
exercise of exegetical dexterity. Let me suggest one
passage more for Dr. Abbott's consideration, which
sheds an interesting sidelight on this subject, — 1 Corin-
thians xi. 3 : " The head of every man is Christ, and
the head of the woman is the man, and the head of
Christ is God." The key to the understanding of this
is Paul's view of woman as inferior in nature to man
EXTERNAL O^ HISTORICAL RELATIONS 217
and therefore subject to him. This is made clear by
what follows. Hence Paul's four orders of being:
woman, man, Christ, God. As man is superior to
woman, so Christ is superior in nature to man, and
God superior to Christ. The logic here is perfectly
plain and complete, and it lets us into the very heart of
Paul's Christology.
Leaving out of view the Philonic ftccrmy? in 1 Tim. ii.
5, Paul's mediation doctrine stands out clearly in his
teaching. In fact, the evidence of a Greek Philonic
influence in the Epistles that are universally accepted
as genuine is so strong that the genuineness of the
Pastoral Epistles is amply sustained in their use of
the term ftccrm/s. Paul uses other Philonic expressions
besides this one. For example, 1 Corinthians xv. 47,
" The first man is of the earth earthy ; the second man
is of heaven " is a direct reminiscence of Philo, who
says : " There are two kinds of men. The one man is
heavenly, the other is of the earth " (Philonis Opera, i.
50). In the eighth chapter of the same Epistle there is
another clear Philonic expression : " One Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things." This view of
Christ as the mediating instrument of creation is pre-
cisely the doctrine of Philo concerning the Logos, and
the only difference between Paul and Philo is that
Paul puts Christ in place of the Logos (Philonis
Opera, i. 162). The very passage in 2 Corinthians v.
18, 19, a portion of which Dr. Abbott quotes as " the
keynote of Paul's doctrine," "all things are of God,
who reconciled us to himself through Christ," etc., has
a thoroughly Philonic ring, making the Philonic dis-
tinction between God as the originating cause (e/c tov
6eov), and Christ as the instrumental means (Sia ^ptoTov)
of redemption. Philo makes much of this distinction
between cac (from) and 8ta (through) , deriving it from
Aristotle.
218 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Thus much in vindication of my view of Paul's
mediation theory. It was Augustine who through his
ignorance of Greek theology paved the way for a
Sabellian doctrine that broke down the very founda-
tions of the Pauline Greek mediation view. I have
illustrated this in my discussion of Anselm's theory of
the atonement. " The New Trinitarianism " follows
the same lead. It has no real mediation doctrine
simply because it has no ground on which it can rest.
Dr. Abbott regards my account of the evolution of
Trinitarianism as " fatally defective " because I have
" failed," as he thinks, " in my interpretation of Paul."
His argument here is at least curious. Paul, he holds,
is " the starting-point of the Christological evolution."
Failure to start right vitiates all that follows. But
suppose that Paul is not the historical point of de-
parture, what then? Now, rightly or wrongly, my
starting-point of all Christian history is Christ himself.
How can the evolution of Christology be made to begin
with Paul, who never saw Christ and whose Apostolic
calling was at least half a generation after Christ's
death? Behind Paul was Christ's own messianic
career and the traditions of his teaching which are
gathered up in the Acts and Synoptic gospels. " The
fatal defect" of Dr. Abbott's whole criticism is its
" failure " to interpret correctly the historical environ-
ment of early Christianity. Biblical exegesis walks
with uncertain steps without the aid of history to il-
luminate its path. See a suggestive article in the
" Biblical World," March, 1901, by Prof. B. W. Bacon,
on " Exegesis as a Historical Study."
CHAPTER II
THE INTEKNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES
As soon as a direct comparison is instituted
between the Ethnic trinities and the Christian
trinity, it immediately strikes the observer that
all these trinities fall alike under the common law
of historical evolution. We have seen how true
this is of the Ethnic trinities, and it is equally true
of the Christian dogma. Every trinitarian theory
of God that has ever been developed has started
either from a polytheistic or from a monotheistic
doctrinal basis. The Ethnic trinities, as a rule,
formed a stage in the movement from plurality to
unity, though there were exceptions in the case of
the philosophical trinities, such as the Hindoo and
the Plotinian, where, in a pantheistic way, the
movement was from unity to trinity. The Chris-
tian dogma did not start from a polytheistic or
pantheistic ground, but from Jewish monotheism ;
but the development from one God to a trinity was
just as completely a historical evolution as any
other. This has already been fuUy set forth in
" A Critical History of the Evolution of Trinitari-
anism," especially in respect to the second person.
Readers of that book will remember how com-
pletely in the background was the question of the
220 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
third person. As was there noted, the Christian
dogma of the trinity had its spring in the theory,
borrowed from Greek philosophy, of the need of a
mediator (/Aco-tn^s) between man and God, and in
the ascription to Jesus Christ of such a nature
and function. This was the new view introduced
by Paul into Christian theology, which grew after-
ward into the logos doctrine, in the hands of Jus-
tin Martyr and his successors. Thus Christianity
theologically is essentially a Christology^ or doc-
trine of Christ as a second person in the Godhead.
Indeed, strange as it may appear, had it not been
for the natural and historical tendency seen in all
trinitarian movements toward the evolution of
duality into triality, the Christian doctrine of God
might have remained that of a " duad " instead of
a " triad." The same may be asserted of every
Ethnic trinity. In the Egyptian and the Baby-
lonian trinities there was constant action and re-
action from triality to duality and vice versa, —
polytheism tending to reduce itself to triality and
then to duality, and finally to unity ; and conversely
the doctrine of one God resolving itself into that
of a duad, and in turn into that of a triad, and
thus paving the way for a return to the polythe-
istic belief which has ever haunted the race. In
fact, the religious consciousness of man has always
fluctuated, like a pendulum, between the two ex-
tremes of polytheism and monotheism in its con-
ception of divinity, according as its sense of the
plurality of natural phenomena and forces has
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 221
swayed its emotions and thoughts, or as its more
educated sense of the unity of nature and natural
law, and of God as its author, has determined its
philosophy.
A vivid picture of this evolutionary uncertainty
and fluctuation is given in the Babylonian epic of
creation, — of very early though uncertain date, —
where chaos with its mass of multiplied unorgan-
ized elements is personified in Tiamat, who is
made the progenitor of Lakmu and Lakamu.
These divinities, representing the " monster " world
of half-chaotic things, became in their turn the
ancestors of Anschar and Kisha, who represent a
second stage of movement toward order, and from
whom springs the great Babylonian triad of Anu,
Bel, and Ea. It is through this triad of gods that
the third stage of evolution takes place, namely,
the creation of the world. Behind this picture lies
a complete polytheism which forms its substantial
background. Plainly, when this epic was written,
the Babylonian triad had already been evolved,
and a place had to be found for it among the ear-
lier traditions. The epic reveals the manner in
which it was done. Chaotic multiplicity is mytho-
logicaUy personified in Tiamat, the principle of
disorder ; and then, through two successive rising
stages of evolution, two pairs of nature gods are
formed, who are made the progenitors of Anu, Bel,
and Ea. Other examples might be given. In
fact, the Ethnic trinities are shown to be in a con-
tinued state of flux, not only from duality to trin-
222 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ity or quartemity, or to multiples of a triad, but
also from one triad to another, as in Hindooism,
from Varuna, Indra, and Agni to Brahma, Vishnu,
and Civa, and in the Greek world, from Zeus, Here,
and Athene, to Zeus, Athene, and Apollo, and then
to the philosophical Plotinian triad of t6 Iv, 6 vovs, rj
i}/vxV' The remarkable thing about it all is that the
idea of trinity is so persistent, holding its ground
tenaciously, while so Proteuslike in the shapes it
assumes. The same is substantially true of the
Christian trinity ; of course not so fully or with
so much of fluctuation, for polytheism affords a
much wider field of change than monotheism, but
the fact of constant evolution is just as clear and
decisive.
I propose to illustrate this now in the case of
the third person, the Holy Spirit, especially in its
earlier evolution. As the idea of trinity is not to
be found in the Old Testament, which is strictly
monotheistic, it is needless to enter into any dis-
cussion as to the meaning of the compression Holy
Spirit in that part of the Bible. Enough to say
that it is never used by itself to express a person.
When employed it is always an adjxmct, as in the
passage, " Take not thy Holy Spirit from me."
The " Holy Spirit of God " is a monotheistic para-
phrase of God himself. This is the Old Testa-
ment doctrine throughout. In the New Testament
we first find " the Holy Spirit " used separately,
but its adjunctive or adjectival use still continues,
and indicates the real meaning of the expression
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 223
when used separately, as in the clause : " God is
a spirit." Certainly Christ nowhere employed the
expression in any way to indicate that he believed
in the personality of the Holy Spirit as distin-
guished from the personality of God. This is
shown by his interchange of the phrases " Holy
Spirit " and " Spirit of God." Let it be noted
here that the reduction of the gospel to writing
was made long after Christ's day, and that mean-
while the form of Christian tradition was under-
going a clear process of evolution. This, no doubt,
has not a little to do with the history of the expres-
sion " Holy Spirit." But even the Synoptic gos-
pels, as we have them, stiU continue the Old Tes-
tament monotheistic tradition, and Professor Cary
(" Synoptic Gospels," p. 29) justly says : " ' Holy
Spirit ' throughout the Synoptics is equivalent to
the ' Spirit of God ' or ' the divine Spirit,' spoken
of here in verse 35 (Luke) as the power of the
Most High. Never has the Hebrew mind been
able to accept the idea of a division of personality
in the divine nature, neither had the conception
of a personal Holy Spirit been developed in the
Christian church at the time of the writing of our
gospels. It is not to be lost sight of that we have
here to deal with ideas held by men who were
Jews before they were Christians." Let me add
in support of Professor Gary's statement, that the
Talmud, which represents Jewish orthodox tradi-
tion as far back as Christ's day, and surely cannot
be taxed with any trinitarian tendencies, again and
224 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
again uses the expression " Holy Spirit " as equiv-
alent to the spirit of God. For example, " Through
the reward of faith the Holy Spirit rested upon
Israel ; " where " Holy Spirit " is plainly synony-
mous with God's active immanent presence and
blessing. Paul is here an important witness,
since he lived before the gospels were written.
Not only does Paul use the terms " Holy Spirit,"
" Spirit of God," " Spirit of Christ," interchange-
ably, and without any apparent difference of mean-
ing, but on two separate occasions, when he gives
his doctrine of God in a thoroughly formal and
credal way, he ignores the Holy Spirit entirely.
(1 Cor. viii. 6 ; 1 Tim. ii. 5). How could he do
this, if he held to a trinity of divine persons?
Paul's theology of God was the Jewish monothe-
ism of his ancestors ; but he added to it his new
doctrine of Christ : " There is one God, one medi-
ator also between God and man, himself man,
Christ Jesus." It is true that there are in Paul's
Epistles a few passages that might bear a trinita-
rian meaning if supported by more direct evidence.
But such corroborative evidence is wanting. No
one can read those Epistles and note how fre-
quently and closely Paul connects the Spirit with
God and with Christ, without feeling assured that
he had no clearly defined doctrine of the Spirit as
a distinct Person. When the expression Spirit or
Holy Spirit is used separately, the context always
makes it clear that God or Christ is intended.
Take, for example, Romans viii. 9, 14, 16 : " The
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 225
Spirit himself beareth witness," is explained by
the previous clause, " as many as are led by the
Spirit of God," and by a still earlier passage, " if
so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if
any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his." A similar passage occurs in 1 Cor. ii. 10-
14. The fact that Paul had no decided trinitarian
view is well illustrated in 1 Cor. vi. 11 : " But ye
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the spirit of our God." Surely here
was a fine opportunity to turn the duad into a
triad, but Paul ignores it, and plainly because in
his view the sanctifying and justifying power of
God is specially manifested in him as a Holy
Spirit. An equally good opportunity was given in
2 Tim. iv. 1 : " I charge thee in the sight of God
and of Jesus Christ," but Paid, does not add " and
of the Holy Spirit." StiU, it seems probable that
already in Paul's day the tendency was growing to
invest the Spirit of God with personal attributes.
And there is a single passage in Paul's Epistles
where this trinitarian tendency is plainly hovering
over the apostle's mind. I refer to the trinitarian
benediction (2 Cor. xii. 14). If this is not a later
interpolation, it bears marks that cannot be easily
overlooked of a well-defined trinitarianism.
But supposing it to be genuine, and an indica-
tion of Paul's trinitarian tendency, one cannot
help asking why such a benediction was never
repeated. Why were all Paul's other benedictions
in the name of God, or of Christ, or of both ?
226 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
And then, further, why was every doxology of
Paul, without a single exception, addressed to God
alone? There is but one satisfactory answer.
Paul believed in " one God " and in the one Holy
Spirit of God. Christ was for him a mediator
between God and men, but not God himself. As
such a mediator Christ was a proper object of
intercessory prayer. God was properly addressed
in Christ's name. But God alone was the one
object of worship and praise. Hence every dox-
ology was to him. On the whole, without enter-
ing upon a fuller critical discussion of New Testa-
ment texts, it can be said without hesitation, that
while a clear tendency is discernible in the New
Testament writings towards a trinitarian view of
God culminating in the Fourth Gospel, of which I
shall speak later, there is no evidence outside of
that gospel of any distinctly developed doctrine
of the Holy Spirit as a third person in a trinity.
Whether this tendency is regarded as greater or
less, the only historical result that can be relied
on is that an evolution is begun which will natu-
rally complete itseK in the f uUy developed trinity of
the fourth century.
This conclusion is amply sustained by the
evidence of the earliest post-apostolic Fathers.
Especially important are the Epistles of Clement,
Barnabas, and Polycarp, and " The Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles." These four writings I have
placed in their probable chronological order,
though some critics would assign an earlier date
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 227
to the "Teaching." The Epistle of Clement is
undoubtedly the earliest post-apostolic document
that has come down to us. Lightfoot fixes its
date " about the year 95." In many ways this
Epistle is of great importance. It shows that the
gospel was still largely communicated orally. No
clear sign is given of aquaintance with our present
four gospels, though the writer may have had
some apocryphal gospel in his hands. By the
" Scriptures " he always means the Old Testament.
Thus proof is furnished, which other evidence of
the same nature makes entirely convincing, that
our present gospels were written after a consider-
able traditional evolution of the Christian faith
had already taken place.
On the question of the Holy Spirit the evidence
of Clement is quite indefinite. The expression
" Holy Spirit " is used several times in the plain
sense of the spirit of God or of Christ, as when
the Old Testament Scriptures are described as
the " true utterances of the Holy Spirit," and
when the apostolic preachers are said to have been
" proved by the Spirit." There is also one passage
in the newly discovered portion of the Epistle
which has a decided trinitarian ring and indicates
the tendency which was in the air towards the
later trinitarian dogma : " As God liveth, and the
Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit."
This surely proves, if it be genuine, that the
trinitarian idea was growing. But, on the other
hand, it is equally clear that a trinity has not yet
228 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
been fuUy developed, for the two doxologies are
strictly monotheistic, and the benedictions at the
beginning and end of the Epistle make no allusion
to the Holy Spirit, though both God and Christ
are mentioned. This view that the trinitarian
evolution is only begun, especially in the case of
the third person, is supported by the testimony of
the Epistles of Polycarp and of Barnabas, which
belong to the second quarter of the second century.
In neither of these Epistles is there any reference
to the Holy Spirit or to a trinity. The benedic-
tions are not trinitarian. The Epistle of Poly-
carp begins : " Peace from God Almighty and
from the Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied," and
the conclusion is similar. The Epistle of Barna-
bas begins and ends with a simple Christian
salutation. Both of these Epistles have a thor-
oughly primitive air. Neither refers to John or
the Fourth Gospel, nor is any gospel named ; but
Christ's sayings are quoted as if from oral tradi-
tion, for example : " As the Lord said, ' The
spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.' "
There is, indeed, in the present text of Barnabas
an apparent exception : " As it is written, ' Many
are called, but few are chosen,' " but its genuine-
ness is very doubtful. If it is not an interpola-
tion, it is " the first example in the writings of
the Fathers of a citation from any book of the
New Testament preceded by the authoritative
formula ' it is written.' " ^ But if Barnabas really
1 Apostolic Fathers, T. and T. Clark, p. 107.
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 229
was acquainted with any written gospel, is it not
strange that he gives no other sign of acquaint-
ance, either by mention or by a clear citation ? The
fact is that there is no evidence of the growth of
a New Testament canon tiU. the time of Justin
Martyr. Whenever in the earlier Fathers the
expression " the Scripture " is employed, the
reference is to the Old Testament. Passages are
also given which are plainly from apocryphal
books. Polycarp, indeed, exhibits a thorough
acquaintance with Paul's Epistles and quotes
freely from them, — a fact which makes the ab-
sence of quotation from any gospel still more
noticeable. I have dwelt on these points as help-
ing to show how uncertain and fluxive is the gen-
eral condition of Christian thought and belief a
hundred years after Christ's death. If any one
of the four gospels is known, it is not directly re-
ferred to, or certainly quoted from, neither is the
name of any author given. The same indefinite and
fluxive character is seen in the trinitarian develop-
ment. Polycarp and Barnabas represent a sort
of half-way house from monotheism to trinitarian-
ism. They hold to one God and one Lord Jesus,
but go no further.
" The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles " is
closely connected with the Epistle of Barnabas in
general character. In some respects it seems the
most primitive of all the post-apostolic writings,
reminding one of the Book of Acts. As in that
book, Christ is again and again called God's
230 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
" servant Jesus " (ttols). The indications of de-
pendence on oral tradition rather than on written
gospels are clear and decided. Christ's teaching
is always referred to as " the gospel," and the
plural " gospels " is never employed, as came to
be the case when the gospel was reduced to writ-
ing by several hands. The passage from oral to
written tradition may be gauged quite accurately
by this mark. The singular term gospel is em-
ployed by all the post-apostolic Fathers until
Justin Martyr, who is the first to refer to certain
gospels which he caUs " Memoirs of the Apostles."
Other evidence, as that of Papias, shows that
this was the very period when oral tradition was
giving place to written gospels. I cannot accept,
therefore, the judgment of several recent critics,
that the clause at the close of chapter xv., " So
do ye, as ye have it (^x^O ^^ *^® gospel of our
Lord," is an allusion to a written gospel. The verb
€X€T€ simply indicates present possession, but gives
no direct clue to the manner in which such posses-
sion was attained. Such a clause has little weight
against the whole tenor of " The Teaching," which
continually refers to Christ himself and his pro-
phets and apostles as the sources of the teaching :
" The Lord commandeth ; " " The Lord hath
said ; " " Him that speaketh to thee the word of
the Lord," etc. The prominence given in " The
Teaching " to the work of " apostles and pro-
phets " and to exhortations as to the way in which
they were to be received affords strong evidence
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 231
that the teaching of the gospel was oral rather
than written. " Whoever cometh and teacheth
you all these things^ before spohen^ receive him."
Examining now the " The Teaching " for light
on the question of its trinitarianism, we find it in
close agreement with the Epistles of Clement,
Polycarp, and Barnabas. With the exception of a
single passage, to which I shall soon refer, it indi-
cates the same indefinite and inchoate character.
Its doctrine of God is strictly monotheistic. No
trace appears of the Pauline Greek "mediator"
element. Christ is the servant of God and the
Lord or master of his disciples. It is the Pales-
tinian Messianism, not the Alexandrian Logos
doctrine. The doxologies are addressed to God
alone. Only in a single passage is there a hint of
a trinitarian tendency, namely, in the formula of
baptism, which appears for the first time in com-
plete trinitarian form : " Baptize in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." When or how this formula originated is
whoUy unknown. The only sign of it in the New
Testament is in Mat. xxviii. 19, where Christ
is represented as giving it to his disciples. The
plainly unhistorical character of this passage is
proved by the fact that after Christ's death the
form of baptism was " into Christ " and not into
the Trinity, Paul knows nothing of the trinitarian
formula. It thus becomes evident that the verse
at the close of Matthew is an interpolation of a
later time, or that the whole gospel in its present
232 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
shape was composed well on in the second century ;
and this agrees with the indirect and negative
testimony of the Epistles of Clement, Polycarp, and
Barnabas.
It may here be noted that the evolution of
Christian trinitarianism is mainly traceable along
three lines of evidence : the form of benediction,
the baptismal formula, and the developing creed
of the church ; and it will be found that the order
above given is in fact the chronological order of
comparative evolution. Paul gets as far once as
a trinitarian benediction, though he never aUudes
to the trinitarian formula of baptism or suggests
any trinitarian creed. So " The Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles " gives the trinitarian baptismal
formula, but is altogether silent as to the doctrine
of the trinity.
It is an interesting question in this connection,
when the so-called Apostles' Creed was originally
written, and what was its first form. Its name
rests entirely on legendary ground. In its present
shape it is as late as the seventh or eighth century.
Professor Sanday's suggestion that there was an
earlier creed behind it is quite probable, but if so,
it is now lost. The earliest form of a creed that
is similar in character to the Apostles' Creed is
found in Irenaeus, in the latter part of the second
century, and a like form is also given in Tertullian
a little later. There is no reference, however, in
either of these writers to the " Apostles' Creed,"
as would naturally have been the case had the
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 233
tradition of such a creed with apostolic authority-
been in vogue in that day. Irenaeus expressly de-
clared that his creed was generally accepted by
the church. How eagerly would he have appealed
to the authority of the apostles, had the creed put
forth in their names been already extant ! While,
therefore, the materials of the Apostles' Creed
were undoubtedly gathering in the course of the
second century, the creed itself, even in its original
form, cannot be assigned to an earlier date than
the third century. The significance of this creed
lies in the fact that it is based in its very form
as well as substance on the trinitarian conception.
Its twelve clauses (according to the legend, con-
tributed by the twelve apostles) are subdivided
into three parts, each revolving around one of the
three persons of the trinity. The traditional title
of this creed has undoubtedly had largely to do
with the veneration that has been accorded to it in
the Western church since it came into general use
in the early Middle Ages. But the belief that it
represents the real creed of the church of 1;he early
post-apostolic age must be given up. It is a
Latin, not a Greek, confession, and is undoubt-
edly an offshoot of the growing creed of the Ro-
man church. The Greek church knew nothing of
it, as was declared in the Council of Florence in
the fifteenth century, when an effort was made to
heal the schism between the Greek and Latin
churches. To say, as Dr. Schaff has done, in his
History of the Church : " The Apostles' Creed in
234 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
its present shape is post-apostolic ; but in its con-
tents and spirit truly apostolic," conveys a whoUy
false impression as to the real facts. It is nei-
ther apostolic nor post-apostolic in the historical
meaning of that term. No early Greek Father
makes any allusion to it. Its thoroughly trinita-
rian character makes it a historical anachronism
when dated at any point earlier than Irenseus,
about 180. I have introduced the question of the
Apostles' Creed, so called, here, — though properly
it should come in later, as representing a later
stage of evolution, — because the traditional idea
of it, which is whoUy unhistorical, is so ingrained
in the popular Christian mind. The impression is
widely spread to-day that, whatever view may be
taken of the Nicene and other later creeds, the
Apostles' Creed is essentially apostolic, and con-
tains essential gospel truth. Christian scholars
like Dr. Schaff, who show in their writings that
they are aware of the facts, have helped to per-
petuate this mistaken view, in the interests, I
suppose, of what they regard as " the faith once
delivered." Dr. Schaff declares that " it has the
authority of antiquity and the dew of perennial
youth beyond any other document of post-apos-
tolic times, and is the only strictly oecumenical
creed of the "West, as the Nicene Creed is the only
oecumenical creed of the East." In the last clause
of this statement Dr. Schaff has innocently given
proof that his own assertion was false. How about
the " oecumenical " standing of the Apostles' Creed
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 235
in the East f And if it was not " oecumenical in
the East," how could it have " the authority of
antiquity " ? Dr. Schaff has simply made a his-
torical jump of several centuries without any
adequate evidence to sustain it. It is a pure leap
in the air. The so-called Apostles' Creed repre-
sents, not an original dogma of the gospel, but an
evolutionary development that did not reach its
fuU limit until it appeared as a Latin creed of the
Western church in the eighth century. Before
leaving this special topic and returning to the his-
torical survey of the growth of early apostolic
trinitarianism, I would add that, if any one wishes
to gain a vivid idea of the evolutionary character
of creeds, let him read a small book by an English
Oxford scholar of conservative instincts, C. A.
Heartley, entitled, " Harmonia Symbolica," which
gives a full account of the slow and hesitating way
in which the creeds of Christendom, especially the
Western, were developed.
To return, we have found in the first stage
of the post-apostolic period, as represented by
Clement, Polycarp, Barnabas, and " The Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles," only sporadic tendencies
toward a trinitarian view of God. These tenden-
cies we have noted along three lines of movement,
namely, the Christian benediction, the formula of
baptism, and the growth of the trinitarian dogma.
Everything has thus far been tentative and flux-
ive. Nothing like a " creed " has yet been at-
tempted. The benediction and doxology are still
236 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
monotheistic. The baptismal formula has become
changed in one single instance^ we know not how
or just when, from " into Christ "to " into the
Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost." There is one
further piece of evidence left us in the first period
which has a unique significance and interest. No
documents of this early age have been more the
subject of controversy, as to their authenticity and
historical authority, than the Ignatian Epistles.
The conclusion of Bishop Lightfoot is certainly
one that conservative scholars to-day generally
accept, namely, that the seven longer Epistles
have been so largely interpolated as to have lost
all independent authority ; but that the sJiorter
Epistles are genuine and historical documents. I
am not ready myself to accept the historicity of
the shorter Epistles, for they bear unmistakable
traces of legend as well as interpolation ; but
surely there can be no doubt as to the strength of
Lightfoot's destructive criticism in the case of the
longer Epistles. Assuming, then, that these Epis-
tles represent an interpolated and amended recen-
sion of the shorter ones, let us consult them for
the light they may shed on the points before us.
First, on the trinitarian tendency of the Christian
benediction. Three of the seven Epistles close in
this way, and, in the longer version of all of them,
the Holy Spirit is included with God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ, while it is absent from
all three in the earlier shorter Epistles. Take the
Epistle to the Ephesians, for example. The
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 237
shorter version reads : " Farewell in God the
Father and in Jesus Christ, our common hope."
In the longer form there is added " and in the
Holy Ghost." In the Epistle to the Philadel-
phians the shorter version reads : " Fare ye well
in Christ Jesus, our common Lord ; " the longer
version reads : " Fare ye weU in the Lord Jesus
Christ, our common hope in the Holy Ghost."
The Epistle to the Smyrnians gives a further
evolution : " Fare ye well in the grace of God "
becomes " Fare ye well in the grace of God, and
of our Lord Jesus Christ, being filled with the
Holy Spirit and divine and sacred wisdom." The
close of another Epistle, namely, that to the Mag-
nesians, makes clear the real doctrine of the
shorter Epistles : " Fare ye well in the harmony
of God, and possess ye a steadfast spirit which is
Jesus Christ" (Lightfoot's translation). There
is no allusion here to any third person. But
the longer version gives a trinitarian twist to the
original text: "Fare ye well in harmony, ye
who have obtained the steadfast Spirit, in Jesus
Christ, by the will of God."
If now we turn our attention to the line of de-
velopment of the trinitarian dogma in its creed
form, we shall find a similar evolution. There are
one or two suggestions of a trinity in the shorter
Epistles, but in the longer Epistles there are com-
plete trinitarian statements which are wholly want-
ing in the shorter. For example : "If any one
confesses the Father and the Son and the Holy
238 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Spirit" (Phil. vi.). Again, "The Comforter is
holy and the Word is Holy, the Son of the Father."
Perhaps the most remarkable passage is the follow-
ing, which has a suggestive credal air : " Since
there is but one unbegotten being, God, even the
Father, and one only-begotten Son, God, the Word
and man, and one Comforter, the Spirit of truth "
(Phil. iv.). No one who is at aU acquainted with
early church history can help noting the strange-
ness of such dogmatic language, put in the mouth
of a Christian bishop who was supposed to have
died a martyr in the opening years of the second
century. Two words in these statements prove
conclusively that they are interpolations, — " Com-
forter" and "Word." Neither of these terms is
ever used in the shorter Epistles. Moreover, they
do not appear in any authentic writing till nearly
two generations after the supposed date of the
Ignatian Epistles. I shall refer to this matter later,
and will only add here that I know of no more
striking and conclusive testimony to the incomplete
and fluxive character of the early trinitarianism
than the results brought before us by the compar-
ative study of the Ignatian Epistles. In truth,
the transparent interpolations of the longer Epis-
tles are suggestive indications and omens of the
great movement which wiU mark the next stage of
evolution which we are now to consider, namely,
that from a duad to a triads brought about by
the influence of Greek philosophy.
This stage is represented in its origin by Justin
INTERNAL RELATIONS -- RESEMBLANCES 239
Martyr, about the middle of the second century.
As my present object is not to trace the whole
trinitarian evolution, but simply that of the third
person, I shall omit any detailed account of the
introduction by Justin Martyr and his immediate
successors of the Greek logos doctrine into Chris-
tian theology. This is the real philosophical basis
of Christian trinitarianism. Henceforth what was
before indefinite and fluxive tends to become defi-
nite and fixed, since it has found a philosophical
centre around which to revolve. From the time of
Justin the doctrine of the second person assumes
the dogmatic mould which it has substantially pre-
served ever since. The later Nicene discussions
all assumed the logos doctrine, but developed dif-
ferences as to its precise theological character.
Not so with the question of the third person. The
word trinity does not appear until Theophilus
(168-188), who for the first time employs the
term rpta?, which corresponds to the Latin trinitas,
StiU, the tendency towards a dogmatic trinitarian
statement is greatly strengthened by the new logos
doctrine. Justin Martyr himself makes one dis-
tinct allusion to three persons : " Having learned
that Jesus Christ is the son of the true God him-
self, and holding him in the second place, and the
prophetic Spirit in the third " (1 Apol. xiii.). He
also gives the baptismal trinitarian formula in his
account of the mode of baptism (1 Apol. Ixi.).
But the trinitarian dogma still sits lightly on him,
as is shown by another passage in the same
240 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Apology (vi.), where, in refuting the charge of
atheism, he mentions the various objects of Chris-
tian worship : " God, and the Son who came forth
from him, and the host of good angels who follow
and are made like to him, and the prophetic
Spirit." Here the order of superiority seems
clearly to be given, and the Holy Spirit is plainly
viewed as a sort of heavenly messenger rather than
as a member of the trinity. Dogmatic writers have
attempted to give another translation of this pas-
sage, but such a begging of the question is foolish
and vain. Neander explains it rightly as showing
a " wavering " on Justin's part " between the idea
of the Holy Spirit, as one of the members of the
Triad, and a spirit standing in some relationship
with the angels." This question whether the Holy
Spirit is a divine member of the trinity or a crea-
ture was long debated in the early church, and was
not dogmatically settled tiU the Nicene age. Ori-
gen as well as Arius held that the Holy Spirit was
a creature, with a beginning in time. It is notable
that Justin, while making much of the logos .doc-
trine, as regards the second person, makes no men-
tion of the Paraclete, or Comforter. This is very
significant, as showing that the doctrine of the third
person is much less in discussion than that of the
second. Surely, if the doctrine of the third per-
son were at the front, and the Fourth Gospel was
also in their hands, Justin, Athanagoras, Tatian,
or Theophilus would have made use of the re-
markable fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of that
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 241
gospeL But this is not the case. Irenaeus is the
first among the early Fathers to aUude to the Par-
aclete and to quote from the Fourth Gospel in con-
nection with it. It is also a fact worthy of atten-
tion that Irenaeus is the first Father to give a
distinct creed or dogmatic formula on a trinitarian
basis. The church Fathers from Justin Martyr to
Irenaeus hold steadfastly to the logos doctrine,
but waver concerning the dogma of the third per-
son. Athanagoras in a remarkable passage says :
" The Holy Spirit himself also, which operates in
the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God,
flowing from him and returning back again like a
beam of the sun." This certainly is far from the
fully developed Nicene doctrine, and strikingly
suggests the coming SabeUianism that already lurks
in the air. A little later, Theophilus of Antioch
gives us another curious illustration of the still
undeveloped character of the doctrine of God, es-
pecially as regards the third person. He is giving
an account of the successive days of creation : " In
like manner also the three days which were before
the luminaries are types of the trinity of God and
his Word and his Wisdom." Here, to be sure,
there is a fuU trinity ; but the Holy Spirit is left
wholly out, and its place is taken by a term which
was often applied to the second person, but never,
so far as I am aware, to the Holy Spirit in a per-
sonal sense. In another passage Theophilus de-
scribes the Logos, or second person, as " the Spirit
of God and governing principle and wisdom."
242 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
But all this wavering and uncertainty ends with
Irenseus ; and I need not pursue the subject fur-
ther, except to say in general that a third stage
of evolution begins with him, in which the doctrine
of a full trinity, including the Holy Spirit as a
personal divine though subordinate being, is dog-
matically set forth in creed definitions. Promi-
nent in this stage, especially at first, is the use of
the Fourth Gospel and its doctrine of the Paraclete.
Tertullian, whose Montanism led him to make much
of the Fourth Gospel, was a stout opponent of all
anti-trinitarian ideas, which were now rife in the
church. In short, we have now, in the third cen-
tury, entered the era of dogmatic controversy,
which will continue on into the Nicene and post-
Nicene age. In this controversial period, which
is characterized by the influence of the mystical
Fourth Gospel, and by the deep infusion of the
speculative spirit of Greek philosophy, Origen had
a conspicuous place. He was the first to unfold,
on the basis of the Fourth Gospel, the doctrine of
the " Holy Spirit, whom our Lord and Saviour in
the Gospel according to John has named the Par-
aclete." Christ, in his description of the Para-
clete, according to Origen, "wished to enlighten
his disciples regarding the nature and faith of the
trinity." The whole chapter in the work De Prin-
cipiis (B. II. c. vi.) is of great historical signifi-
cance, and may be said to have laid the foundation
of the completed dogma concerning the Holy Ghost
as the third person, which appears in the Niceno-
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 243
Constantinopolitan creed. Yet it must not be
forgotten that Origen held the Holy Spirit to be
a creature, occupying a midway position between
God and man, and not to be for a moment con-
founded, any more than the second person, the
Logos of God, with the eternal God himself. Ori-
gen was what might be fitly termed a mo7iotheistic
trinitarian, as Paul might be styled a monotheis-
tic dualist, and he thus represents the haK-way
movement of the pendulum from the position of
Paul to that of Athanasius.
My aim in following the history of the third
person of the Christian trinity thus far has been
to illustrate the fact that the law of historical evo-
lution is common to all trinitarian ideas. Such a
common law, working alike in the Ethnic and
Christian trinities, must involve further radical
resemblances. The truth is that the fundamental
religious ideas that are to be found in all the his-
torical religions are the outgrowth of a common re-
ligious nature in man, and we may therefore expect
to find common religious elements in all such reli-
gions, however diversified they may become under
varied providential environments and influences.
This is just as true of trinitarian ideas as of any
other form of dogma. We are prepared, then, to
find that the fundamental causes which led to the
development of the Ethnic trinities have worked
equally in the evolution of the Christian trinity.
We found three fundamental grounds or causes
of the trinitarian evolution in the Ethnic religions,
244 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
namely, (1) the peculiar sacredness attaching to
three as a number in the early ideas of men;
(2) the faifmly or generative 'principle^ which lies
at the very basis of human life and society ; (3) the
mediation theory^ which grew out of the sense
of distance of man from God, and of the need
of some go-between who should be the medium of
prayers and gifts. Were we wholly unacquainted
with the history of the Christian religion, we
should expect to find in it, after our historical
survey of the Ethnic trinities, the same general
principles and causes working toward a trinitarian
doctrine of God. The Christian trinity, in fact,
is not only historically connected with the Ethnic
trinities, but has also an intimate logical and in-
ternal relationship. The causes that contributed
in the most marked degree to the development of
the Ethnic trinities are equally visible in the his-
tory of the Christian dogma. This comparison,
in order to be made clear and definite, will neces-
sitate a cursory resume of some of our previous
studies.
It is impossible, as we have said, to trace the
triadal or triple idea, in its connection with the
gods, to its historical source. It lies behind all
historical records. So the special occult signifi-
cance or sacredness of certain numbers seems to
be one of the earliest traditions of the race. The
traditions in Genesis in regard to the origin of the
Sabbath show how early seven must have become
a specially sacred number. The explanation there
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 245
given, in the account of creation, is of course
wholly mythological and unscientific ; it assumes
a creation of the world in six days and a resting
of God afterwards, as if he could become weary.
How unhistorical this assumption is I need not
say, in the light of recent scientific discoveries.
The real explanation of the sacredness of seven is
to be found in a growing sense of the occult power
of certain numbers, especially odd ones, as com-
pared with even. The superstitions that gath-
ered in the ancient world around the supposed
lucky character of odd numbers, and the unlucky
character of even ones, form one of the most curi-
ous chapters in history. It was not a mere conceit
of Virgil that led him to say : " God takes delight
in odd numbers." He was voicing a deep-seated
sentiment that had come down from prehistoric
times. Roman life and tradition was full of it.
The calendar was arranged in obedience to it.
"Five wax candles" were scrupulously used at
weddings. The steps leading to temples dedicated
to religion were made of unequal numbers, as if
the entrance itself to sacred places might thus be
consecrated and become a sort of via sacra. The
number three, as among so many peoples, was
regarded as peculiarly mystical and sacred. ^ The
remarkable division of the Etruscan temples into
three parts with three doors was apparently the
result of the same superstitious feeling concerning
three as an odd or lucky and in a peculiar sense
^ See Granger's Worship of the Bomans, p. 150.
246 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
divine number. We are thus prepared to join
three with seven as peculiarly sacred in the eyes
of the earhest races. But other numbers were
also smgled out as notably significant. The Py-
thagorean philosophy, which gives us the earliest
theory of number, singles out 3, 7, and 10 as
perhaps the most occult and sacred of all, — 10,
though an even number, being compounded of the
first four digits (1+2+3+4 = 10). Three and
ten were specially distinguished as the perfect
numbers, — three because it contains " the begin-
ning, the middle, and the end," and ten because
it includes in itself the whole essence of number.
The celebrated " Tetractys," or quaternary num-
ber, which was made up of the addition of the first
four digits, equaling ten, had a mystical mean-
ing and power, as being " the source and root of
the eternal nature," and hence became the usual
form of the Pythagorean oath. It is plain that
the Pythagoreans closely connected numbers, and
especially the numbers three and ten, with their
whole view of nature and of the gods. As we
have already noted, Aristotle was struck with this
view, and, after quoting the Pythagorean dictum
concerning three as " the complete or perfect num-
ber," he traces this perfection to nature^ as if
there was a fundamental threeness in the very na-
ture of things and hence somehow involved in the
divine nature ; and to this fact he ascribes certain
trinitarian features in the rites of the Greek reli-
gion. How much is to be made of this remarkable
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 247
passage one cannot say. Aristotle makes no fur-
ther allusion to the subject; but it certainly con-
tains evidence that somehow the triadal principle
as revealed in nature and in what may be called
the divine mathematics, had taken deep root in the
ideas of men, and makes it easier to understand
how the theory of triads should have had so large
a place in the history of religions. Of course
these Pythagorean and Aristotelian philosophical
theories are comparatively late in the history of
religion. They belong to what may be called the
age of Ethnic scholasticism. The Ethnic trinities
had their origin in the spontaneous mythologizing
intuitions of man's religious nature long before
philosophers had begun to theorize on primitive
beliefs. But Greek philosophy always worked on
the religious materials which lay imbedded in the
earlier traditions, and it cannot be doubted that
the earliest man began quickly to use his imagina-
tion on the arithmetical elements of the divine
order exhibited within and around him. How
large a part this may have played in the develop-
ment of the triads that appear already formed
when the light of history dawns it is impossible
to say. Philosophy had its rise much later. But
the doctrine of numbers in their mystical signifi-
cance was certainly an attractive one to the
Greeks, among whom philosophy originated, as is
illustrated in Pythagoreanism, which had a wide
influence ; and it was out of Greek philosophical
traditions that Plotinus drew his trinitarian theory
248 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
and its scholastic conclusion that God not only
existed in trinity but could exist in no other way,
either in duality or in quaternity, thus reaching
the position that trinity is of the essence of the
divine being and hence an absolute necessity.
Turning now to the history of the Christian
trinity, and asking ourselves how much the triple
idea had to do with its development, the same
obscurity hangs over its origin as was the case
with the Ethnic trinities. Philosophy did not
begin to enter into the question until the Nicene
and post-Nicene age. But when we realize that
the earliest Christian theologians were students
and admirers of Greek philosophy, and especially
revered such thinkers as Pythagoras and Plato
and Aristotle, we cannot err in believing that
they easily sympathized with their theories of
the occult relations of certain numbers such as
three or seven or ten to nature and religion and
God. Pythagoras seems to have been held in
gTcat repute by the Greek Fathers generally. He
is quoted or referred to by Justin Martyr, Clem-
ent of Alexandria, and Origen, as if of high
authority, and Clement, after quoting a passage
from the Pythagoreans, describes their utterance as
" written through the inspiration of God." The
philosophical trinitarianism of Athanasius was
based on the assumption that trinity was as ab-
solutely essential to the mode of existence of the
Divine Being as his omnipotence and omniscience
and other natural attributes. Such an idea did
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 249
not spring from the teacliings of Christ or even
of Paul. Whence did it arise, if not in the
philosophical scholasticism of the Pythagorean-
Platonic-Aristotelianism of which Athanasius drank
so deeply ? It may be suggested that he owed it
quite as much to the Fourth Gospel. This is
indeed possible, but the writer of that gospel
drank quite as deeply of the same spring. This
inclination to regard threeness as an essential
feature of God is seen in Augustine's use of trin-
itarian analogies found in nature, and especially
in the triple division of the faculties of the soul.
As I have already noted, his work on the trinity
is largely employed in tracing such analogies,
and thus trying to prove that the triple character
which seems to pervade God's handiwork must
intimate and reveal a corresponding triplicity in
himself. It was reserved for a much later age
to raise the question already raised by Plotinus,
whether God could exist in any other way than by
a trinity. But it was a question that was logically
bound to arise in the Christian dogma as weU as
in the Ethnic. Plotinus, in his own pantheistic
way, placed the scholastic capstone on the Greek
trinitarianism by his assertion against the Gnostics
that the Divine Hypostases could he no more and
no less than three, and the same curious conclusion
has been reached by our present-day theologians
in their position that God as a self-conscious and
social being must exist in a tri-personal form. Of
the bad psychology involved in what is called the
260 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
" social trinity " I have already spoken. I here
refer to it to illustrate how thoroughly the Ethnic
tendency to find triality in nature and in deity is
continued and finally summed up in the history of
the Christian trinity, with the metaphysical and
transcendental conclusion that trinity is the abso-
lutely necessary form of the divine existence.
But we must look deeper for the most radical
resemblances between the Ethnic trinities and the
Christian, and the further we go, the more remark-
able the resemblances become. Our previous stud-
ies of the Ethnic trinities showed how deeply seated
in the earliest religious ideas of the race were those
of generation and mediation. Both of these ideas
underlie the oldest mythologies and theogonies.
As the generative principle was the foundation of
the human family, it was naturally transferred to
man's conceptions of the origin of the gods. The
mythological trinities are as a rule composed of
male and female divinities, thus laying a basis for
triads consisting of husband, wife, and child, or,
in other words, of father, mother, and son or
daughter. If, as sometimes was the case, the
triad was wholly masculine, each member of the
triad had his female companion, and one member
was, in such a case, usually a son of one of the
pairs. But it was the rule rather than the excep-
tion that a goddess was a member of the triad,
and sometimes even two out of the three were
feminine, as for example, in the Homeric trinity,
Zeus, Here, and Athene, and also in the Koman
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 251
Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. In
the Egyptian triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, Isis
alone is feminine. But whatever be the propor-
tion of the masculine and feminine elements in
the mythological Ethnic trinities, the generative
principle is fundamental to them all. There is
always a god who represents fatherhood, and one
who represents sonship ; and if motherhood is not
directly represented in the triad itself, it is always
in the background, and its presence is implied. It
was often in this way that triads became enlarged
to four deities or doubled or tripled. Sometimes,
for instance, the masculine triad was supplemented
by a feminine triad. Thus the Ethnic trinities
were really supposed to be families, in which the
three essential family constituents were united to-
gether, — father, mother, and son. The influence
of philosophical abstract thought upon the mytho-
logical trinities tended to eliminate the family
conception, or at least to break up its symmetry
and completeness ; yet it is very significant that
Plotinus, who gives us the most abstract trinity
that was ever conceived, foUows Plato in calling
his first principle, " The One," by the name of
Father, and makes generation the power of ema-
nation through which his metaphysical trinity is
evolved. If his to ev, 6 vo9s, -^ ifrvx^ are too pro-
foundly impersonal and pantheistic to form in any
true sense a household, they at least are brought
into metaphysical relationship by the generative
law on which the household rests.
262 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
How, now, does the Christian trinity stand re-
lated to the generative family conception ? We
need not go far for the answer. Fatherhood and
sonship are its vital elements. The whole eco-
nomy of salvation in the Christian religion, as it
was developed in the course of the first three
centuries, was siunmed up in the offices of God,
the Father of mankind, and of his Divine Son,
who came into the world to carry out his Father's
plan of grace. Not only so, but, further, the
generative principle which fatherhood and son-
ship involve, if these names are truly significant,
and not merely symbolic, is made the metaphy-
sical corner-stone of the fully developed Nicene
trinitarianism. In fact, the controversies of the
Nicene age revolved around the question whether
the Son was eternally generated from the Father
or was merely a creature like other created beings.
This was the precise issue between Arius and
Athanasius. The triumph of the Athanasian ho-
moousian doctrine was indeed a conservative vic-
tory in more senses than one ; for it signalized the
retention in Christian trinitarian theology of that
Ethnic idea which had its origin in prehistoric
ages, and seems to have been the germ of all the
Ethnic trinities of which the history of religions
gives account. It is no wonder that in our day
there should have been a strong reaction against
a form of trinitarianism that bears so plainly the
marks of its mythological parentage. The sharp,
terse wit of Emmons, which made his dictum,
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 263
*' Eternal generation is eternal nonsense," so
famous, had its edge and point in the query
whether there could be any generation without
a beginning. But how about the added query
whether generation itseK, as applied to God, is not
a crude materialism. Emmons might well have
given a double edge to his wit. " Eternal genera-
tion " is no more nonsensical as a theological spec-
ulation concerning God than temporal generation ;
and the retention of the generation idea, whether
with or without the adjective " eternal," in theo-
logical language, only shows how fundamental it
is to aU trinitarian forms of thought.
But, looking at the interior relations of the
Christian trinity, two features of it seem at first
sight to differentiate it quite completely from the
Ethnic trinities, namely, the absence of the femU
nine element^ and the doctrine of the procession
of the Holy Spirit, These peculiar features are
the result of the peculiar historical origin of the
Christian dogma. Jesus of Nazareth, around
whom the Christian trinity grew, was himself a
man of Jewish stock and parentage. He had a
human mother as well as father. In fact, while
legend played around the story of his birth and at
length invested him with a divine paternity, no
question was ever raised as to Mary's true mother-
hood ; so that when Christ began to be looked at
as of divine nature, the true Son of God, it was
impossible to complete the trinity with Mary, as
would naturally have been the case. The legend
264 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
of the miraculous conception of Mary, wMch soon
attached itself to that of Jesus, paved the way for
the later deoroKo^ dogma, namely, that she was the
true mother of God ; and this in turn laid the basis
of her own divineness which culminated in the
Mariolatry of the Middle Ages. But the dogma
of Mary was of comparatively slow growth. Mean-
while the vacant place in the trinity was left unfilled.
These historical facts help explain the slowness
and fluctuating character of the evolution of the
third person. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit as
a separate person, and as the third member of the
trinity, was really a sort of makeshift or accident.
From our historical standpoint of the comparative
study of religions, it becomes more easily explicable
why the Holy Spirit of God became separated
from God himself, and was added to the Father
and the Son to form a trinity. It was a sort of
historical necessity that the vacant place should
be filled, and thus a duad became a triad. The
Ethnic trinities were so many signal lights to re-
mind Christian theologians that their own trinity
was yet incomplete. I would not suggest that
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Origen were directly
conscious of such a trinitarian influence from
Ethnic tradition, but the very air around them
was full of trinitarian voices. However this may
have been, a curious light is shed on the substitu-
tion of the Holy Spirit for the natural third per-
son, namely, the divine mother of Jesus, in an
extract which has been preserved, from the Gospel
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 255
of the Hebrews, — an early gospel which after-
wards came to be regarded as heretical, and thus
passed out of use and is largely lost. In this
gospel, in the account of the baptism, the Holy
Ghost is represented as saying to Christ : " Thou
art my first-born son," and further on, in the ac-
count of the temptation, Christ himself is made to
say : " My mother, the Holy Spirit, lately took
me by one of my hairs and carried me to the great
mountain Tabor." Here appears the feminine
element, so fundamental in all the Ethnic trinities,
striving to assert itself on Christian soil. It was
the Ebionitic and heretical character of this Gospel
of the Hebrews that may have prevented the Holy
Spirit from appearing in the Trinity as the divine
mother of Christ. There was indeed one difficulty
which could not easily be surmounted, namely, the
substitution of the Holy Spirit for Mary, the
historical mother of Jesus, who was growing more
and more sacred in Christian tradition. Then
there was a stiU further difficulty. In the early
legendary account of Christ's birth, which was
accepted as historical fact, the Holy Spirit was
made the masculine agent in Christ's conception
(Matt. i. 18, 20 ; Luke i. 35). The Gospel of the
Hebrews must have followed a different legendary
tradition. Under such circumstances it is not
surprising that the feminine element failed of
being represented in the Christian trinity. But
the later history of the cultus and dogma of Mary,
the so-called " Virgin-mother," gives added evi-
256 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
dence that the loss of the feminine element has
always been felt in the Christian consciousness.
The popularity of the cultus of Mary, and the rapid
growth of the dogma of her bodily assumption and
enthronement in heaven at Christ's right hand —
where she becomes the chief intercessor for man,
thus taking the place of Christ, her Son, who has
now largely taken the place of the Father as Lord
and Judge — vividly indicate how strongly the
feminine element, as representative of grace and
mercy in God, has always appealed to the human
heart. There is no more realistic and pathetic
chapter in Christian history than that which re-
cords the gradual divinization of Mary the mother
of Jesus. In the second century she was the " Vir-
gin-mother." In the fourth and fifth centuries she
became the ^cotkoos, or mother of God. Already
she has been transformed into a semi-divine being.
Then legend followed legend to prepare her for
her new sphere and office in the heavenly world.
Her miraculous birth had already taken its place
in the post-apostolic apocryphal traditions. Her
miraculous bodily assumption from the grave to
heaven was only a logical afterpiece. Then fol-
lowed her coronation by the Father or the Son and
her installation as " Queen of heaven." The
Christian art of the Middle Ages, employed to
decorate the great churches and stimulate the
faith of the people that thronged them on festival
days, is fuU of paintings illustrative of this won-
derful historical evolution. Only one step fur-
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 257
ther remained. That was, to invest her with
the trinitarian title which her functions already
involved.
It is noticeable in all this process of the deifica-
tion of Mary, that the dogma of the Holy Spirit is
losing recognition. It remains, indeed, in the creeds,
but it has gone out of the practical faith of men,
— as is witnessed by the innumerable pictures in
the churches, which represented the popular beliefs
and especially the religious conceptions and rites
that fed their spiritual Hf e. The Holy Spirit is
not whoUy absent from these paintings, but every-
where the cultus of Mary, " Our Holy Mother,"
and " Queen of heaven," is made the centre of at-
traction and worship, rivaling and more and
more uniting itself with that of Christ, her Son.
Nothing is more irresistible than the logic of a
historical evolution. A religious intuition of the
heart is surely destined sooner or later to become
a dogma of intellectual belief. A cultus at last
becomes a creed. It is understood on Catholic
authority that " a congress was called in the city
of Rome, some time since, for the purpose of pla-
cing the worship of the ' Holy Mother ' in a more
distinct and authoritative position among the arti-
cles of belief and practice." What the result of this
movement was has not transpired. But it was not
the first effort in this direction. More than thirty
years ago Albert Reville, the present rector of the
University of Paris, declared, in a small but nota-
ble book, " Histoire du dogme de la Divinite de
258 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Jesus Christ : '* " More than one serious attempt
has already been made in the Ultramontane camp
to join in some way Mary to the Trinity, and, if
Mariolatry continues longer, it will come to pass.'*
In the light of such facts, a remark of Renan, in
one of his essays, having in mind the tendencies of
modern Catholic Christianity, has a new signifi-
cance : " Mary has entered of full right into the
Trinity ; she far excels the Holy Spirit. She com-
pletes the divine family, for it would have been
a marvelous thing had the womanly element in
Christianity failed to succeed in mounting to the
very bosom of God." Such pictures as " The In-
coronata," where Mary, placed between the Father
and the Son, receives the crown from the former
and the homage of the latter, or where Christ,
seated at Mary's side, puts the crown on her head,
or as " The Last Judgment," in which Christ and
Mary sit side by side in separate glories, as if
sharing together the offices of judgment and mercy,
— such pictures may seem to us Protestants super-
stitious and even blasphemous, but it must not be
forgotten that they testify truly to the religious
faith of the whole Christian church down to the
sixteenth century, and they declare more vividly
than words can how deeply fixed in the human
soul is the sentiment of its need of the divine
mercy, and how intimately related is the Christian
trinity in its radical affirmations to its Ethnic
elders. Nor let us Protestants be too critically in-
clined towards what may seem to us superstitious
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 259
features of Catholic faith. Are our skirts quite clear
of similar superstitions ? Is not the cult of Mary
herself growing among us ? Is she not the Virgin-
mother somehow set apart from all other woman-
kind ? Not long ago I heard a Protestant minister
of New England ancestry and faith, and who
abides in regular standing in the Congregational
brotherhood, refer, in no ironical fashion, but with
the utmost seriousness, to " the divine madonnaJ*^
Let who will cast a stone at this distinguished
Congregational preacher. For myself, I am not
a Catholic, nor am I catholically inclined, but my
historical studies have only deepened my feeling
of charity and even sympathy for every sincere
religious belief, though it may have its source in
unhistorical and superstitious traditions; for I
have learned how tenacious is the grasp of a sin-
cere though ignorant faith on the objects of its
trust, and how affiliated are all such objects, when
search is made for their historical roots, in the
common religious nature of man.
The absence, then, originally, of the feminine
element in the Christian dogma of the trinity does
not indicate any radical difference in its internal
character, when compared with that of the Ethnic
trinities. Fortuitous historical circumstances pre-
vented its admission for a while, but the generative
principle, which was as fundamental to the Chris-
tian dogma as to the Ethnic, really required it,
and the development of the cultus of Mary was
the natural result. In the Catholic church, which
260 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
historically represents the Nicene and post-Nicene
Christianity, the dogma and rites of Mary have
become a vital part of its system. The Protestant
revolt was directed rather against rites than dog-
mas. Hence it was that Mary was thrown down
from her lofty pedestal. But the old dogmas and
creeds logically include the doctrine and cultus of
Mary which grew spontaneously in the Middle
Ages. If those creeds are true, and Mary was the
real mother of the God-man, then the special honor
and cultus of Mary is defensible. Hence it is that
conservative Protestantism to-day, in its reactionary
tendencies, is taking more and more kindly to a
sort of haK-and-half Mariology. Surely, if Jesus
is indeed God himself, and Mary was his virgin-
mother, why should she not be honored as such,
and be even entitled to a seat at her divine Son's
right hand in glory ? The logic of history rarely
fails. There is in it a divine method and provi-
dence. It is my profound conviction that the pre-
diction of Reville concerning the tendencies in the
Catholic church towards the inclusion of Mary
in the Christian trinity will ultimately be verified,
and my conclusion, as a historical observer, is
equally clear that those Protestants who are de-
voted to the old Catholic dogmas must finally
reach — though the steps taken towards it may be
uncertain and slow — the same goal.
Turning now to the other point raised, namely,
the Christian dogma of the procession of the Holy
Spirit, it is to be noted that it does not appear in
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 261
the creeds until the fourth century. The Nicene
Creed of 325 simply alludes to the Holy Spirit,
without constructing any dogma about it. This
shows that no theological discussion had yet arisen
on this point. Whether the Holy Spirit was a
person or only an influence was not quite clear.
As late as the latter part of the fourth century
Gregory Nazianzen regarded the question as unset-
tled and not essential to orthodoxy. What, then,
was the common view of the Holy Spirit's relation
to God ? Plainly it was one of derivation or ema-
nation, analogous to that of the second person, or
Son. But why was it that the theory of genera-
tion is not applied also to the Holy Spirit as well
as to the Son? The answer seems clear. Its
clue is given in the Fourth Gospel. Here is found
for the first time the theory of the Paraclete
(Comforter), and of his procession from the Fa^
ther. The proem of that gospel had set forth,
after the manner of Philo, the theory of the Logos
of God, the only begotten Son of the Father, and
had identified this preexistent Logos with Jesus of
Nazareth. Generation and procession are simply
two forms of derivation from God. No doubt the
phrase in John xv. was rhetorical rather than
theological; but though it slumbered for nearly
two centuries, it was at last caught up when con-
troversy began to arise as to the precise relation
of the Holy Spirit to God. It is remarkable that
when the doctrine of the third person is first set
forth theologically, in the creeds of the middle of
262 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the fourth century, express allusion is made to the
language of John xv. and to the term " Paraclete "
(Comforter). Athanasius, who became the great-
est defender of the homoousian character not only
of the second person but also of the third, rested
his defense primarily on the Fourth Gospel. There
can be no historical doubt, therefore, that the
Fourth Gospel is responsible for that peculiar the-
ory of the third person which became incorporated
in the so-called Constantinopolitan amendment of
the Nicene Creed, and has ever since been retained
as a fixed shibboleth of orthodoxy. I will not here
stop to consider the light shed by this bit of his-
tory on the question of the authorship and date of
the Fourth Gospel. What is plain, at all events,
is that the author of that gospel derived his trini-
tarian ideas concerning the eternal generation of
the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit from
Alexandrian Philonic sources, and that their ac-
ceptance by Christian theologians in the third and
fourth centuries was due to the fact that the
authorship of the Fourth Gospel was attributed to
John, the Galilean apostle. The question here
arises whether the language placed on the lips of
Christ concerning the Paraclete and his procession
from the Father was ever really spoken by him.
Certainly it is remarkable that no such language
can be found in the Synoptic gospels. The very
word " Paraclete," or Comforter, is clearly of Greek
origin, and is traceable to the same Philo who gave
the Greek term " Logos " to Christian theology. In
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 263
fact, the two words belong to the vocabulary of a
common Greek philosophy. Christ taught no
such Logos or Paraclete doctrine, unless we accept
the apostolicity of the Fourth Gospel. There are
stiU those who are ready to defend such apostoli-
city and to hold that Christ spoke the very words
of the long discourses and prayer in chapters
xiv.-xvii. But the weight of critical authority
more and more settles itself on a substantial agree-
ment with the conclusions of Professor B. W.
Bacon, in his recently published volume : " An
Introduction to the New Testament." Professor
Bacon holds that the Fourth Gospel is a post-apos-
tolic writing by an unknown author who gathered
the materials from composite sources, employing
" trustworthy data and genuine logia,'" but " ex-
panding them into dialectic discourses," "in a
manner wholly incompatible with the clear histor-
ical recollection of an eyewitness." Professor
Bacon further adds : " With all due allowance it
is impossible to regard the set discourses of John,
as a whole, as other than literary compositions by
the author (unknown) of the Johannine Epistles."
I am in substantial accord with these conclusions ;
though I must add that I regard them as quite
conservative, and it is my decided feeling that his-
torical criticism in its progress will grow more and
more hesitant about allowing even so much. I
think Professor Bacon has yielded quite as much
to the genuineness of original logia in the set dis-
courses as the evidence warrants. He weU says :
264 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
" Few will deny that in this gospel the prerogative
of the ancient historian to place in the mouth of his
characters discourses reflecting his own idea of what
were suitable to the occasion has been used to the
limit." 1 The bearing of this critical conclusion on
the point before us is clear. If the language of
John XV. 25 cannot be regarded as that of Christ
himself, but only an intei"pretation of what a writer
of the second century supposed to be the spirit of
his teaching, and in accord with the literary habit
of his day put into his mouth, it is impossible to
quote them as a truly gospel foundation for the
article of the creed on the third person. Here,
also, it is important to remember that the Fourth
Gospel makes no figure in early history till after
the middle of the second century, and that the
doctrine of the Paraclete does not appear till near
the end of that century, — a strange thing cer-
tainly, if the Fourth Gospel was apostolic and in
the hands of the apostolic Christians. What the
form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed, as
regards the third person, would have been, had the
Fourth Gospel not been written, cannot of course
be determined. Without it, certainly, there would
have been no doctrine of the Paraclete as a distinct
person. Philo, indeed, used the term, but applied
it to the Logos, as he did the term mediator.
To the last discourses of the Fourth Gospel must
1 For my own historical judgment on the general question, see
Appendix A, on "The Johannine Problem," in A Critical His-
tory of the Evolution of Trinitarianism.
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 265
we look, and to them alone, for the historical ori-
gin of the dogma of the procession of the Holy
Spirit.
We are now in a position to be able to deter-
mine quite clearly what the real meaning of
" procession " was, when adopted into the creed.
Philo and the author of the Fourth Gospel were
Alexandrian Platonists, but representing the ten-
dency which was now growing towards the New
Platonic monism. The key word, as we have
seen, of that philosophy was evolution, or deriva-
tion. AU things proceeded, in one way or other,
from the one God, whether by generation or some
other form of evolution. " The Paraclete who
proceedeth from the Father " is genuine Greek
Platonic language, and can bear but one interpre-
tation. Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa, who
had more influence than any others in the final
formation of the completed creed, were thoroughly
versed in the Platonic philosophy. The difference
to them between the mode of derivation of the
second person and the third was simply one of
form, not of substance. Generation and proces-
sion were essentially the same, and the persons
thus derived, though seemingly in different ways,
were equally homoousio% and in the same sense
divine. Thus the apparent difference between the
Ethnic trinities and the Christian trinity in the
matter of the form of derivation of the third
person fades into a purely superficial distinction ;
and, in this case, as in the case of the absence of
266 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the feminine element, circumstances entirely for-
tuitous seem to have prevented the Christian
trinitarianism from being based on the generation
family principle throughout.
But it is the mediation element, after all, that
binds the Ethnic trinities and the Christian trinity
in closest and most intimate relationship. This
fact is so patent that I need not dwell upon it at
any length. The whole Christian trinity and aU
the doctrines that hang upon it, have as their
very centre and crown the divine mediatorship
of Christ, the Son of God, who was sent by his
Father on the mission of healing the alienation
wrought by sin, and reuniting God and his human
creatures in one moral kingdom. The whole
scheme of salvation circles around the word
/Aco-tTiys, introduced into the Christian theology by
Paul, and the kindred word A.oyos, derived from
Philo and Greek philosophy. Add the word
irapaKXrjTo? (Paraclete), and in these three Greek
words, all directly Philonic, and more indirectly Pla-
tonic, we have the keynote not only to Christian
trinitarianism, but also to Christian theology in its
whole range. I scarcely need add that mediatorship
is equally the keynote of the Ethnic trinities. In
fact, it was plainly the strongest bond of the Ethnic
trinitarianism, working more efficiently than all
others to preserve its substance and form, exposed
as it was constantly to the disintegrating effects of
polytheism on the one hand and pantheism on the
other. The great question of religion and religious
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 267
faith has always been from the beginning of time,
how man shall be able to enter into such relations
of amity and communion with God as shall insure
his help and favor. To establish such a basis of
religious trust has been the end of every religion
that history gives any account of. And, as we
have seen, more and more prominent in the his-
tories of the Ethnic religions has grown the medi-
ative principle. The terms "Father" and " Son,"
"Mediator," "Messenger," "Friend of Man,"
" Savior," are by no means peculiar to Chris-
tianity. They are found scattered over the sacred
books of the East, and later in the West, in
Greek mythologies and philosophies, until at last,
in the complete New Platonism of Plotinus and
Proclus, they reach their height of moral and
religious significance, and remind us that we have
entered somehow into a truly Christian atmos-
phere and faith. When we read of Sosiosh, the
" benevolent " one and " savior," and of Mithra,
the "mediator," in Zoroastrianism, of Krishna,
the incarnate god-man, in Hindooism, of ^scula-
pius, the " a-oiT-qp " or " savior " in Greek religious
rites, we are indeed made to feel that we are " not
far from the kingdom of God." The more closely
the Ethnic religions are studied, the more deeply
one realizes that the very foundations of the Eth-
nic trinities were laid in the need felt by the hu-
man heart of some favorable and friendly medium
between weak man and those heavenly powers that
rule earth and sea and sky and the nether world
268 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
below. Whichever member of a trinity, whether
Father or Son or Mother, becomes in human ap-
prehension the mediating friend of man, at once
he or she is made the most prominent and popular
object of worship and sacrificial rites. The very-
development of some of the Ethnic trinities seems
to have come about along this mediating line.
The need of a go-between to mediate with the
highest and most distant deity led to the evolution
of a second person who as a son of that high-
est deity could be the bearer to him of human
prayers and sacrifices and offerings. It was the
need still felt of another go-between to fill the
chasm not wholly closed between the Son and
man, that sometimes led to another addition, thus
making a trinity complete. The function of " in-
tercessor" was strongly marked in some of the
Oriental cults. The investigation of the analo-
gies furnished by several of these religions has
been a fascinating subject of late with Oriental
scholars. A competent foreign critic, reviewing
one of these attempts to find historical analogies
between one of the Babylonian triads with its
" intercessor," and one of the Zoroastrian trinities
with its " mediator," while refusing to accept the
evidence as full proof of any actual borrowing,
concludes : " Man, terrified at finding himself
before the power of the divine majesty, places
intermediaries between his God and himself, who,
being divinized in their turn, demand still other
intermediaries " (" Kevue de I'histoire des reli-
INTERNAL RELATIONS — RESEMBLANCES 269
gions," 1898, i. 240). A prolonged study of the
Christian and Ethnic religions has convinced me
that this critic's words bring us to the fountain
head, not only of all the trinities that have ever
been evolved, but also of all the various religions
that have been developed around them. Other
causes contributed their share of influence, but
more influential than all has been this most radi-
cal of human religious instincts, with its inex-
tinguishable fears and hopes.
CHAPTER III
INTERNAL RELATIONS — DIFFERENCES
In our consideration of the internal resem-
blances that are visible in a comparison of the
Ethnic and Christian trinities, we had occasion to
note several differences that seemed at first sight
to be of a radical character, but on closer exami-
nation resolved themselves into superficial features
that only served to make the resemblances more
striking. Such were the absence of the feminine
element, and the derivation by procession rather
than generation of the Holy Spirit. We have
now to notice other differences which do not so
easily yield to critical examination. Attention
has already been called to the historical origin of
the Christian trinity as an outgrowth of faith in
Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. The
raising of Christ from the position of a man to that
of a divine being is the historical starting-point of
the Christian trinity. Here is a point of radical
difference between the Christian trinity and aU
the Ethnic trinities. No Ethnic trinity centre^
in or starts from a man. If Zoroaster was a his-
torical personage, he never became a member of
a trinity, though in later legend he was invested
INTERNAL RELATIONS — DIFFERENCES 271
with semi-divine functions. Gautama was also
raised in later Buddhistic tradition to the place of
a god, as an incarnation of Buddha ; but no trinity
of di\dne persons grew up around him. Moham-
medanism is a Semitic religion closely akin to
Judaism, but though Mohammed proclaimed him-
self a reformer and prophet like Moses and Christ,
he never was raised by his followers to a divine
rank. All the mythological trinities had their
origin in the religious imagination of the early
man. So the philosophical trinities, such as the
Hindoo and the New Platonic, were the offspring
of the speculative reason. Plotinus became in-
deed a sort of divine man in the eyes of his admir-
ing disciples, but he was himself the sole author
of the Plotinian trinity, and it never occurred to
the most speculative of his followers to introduce
the name of their master into a trinity of such
transcendental abstractions as " The One, the In-
telligence, and the Soul." It is true that the early
Christian Fathers grazed on Ethnic soil in laying
the philosophic foimdations of the Christian trin-
itarian dogma, but it remains no less true that
without Jesus Christ there would have been no
Christian trinity, and that he has remained its
true theological centre throughout aU its history.
It has even been made the great apologetical argu-
ment for the truth of the Christian trinity that it
had a true historical origin, while aU Ethnic trin-
ities are claimed to be unhistorical creations of
fancy or philosophy. I have already shown how
272 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
wanting in historical verity this position is. The
evolution of the Ethnic trinities is as much a mat-
ter of history as is that of the Christian dogma.
There is, indeed, one element of truth in the
Christian apology. Jesus Christ was a historical
person, and he not only became the historical
founder of a new religion, but he also was raised
after his death, in the faith of his disciples, to a
divine rank, and to membership in a trinity of
divine beings. But these historical facts concern-
ing the evolution of a trinity out of the Jewish
monotheism do not make the Christian trinity it-
self, as a religious dogma, a historical eternal
truth, any more than the corresponding facts con-
cerning the evolution of the Ethnic trinities prove
them to be valid statements concerning the nature
of God. A fatal fallacy is involved in this apolo-
getical argument. It assumes as historical fact
what should first be proved, namely, that Jesus of
Nazareth was really born of a virgin by an imme-
diate act of divine power, making unnecessary the
cooperation of Christ's putative father, and fur-
ther, that this miraculous birth contained within
itseK a real divine incarnation of God. But such
proof has never been furnished, and in the nature
of things cannot be. Were it capable of being
given, it would involve the utter and fatal sub-
version of God's own universal and eternal laws,
and of those ultimate principles on which human
science and history rest. But, fortunately, no
such conflict between science and faith can arise.
INTERNAL RELATIONS — DIFFERENCE^»§4ialS2Si^^
The only direct human witness would be Mary
the mother of Jesus herself, and she never ap-
peared in evidence. Further, historical criticism
has made clear the legendary character of the tra-
ditions that slowly gathered around the birth and
infancy of Jesus. While, then, it is true that
Christ as a man is the historical starting-point of
the Christian trinity, it is not true that the dogma
itself any more rests upon historical grounds, as
an article of religious faith, than the Ethnic trini-
ties. All trinitarian doctrines are divisible into
two classes, the mythological and the philosophi-
cal. The Christian trinity belongs to the latter
class. Such a doctrine of God cannot be con-
founded with any historical human being, such as
Jesus of Nazareth. Christ himseK was a mono-
theist, not a trinitarian. Paul, Justin Martyr,
and Origen, who may be styled the three chief
originators of Christian trinitarianism, drew their
theological ideas from Greek philosophy. The real
difference, therefore, between the Ethnic trinities
and the Christian on this point dwindles to the
single fact that the Christian religion slowly de-
veloped out of its original monotheism a trinita-
rian dogma borrowed from Greek philosophy, and
installed its founder in it as "very God of very
God ; " what no Ethnic religion ever did.
Another difference that arrests attention in this
comparative study is that the Christian trinity,
after reaching its full development, remains sub-
stantially fixed in its trinitarian form, adhering to
274 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
the three persons of whom it was originally com-
posed, and also to the methods of derivation by
which these were related to each other ; while the
Ethnic trinities exhibit a much more facile and
fluxive character, — easily exchanging one trinity
for another, doubling or triphng them, or still
further pluralizing them, as in the case of the
Egyptian. Yet it is not to be forgotten that the
Christian dogma passed through a considerable
period of flux and change, until it became stereo-
typed at length by the formation of creeds, which
were henceforth made authoritative and unchange-
able as canons of orthodoxy. The Ethnic trinities,
on the other hand, had a freer development, and
were never fixed in creeds. The dogmatic spirit
which so characterized the Nicene age is thus
largely responsible for the arrest of freedom and
fluidity in Christian trinitarian speculation. To
become heretical on the single question of the
form of the trinity as set forth in the Nicene
Creed exposed any theological leader to excom-
munication and even exile and death. This ex-
ternal cause, rather than anything radical in the
nature of the Christian trinity, explains the ap-
parent inflexibility of the Christian dogma as
compared with the Ethnic trinities. It is one of
the most significant facts of history, — showing
how deep-seated and influential is the religious
sentiment in man's nature, — that no human pas-
sion is so quickly aroused to the point of bitter
and relentless persecution as the passion of reli-
INTERNAL RELATIONS — DIFFERENCES 275
gion when it becomes wedded to some particular
form of dogmatic belief. The annals of the
Ethnic religions cannot be said to be wholly free
from these perversions of the religious nature.
But this can be said, that when Ethnic history is
compared with the Christian on this point, the
balance is overwhelmingly in favor of the Ethnic
religions. Let it be remembered here that Mo-
hammedanism does not count among them. It is
half-brother to Christianity, having a common de-
scent from Judaism. Indeed, the more one studies
Ethnic history, the more one is surprised and im-
pressed by the intellectual and religious liberty
that was universally enjoyed, except on rare occa-
sions of special excitement. I have already ad-
verted to the remarkable spri'it of toleration shown
in the Buddhist faith throughout its long history,
reminding one of the teachings of Christ and his
gospel. Alas ! that Christianity afterwards should
so far have deteriorated from that gospel of the
founder, and should have made so poor a show
when compared with its great Eastern rival. It
is still further to be noted that the Ethnic trini-
ties, as well as the Christian, gradually became
crystallized into fixed trinitarian forms, which
have remained with little change for ages. This
was especially true of the philosophical Ethnic
trinities, with which the Chi*istian trinity may
more properly be compared. The Hindoo and
Plotinian trinities in their full pantheistic form
became as fixed as the Christian trinity, and
276 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
even more so, for the Western nations that were
converted to Christianity have been much more
progressive than the Orientals, and the great
movements that have agitated Latin Christendom
have given to Christian theology a fluxive charac-
ter that has made the law of evolution active in
all its history, even down to the present day.
There is stiU another point of comparison
where a noticeable difference is discernible between
the Ethnic and Christian trinitarianism. The
Ethnic trinities have as a rule been connected
with polytheistic or pantheistic religious ideas,
or a mixture of both. The Vedic trinities had a
polytheistic background. The later Hindoo tri-
murti was compounded of a strange mixture of
pantheism and polytheism. The Christian trinity,
on the other hand, starting from monotheism, was
considerably free from such tendencies in either
direction. There is no doubt that the original
Jewish monotheistic element was the means of pre-
serving Christianity for some centuries from the
polytheistic and pantheistic influences that were in
the air around it. But the Christian doctrine of
angels and devils, which came directly from Juda-
ism, contained a polytheistic leaven that in the
course of time leavened the whole lump. These
beings, good and evil, were of superhuman or semi-
divine nature, and were the usual messengers from
the upper world to the earth, sent on errands of
mercy or judgment. There is no doubt that the
Jews of the Captivity received their ideas con-
INTERNAL RELATIONS — DIFFERENCES 277
cerning spirits dwelling in the upper air from
their Zoroastrian Persian masters. Such in gen-
eral, indeed, were the lower gods of the Ethnic
polytheism. The Greek pantheon of Olympus
was filled with such beings, — gods and goddesses,
— who were all obedient to Zeus, the " Father of
gods and men." The Greek doctrine of demons,
or gods of a stiU lower and lesser sort, was of later
origin, but had already come into New Platonic
speculation in the time of Plutarch. Plato, in the
Timaeus, made one God the creator and father of
this world, employing as his instruments lower
gods, whom he first created and then bade fulfill
his decrees concerning the further creation of the
world and men. This view comes very near to
the Christian doctrine of angels. It can be seen,
then, that there was not so great a difference,
after all, between Ethnic and Christian ideas
as to the divine or semi-divine beings who in-
habited the celestial regions. It was mostly a
matter of names. The Ethnic polytheism that
lay behind the Ethnic trinities was not essentially
different from the Jewish and Christian doctrine
of angels and devils who were all under God's
rule and willingly or unwillingly did his bidding.
We know how prominent became this feature of
Christian theology in the fourth and fifth centu-
ries, when bad as well as good spirits from the
upper world were believed to range freely over
the earth and enter into close relations with hu-
man kind, with power to injure or to bless. In
278 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
fact, the monotheism of Christ and early Chris-
tianity had abeady largely given place to a thor-
oughly polytheistic conception of the relations of
the upper world to this world. Satan practically
divided this lower sphere with God ; and the mes-
sengers and servants of both beings were busy in
the discharge of their various functions. Wherein
such views differed from the so-called polytheism
of the Ethnic religions it is not easy to say.
Here, also, is the explanation of the rapid growth
of saint and image worship, as well as that of the
Virgin Mary. The line between the divine,
superhuman, and human became so dim and in-
distinct that it was easily crossed, and men and
women, if reputed to be peculiarly holy, came to
be treated as if transfigured into superhuman or
even divine beings. The truth is that during the
Middle Ages the Christian church was practically
polytheistic, — a fact that was fitly illustrated when
a bishop of Rome in the seventh century dedicated
to " Mary and all the saints " the Pantheon, a
pagan temple, which, as its name shows, had been
dedicated to all the gods of polytheism.
I am sure that my readers are by this time pre-
pared to hear me confess the surprise which I
have experienced in the progress of these com-
parative studies. It was my fuU expectation at
the outset to find differences between the Ethnic
trinities and the Christian trinity quite as radical
as the resemblances ; but this survey has revealed
the fact that the resemblances are fundamental,
INTERNAL RELATIONS— DIFFERENCES 279
while the differences are superficial, and on closer
scrutiny are seen to rest on external and fortui-
tous rather than internal grounds. The historical
conclusion to which one is forced to come is cer-
tainly plain, namely, that all the varied forms of
monotheistic, trinitarian, polytheistic, or panthe-
istic religion in the world have one common root
in man's religious nature, and that all the differ-
ences which have been developed in the movements
of history apparently so radical and complete are
traceable to differences of environment, modifica-
tions of human feeling and thought brought about
by natural peculiarities of ra<?e, isolation of tribes
and even families from each other in early bar-
barous times, and more especially by the different
degrees of civilization and culture to which the
various peoples of the world have attained. As
Christians we do the highest honor to Jesus of
Nazareth when we let history, which is one of
God's methods of providential revelation, teU the
whole truth about him. It was in a degree par-
donable to men, " in the times of ignorance," to
hold a blind faith and even to faU into gross
superstitions. Like age, like people, like reli-
gion. What could be expected in the almost total
eclipse of intellectual Hfe in the so-called Dark
Ages (seculum obscurum) of mediaeval Christen-
dom but a religion of credulity and fear and
cruelty, — a religion which I venture to character-
ize as forming the most terrible religious chapter
in all history, and only to be compared with the
280 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Shamanism of savage tribes. The excuse for the
execrable deeds of that unhappy time was the
profound ignorance of the people. But we live in
a different world. Slowly but surely the day has
dawned, and the shadows of error and delusion
have disappeared. Science and history have
opened the once closed book of God's ways in
nature, in providence, and in human life. Man
has found his rightful place in God's universe.
Truth revealed gradually and "in divers ways,"
according to human capacity to receive it, is be-
ginning to show its real eternal nature behind all
the more or less obscure and distorted forms of
religious faith ; and as God's law of evolution de-
velops man's intellectual and moral powers more
and more fuUy, so his eternal truth will corre-
spondingly brighten until it shall become the Sun
of the whole moral world and its " true light "
forever.
Surely the excuse of the " times of ignorance "
cannot be ours. With increased light and know-
ledge comes increased responsibility. The long
historical past over which our survey has extended
brings in its train a solemn message. It is for
Christians of to-day to read it aright.
CHAPTER IV
THE PEOVIDENTIAL MISSION OF CECRISTIANITY
AS A WORLD-BELIGION
The comparative survey now concluded of the
chief religions and faiths of the world, especially
as to the nature of the Divine Being and his re-
lations with mankind, has brought us to a point
of view where a wide and comprehensive outlook
is possible of the present providential mission of
Christianity as a coming world-religion. It may
be asked at the outset whether such unity of
religious beliefs and sentiments and principles of
conduct is possible or even desirable. But why
not ? All things in this age of ours are tending
towards unity in all directions as never before.
The central forces of society are moving from iso-
lation and provincialism towards cosmopolitan
forms of life. The cosmos of science under the
law of natural evolution finds itself repeated in
a cosmos of moral order and unity. The unity of
nature and material law involves the essential
unity of man and of the moral kingdom. Christ
built his gospel on this very truth, and its ideal
was that " all may be one." As the real principle
of the gospel is becoming understood and prac-
282 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ticed, the unification of society in all its various
forms goes on apace. It is beginning to move
even in politics as weU as in commerce and in dif-
ferent departments of international relationship.
Already the dream of a far-off millennium when
the nations shall learn war no more seems real-
izable, as one notes how widely the principle of
unity of race and of a common human brother-
hood is triumphing over the barbarous ideas of
racial separation and antagonism and hatred.
Why now in aU this movement should not religion
take the lead ? All men are essentially one in
religious nature and in moral instincts, hopes,
fears, and aspirations. The foundations of the
religious life are laid deep in the common religious
instincts and yearnings of humanity. Science,
history, and philosophy unite in affirming the unity
of the Supreme Power that moves and guides the
universe. If the moral consciousness distinguishes
a moral kingdom with its own moral laws from
the natural cosmos with its physical laws, it also
seeks behind both realms of being a single first
cause, —
" One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves ; "
and if this be true, why should not a common re-
ligious faith and bond, making all human souls
" of one heart and of one mind," become an ac-
complished fact, and not be allowed to remain a
millennial ideal ? Such a consummation is not a
CHRISTIAKITY AS A WORLD-RELIGION 283
mere vision of the religious fancy, but a clear
affirmation of the Christian consciousness that
grows more pronounced and emphatic under these
last revelations of God's providence, which is de-
claring more plainly than ever before the " good
news " of a coming world-wide era of justice and
peace and unity.
I am not here thinking of traditional concep-
tions of external unity which have had rule so
long, but which historical criticism has swept
away with so much other rubbish. External
church organizations indeed have their uses ; but
when outward unity is made a fundamental princi-
ple of the Kingdom, it becomes subversive of the
very unity it seeks to reach and preserve. Every
form of externality is limiting and divisive in its
very nature. The radical trouble with Christendom
to-day, and equally with all the religions and re-
ligious organizations of the world, is that each
church or established religious cult claims to be
the true kingdom of God on earth, with the im-
plication that all other churches so called lack,
more or less completely, the notes or marks of that
kingdom. The same is true of all credal tests.
They are barriers to unity. History shows only
too clearly that they have always been the great
promoters of strife and discord. As we look back
over the long history of trinitarian ideas, as
sunmied up in the Ethnic and Christian trinities,
what is the impressive lesson taught, if not this,
that no true religious unity can ever come out of
284 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
religious dogmas and the assertion of them as
essentials of religious harmony? What is the
ground of hope to the historical observer to-day,
as he surveys the religious field, if not just this,
that our new age with its new scientific and
historical light is breaking down the barriers
which the long reign of dogmatic faith has reared
and strengthened into fortresses of defensive war-
fare, and is thus opening the way for the spread
everywhere of true spiritual freedom and charity
and love and peace and unity ? Yes, history, ma-
ligned as it has been, is already proving itself to
be, as its principles and methods are allowed to
work more consistently and thoroughly, the provi-
dential herald of God's one kingdom of hberty and
love to our whole human race.
But, if such a religious unity is possible and to
be sought, the question at once arises, which one
of the great historical religions that have hitherto
shared with each other the moral dominion of the
world is best fitted for this unifying task. Nor
is the question as easy to answer as at first sight
appears. Christianity is one of the younger reli-
gions of the earth. In numbers it is surpassed by
other religions. It is not the only religion that
has the missionary proselyting spirit so essen-
tial to any religious propaganda. Over against
it there rise still, as during all the centuries since
Christ first proclaimed his new gospel, religions
that are hoary with the hallowed traditions of age,
and have become intrenched in the faith and
CHRISTIANITY AS A WORLD-RELIGION 285
affections of millions of devotees, with a long suc-
cession of prophets and sages, and sacred writings
that are as venerable and dear to them as our Old
and New Testaments are to us. And it is impor-
tant here to note that all the efforts of Christen-
dom for these nineteen centuries, by sword or by
gospel, to overthrow these intrenchments, have
been utterly vain. I do not forget some special
Christian missionary movements which for the
time seemed f uU of hope ; but the new seed never
sank into the soil of pagan life, — whether because
the ground was not good or the seed not rightly
sown, we will not decide. Still less would I speak
depreciatingly of the last missionary crusade that
has given our own age so conspicuous a place in
Christian annals. No doubt much good has been
done. Foundations have been laid. The Scrip-
tures have been translated into many non-Christian
languages. This is certainly a good and great
work. But have the dense masses of the Hindoos,
the Chinese, the Buddhists, the Mohammedans,
been at all thoroughly reached and moved ? Have
the religious systems whose devotees far outnumber
Christian believers yet been assailed in their cen-
tres of influence and overthrown ? Certainly not.
Is it not time, then, to ask how such ramparts of
dogmatic and traditional defense can be broken
down ? History, in its marvelous evolution, and
history alone, gives the answer. How clearly is
divine providence working to-day to solve the pro-
blem that has seemed so difficult ! Never before
286 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
could it be said, as it can be to-day, that Christian-
ity has the promise of the future. The great
political powers of the world are Christian. The
world's commerce, science, culture, hterature, are
in Christian hands. What, then, we are ready to
ask, is the vital principle in the Christian religion
that has given it this position of intellectual and
moral power and armed it for the work of the
world's evangelization? History again is our
guide. It tells us in language not to be mistaken,
that, not by ecclesiasticism or creeds or dogmatic
barriers and defenses, has Christianity grown to
its present stature, but by that leaven of Christ's
original gospel which has continued to work in
saintly lives, even in darkest periods of supersti-
tion, until, like an underground river, in these post-
Reformation times it has regained the surface of
Christian society and is renewing its life and
strength in the fresh divine revelations of our age.
What the essential quality of that gospel leaven
is we have already seen. Christ's kingdom was
of the spirit. Its ruling force was love. " By this
shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye
have love one to another ^^ (John xiii. 35). How
hollow and sad does past Christian history appear
when the real meaning of these words forces itself
on our minds ! What a false religion had Chris-
tianity become when, under the banner of Christ's
cross, it came to be a source of division and strife
and bitterness ! And all because it had missed
the true meaning of Christ's gospel, and made its
CHRISTIANITY AS A WORLD-RELIGION 287
essence to consist in constrained unity of church
authority and creed, instead of the freedom of
brotherly love. " If any man wiUeth to do his
will, he shall know of the teaching whether it be
of God." " Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free." ^ These words Christ
himseK explained when he gave his "new com-
mandment." Here, then, is the true trinity of the
Christian gospel : Love^ truths freedom ; for love
leads to truth, and truth leads to freedom. What
now follows ? This : that such dogmas as those
of the trinity or the metaphysical deity of Christ
and kindred ones are not of the essence of the
gospel; for they are matters of the head, and
in their very nature create division, while the
gospel of Christ is an experience of the heart and
engenders brotherhood and unity and charity.
So that when the question is put before us : how
shall Christianity go forth to evangelize the world?
the answer rings sharp and clear from the lips of
history itself: not by any effort to break down
and destroy the Ethnic religions and erect the
Christian dogmas on their ruins, — a feat which
nineteen centuries have proved to be impossible, —
but rather to reopen the too long closed fountains
of the original gospel proclaimed by Jesus himself
1 Let me here say once for all that I quote Christ's sayings
from the Fourth Gospel only when they are in full harmony with
the Synoptic gospels. There can be no doubt that in the passages
here used the unknown writer has set forth in language of
wonderful power and beauty the central elements of Christ's
teaching.
288 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
on the hiUs of Galilee and Judasa, whose essential
notes are love and truth and freedom.
But let us not misunderstand the true import
of Christ's words. He did not mean that it is of no
consequence what dogmas a man may hold, or that
mere love and obedience will solve aU religious
problems for us ; but he did mean that the way
of approach to such problems is not by dogmatic
authority, but by each man's own moral conscious-
ness working on all questions of truth through the
moral exercises of love and liberty. Obey the
new moral law of Christian love, and that love
shall make you free in the truth. Can anything
be simpler or plainer? And yet how Christian
tradition has distorted and falsified it, until a man
named with the name of Christ could put his
pagan or even Christian brother to a cruel death
because of a purely dogmatic or speculative dif-
ference, and think he was " doing God service."
How clear aU this becomes in the light of the
comparative history of religions ! Take, for exam-
ple, the dogma of the trinity. In some form or
other this dogma is one of the most ancient and
widespread in the annals of human belief and
thought. A close analytical comparison reveals
the fact that aU the leading trinities, the Christian
included, have been developed from certain com-
mon religious intuitions and sentiments. As these
trinities have grown more metaphysical and specu-
lative, they have become too abstract for the ordi-
nary comprehension of uneducated people. Yet
CHRISTIANITY AS A WORLD-RELIGION 289
such dogmas have been taught by the church in
its creeds as if they were of the essence of faith
and really necessary to salvation. Was such a
yoke ever put on human consciences before in this
whole world's history ? But how can such a yoke
be put on the devotees of non-Christian religions ?
Notice that, if Christianity proposes to convert the
world on the basis of its dogmas, dogma must be
met with dogma. The question must be as to the
form of the dogma to be held. How vain such an
appeal must be, our missionaries have been learn-
ing only too well. On this very question of the
trinity, — the special subject of our studies, but
also, in fact, the real vital centre of all dogmatic
theology, — the educated Hindoo or Mussulman
will unflinchingly hold his ground against the
Christian missionary who is seeking to convert
him, and if he does not convince his opponent that
his doctrine of God is purest and best, he will cer-
tainly convince himself. This survey has shown
that no keener thinkers have ever speculated on
trinitarian lines than the master minds of Hindoo-
ism or New Platonism. Compare Origen, Atha-
nasius, or Augustine with the unknown builders
of the Hindoo trimurti^ or with Plato and Ploti-
nus, and whither, think you, must the palm go?
Is it not enough to note that these Christian theo-
logians freely acknowledged their indebtedness to
their Ethnic masters ?
But history itself shows us " a more excellent
way." Paul had learned enough of Christ's gos-
290 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
pel to declare it, in the most inspired chapter of
Apostolic literature, the 13th of 1 Corinthians, —
that famous panegyric of love, — where he says :
" Though I have aU knowledge it is nothing with-
out love." Let Christianity, laying aside its ex-
ploded traditions and creeds that were the product
of ages of Christian decline and darkness, write on
its banners Christ's parable of the prodigal son,
and Paul's chapter on knowledge versus love, with
its truly ^trinitarian close, "But now abideth
faith, hope, love, these three, and the greatest of
these is love,^^ and the triumph of Christianity as
the world's religion will be only a question of time.
CHAPTER V
THE UNEEADINESS OF CHKISTENDOM FOR THE
FULFILLMENT OF ITS MISSION
But I must not forget, in my idealistic ardor,
that Christianity is not yet ready to take up its
march to final victory. It stiU clings to its swad-
dling clothes and listens with unwilling ears to the
Zeitgeist — the Carlylian " Sartor Resartus " — •
that would fain reclothe it for its higher destiny.
In Paul's language, it still " speaks as a child,
feels as a child, thinks as a child," and cannot
realize that the time has come when it should " be-
come a man and put away childish things." The
passage from childhood to manhood is indeed the
most critical and even tragical stage in the moral
history of an individual or of an age. It is like
the change from the grub to the butterfly, — the
taking on of new faculties — a veritable birth into
a higher and nobler life. Such a spiritual regen-
eration cannot but be attended with sharp pangs
and overwhelming anxieties. Jesus himself seems
to have foreseen what bitter experiences would be
the lot of his disciples in the future progress of
his kingdom, and forewarned them in words that
grow fuller and fuUer of prophetic meaning as the
292 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ages go by : "A woman when she is in travail
hath sorrow, because her hour is come, but when
she is delivered of the child she remembereth no
more the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into
the world " (John xvi. 21). Christianity is pass-
ing through such a bitter crisis in its life to-day.
It is nothing less than a " TraXtyycvco-ta." Nothing
so radical has ever before happened in all its his-
tory. From the day (Oct. 1, 1859) when Charles
Darwin so modestly published, in his immortal
book " The Origin of Species," the results of his
physical researches, and showed that all the pro-
cesses of nature, including even the development
of species, were imder a single law of natural evo-
lution, and hence required no special miraculous
creative intervention of God, the whole aspect of
nature and the universe, of history and its philo-
sophical interpretation, of religion and God, has
completely changed. Of course the movement at
first was slow and hesitating. But the intimate
relation of the new doctrine of evolution to previ-
ous scientific discoveries was quickly seen, and the
grand unity of unalterable law, with aU that it in-
volves in aU departments of knowledge, has already
become an accepted axiom among all scientific,
historical, and philosophical scholars. So radical
is the whole change of view that it can only be
compared to a new birth where " old things have
passed away and all things have become new."
We have not only a new astronomy and geology,
but also a new science of nature and of life, a new
UNREADINESS OF CHRISTENDOM 293
biology and anthropology ; and out of all this new
scientific light must come in its order and time a
new philosophy and theology, — a new conception
of God and his relation to the universe and to
man, — a new view of man and of his relations to
nature, to his brother man, to history, and to God.
It is the fortune or misfortune of our age that it
is in the very midst of the agonizing throes that
must attend this great new birth of the opening
century. Fortunate are they whose eyes are
opened seasonably to hail the coming " heir of all
the ages." Does the human mother welcome the
natal hour when " a man is born into the world " ?
Why, then, should not this age so honored and
blessed of God hail the new scientific and histor-
ical evangel ?
In the previous chapter I called attention to the
providential mission of Christianity as a world-re-
ligion ; and the serious question remains, how shall
Christendom be made ready for the work given it
to do ? Such a question cannot be answered until
the causes of its present unreadiness are thoroughly
scrutinized and clearly understood. Let us, then,
look over the Christian world and see what the
real situation is. First, it is divided into two great
camps, the Catholic and the Protestant, which
have been in open or concealed warfare from the
outbreak of the Protestant Reformation to the
present day. No doubt this scientific age is mak-
ing deep inroads into the prejudices and misunder-
standings which have hitherto kept these two great
294 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
bodies apart. But the antagonistic principles upon
wliich both rest remain firm and must prevent any-
real union so long as these principles are adhered
to. What a spectacle is presented to non-Chris-
tian peoples, when missionaries come to them
claiming to represent one common religion of
Christ, and who yet treat each other as "aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel," if not as open
enemies. But this is not all. Protestantism itself
is split up into sectarian parties and churches,
established or non-established, large portions of
which do not regard or treat the rest as true
Christian organizations. I gladly recognize the
rapid strides that are being taken among us to-
ward a more Christian unity and fraternity. It
is the most promising sign of the times. But it
must not be overlooked that these fraternizing
movements as yet extend only over small sections
of Protestant Christendom, and are sporadic and
inchoate ; and the most that can be said of them is
that they give evidence, not to be mistaken, of the
partial silent penetration of God's new revelations
into the minds and hearts of men. Can it even
now be said that the spirit of denominational and
churchly sectarianism is dying out to any great
extent in the great organized Protestant churches ?
I think not. It must be remembered that Con-
gregationalism is but a comparatively small frac-
tion of the whole Christian body. It is among us
that the cardinal Christian principles of liberty
and fraternity have taken deepest root ; but how
UNREADINESS OF CHRISTENDOM 295
chary are our churches to see and accept all that
this principle involves! As history shows, no-
where has the dogmatic spirit been more regnant
than at the very headquarters of Congregational
Protestantism, and wherever that spirit lives
Christian freedom in the truth and in love cannot
be allowed its full birthright. Such is the condi-
tion of things within our Christian churches.
But what is to be said of that larger Christen-
dom which includes the masses of nominal Chris-
tian peoples ? It is just here that the historical
outlook is most discouraging. Nothing is more
certain than that our churches, as Christian organ-
izations, representing traditional Christianity, are
for some reason slowly losing their hold upon the
outside world. I am not now raising the question
whether the original religion of Christ or the reli-
gious spirit in general is declining. The contrary,
in my view, is true. I am speaking of our church
organizations that have held the position of Chris-
tian leadership and authority hitherto and have
claimed to truly represent Christ and his gospel.
It is a fact which cannot be gainsaid, that this age
is witnessing a movement away from organized
Christianity such as was never before known in
its history. Explain it as we may, the fact must
be accepted as one of the most significant of our
times. Figures here are of small account. The
real question is, what are the leading moral and
religious forces in human society and life, and
whither are they tending? I am aware that
296 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
dijfferent answers may be given, according to the
point of view, and it must remain a matter to a
large degree of individual opinion. But it is my
own deliberate judgment, formed from a long and
careful survey, with some exceptional opportunities
for reaching a true result, that traditional Chris-
tianity, with its old creeds and dogmas and forms,
is passing as a religious force out of the great
currents of thought and belief among the intelli-
gent masses of men and women with a rapidity that
is simply alarming to every open-eyed Christian
observer. Let it be understood that I am not
attempting to decide whether the organized Chris-
tian forces or the unorganized moral forces of the
outside world are now the stronger, but simply to
discern whither the drift is to-day. Organized
religion, like organized law, always has behind it
the power of custom and legal rescript and organ-
ized instrumentalities and that weight of unthink-
ing attachment to what is old which is always to
be found on the traditional conservative side. But
even laws that remain on the statute book eventu-
ally become a dead letter when the ruling forces
of society cast them aside, and such is the drift of
these forces to-day as respects those dogmas and
rites of Christianity which science and historical
criticism have found to be the outgrowth of the
ages of blind faith and superstition. Social and
moral and even religious leadership is silently but
surely passing from our organized religious bodies
to that great judgment-seat of the educated masses
UNREADINESS OF CHRISTENDOM 297
of our multitudinous city and country commu-
nities. There was a time, and not so long since,
when the churches and church leaders and reli-
gious newspapers could move public sentiment
from centre to circumference on any religious
question that pertained to ecclesiastical or doc-
trinal orthodoxy. How far this is from true to-
day all know. Moral leadership among us no
longer depends on church membership. Would
we learn whither the moral forces are running and
whence their head-springs, we have only to ask
what intelligent people are reading most, and what
is the character of the literature that is passing
through the largest number of editions. Are our
novels and daily and Sunday secular newspapers
and magazines written and edited as a rule by
members of our churches, and in the interest of
the dogmas of traditional orthodoxy? He must
be an ignorant man or a brave man who will
assert it. The Zeitgeist leavens our literature
as well as our science and history, and through
these channels is flooding Christendom with its
new religious ideas. Let this tide sweep on a few
years longer and can there be any doubt what the
result must be? One of two things will surely
happen. Either organized Christianity will cease
to be a ruling force, or it will have been regener-
ated to a new life and thus able to regain its wan-
ing moral authority.
Thus, as we draw towards the conclusion of our
comparative historical survey, we find the Chris-
298 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tian religion exposed to dangers both without and
within. Without, the ancient Ethnic religions
remain fixed in their ancestral boundaries, with
dogma ranged against dogma, and superstition
against superstition, and ready still to meet Chris-
tianity on its own ground of dogmatic argument ;
within, schism, sectarian rivalry, and disagreement
— the fruits of national and civil religious wars
whose wounds are not yet healed — stiU divide it
into numerous opposing camps fighting imder dif-
ferent banners ; and last, but not least, the trans-
formed spirit of a new age has risen up against its
traditional dogmas and pretensions and threatens
to cast it wholly aside.
But our survey is not yet complete. It remains
for us to take a closer view of the organized
church, and see how far it is prepared to meet
and solve the problems that are forcing themselves
upon its attention and are menacing its very life.
Such a view reveals two great and imminent
perils growing out of its intellectual and moral
condition. These perils will form the subject of
the two following chapters.
CHAPTER VI
TWO PEEIL8 OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY
I. Igmyrance
It is one of the most remarkable facts of our
times tliat large numbers of our intelligent minis-
ters and cburch members who are quite alive to
the significance of the new revelations of God and
his truth that have recently been made through
scientific and historical channels, and are ready to
accept the law of natural and historical evolution
up to a certain point, yet shut their eyes persist-
ently against the results of this law when it is
brought, as it must be, into the sphere of religion
and its dogmatic traditions. Such persons will
not allow "the faith once delivered," as they
fondly call these traditions, to be disturbed. Not
a few churches to-day are declaring that scientific
and historical criticism is a traitor in the Christian
camp. Such a charge is indeed strange as com-
ing from educated men, and can be explained only
as illustrating the tremendous power of a dog-
matic presupposition. It may be hoped that, with
the inevitable decay of the dogmatic spirit, this
class of opponents of religious progress will soon
disappear. But a more serious question arises
300 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
when the position of the less educated members
of the churches throughout Christendom, Catholic
and Protestant, is considered. Here it is not a
case of a dogmatic presupposition which shuts the
eyes, but that of a real and profound ignorance as
to the character of the changes which science and
history are bringing about in all matters of human
life, and especially as to the effect of these changes
on religious dogmas. This class stiU forms the
majority of church members in all Christian or-
ganizations. It does not require a very large
acquaintance with the history of the church to
enable one to realize what a dead weight in the
path of all religious or theological movement such
a mass of ignorance is. The fact that this class is
so sincere in its beliefs only makes the danger the
greater. Religious conscientiousness when stimu-
lated by bigotry is capable of the highest unreason.
Nothing is so stubborn or so fanatical as a wrongly
instructed conscience, as Paul showed in his own
case by his own confession. Only skillful leader-
ship is required to fix a large portion of Christen-
dom in an attitude of hostile opposition to the
strongest intellectual and moral currents of our
times ; and such leadership is not wanting. This
is true not only of the Catholic authorities, but also
of a considerable portion of the Protestant church
officials. Even in our free and independent Congre-
gational churches there are those who would raise
the old cry of heresy in order to excite an ignorant
prejudice if it could be of any avail. So that it
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 301
becomes a serious question whether the great body
of church members throughout Christendom is not
on the point of breaking with the dominant reli-
gious spirit of the age, and of thus widening the
chasm between the organized church and the out-
side world. Already it can be seen that large
numbers of intelligent representative men and
women are looking elsewhere than to. the church
for religious leadership and authority ; and this is
the reason undoubtedly why so many of this class
hold themselves aloof from church membership.
No wonder that churchmen are marking the drift
away from our church organizations, and are devis-
ing ways and means to arrest it. But " forward
movements," — to use the phrase now in vogue, —
along old lines of Christian activity, will be found
largely futile. Spasmodic revivalistic meetings
here and there will heal the hurt slightly. The
disease is deeper than the old methods of diagnosis
reach. To be effectual the remedy must go as
deeply as the disease and work healing from the
roots. The real ailment is not mere worldliness
and unspirituality, as is so generally assumed.
These religious defects are of course always inci-
dental to man's life on earth ; but in the present
state of our churches they are only symptomatic
of a deeper trouble. The radical ailment is to be
found in the fact that our churches are still
wedded to forms of religious truth and to churchly
theories and methods that are out of joint with
our times. For such a disease there is but one
302 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
efficacious remedy. As so often in political emer-
gencies, so now in religion, what is imperatively
demanded is a campaign of education^ — a forward
movement all along the line in harmony with the
new revelations of God's truth. I am not insensi-
ble to the signs of movement in the church itself.
I know how widespread is the spirit of inquiry
within the church as well as without, and how
greatly the interest in Bible study has been quick-
ened in these latter years. But everything depends
on the character of such study. Take the case of
the young in our Sunday-schools and Bible classes.
Better no study at all than a study along the old
lines of theological instruction. Nothing can be
worse for a child to-day than to have its mind filled
with religious ideas and impressions that will be
found in later years to rest on unhistorical tradi-
tion. Yet the teachers in our Sunday-schools are
too often young persons who are utterly unfitted
to explain the Scriptures, being ignorant of the
simplest principles of Biblical criticism. If there
was ever a time when our best educated Christians
should be put in charge of the religious instruction
of the young it is now. In every community a
class should be formed of aU candidates for the
post of a religious teacher, which should be placed
under the direct supervision of some person whose
fitness will win the respect and confidence of the
community at large.
Moreover, it is a time when timidity of reli-
gious leadership should cease, and give place to
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 303
courageous action. Too long has the excuse been
that the people are not prepared for such religious
changes. Such an excuse implies lack of faith in
God and his providence, as weU as failure to read
the signs of the times. Knowledge is running to
and fro, and is increased as never before. The
new science and history permeates not only our
higher institutions of learning and our literature,
but even the very air we breathe, and for the
church to ignore such a fact is to be false to its
highest and plainest moral duty. To faU back in
such a crisis on God's care of his church and quote
Christ's words, " The gates of heU shall not pre-
vail against it," is worse than in vain. What
Christ meant by his "church" he himself ex-
plained : " Where two or three are met together
in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
To make this the charter and refuge of any his-
torical organization is to miss and falsify the deep
spiritual significance of Christ's words. Yet it is
not surprising that such a false interpretation was
soon accepted. The world was not ripe for a
spiritual church when Christ entered it. As early
as the second century Christian leaders began to
misunderstand the teachings of their master. Ire-
nseus, stanch churchman that he was, opposing
heretics and schismatics, asserted that "where
the church is, there is the spirit of God," from
which he drew the inference that all who were
separate from the church, as an external organiza-
tion, were cut off from the influences of the Holy
304 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Ghost. Only one step more needed to be taken
to complete this wholly unchristian view, namely,
that the church with its bishops in historical suc-
cession from the Apostles, and with the sacra-
ments administered by them, is the true kingdom
of God on earth, outside of which there is no con-
fident ground of salvation ; and this step was taken
a little later by Cyprian, the first highchurchman
clearly known to history. Of course such a high-
church doctrine has little footing among us who
are descendants of the Pilgrim Puritans of New
England, but I am not so sure that the idea is
not deeply rooted in the minds of many good
Congregational people that our church organiza-
tions as organizations are somehow of truly di-
vine origin and authority (^jure divine'), and are
the only representatives and repositories of God's
truth and grace. Such persons ought to read
carefully the seven epistles to the seven churches
of Asia, and remember that the warnings there
uttered were afterwards historically fulfilled.
Those " seven candlesticks " were " moved out of
their places," and " the seven churches which are
in Asia " have been extinct so long that history
fails to preserve any definite account of their dis-
solution. Nor was this case an isolated one. The
same thing has happened again and again in
Christian annals. Let me give a single further
illustration. In the second, third, and fourth
centuries the most flourishing churches in Chris-
tendom were those in North Africa. For a time,
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 305
in the persons of Cyprian and Augustine, this
portion of the Christian world became the very-
centre of ecclesiastical and theological influence.
But what is the case to-day ? Not only are all
these churches extinct, but Christianity itself has
departed, leaving no trace behind but a few dismal
ruins, and Mohammedanism in its most bigoted
form fills the land. Surely history proves one
thing, if nothing else, that no institution, however
sacred its claim, can live simply on its past. Least
of all can such an anachronism have any chance
of life to-day. The church, hke all things else,
cannot hope to survive in its present form if it
loses the respect and confidence of men ; and this
is one of the dangers that beset our Christian
organizations to-day. How can intelligent men
and women whose ears are filled with the new
voices of God's providence respect an organization
that claims to speak in God's name and yet re-
mains deaf to such divine voices and even strives
to stifle them ? It is simply impossible.
But ignorance is not the only peril that
threatens the organized church ; there is another
peril, and perhaps it is the greater.
CHAPTER VII
TWO PERILS or ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY
II. Insincerity
If it be true that " ignorance is the mother of
superstition," it is equally true that insincerity
is the mother of hypocrisy. When Christ called
the orthodox leaders of his day " hypocrites," he
probed them to the core, and his bold words cost
him his life. It is the cardinal peculiarity of this
moral vice that it juggles with itself and wears
with a kind of honesty the face of the loftiest vir-
tue ; the deceiver is also self -deceived. Its root
lies hidden in the darkest corner of the soul,
covered with all the multitudinous motives that
govern moral action. The notable thing about it
is that its favorite haunt has always been in that
region of human nature where the religious sen-
timents and emotions, with all their superstitious
accompaniments, are centred and hold sway.
History shows that in no sphere of human society
has hypocrisy played so large a part or entailed
on the world such calamitous results as in that of
religion. It is one of the noblest features of
Christ's gospel that its keynote is complete sin-
cerity in thought, word, and deed. Paul, too, seems
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 307
to have caught the real spirit of his master. But
Christianity quite early became infected with
ideas inherited from pre-Christian ethics. The
history of Christian casuistry in the matter of
truthfulness and the lawfulness of deception in cer-
tain exceptional cases is deeply interesting and in-
structive. A book might be written on it. Only
a summary, however, can here be given, simply
that we may understand the real character of the
moral danger that now threatens Christendom.
The ethical system of Plato and Aristotle, from
which the Graeco-Roman Christianity so largely
drew its ethical ideas, was in the main a noble
one and based on just moral principles. Plato,
in his Republic, which deals with justice, strikes
at once the keynote of his whole ethical philo-
sophy, when he quotes a passage from ^schylus,
in which the poet describes the good man as not
wishing merely to appear to be good to others, but
to be good in reality : Ov yap SoKecv apto-ros d\X*
€tvat OeXci. " The true lie," Plato says, " is hated of
gods and men," and he adds in explanation, " no
one will admit falsehood into that which is the
truest and highest part of himself or about the
truest and highest matters." Plato further holds
that God " can never lie or deceive in any way,"
since such deception is contrary to his whole
nature. It was on this ground that Plato opposed
the use of Homer and other poets in education,
because in their poems the gods were described as
" deceiving mankind." But Plato recognized cer-
308 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tain cases where a " lie in words " is necessary ;
for example, in dealing with sick or insane persons.
Hence he was led to make a curious distinction
between " the true lie " and the " lie in words,"
which latter he defines as " only a kind of imita-
tion and shadowy image of a previous affection
of the soul, not a pure unadulterated falsehood."
Such a verbal lie, he holds, may " in certain cases
be useful and not hateful." Yet realizing, as
Plato plainly did, how easily this exception to the
rule might be taken advantage of in the inter-
ests of injustice, he added the following express
limitation : " Truth should be highly valued ; if,
as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods,
and useful only as a medicine to men, then the
use of such medicines should be restricted to phy-
sicians ; private individuals have no business with
them." Here follows a sentence which has be-
come famous in Christian ethics, where Plato de-
clares that " the rulers of the state may be allowed
to lie for the public good," while aU private per-
sons should be forbidden this privilege and pun-
ished for practicing it. It is thus clear that
Plato's ethics were essentially sound ; and his
famous exception must be allowed in some cases
to hold good. No man of common sense would
hesitate to deceive an insane man or a robber or
a murderer, if by such deception he could prevent
an act of frenzy or a crime. This was just what
Plato meant by his " royal lie." But what was
plainly an exceptional and superficial element in
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 309
Plato's ethics of truthfulness grew more and more
to be an important element of Christian morals,
and in the form of the " officiosum mendacium "
has had a remarkable history. Plato's theory of
the " royal lie " seems to have entered Christian
ethics 'largely through Philo, who uses it in ex-
plaining certain apparently contradictory passages
in the Old Testament in relation to the character
of God. Here, however, Philo goes beyond Plato,
making God the chief agent in the use of falsehood
for the good of men, whereas Plato denied that
God could have anything to do with deception in
any way whatever, and restricted its use to human
rulers for the good of the state. This Philonic
enlargement of Plato's exception deeply affected
Christian thought. Its leaven clearly appears in
the writings of Origen, who as a theologian and
exegete was the most influential Father of the early
church. The influence of Aristotle should also be
noted. In his " Nicomachean Ethics " Aristotle
treats of truthfulness (iv. 9), illustrating his gen-
eral doctrine of virtue as a mean between extremes,
and making truthfulness to be the mean between
exaggeration or overstatement and dissimulation
or concealment of the real truth. With Plato,
Aristotle makes truthfuhiess essentially an inward
moral state rather than an outward act, though he
does not make SP much of Plato's discrimination
between the " true lie " and the " verbal lie," and
regards truthfulness in words as the natural ac-
companiment of truthfulness of soul. The vir-
310 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tuous man, he says, " is true in life and word,
simply because he is in a certain moral state."
Thus Aristotle corrected in a degree the vacil-
lating tendency of Plato; and it is due to the
reputation which he enjoyed in the Middle Ages
that the great Catholic schoolmen, such as Peter
Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, were saved from
defending the " officiosum mendacium " in its
most glaring forms. Yet their treatment of the
whole subject is implicit proof of the hold which a
perverted Christian tradition continued to have
even on the minds of the most enlightened leaders
of the Catholic church.
There was another source of Christian ethics
concerning truthfulness which cannot be over-
looked. The Old Testament was the first Chris-
tian Bible, and the accounts of the deceptions prac-
ticed by Abraham, Jacob, Rahab, David, and other
Hebrew saints had no little influence in neutraliz-
ing the natural effect of the teaching of Christ and
Paul. The use made of such Old Testament ex-
amples by Thomas Aquinas and others in defense
of the " officiosum mendacium " is highly sugges-
tive, and helps us to understand the ease with
which exceptions to the law of truthfulness gained
entrance into Christian morals. I can give only a
few illustrations of the process by which such vio-
lations came to be regarded as lawful. It began
very early in the efforts to defend Christianity
against pagans and heretics. It was assumed that
the end sanctified the means ; that truth might be
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 311
violated in defense of " the truth." A new prin-
ciple of interpretation was applied to Scripture
which enabled any dogma to be foisted into it,
namely, that of a double or triple sense of a pas-
sage. Augustine went so far as to declare that a
dozen different interpretations might be given to
the opening chapters of Genesis, and all of them
be true. Behind this vicious exegesis is to be seen
Philo's theory that God may indulge in a sort of
deception in his revelations of himself to man. As
the church began to proceed with increasing se-
verity against the various heretical schools that
were springing up, it became customary for such
persecuted sects to practice concealment of their
peculiar opinions, on the ground that the end sanc-
tified the means, and that the truth is not for all
men. This led the orthodox party to descend to
a like dissimulation, in order to discover the real
doctrines of their opponents. A bishop of Antioch
went so far as to pretend to be in full agreement
with a leader of one of these sects, and in this
way managed to extort a confession from him
which was then used against him and his whole
party. As the spirit of dogmatism and persecu-
tion increased, and controversies arose within the
church itself, the same practice of evasion and con-
cealment entered the ranks of orthodoxy. So far
was this carried that in the General Council of
449, known as the " Robber Synod," bishops were
forced to sign blank papers which were afterwards
filled out by the party in the majority with such a
312 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
creed as they desired. These men confessed their
mendacious conduct afterwards at the Council of
Chalcedon, and excused it on the ground of com-
pulsion and fear. A vivid illustration of the sad
demoralization that befeU Christian morality in
the matter of truthfulness is found in the way in
which the Origenistic party in the sixth century
parried an attack of their enemies. When a synod
had condemned the doctrines of the great Origen,
the party leaders, to use the language of Neander,
" sacrificed the truth, to save their own interests
and that of their party. They likewise subscribed
the decrees of the synod and consequently nothing
could be done to them." It is no wonder that the
noble moral feelings of Augustine rebelled against
these lax principles which were passing from the
East to the West. When it was proposed that
the church should employ the dissimulation prac-
ticed by the Priscillianists against them, Augustine
opposed it earnestly and wrote his work, " Contra
Mendacium^^^ in which he was led to take an ex-
treme position, holding that under no circumstances,
even to save honor or life, was a falsehood in
thought, word, or deed morally allowable. Augus-
tine had previously been induced to go to this
extreme by a controversy with Jerome, who de-
fended the dissimulation of Peter at Antioch.
But, powerful as Augustine was, he could not
overcome the current that was flowing more and
more strongly toward the allowance of prevarica-
tion in all cases where the interests of Christian
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 313
truth were supposed to be at stake. It is impos-
sible here to illustrate the infamous excesses to
which the doctrine of legitimate falsehood was car-
ried. The whole history of mediaeval Christianity
is filled with the most shocking examples. Per-
haps the most famous illustration — famous in
view of its superabounding infamy — was the
treatment of John Huss, whose safe-conduct, given
to him by the Emperor Sigismund, was canceled
by the General Council at Constance on the ex-
press ground that no faith was to be kept with
heretics, it being assumed that if a man was con-
victed of a certain crime the church was absolved
from the guilt of committing a worse one. Surely
the lowest depths of moral baseness were reached
in this act of the largest council ever assembled
in Christendom ; and it is no wonder that the
blush which mantled the face of Sigismund, when
Huss fixed his eye upon him before the whole
council and reminded him of the safe-conduct
he had given without any conditions, is historic.
What Christian man does not himself blush as he
reads the pitiful story ?
But why, it may be asked, have I stopped to
indulge in this historical digression ? I answer,
because it lies behind and explains, as nothing
else can, the deep current of insincerity in matters
of religion which is stiU eating as a canker into
the heart of Christendom. We have heard much
of Jesuit casuistry, as if it were peculiar to the
Catholic church. It is true that the " officiosum
314 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
mendacium " with its fatal leaven remained in the
old historic church after the Protestant revolt,
and that the Jesuit order has undoubtedly made
great use of it. But it is a historical blunder to
assume that the Lutheran Reformation involved
any radical change in traditional theology or ethics.
Not only were the great creeds and dogmas of the
old church retained, but they were even stiffened
and made more than ever the essentials of Chris-
tian faith ; and deeply imbedded in these dogmas
and in the methods of defense of them was the
" officiosum mendacium " with its allowance of dis-
simulation and falsehood "that good may come."
The historical fact is that the Protestant revolt did
not quite break the chains of mental and moral slav-
ery which the church had been forging for centu-
ries and binding more completely on the necks of
men. Even our own Puritan forefathers, who had
come as pilgrims to these shores that they might
have " freedom to worship God," when once settled
here straightway began to forget the lesson which
persecution at the hands of their own Protestant
brethren in the mother country had only half
taught them. The history of the New England
Congregational churches is tragical with the bitter
wrestlings, even in their birth, of the two sons
whom Paul described as " the child of bondage "
and " the child of liberty," and though in this new
age the child of liberty named by Paul " the child
of promise " is fast nearing its full manhood, the
end is not yet. Let it not, then, be too hastily
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 315
assumed that even the Protestant portion of Chris-
tendom is wholly free from its long inherited curse
of mental and moral slavery. The great error of
the church has always been its assumption of au-
thority over the souls of men in all matters of
faith and dogma ; and the natural fruits of dog-
matic authority have always been and always wiU
be insincerity, hypocrisy, cant, and aU their evil
brood. Until that yoke is completely broken
everywhere in Christendom its results are bound to
appear. There are other forms of dogmatic bond-
age besides fear of death. The halter and the
stake have indeed been banished. Heterodoxy is
no longer treated as a crime. But the more hid-
den and insidious forms of theological persecution
— suspicion, prejudice, calumny — have by no
means lost their power ; and they are doing their
enslaving work as truly and effectually to-day,
within the limits of the church, as ever in its his-
tory. In fact, the more hidden and stealthy are
the processes by which these intimidating forces
act, the more effective do they become, within the
sphere of their influence. Kemember that I am
not speaking of the outside world, whose mental
and religious freedom is quite complete. It is the
members of our church organizations with whom
I am now concerned, who are under the sway of
historical church traditions ; and my object is to
make clear the fact that the peril which above all
others menaces the church, as a Christian organi-
zation, to-day, is an inherited virus of insincerity
316 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
and hypocrisy whose poison permeates the whole
body. Does this statement surprise any one, and
call forth protest or denial ? Let iis, then, look
facts squarely in the face. It is difficult on such
a point to call witnesses. Nor do I intend to do
so; but I make my appeal to the inner moral
consciousness of men, both within the church and
without it. What is the most startling fact in the
present theological situation ? Is it not that our
church leaders throughout Christendom have been
hiding themselves behind theological makeshifts
of every kind, setting forth new truth under old
labels, or old truth under new ones, filling old
bottles with new wine or new bottles with old in-
gredients, so that hearers are mystified and left
in complete theological confusion? Let me give
a single illustration from my own personal observa-
tion. Some years since I fell into a conversation
with a minister of my acquaintance on the subject
of Christ's miraculous birth. He told me of his
troubles over it, and of the way he took to solve
them. He went to a friend who stood in high
moral as well as literary repute, and put the ques-
tion to him, whether he believed that Jesus was
born in a miraculous way. The reply came quickly
and sharply : " Impossible ! Impossible ! I can-
not believe it." This answer from a man for whose
moral consciousness the minister had the greatest
respect seems to have ended his dilemma. He
had made his appeal to the practical, intelligent,
common sense of a highly respected man of the
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 317
world, and the answer lie received seemed to have
settled the question for him completely and finally.
Yet years after this occurrence my ministerial ac-
quaintance was reciting the Apostles' Creed in his
church services every Sunday, in which are the
words : " Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the
Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." I do not
give this case as if it were remarkable. No doubt
it is being repeated in the history of not a few
pastors and churches. Perhaps there are those
who see no wrong in it, and would defend it as a
lawful use of the " qfficiosum mendaciumy But
how does the world judge it ? Will not the strict-
est moralist declare that no better example could
be given of a low moral sense of what the law of
Christian veracity demands ? There is no form of
insincerity that is so injurious to the principle of
truthfulness as that which hides itself in such a
way and wears the garb of a pious dissimulation.
So deeply ingrained in our religious life has the
habit become that such an illustration of it as I
have given no longer attracts attention. It is re-
markable how long men can continue to live under
the forms of an old tradition, even when its real
life is utterly gone. How true to nature is Ten-
nyson's description of " Use and Wont," —
" Old sisters of a day gone by,
Gray nurses, loving nothing new."
Most men disHke to be disturbed or awakened out
of their intellectual or religious slumbers. Should
another Rip Van Winkle awake from a half cen-
318 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tury's nap and enter one of our churches on the
Lord's day he would scarcely realize how long he
had slept. Some innovations would arrest his at-
tention. The congregation would take a somewhat
larger part in the service, and a new note might
strike his ear occasionally in the quality of the
preaching ; but the general order of exercises would
have the old familiar air. He would recognize at
once the old forms of Scripture reading with the old
interpretations, involving the old assumptions, the
old hymns of Watts and Wesley, with all their
crude materialism, the old-time formidas of prayer,
from prayer-books of the sixteenth century, and
even from stiU earlier times ; and he might shut his
eyes for another nap, assured that all is well, —
never realizing that the most stupendous intellec-
tual revolution of history has left its mark on every
phase of human thought. I remember well the
moral shock which I experienced when I first
learned that the Calvinistic trinitarian hymns of
Dr. Watts, which had fed the religious faith of
my childhood, were written by an Arminianizing
Arianizing Sabellian. But in what respect was
Dr. Watts worse than ministers and churches to-
day, who stiU sing his hymns and others Hke them,
and excuse themselves by professing to accept
their theological truth "for substance of doc-
trine." But such illustrations are mere straws on
the surface of the deep stream. This is the real,
the transcendent issue. Most, if not all, educated
men are aware that the Darwinian law of evolu-
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 319
tion in its fuU application in all departments of
science, and in historical research, has radically-
changed aU the old conceptions of nature, of man,
and of God. They know well that the very foun-
dations of the old traditional theology are utterly-
broken down, and that wholly new forms of truth
must take their place. Yet how few of our church
leaders are ready to make fuU acknowledgment
of this, and honestly take their stand on it ! A
tacit conspiracy of silence has shut their mouths.
And how is this policy defended ? It is said that
" Kant once confessed that though he would never
say anything he did not believe, he believed many
things he would never say " (Paulsen, " System of
Ethics," 682). Paulsen well adds : " A Greek
might have replied to him, ' In that case I do not
care very much for what you have to say, for I
desire to know, not what you are allowed to think
with the consent of the high authorities, but what
you actually think yourself." Kant has here well
expressed the trend of recent theological apology as
regards a full and honest confession of Christian
faith. Aristotle made truthfulness to consist in
the avoidance of two extremes, — the expression
of what is false and the repression of what is true.
It is the second extreme — called by Aristotle
dissimulation — that is so rife to-day. And the
Greek pagan was ethically right. A negative
lie is as truly a lie as a positive one. Intentional
deception, which is the essence of a falsehood,
is equally behind both forms of it. A man who
320 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
recites with a congregation a creed which he does
not believe, except with a mental reservation, is
guilty of an act of dissimulation which no casuistry
can excuse, and which the enlightened moral con-
sciousness of every man must condemn. It is
the peculiar moral quality of the " officiosum men-
daciuTYi^'' in either of its forms, and especially in
that of the " suppressio veri^'' that it so success-
fully arrays itself in angelic garb. To do a little
evil that great good may come has been the favor-
ite appeal of the tempter from Eden down, and
never has he applied his arts more skiUfuUy and
successfully than in these recent times in the very
heart of Christendom. Strange, indeed, that the
old Greek Aristotle should become the ethical
teacher of a degenerate Christianity ! Yet not so
strange. The taint is in the very blood of many
generations. The old distinctions between the
church and the world, ecclesiasticism and secular-
ism, religion and morahty, what is true and right in
religious things and what is true and right in tem-
poral things, — distinctions which lay behind the
whole church theory of the " officiosum menda-
cium^'^ — have not yet faded out, even among Pro-
testant theologians.
The history of modern Biblical exegesis furnishes
many memorable illustrations of this. Pious and
scholarly exegetes have applied canons of inter-
pretation to Scripture which they would never
have dared to apply to any other book in the
world, — it being assumed that the Bible, as the
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 321
Word of God, is to be discriminated from aU
human writings, and so is to be interpreted on dif-
ferent principles. The worst of it is that these
principles are often utterly discordant with ordi-
nary rules of human interpretation. Is it surpris-
ing, then, that such unnatural scriptural exegesis
should often involve evasions of the Aristotelian
law of truthfulness ? Let me give a single instance,
which I choose out of many equally a propos^ be-
cause it brings out so clearly how close is the
affinity between the theological dissimulation that
infects the Christianity of to-day and that of the
early church. In the opening verses of the sev-
enth chapter of the Fourth Gospel there occurs a,
conversation between Jesus and his brethren which
from the earliest times has troubled Christian
exegetes. "We are told that in view of the ap-
proaching Feast of Tabernacles Christ's brethren
ironically urged him to go into Judaea and show
himself publicly. The reply of Christ was a simple
refusal. " Go ye up unto the feast ; I go not up
unto this feast because my time is not yet fulfilled.'*
Such was the reading of the text in the time of
Porphyry and of Jerome. The later change from
ovK to ovTTO), which appears in the Textus receptus^
and is translated " not yet," in the King James
version, was made, according to Alford, " to avoid
offense." What the "offense" was is made known
to us by Jerome. In a work against the Pelagians,
who held strongly to free wiU and the natural
power of every man to avoid sin, Jerome quotes
322 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
many passages of Scripture to show the contrary.
He even quotes Christ as saying, " I can of my-
self do nothing," and then, in further illustration
of Christ's inability, he adds, "he denies to his
brethren that he is going up to the Feast of Tab-
ernacles, and afterwards it is written that when
his brethren had gone up then he himself went
up, not openly, but as if in secret. He denied
that he should go^ and did what he had before
denied. Porphyry barks at this, charging Christ
with fickleness and inconstancy, not knowing that
all yieldings to temptation should be referred to
the flesh (nesciens omnia scandala ad carnem
esse Teferendci)^ The things to be especially noted
in this passage from Jerome are that Jerome's text
had ovK^ not ovttw, and that he does not attempt
to evade the natural meaning of it, but explains
Christ's evasion of the truth on the ground of his
temptable human nature. Porphyry brought a
similar charge against Peter and Paid; and Je-
rome, in his defense of them, is led to give a curi-
ous interpretation of Gal. ii. 11-14, asserting that
the altercation which arose between Peter and Paul
and Peter's apparent dissimulation were the result
of their different points of view, and that really
both of them were exercising the highest Chris-
tian prudence. He even suggests that the conten-
tion between them was feigned (simulatd) in the
interests of peace between Jewish and Gentile
Christians, and he defends the whole transaction
on the ground that dissimulation for the time may
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 323
be useful (utilem vero simulationem et assumerv-
dam in tempore)^ referring to two Old Testament
examples, that of Jehu in the matter of the priests
of Baal, and that of David in the case of Abime-
lech. It was this distinct avowal of the lawful-
ness at times of a deception which involved a lie
that led Augustine to write to Jerome a letter
which was the beginning of a sharp though friendly-
controversy. One of Jerome's letters in reply is
of prime importance in the hi'story of Christian
morals. In it he informs Augustine that his posi-
tion was not new, but that many Fathers before
him, especially Origen, had held the same view,
and adds apologetically that they did not so much
defend a lie as treat it as an act of honorable
temporizing and prudence (" non officio sum men-
dacium sed honestam dispensationem et pruden-
tiam "). Thus Jerome showed himself ready,
with Origen and others before him, to defend the
use of a lie even by Christ in the interest of pru-
dence and utility. It did not even occur to him
that a change from ovk to ov-n-oi would lessen the
difficulty. It was the later refinements of theolo-
gical exegetes that led to the interpolation of ovtto).
But this refuge has failed since the discovery that
the original text was ovk rather than ovtto). How
now were the words of Christ to be defended, and
he be saved from an open falsehood ? Was the
view of Jerome to be accepted, which allowed
mendacity on Christ's part, but excused it as an
infirmity of the flesh? The development of the
324 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
dogma of Christ's absolute sinlessness made it im-
possible. Some other solution of this moral puzzle
must be found. It is here that my illustrations
of modern exegesis become appropriate, and afford
telling evidence of the tendency to suppress or
distort the truth in matters of religion. Lardner,
in his work " The Credibility of the Gospel His-
tory," deals with this question quite at length.
He allows that the earlier reading was ovk, and
that Christ's reply to his brethren's advice was,
" I go not up to the feast." He then adds : " Sup-
posing this to be the true reading, 1 see not any
reason for the charge of inconstancy, or of our
Lord's altering his intention. The context shows
that he had spoken of deferring his journey to
Jerusalem for a short time,, not that he had re-
solved not to go at all to the feast. He went to
the feast ; and he always intended to do so ; but
he went not up to that feast so soon or so publicly
as he did at some other seasons." Without rais-
ing any question as to the correctness of Dr. Lard-
ner's interpretation, I have this to say, that his
explanation does not exculpate Christ at all, or
even attempt to, from the charge of an intentional
deception of his brethren. They could not read
his inner intentions, and plainly accepted his words
in their natural meaning. The real question is,
not whether Christ changed his mind, but whether
he deceived his brethren and meant to do so, I
quite agTce with Dr. Lardner that Christ did not
change his mind, but how about the deception that
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 325
lurks behind Christ's words, " I go not up to this
feast " ? Dr. Lardner here is silent. How must
we interpret this silence ? Did he wish to conceal
the difficulty under a disingenuous evasion of it, or
was he ready to excuse Christ's reply as a lawful
mendacium f I leave it for my readers to judge.
The work of Dr. Lardner belongs to the eigh-
teenth century.
My second illustration is from the commentary
of Dean Alford, whom I have been accustomed to
regard as one of the noblest and most honest of
Christian writers. Accepting ovk as the true read-
ing, and explaining correctly the reason of the
later interpolation, Alford then says : " It is of
little import whether we read ovk or outtw; the
sense will be the same, both on account of the
present ava/3atVa> (not avafiya-o/xaL, which would
express the disavowal of an intention to go up),
and of ovTTO) afterwards. Ovk dj/a/JatVco would mean
' / am not at present going up.' " As one reads
this amazing comment, a momentary doubt arises
whether Alford's scholarship was at fault or his
moral sincerity. His suggestion that the use of
the present, di/aySatVo), confines the act of going up
to the " present " time and must be translated, " I
am not at present going up," is in violation of one
of the commonest laws of all languages, let alone
the New Testament Greek. How often do we use
the present tense when the reference is to some
future act ? Buttmann, in his Graromar of New
Testament Greek, remarks that " the present fre-
326 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
quently stands when things still future are spoken
of, and consequently comprises within itself the
future force of the word," and adds that this
" phenomenon is common in all ages and all lan-
guages." Among other illustrations he refers to
the passage now under discussion. He also refers
to Matt. XX. 18, where the same present dvajSatVo)
is used in a plainly future sense. Winer, in his
Grammar, takes virtually the same ground, though
more guardedly, holding that "an action still
future is mentioned as already present, because it
is unalterably determined." This is precisely the
case in hand. Christ used the present, " I go not
up," because he wished his brethren to understand
it was not his intention to go up. Alford, on the
contrary, declares that " the disavowal of an inten-
tion to go up " would require the future d>'a/3i}o-o/iai.
I confess that I am somewhat at a loss to give a
critical judgment on this curious piece of exegesis.
But surely Alf ord cannot be accused of ignorance of
Greek grammar, and least of aU of one of its most
common rules. Porphyry wrote in Greek as his
vernacular, and Jerome was Greek scholar enough
to translate the New Testament into Latin, yet it
never occurred to either of them that Christ's use
of the present implied that he meant to be under-
stood as saying, " I am not at present going up."
Alf ord was quite as good a Greek scholar as either
Porphyry or Jerome. He must have known, as
well as they, that the natural interpretation of the
original text required the admission that, if the
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 327
account be true history, Christ intended to deceive
his brethren.
How, then, was AKord led to write this extraor-
dinary statement ? There can be but one satis-
factory answer. He held as an article of faith
that Christ was God. He also accepted the
Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel. He
was thus ready to hold to the historicity of all the
accounts in that gospel, and to believe that the
words here imputed to Christ were actually uttered
by him. Here, then, was an apparent falsehood
put into Christ's lips. How could it be explained
so that Christ's perfect sinlessness might be left
unimpeached? Porphyry had charged him with
moral fickleness. Jerome had defended his want
of truthfulness by referring it to human weakness.
But Alford could not accept either view. He felt
called upon to defend Christ's moral perfectness at
all hazards. Here, then, if ever, was a case where
a " useful dissimulation " might be allowed, if not
in the conduct of Christ himself, at least in the
exegesis of his loyal disciple. If a more humiliat-
ing bit of commentary can be found than this, I
know not where to look for it. Yet, after aU, Al-
ford was not a sinner above others. I have char-
acterized his exegesis of this passage as " humiliat-
ing," not because it is worse than other examples,
but because it was the dernier ressort of a scholar
usually so free from exegetical refinements. If I
am asked whether I think that Alford was con-
scious of any disingenuousness, I reply at once,
328 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
surely not. " The Life, Journal, and Letters,"
edited by his widow, reveal a character of singular
openness and honesty. He had the courage of his
convictions. But he was a true son of the Church
of England, and accepted the Nicene Creed with-
out any qualification as absolute truth. His
churchly conservatism is seen in his attitude toward
Bishop Colenso's book on the " Pentateuch." In
a letter to Colenso he distinguished " the believing
point of view " from " the unbelieving (critical)
point of view." "The former," he said, "assumes
Jesus Christ to have been the Son of God. If he
was, the Pentateuch is historical, for he treats it
as such,'''' Such a theological a priori assumption
strikes at the root of the inductive historical
method of critical investigation. It is here that
AKord's deficiency as a commentator comes clearly
to view. He was simply a textual, not a historical
critic. His defense of the Johannine authorship
of the Fourth Gospel is a good illustration. He
builds his argument on the crumbling foundations
of unhistorical legend. Here was the fatal flaw in
Alford's fitness to deal with the passage before us.
Assuming the strict deity of Christ and the com-
plete historicity of the Fourth Gospel, how could
he save Christ from mendacity except by a strain-
ing of the text ? It is pathetic to think how close
at hand lay the "key of knowledge" which he
sought in vain to find. We must not forget that
Alford's " New Testament " was published before
Darwin's " Origin of Species," and while historical
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 329
criticism was yet in its infancy. Could lie only
have grasped the historical fact that the Fourth
Gospel is not Johannine, but the work of an un-
known writer of the middle of the second century,
and that the long conversations and discourses im-
puted to Christ are not to be regarded as really
his beyond certain logia which tradition had
brought down from Apostolic times, how different
would his exegesis have been ? I confess, for my-
seK, that if the light I have gained on the " Jo-
hannine Problem " had brought me no other boon
than this, that Christ is thereby saved for me from
Porphyry's charge of fickleness and from Jerome's
acknowledgment of falsehood, or from the lame
defenses of later exegetes such as Lardner and
AKord, I should be more than repaid for my long
and anxious search. If the words, " I go not up,"
were not actually spoken by Christ, but were the
work of a writer a century after Christ's death,
then Christ is absolved from all responsibility for
them; and the law of truthfulness and sincerity
which he proclaimed so plaiuly in the Sermon on
the Mount stands unmoved and secure.
Yet this should be said iu palliation of Alford's
remarkable interpretation. He was the victim of
his theological environment, — an environment
that was the outcome of a long evolution of theo-
logical exegesis which rested on the ethical
theory that the officiosum mendacium was lawfid
when the interests of dogmatic truth required it.
Augustine's passionate protest against the ten-
330 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
dency of his age had been without avail. Jerome,
Lardner, Alford, are only straws showing whither
the currents of exegetical ethics have been flow-
ing during the entire history of Christianity down
to the present day.
Let me add one or two further examples of the
manner in which other distinguished commenta-
tors of the conservative school have dealt with the
passage that has been under consideration. Few
men of the nineteenth century were more famous
for evangelical piety and learning than the German
Tholuck. In his commentary on John he thus
remarks on vii. 8, "If we foUow the external
authority of the Codices the reading of owo) must
be preferred. But it may be asked, whether apolo-
getic considerations have not given the preference
to oviro) before ovkJ* After referring to Porphyry's
charge of fickleness and to Jerome's defense, both
grounded on the earlier reading ovk, Tholuck adds :
" But if with Bengel, Griesbach, and KJaapp we
should read ov/c, no objection could be brought
against it. In a loose manner of speaking it may
become synonymous with ovttcd, as is clearly the
case in vi. 17." The case of vi. 17 is not so
" clear," and in fact has no relation to the case in
hand. But if it had it would not help us. Sup-
pose we allow that Christ spoke loosely^ using ovk
in the sense of ovtto), the question is, did his breth-
ren understand that he spoke loosely and meant to
tell them that he was simply deferring his visit to
Jerusalem, or did they understand him to say and
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 331
mean that lie was not going up at aU ? The con-
text surely can bear but one interpretation. They
did not suppose that he used ovk " in a loose
manner." Did Christ, then, intend to mislead
them by a douhle-entendre^ and if so, could a will-
ful deception be more complete ? In this quandary
Tholuck leaves us to our own devices. Comment
surely is unnecessary.
I now turn to a commentator who on the whole
is to be regarded as the leading living exegetical
scholar in the English church of the present
generation, as was shown by his being made
chairman of the British New Testament Revision
Company. I refer to Bishop EUicott. His inter-
pretation occurs in his " Life of Christ " (Am.
ed. 227). EUicott rejects Meyers's supposition
that Christ " here states his intention and after-
wards alters it " as not borne out by the context,
as it certainly is not. He also rejects " the ex-
planation of De Wette and Alford " which I
have given above, on the ground that " it seems
neither so simple nor so natural" as his own,
though he allows that it "is perhaps defensible."
What now is the exegesis which EUicott prefers
to the others mentioned and squarely adopts as
one that removes " the apparent contradiction that
has been found between our Lord's words and
his subsequent acts " ? He makes the key to his
explanation what he regards as a pecuUar char-
acteristic of the Fourth Gospel, namely, that Christ
is everywhere represented as " the reader of the
332 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
thoughts and intents of the human heart," and
thus in his conversations with men " did not so
much reply to the words of the speaker as to the
thoughts which he knew were rising up within."
This he uses as a principle of interpretation in
John vii. 8. Christ's brethren asked him whether
he was going up to the feast. But the question
implied " a worldly and self-seeking spirit." They
wished him to go publicly and announce him-
self in a way to draw general attention. " It is
to the spirit and meaning of this worldly and self-
seeking request, rather than to the outward terms
in which it was couched, that the Lord answered
his brethren." " He does indeed not go up to the
feast in the sense in which these carnal-minded
men presumed to counsel him. He joins now no
festal company ; he takes now no prominent part
in the festival solemnities." But he goes all the
same^ in another sense of his language, which
sense, however, is of course wholly subjective and
not understood by his brethren, who took his words
literally and not spiritually. Such is Ellicott's
explanation, which does not explain, for it leaves
Christ in a worse moral plight than either of the
other interpretations, since it makes him deliher-
ately use a form of answer which he knew would
wholly deceive them. It is assumed, of course, by
EUicott that Christ was f uUy aware of the charac-
ter of their question, that it referred to his going
up and not merely to the manner of it, and that
his reply was not to their question^ but to a new
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 333
question which he had drawn out of it. Yet
Bishop Ellicott seems entirely satisfied with this
explanation as saving Christ from untruthfulness.
I am not here concerned whether this method of
exegesis has absolved Christ from the moral de-
linquency in which the authentic text of this
passage seems to involve him. My view of the
history of the text makes such a method wholly
unnecessary. What concerns me is, whether it
can absolve Bishop Ellicott himself from a like
delinquency. What must one think of the fine-
ness of moral fibre of a Christian commentator
who can descend to such a miserable " wresting
of the Scriptures " as this, — " Scriptures," be
it noted, which Bishop Ellicott regards as super-
naturally inspired, and, in the case in question,
the very language of the divine Son of God!
Far be it from me even to suggest a suspicion
that this eminent prelate has juggled with his con-
science in his scholarly commentaries. Like Al-
ford, Tholuck, and others, he was the creature of
his age and of its traditional environment, and
he only illustrates, in the very headquarters of
official churchmanship, that hereditary moral taint
the sources of which I have traced back to the
origins of Christianity. I will only add that
this comment of Bishop Ellicott is one of the
worst specimens on record, in my view, of the
spiritualizing method of interpretation which has
been so popular in recent exegesis, and which is
full of evidence of the unconscious disingenuous-
334 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
ness and insincerity that is so ingrained in the
theological temper of our age.
I have dwelt thus at length on the subject of
Biblical interpretation, because it gives so clear
and conclusive evidence of the results of the
theory of the officiosum mendacium which has
played so influential a part in Christian theology
and life. Christian exegetical scholars have as a
rule been more free from the yoke of theological
dogma than professed dogmatic theologians. Je-
rome was much more free in his exegetical views
than Augustine. Alford was by no means a
hard-and-fast dogmatist. If the exegetes can go
so far in textual distortion to save an article of
the orthodox creed, what may we expect of the
metaphysical theologians? And if both exegetes
and theologians are ready to play fast and loose
with the law of veracity when the interests of
what they regard as the truth demand it, what
must we expect of the rank and file of Christians
who have been accustomed to reverence and follow
their chosen leaders? Can we wonder that our
churches are honeycombed with elements of in-
sincerity and hypocrisy, or that the world is ready
to ask whether Christianity itself in its organized
form, judging it by its moral exhibitions, is not
an imposture and a sham ? Surely, before the
church can hope to convert nominal Christendom,
still further, before it can become a missionary
force that shall conquer the unchristian world, it
mvi&t first he converted itself.
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 335
These words may have a severe and pessimistic
sound. But the writer is no pessimist. No one
can despair of the future who reads with any clear
intelligence the signs of the times. Outside of
the church at least there is readiness for the light,
and freedom of thought, and an end of religious
bigotry and dishonesty. And these moral forces
are beginning to react on the church itself with
silent but irresistible potency. Marvelous indeed
would it be if it should come to pass that the
unrecognized outside " sleeping partners " of the
true kingdom of God should be the real leaders in
the moral progress of the race, rather than the
historical organizations that have so long assumed
to be the only representatives of Christianity.
Already such a movement has taken visible shape.
The Zeitgeist is becoming conscious of its power.
Organization, however deeply seated in old tra-
ditions, has ceased to be a fetich. The light of
God's truth is as universal as that of the sun, and
cannot be shut up in anybody's lantern, call that
lantern by any sacred name you wiU. It is this
that the world is finding out to-day, — thanks to
the new science and the new history. The church,
too, must soon learn the same lesson. It cannot
continue much longer to resist the influences
around it. Its closed doors and windows must
be thrown wide open to the free air and light of
heaven. And just here wiU begin the church's true
regeneration. With freedom will quickly come
an end of ignorance and of insincerity. Then
336 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
with open eyes men will read God's new revela-
tions. Then it will be seen that the new truths of
science and of historical criticism are not of man's
building. Charles Darwin was not the author of
that wonderful law of evolution which is revolu-
tionizing all our conceptions of nature, of man, and
of God. He only discovered what God himself in
his own time had revealed, or, if one pleases, what
nature had disclosed of its previously hidden pro-
cesses as the providential interpreter of Him whose
works are " parts of his ways." Surely in these
days of God's outstretched hand human pride
should give place to humility. Man's wisdom has
indeed proved " foolishness." The garnered philo-
sophy of ages has shriveled up as a scroll in the
fire that tries every man's works. And why
should we cling to it or regret it ? The old monk's
counsel was good : " Regret not that which is
past." This is a day of promise and hope, not of
unavailing regrets ; a day of faith, not of skepti-
cism ; a day of optimistic courage and cheer, not of
pessimistic lamentations. And in that hope and
faith and cheer I seem to catch a vision of the
days to come. Christianity has been like one of
those old palimpsests where the original writing
was buried and lost under a later script. Christ's
own gospel had been transformed into "another
gospel which was not a gospel." But God's provi-
dence has given us the subtle critical art by means
of which the legendary accumulations of long ages
have been removed, and the original teachings of
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 337
Christ once more brought out clearly to view ;
and lo, as I look on that old standard under which
Christianity has so long fought, with its theological
shibboleths, — dead embers of forgotten contro-
versies, — a sudden and marvelous change comes
over it ; its traditional dogmatic creeds disappear
like a mist of the morning, and in their place I
read those recovered words of Christ which sum up
his whole gospel : " A new commandment I give
unto you, that ye love one another. By this shall
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another : " and yet again the scene
shifts and the vision of the seer of Patmos is
fulfilled : " I saw no temple therein : for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of
the moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And
the nations of them which are saved shall walk in
the light of it : and the kings of the earth do
bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates
of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there
shall be no night there. And they shall bring the
glory and honor of the nations into it." What
city is here described ? Not any outward city of
man's making, with its " temples " and " shut
gates ; " but the " New Jerusalem, coming from
God out of heaven." In that city, open and free,
and illumined by the sun of God's righteous
love, ''all the nations shall walk," and "there
shall be no night there."
338 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
What interpretation should be given to this
apocalyptic passage cannot be exactly determined.
All apocalypse, as Neander has well said, has a
"germinant and springing meaning and accom-
plishment." The Revelation does not claim to be
history. It belongs to the realm of mystical theo-
logy, and must be interpreted by mystical or sym-
bolical methods. Moreover, the authorship of the
Revelation is unknown, so that it is impossible to
gain light from the author's environment or reli-
gious point of view. Yet, notwithstanding all this,
I cannot think that the radical thought of the
writer is doubtful. Whoever he was, he had
plainly somehow caught a glimpse of the final evo-
lution of God's kingdom on earth, and sought to
picture it in apocalyptic form. Beneath all its
imagery three characteristics of the end of all
things stand out clearly to view : 1. A world-wide
united brotherhood of God's people. 2. God's own
presence in their midst, making needless material
gates for protection or material temples for wor-
ship. 3. A final state of perfect harmony and
peace and joy ; — which being translated into the
new historical apocalypse of our own day should
read thus : 1. The harmonizing and union of all
the hitherto warring religions of the world through
Christ's gospel, with its new interpretation of di-
vine and brotherly love. 2. The tabernacling of
God among men through his seK-revelations as
immanent in nature, in the world, and in all human
souls, and thus becoming the spiritual bond of one
PERILS OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 339
universal kingdom of truth and justice. 3. The
£aial consummation of aU things in a world-wide
moral unity and peace.
Eighteen centuries have gone since the Kevela-
tion was written. Its jubilant hope, expressed in
" Behold I come quickly," still remains an unful-
filled ideal. It has been one of the objects of this
book to disclose some of the historical causes of
the delay of God's coming.
or
CHAPTER Vni
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY IN THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY
This comparative historical survey has on the
practical side reached its appropriate conclusion.
But there stiU remains a question which cannot be
without interest to aU Christian thinkers. Reli-
gious faith must by a law of the human mind
sooner or later be subjected to the inquisition of
the reason and its critical processes. History shows
that every religion tends to become a theology, and
to guard and limit itself with a dogmatic creed.
Hence the historical inductive method is called to
deal not only with the history of religions, but also
with their theological developments.
We have now reached a point of view where a
comprehensive survey may be taken of the present
religious possessions of the world and of their in-
tellectual and theological relations to each other.
In this way by the inductive process the founda-
tions may be laid of the new theology which is
to come.
It wiU be the aim of this chapter to set forth
the real character of the new theological problem
which the twentieth century finds at its door. This
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 341
problem has two distinct sides or aspects. One
aspect of it has to do with the relation of religion
to those scientific discoveries which have created
for man in the new revelations of nature and its
laws a new world. The other aspect of the pro-
blem grows out of those historical and critical in-
vestigations which have developed an entirely new
conception not only of the historical origins of
Christianity, but also of the origins and character
of the Ethnic religions. The results of science
and of the history of religions have together so
transformed the whole field of religious faith and
thought that a new philosophical or theological
construction has become inevitable.
It is not my purpose to go over again the ground
of my previous book. I do not propose now any
further attempt at a construction of the new theo-
logy. What I have in mind is simply, from the
wider and higher vantage ground reached in this
historical survey of the trinitarian ideas of man-
kind concerning God, to put the new theological
problem thus raised in its true historical setting,
and thus to help towards its solution. Such a pre-
liminary analysis and diagnosis is most needful.
Physicians of every school are always with us. But
most of the attempts to heal the religious maladies
of our times have been of two sorts : " Forward
Movements" in the churches and in missionary
organizations and " Reconstructions in Theology."
Plainly the theological doctors have become alive
to the fact that the patient is dangerously ill ; but
342 THE ETHHIC TRINITIES
as to the character of the disease and the medicine
to be administered there is great diversity of opin-
ion. The mere list of remedies suggested only-
shows how much at sea the physicians are. As
usual the traditionalists and metaphysicians are on
hand with the old prescriptions. The question is
whether it is not high time for the historical doctor
to say his say. Strauss's keen and searching re-
mark, " The true criticism of dogma is its history,"
may prove to be the very key we need. What
lasting good can come from " forward movements "
or from " theological reconstructions," if they pro-
ceed by wrong roads to take us only further away
from the end sought? The right start must be
made and the right line of direction taken, if a
Christian advance is to issue in a final success and
not in inglorious failure. To learn what the right
start is and what the right line of direction, we
need to use carefuUy and thoroughly the search-
lights of history. Such is the form of investiga-
tion now proposed.
" The new problem of theology in the twentieth
century " suggests at once a historical contrast
with the problem of the century just closed. What
was that problem and how was it solved ? When
the last century opened, the old theology in its
most rigid and scholastic form held the field and
was regnant in all orthodox circles. This theology
had two poles, a Sabellianized trinitarianism,
and a Calvinistic anthropology, which, however,
was rapidly yielding to the dissolving influence of
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 343
Arminian ideas. The old creeds, however, remained
intact and firm. Scientists and historical critics
were quietly pursuing their investigations into
nature and the sources of history, but their dis-
coveries created no general alarm. Not tiU the
middle of the century was the inevitable and essen-
tial antagonism between scientific and historical
studies and the dogmas of traditional theology fully
realized. Then followed a mortal conflict between
the radical and vital principle of all science and
historical criticism, — summed up in the Darwin-
ian law of uninterrupted natural evolution, — and
the traditional a 'priori principle of a supernatural
intervention by special creation and miracle as the
true historical explanation of the course of nature
and of human events. This conflict, if we look at
the nineteenth century from its theological side,
marks more deeply and characteristically than any
other its history as a whole. Consciously or un-
consciously, all theological discussions and move-
ments of any importance have taken their cue from
the attitude of theologians toward the Darwinian
doctrine of nature. For a generation after the
publication of " The Origin of Species " the whole
theological air was filled with the dust that was
raised by dogmatic or timid theologians. But a
strange lull has recently fallen upon the field of
debate, for reasons that are too plain to remain
doubtful. The truth is that it has become clear to
the mass of intelligent men and women that if
there is any radical antagonism between the ascer-
344 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tained facts of science and historical criticism and
the traditional dogmas of the old orthodoxy, it
must mean that these dogmas are invalid and false.
In fact, the new science and the new history have
come to stay. The educated world has already ac-
cepted their fundamental premises and conclusions,
however doubtful it may be as to certain subordi-
nate questions. Thus the ground has been made
historically clear for the new problem of theology
in the century to come. There can be no doubt
as to what its fundamental character must be.
The century is to be marked by the complete har-
monizing and unifying of scientific, historical, and
religious truth. That this process will involve the
utter downfall of the old theology in its traditional
creed forms goes without saying. It must disap-
pear with the old false science and history on which
it was built, — as, for example, those exploded
theories of creation as wrought in six days, of our
earth as the centre of the universe, of a material
heaven beyond the circumference of the starry
vault, of a material heU deep in the centre of the
earth, of the aerial region above and around us as
filled with supernatural beings both good and bad,
of men as subject in both body and soul to the
" prince of the power of the air," through bewitch-
ment or actual demoniacal possession, of this world
as given over by God because of Adam's sin and
fall to Satan, and thus made the scene of conflict
between two spiritual kingdoms only to be termi-
nated by the miraculous coming of the Son of God
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 345
for the everlasting destruction of evil and triumph
of good. This whole mass of traditional supersti-
tion, which belongs essentially to one and the same
class of uncritical beliefs, is rapidly dissolving like
snow under the sun of summer and is giving place
to a new order of religious ideas proceeding from a
new scientific and critical principle of eternal and
unchangeable law. Such is the problem in one
aspect of it. Of course there are still many who
would protest loudly against such a historical re-
sume and forecast. Organized Christianity, which
hugs so tenaciously its historical traditions, will
not give them up without a final struggle ; but I
believe that I am safe, as a historical observer, in
the assertion that the decisive battle between
science and religion is at an end, and that, so far
as there was any real ground of conflict growing
out of dogmas that were supposed to be essential
to religious faith, science and its ally historical
criticism have come off victors. The final cowp de
grace was given by historical criticism. The de-
fenders of a miraculous Christianity have rested
their arguments on the assumption that the Bible
was a direct divine revelation, and that conse-
quently its narratives were authentic history. His-
torical criticism has destroyed the very basis of this
position by showing that its primary assumptions
are untenable.
If one would realize how complete a change has
been wrought in a single generation, as the result
of critical research, let him look into a work of
346 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Dr. McCosh entitled " The Supernatural in Kelar
tion to the Natural," published in 1862. Appar-
ently Dr. McCosh was not aware that Darwin's
epoch-making book had already appeared three
years before. At least he does not allude to it in
his own volume, though he was quite a scientific
student and accepted much of the science of his
day, especially the new astronomy and geology.
Certainly had he realized what was the radically
new position taken by Darwin as to the character
of the origin and mode of development of nature
in all its forms, he would have met it with an
earnest demurrer, for he held strongly in his book
to special acts of divine creation, and to the con-
tinuance of the miraculous element in history.
The naive way in which Dr. McCosh makes use
of certain portions of the Bible, assuming without
question their entire historicity, is truly astonish-
ing. For example, he alludes to the account in
the book of Daniel of " the three children of Israel
who were thrown into the fiery furnace in Baby-
lon " without a hint that it may not be accepted
fact. So concerning Balaam's ass, he asserts that
" We know enough to convince us that the ass could
not speak except by a supernatural agency work-
ing in it," never once suggesting a doubt whether
the ass did actually speak in human language.
On the same principle he declares that the prophe-
cies of the Old Testament were predictions of defi-
nite future historical events, " foretold hundreds
or thousands of years beforehand," and hence
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 347
must be regarded as proofs of miraculous power
and agency. He accepts the entire historicity of
the narrative given in "The Acts" concerning
what happened on the day of Pentecost, assuming
with the completest assurance that " uneducated
fishermen at once, without having been taught,
addressed a multitude of persons gathered from a
variety of countries each in his own language."
How utterly the foundations of Dr. McCosh's
whole argument have been undermined by Biblical
criticism I need not say. What critical scholar
to-day accepts the fuU historicity of any of these
Scripture accounts? When Dr. McCosh laid
down his primary philosophical thesis " that it is
not possible for the inductive philosophers to be
able to establish the doctrine of the uniformity of
nature as a law which can admit of no excep-
tions,^^ he surely little realized that a book was al-
ready in existence which would prove just such a
uniformity of nature in the case of species, — the
very case which Dr. McCosh had relied upon as
the citadel of his own position. There are some
to-day, apparently, who are leaning on the same
broken reed. They are ready to accept the law of
evolution to a certain point, but refuse to allow
that there are no exceptions to it. Dr. Lyman
Abbott, for example, admits the law to be invio-
lable and universal with a single exception, to wit,
the miraculous birth of Christ. But if one event
can lie outside of the law, what becomes of the law
itself? A law of nature can no more allow a
348 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
single breach than a chain, the strength of which
is gone if a single link be broken. The Darwinian
law of natural evolution is true, unchangeably,
and universally, or it is utterly false, and to be
cast aside as unscientific.
In dealing thus with Dr. McCosh's book, I feel
as if I were stirring the flickering embers of a
dead issue. I have done so because I know of no
better way to show how far behind us already have
those theological questions drifted which some
would assume to be still alive and mooted among
us. In fact, when they are raised now and then,
there is no attempt to answer them ; the time and
need of such discussion has gone irretrievably by.
The law of natural evolution so signally proved
and illustrated by Darwin in its application to all
species of organic life, including man, is equally
applicable in every other field of nature. Take
the case of miracles. There are those who are
ready to give up all miracles outside of the Bible,
or even of the New Testament, but insist on the
retention of the latter as if Christianity itself de-
pended on their historical reality. But if the
principle of the uniformity of nature has ever been
broken once, by a single miraculous act through
which natural law was violated or suspended, then
the essential character of law has been invaded
and a principle of natural disorder and contin-
gency has been introduced, which makes the uni-
verse the sport of chance, and its essential charac-
ter as a cosmos is gone. It is just as difficult for
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 349
the scientific or historical critic to accept a single
miracle, in its theological meaning of a violation
or suspension of law, as to accept a thousand.
Here, then, comes to view the very starting-point
of any satisfactory and lasting solution of the new
problem of theology. No haH-way measures — no
compromises between two antagonistic positions —
can stand. There can be no real harmonizing of
science and theology except on the basis of a
complete and unwavering acceptance of scientific
principles and laws in all their widest applica-
tions. To attempt to revive the old discredited
controversies of the nineteenth century is a histor-
ical anachronism. Evolution, as I have said, is
all true or it is all false. The old distinction
which has so long been a fundamental assumption
of theology between the supernatural, with its ap-
pendix of miracle, and the natural, from which all
miracle is eliminated, is whoUy obsolete so far as
science is concerned, and theology can never come
into real harmony with scientific methods and
results until it has equally abolished this dualistic
assumption. Let it be noted that science has to
do only with nature and its laws. What may lie
behind nature, whence its laws are derived, are
questions not of science directly but of philosophy.
Monism in science, therefore, does not necessarily
involve monism in philosophy. If a conflict is to
arise again between monism and dualism, it can-
not be fought within the domain of nature and
natural law, but in the metaphysical or transcen-
350 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
dental realm. In short, a man may be a dualist
in his philosophy and yet accept wholly the mon-
ism of science. When Ernst Haeckel, in " The
Riddle of the Universe," declares that the monism
of science must be extended to all philosophical
problems, he passes from scientific ground, where
he is strong and invulnerable, to philosophic
ground, where he at once becomes weak, and shows
only too painfully " the heel of Achilles." But
the new problem of theology in the aspect under
which we are now considering it is directly con-
nected with nature and its laws. Whatever fur-
ther problems may arise in the field of philosophic
thought, the problem that faces the theologian of
to-day first of all is concerned with the true rela-
tion of religion and science ; and here the situation
has become clear, as it seems to me, to every can-
did observer. The new theology must first of all
be a scientific theology through and through.
When this position has once been squarely taken,
it will be found that scientific and critical scholars
who have been treated with distrust and unfair-
ness, and even sometimes with scant courtesy, as
if in league with destroyers of the faith, are really
its most valuable friends and helpers. When na-
ture and history are once seen to be "parts of
God's ways," and full not only of divine ministries
to men, but also of the truest and tenderest reve-
lations of the divine character, what new sources
of theological truth will they become ! Then the
Bible will become a new book, — a very well or
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 361
natural spring of the water of life. Above all, the
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth will glow with a
new spiritual light and beauty, drawn as they were
so completely, not at second hand from human lit-
erature and learning, but directly from God's own
great book of nature itself.
Let us now turn to the other aspect of the pro-
blem. Assuming that science and religion have
been brought into harmonious union, and the
highest forms of human intelligence thus made
accordant with those religious instincts and princi-
ples which are inextinguishably rooted in every
member of the human race, we are ready to ask
what must be the presiding principle of a theology
which shall be able to harmonize the hitherto
divergent religions of the world and unite all their
devotees in one kingdom of truth and life ? One
great barrier to this result will have been removed
at once by the assumption just made. The full
harmonization of religion and science must involve
the entire downfall of the old traditional credal
theology, on which the great missionary move-
ments of Christendom have hitherto largely rested.
With the spread of the new scientific and histor-
ical light the same result must follow in the non-
Christian world, involving a like downfall of those
religious and theological cults that have lived on
with little relaxation of their hold on the Ethnic
peoples from prehistoric tunes to the present day,
and have resisted hitherto all the efforts of Chris-
tian missions. We have seen how vain it is to
352 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
attempt to overthrow the speculative dogmas of the
Ethnic religions from the standpoint of Christian
theology. The weapons of the Ethnic religious
thinkers are as keen and effective as those of their
opponents. The history of religion is fuU of these
metaphysical battles ; and the theological ramparts
behind which these battles were fought — the
most amazing metaphysical structures ever reared
by man — are to-day the wonder and admiration
of aU students of ancient philosophy. But they
belong to a mode of warfare that has passed
away. To carry on the missionary movement on
these old superannuated lines is no longer pos-
sible. The new missionary gospel must be one
that has been transformed by the new light of our
age. What the Ethnic peoples need, first of all,
is the spread among them of the f uUest and latest
results of modern scholarship. God's newest reve-
lations in nature and history, intelligently under-
stood and accepted, will cause those ancient sys-
tems of religious speculation which are strong
against any form of Christian dogma, to topple
into a mass of ruins. Error and superstition
thrive so long as men are bound in the chains of
ignorance and custom, but they cannot endure the
light of truth. Education and enlightenment is
then the first work of the Christian missionary. But
this is only the stepping-stone to his real mission
as a religious teacher. When science has done its
part, then historical criticism must add its quota,
if he would be completely e(juipped for the procla-
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 353
mation of that religious truth which alone has
power to convert and sanctify mankind. Such
truth is to be found in Christ's original and un-
adulterated gospel. How this gospel was slowly-
distorted into another gospel until its original
lineaments were mostly lost for long ages, and
how it has been rediscovered for us in these last
times, has been already set forth at length.
Enough here to summarize and say that histor-
ical criticism has restored to Christian faith and
love the true historical Jesus of Nazareth. Layer
after layer of unhistorical tradition and legend,
with its superstitious accretions of miracle and
fable, have been removed, until at last the veri-
table picture of the man of Galilee in all the ten-
derness, and sweetness, and moral greatness of his
hmnan life has come forth to view, once more to
draw to himself all tempted, hungering, and thirst-
ing human hearts. Such a picture, with all its gos-
pel simplicity, uttering with silent and yet eloquent
lips that parable of the prodigal son, which gath-
ered up into itself the very pith and marrow of
Christ's moral teaching, has more power and vir-
tue in it to move the world than all the theologies
from Nice to Westminster. Such a simple gospel,
without dogma or credo^ without any mixture of
speculative metaphysics, — a gospel from God
through man to his human brother, — such a gos-
pel of divine-human brotherly love the heart of
man everywhere will open to as the morning
354 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
flowers to the rising sun, and it will open to no
other,^
^ It has been a common assumption of the advocates of Chris-
tian missions that the Ethnic religious systems have little hold
upon their adherents. A close study of the history of these sys-
tems makes clear the superficial and unhistorical character of this
assumption, and recent events are proving how baseless and false
it is. This is especially the case with the g^eat Asiatic religions,
such as Confucianism, Hindooism, Buddhism, and Mohammed-
anism. As I write, items entirely independent of each other
appearing in leading newspapers are straws that indicate much
more truthfully than missionary reports what is the real char-
acter of the situation. First, the Congregationalist has the follow-
ing in its editorial columns: ^^ Hinduism Reviving. Hindus of
the educated classes in Bengal are more actively engaged in sup-
port of their religion than ever before, and most of these have
been educated in Christian schools, or in those established under
the auspices of the British government. Societies are being
formed for the defense of Hinduism, for studying its literature,
and for practical religious and charitable work. Hindus in vari-
ous ways are attempting to reform Hinduism. Some denounce
idolatry, others polytheism, declaring that these superstitions are
not essential to their faith." The Christian Register also edi-
torially remarks : " The vast recuperative powers of the Oriental
world — whether Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Confucian — have
been shown through innumerable past ages, and are likely to
be exhibited within our times upon a grand scale." The
Boston Transcript, in an issue of the same week, gives some
account of the results of the experiences of an English woman
who was led by " her interest in the Hindoo religion and people
to go to India to. study Hindooism on its own ground." She spent
nine years, " living entirely among the natives." On the point
with which I am now concerned Miss Muller ' ' thinks it improb-
able that Christianity can get any general hold on the Hindoos
for a very long time to come, if ever." These items are in line
with other recent testimony of men who have lived many years
in India and have looked at the matter with unprejudiced minds.
What is thus made evident by the testimony of recent obser-
vation is amply sustained by the history of the Ethnic religions,
which shows that the essential dogmas of those religfions have
been slowly built up on primary religious ideas that form the
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 355
At this point I cannot help noting how simple
at last "the new problem of theology in the
very warp and woof of the Ethnic religions consciousness, and
cannot be dislodged by another set of ideas without an upheaval
such as is not likely to happen at present. Such changes are of
all the slowest in their movement. There is something deeper
and more radical in human nature and society than mere dogma
or dogmatic systems of religious belief. These are but the out-
growth of sentiments and ideas that have their roots in the pri-
mary moral instincts and tendencies of human nature. While it
is true that the human race is generically one, it is equally true
that different varieties of mankind have developed great diver-
gencies of religious sentiment and thought, such as ideas of the
family, of woman, of government, of society, of racial kinship ;
and the more closely these subjects are studied, the more clearly
will it be seen that religious dogmatic systems are secondary to
these primary ideas, and are built up to support them. Here, in
part at least, is the explanation of the remarkable and appar-
ently deep-seated difference between the Asiatic Oriental mind
and character and that of the Occidental or European. This
difference lies below the dogmatic differences between the
Ethnic and Christian religions, and it is the chief bar to the suc-
cess of Christian missions. It may be said that Christianity is
itself of Asiatic origin. This is true, but its speedy amalgama-
tion with Greek ideas completely changed its whole character,
as has been shown. A Semitic Asiatic religion became a Hellen-
ized European religion, and it has remained such to this day.
The Semitic Judaism out of which it sprang has always refused
to accept it. This is the historical reason why Christianity in its
early progress never penetrated far beyond the outskirts of the
Roman Empire. The subsequent conversion of the western bar-
barians was more due to the influence of Roman civilization and
culture, in connection with race affinity, than to the dogmas of
the Christian religion. Thus it may be seen that the problem
of the Christianization of the world is a far more complex and
intricate one than is ordinarily supposed. It is my profound
conviction, as a historical student, that the Christian nations
providentially hold the keys of the world's religious as well as
political future ; but everything depends, as I have endeavored
to show, on the way in which Christianity employs its forces.
356 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
twentieth century " has become. In this volume
we have walked around and closely scanned grand
scholastic metaphysical systems, the Hindoo, the
Plotinian, the Christian, rising toward the sky
like the vast mediaeval cathedrals ; but even now
they are growing dim in the distance behind us,
as we turn the corner of a new century, while be-
fore us rises the unobtrusive figure of a man, the
meek and lowly Jesus, who " had not where to
lay his head." Humbling, indeed, is such a shrink-
age of human philosophy to human pride. Not
so strange would it be if again, as in the begin-
nings of Christianity, Christ in his lowliness
should be " despised and rejected " even by the
religious leaders of Christendom, unwilling to
leave those mediaeval structures on which they
have labored so long for the humble abode of
Nazareth. Fortunate the Christian missionary
who shall have so caught the spirit of his master
that he will be ready to lay aside all the pride of
human philosophy, as Paul did, and preach " Jesus
Christ and him crucified," that is, Christ's own
gospel of love and sacrifice.
The new problem of theology once fairly
grasped, the construction will be easy. I had al-
most said that it wiU construct itself. Founded
No earnest student of the great Oriental religions can, in my
judgment, be made to believe that they will ever be overthi-own
by philosophical or theological dogmas of any kind. But, as I
have said, there is a more excellent way, and it is the only way,
— the way of a nobler civilization, a truer science, a diviner gos-
pel of love and charity.
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 357
on the inductive method, its development will be
natural and spontaneous. As science and histor-
ical criticism move on to new fields of discovery
and knowledge, theology wiU follow, appropriat-
ing all the new truth for the satisfaction of its
intellectual and spiritual needs. As " knowledge
grows from more to more," religion and the re-
ligious nature will rise to higher and fuller con-
ceptions of truth.
It is not difficult also to forecast what the essen-
tial feature of the new theology will be. Man and
nature together will constitute its fundamental
material, and as man is nature's crown, he wiU
naturally be the foremost subject of rehgious in-
terest. Besides, man's own moral consciousness is
the focus-point through which all the moral light
of the universe in every form of revelation must
pass. The seat of moral authority for every man
is in his own moral nature. It becomes, therefore,
the highest moral duty of every man to study him-
seK, and in the light of that psychological survey
to test and gauge his moral responsibility. All
the spiritual knowledge of which man is capable
must reach him through his own moral faculties,
so that its real character will be truly discoverable
only as it takes on the forms of the moral con-
sciousness. God can be known only as his image
is shadowed in man's own moral nature. Whether
God and man are of one common image and like-
ness or not, man cannot help conceiving of God in
that way. If God is not a moral and personal
368 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
being, he is to man " an unknown God." Hence
theology is destined to be essentially an anthropo-
logy ; and psychology or the study of man's higher
nature will form with natural science the twin
" master lights " of theological truth, — historical
criticism assisting them by its methods of elimi-
nating possible error and by shedding the further
light of universal human experience upon man's
individual path.
Another historical forecast may also be taken.
Not only wiU the development of the new theology
be easy, it will also be rapid. Historical move-
ments as a rule are slow ; but crises often involve
immense changes that are accomplished with a
marvelous celerity. Such, I believe, will be the
case in the religious and theological advances of
the new century. Even now one can feel the
rushing of the tide beneath his feet. Cause and
effect go together. One has only to study the
causes of the present religious and theological
unrest, and see how deep and radical they are, to
lose all sense of surprise at the great changes that
are coming over human thought and especially
over all the old forms of religious belief. This
movement is still in its very birth throes. The
new currents are only just beginning to set toward
their swift forward march. Science is still " mew-
ing its mighty youth," and historical criticism is
but a child in swaddling clothes. What vast ac-
cessions to the realm of knowledge may we not
expect when these striplings attain to their full
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 359
majority ! The infant is already born, so the
historical observer may not fear to say, who will
see with his own eyes an era of scientific and his-
torical progress that shall make our present
achievements seem hke the play of children;
and with it a new philosophy of nature, of man,
and of God, — in brief, a new world, a new re-
ligion, and a new theology practically complete.
But some one metaphysically inclined, and not
quite ready to accept such a simple solution as the
inductive historical method offers, may skeptically
raise the question : what about monism versus
dualism f To which my reply would be : For
such a riddle I have no answer. Ask, if you
will, the sphinxes that line the approach to the
ruined temple of Egyptian Karnak, whose speech-
less lips and far-off looking eyes are silent wit-
nesses to the eternal mystery of life and time.
For myseK, I have little faith in metaphysical
speculation as containing any satisfactory solution
of religious problems or even as able to throw any
practical light upon them. Not till Kant had
passed from the barren wastes of speculative ra-
tionalistic criticism to the green pastures of man's
moral intuitions did his religious consciousness
find rest. " The true fight that enlighteneth
every man that cometh into the world " was
kindled by God in every man's moral nature.
By itseK the speculative or ratiocinating faculty,
whether analytical or synthetical, is but a dry
Sahara waste. It has no fountain of spiritual life.
360 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
Man's moral consciousness is the natural head-
spring of all religion and of aU religious truth.
That consciousness can be interrogated and studied
only by the inductive or experimental method.
Therefore scientific and historical induction affords
the only basis of a true theology. It has been made
a point of criticism against "The Evolution of
Trinitarism " that it declares the moral conscious-
ness to be in its very nature theistic, — it being
assimied by these critics that such a declaration is
a priori or deductive rather than inductive. Such
an assumption I decline to accept, and assert, on
the contrary, that aU the religious light we have
from our moral consciousness is purely the result of
experience, and that such experience can be studied
only by experimental induction ; and further, that
the widest possible survey of the moral history of
mankind proves conclusively that man's moral in-
stincts and intuitions are theistic, and not pan-
theistic. If my position be valid, the charge of
logical inconsistency falls to the ground.
Let me here say that the difference between
these two modes of procedure in the discovery of
religious truth is vital. The true fons et origo of
the a priori or abstract method, with all its meta-
physical assumptions, is the speculative faculty, —
a method of religious quest and adventure as un-
safe as Bellerophon's horse Pegasus, who threw his
rider to the earth when he wished to be carried to
heaven. This faculty has its function in critical
philosophy, but it should be a servant, and never
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 361
become a master. If one would realize what
mastership involves, he has only to read the his-
tory of Christian theology. On the other hand,
the true and original home of religion and of re-
ligious truth is man's religious nature. Strange
that so easy a lesson should be so hard to remem-
ber. No doubt the world will have its a priori' s
and speculative idealisms to the end of time.
There are always some to whom a veritable ab-
straction or Platonic " idea " is " daily food."
Unfortunately for such the twentieth century is
otherwise inclined. The Zeitgeist has worked
too hard to get rid of the metaphysical cobwebs
of past millenniums and to set its house in order
for the new facts of science and history, to listen
credulously or patiently to any metaphysical siren
song. The new theology, whatever else it may
be, will be a matter offact^ a moral, an anthro-
pologic theology, and will be solidly built on the
foundation stones of the truths revealed through
man's moral consciousness. Here will be the field
of investigation, — a field of religious inquiry
virgin and rich indeed, hitherto almost covered
up by the old theological dogmas of "original
sin" and "total depravity." How could Jona-
than Edwards understand the religious nature of a
child, when he piously believed that from birth
it was "a little viper" steeped in the "poison"
of sin ! Were I asked what religious book I re-
gard as the most epochal of the last century in
New England or even in America I should answer
362 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
at once : BushneU's " Christian Nui-ture." This
book, first published in 1860, — the year following,
be it noted, the publication of Darwin's " Origin of
Species," — has exerted a quiet but truly remark-
able influence. If ever a man "builded better
than he knew," it was Bushnell. Scarcely realiz-
ing what he was doing, BushneU practically laid
the first stone in the foundations of the new
theology. That stone was the new position taken
that the Christian religion is a matter of natural
growth and nurture in man, beginning with the
earliest years of childhood. The whole book is a
fervid plea for the careful Christian education and
training of children from the beginnings of moral
existence. When it was published, the times were
ripe for the seed sown. The Edwardsian Calvin-
istic doctrine of child-nature as poisoned and de-
praved by the Adamic sin was losing its hold on
the age, partly through the prevalence of Hopkin-
sianism which denied natural corruption, though
putting something just as bad in its place, but
more through the scientific and critical light that
was slowly permeating the minds of men. To
this day I know of no theological work so fuU of
the new religious leaven and spirit that are work-
ing in our time as BushneU's '' Christian Nurture ; "
and its main teaching concerning the child-nature
will, I believe, be the most fruitful feature of
those psychological investigations which more than
aU other influences combined will give a new shap-
ing to theological thought. The new theology
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 363
will not only be anthropological : it will be a
child-anthropology^ and Milton's lines —
" The childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day " —
will be the first article of its credo.
Realizing thus how simple and rapid the theo-'
logical movement of the twentieth century is likely
to be, I am ready to believe that the necessary
preliminary work of destructive criticism may soon
give way to a new theological construction. It is
true that theological changes are usually of creep-
ing pace, especially when thought has become
stiffened into creeds. Who does not realize it
that has studied the history of theological beliefs ?
How often does the Scripture adage come to
mind, with ever growing impressiveness, " One
day with the Lord is as a thousand years " ! The
movement of the dogmatic evolutions of the great
world religions has been like the geological forma-
tion of the crust of the earth. The Ethnic trini-
ties antedate all history, and one may follow them
until they are lost in the prehistoric origins of the
race. Through what long ages may the growth
of Christian theology be traced ! As a rule how
unyielding and tenacious of its hold on Christian
faith has every dogma been ! Yet, on the other
hand, it has been proved equally true that "a
thousand years with the Lord are as one day."
Long deferred was the great Protestant Eeforma-
tion that broke for half of Europe the papal yoke ;
but when the crisis at last came, a single genera-
364 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
tion sufficed to accomplish the most remarkable
ecclesiastical revolt in history. The signs of an
equally remarkable theological revolution fiU the
religious sky to-day and give no uncertain note of
warning that " The time is short,^^
I cannot finish this book without touching once
more the note which was struck in the last chapter
of my previous volume. If the historical evolution
of nineteen centuries gave grounds for optimistic
hopefulness, how much more occasion for a like
sentiment at the conclusion of a survey of man's re-
ligious history from the beginning of time ! How
infinitely great the contrast between the moral
ignorance and blindness of mankind at the outset
of their moral life and our clear and intelligent
grasp of religious truth to-day ! What makes this
contrast the more signal is the fact that in our own
generation not only has the true history of nature
and man been made known, but also the scientific
and historical laws in accordance with which it is
guided and will continue to be guided in the
future. Here the basis is laid as it was never laid
before for confidence and faith. To a degree at
least we now know where we are in God's universe
and whither we are tending. " God hath spoken
to us at the end of these days," by the things that
are made, in a manner that cannot be mistaken,
and shown that " he is not far from any one of
us." Nature, as its laws have proved, is good, not
evil, and the God of nature must be good also.
Divine revelation, to earlier faith so mysterious,
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 365
transcendent, and sporadic, has become natural and
immanent and harmonious with the faculties of
our moral nature. We wait no longer to hear
God speak outside of us in some miraculous way,
but listen contiaually to " the still small voice "
that whispers within our own souls. With the
new light of our scientific day the old materialism,
with all its degrading and cruel superstitions, has
faded into shadows that have gone with the night.
Religion with us is no longer of the letter or of
the form, but of the spirit. Dogma is but the
cast-off badge of a slavery that has given place to
" the freedom wherewith Christ hath made us
free." Even those fads of religious fancy and
custom that human nature delights in at certain
stages and in certain moods are dropping off as
" childish things." The educated world has at
last entered into the inheritance of its full man-
hood. As it looks backward it sees the difficult
and uncertain path by which it has slowly gained
its present point of vision, and turning to the
future rejoices in that eternal sweep of unchang-
ing divine law which gives such sweet assurance
that all things shall continue " as they were from
the beginning," only revealing themselves more
and more clearly in all their rhythmic order and
grace, —
" Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine."
Coming back from such an outlook to the little
round of our mortal lives, with their vicissitudes of
366 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
sorrow and joy, loss and gain, good and evil, how
can we forget the truth thus learned, that the whole
universe in which we live, with all its laws and
forces and historical evolutions, declares in one ma-
jestic and harmonious accord that " God is good "?
It was with a vision not quite cleared from the
clouds of old tradition, but with eager gaze into the
growing revelations which nature and history had
already disclosed, that Tennyson summed up in his
" In Memoriam " the half doubting, half believing
attitude of the century just ended : —
" Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ;
" That nothing walks with aimless feet ;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void.
When God hath made the pile complete.
" Behold, we know not anything ;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last — far oflE — at last, to all.
And every winter change to spring.
"So runs my dream : but what am I ?
An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light :
And with no language but a cry."
Such a strain, with all its longing after faith,
and with its frank confession of agnosticism and
doubt, reminds one of the melancholy notes of
Virgil's ^neid. Tennyson's " trust " after all is
but a " dream," and his expression of it but an
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 367
" infant's cry." It is " night " still around him.
" The light," for which he prays has not yet risen.^
I can but think that the future Tennyson or
Virgil of our twentieth century will strike a more
hopeful key and sing a nobler song. Browning
was only a younger contemporary of Tennyson,
but he had caught something of the spirit of the
coming age when he wrote that simple yet weird
poem, " The Boy and the Angel," from which I
quote : —
" Morning, evening, noon and night,
* Praise God ! ' sang Theocrite.
" Hard he labored, long and well ;
O'er his work the boy's curls f elL
" But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, ' Praise God ! '
" Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.
" He did God's will ; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.
^ It may be said that the " In Memoriam " does not fairly
represent Tennyson's maturer religious views. Allowing this, it
remains true that this poem, with all its agnostic and hesitating
religious temper, accurately represents the ruling literary spirit of
the nineteenth century ; and it may be added that the " In Me-
moriam " influenced religiously the age more than all Tennyson's
other writings. Nor does it stand alone among these writings in
its religious character. The same note of doubt, uncertainty, and
unrest is even more strongly struck in " The Two Voices." No
doubt, as Teimyson drew nearer to the end of the century, the
spirit of unquestioning faith grew on him, and there are clear
touches of it in some of his last poems. But if the " In Memo-
riam " was the supreme poetical creation of the Victorian age, no
less was it the supreme expression of its religious moods.
368 THE ETHNIC TRINITIES
" God said, * A praise is in mine ear ;
There is no doubt in it, no fear ! ' "
Who does not note the difference in the religious
temper of these two poets ? The " In Memoriam "
is pensive with a minor strain of baffled moral
effort and anxious uncertainty that vibrates all
through the poem like a chilling east wind. But
Browning has somehow seen a new light — the
light of a new scientific and historical day.
" God said, ' A praise is in mine ear ;
There is no doubt in it, no fear ! ' "
will be the deep undertone and refrain of man's
coming religion, — not so much a new religion as
a revival of Christ's own religion, simple, spiritual,
filled with a sense of God's presence and reflecting
his gracious spirit of love. This new age of ours
is the heir of two centuries. The eighteenth cen-
tury was marked by an intense skeptical reaction
from a theology of gloom and fear. The nine-
teenth century was an age of conflict between tra-
ditional dogmas that were embalmed in creeds and
the moral awakening caused by the new revelations
of science and history. The twentieth century will
be an era of faith built on solid grounds, and of
religious freedom and peace.
Into that new era our survey cannot further
carry us. The scroU of God's providence unrolls
only as time moves on. But this we knoW, that
faith, freedom, and peace are always the harbingers
of the highest blessings to man, and of the fullest
revelations of God. Political peace, with its ac-
THE NEW PROBLEM OF THEOLOGY 369
companiment of freedom, has ever been the world's
ideal. Men have fought, bled, and died for it.
"Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" is
still written on the escutcheon of the State of
Massachusetts, and fitly symbolizes the Puritan
spirit. But political peace is only a crude pre-
figurement of moral and spiritual peace and har-
mony. Towards this the noblest souls of the race
have always striven. "Peace I leave with you"
was Christ's last message to his sorrowing com-
panions. It is in such an atmosphere that man
receives the clearest and purest inspirations. Only
after the storm on the Gralilean lake had subsided,
and the tumult in the hearts of Christ's disciples
had been stilled, did they gain a new apprehension
of his marvelous nature and exclaim : " What
manner of man is this ? " Not in times of " Sturm
und Drang " are the highest heavens opened.
Wordsworth had caught the true secret of the
" open vision " in the strangely mystical lines : —
" Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."
INDEX
Abbott, Ltman, criticism of " Evolu-
tion of Trinitarianism," 213; ob-
jects to my view of Paul's media-
tional theology, 213; declares that
I make Paul an Arian, 213; real
point of objection to my interpreta-
tion, 215 ; his dislike of the media-
tion doctrine, 216; thinks I mis-
imderstand Paul, 216; my view of
evolution of Trinitarianism " fatally
defective," 218; " fatal ^defect " of
Dr. Abbott's whole criticism, 218 ;
admits the laws of natiire to be in-
violable with a single exception, 347.
*• American Journal of Theology,"
article, 183.
Amiel, H. F., quoted, 199.
Apostles' Creed, title legendary, 232 ;
not earlier in original form than
third century, 233 ; reached its pre-
sent shape in eighth century as a
Latin creed of Western Church, 235.
Aristotle, passage from De Calo, 16 ;
not a trinitarian, 18 ; threefold law
of the syllogism, 18 ; Nicomachean
Ethics, 309 ; corrected ethical vacil-
lation of Plato, 310.
Athenagoras held Holy Spirit to be an
effluence (not personal) from Gk)d,
241.
Athene, mediator between gods and
men, 108 ; central figure of Odyssey,
108; analysis of action of Odys-
sey, 108 ; various incarnations, 109 ;
intercessor for men, 108; mediat-
ing character, 110 ; " in fashion
as a man," 112; motherly char-
acter, 113; compared with Mary,
mother of Jesus, 114; "called vir-
gin," 114.
Augustine, use of tripartite character
of soul in work on Trinity, 18;
Contra Mendacium, 312.
Babylonian epic of creation, 221.
Bacon, B. W., article in " Biblical
World," 218 ; on the Fourth Gospel,
quoted, 263.
Baptism, originally "into Christ,"
230 ; evolution of trinitarian for-
mula, 231, 232.
Barnabas, epistle of, 228.
Bertrand, A., La Religion des Gau-
lois, 102, note.
Bhagavatgita {Divine Song), 54, 123.
Brahm, absolute form of personal
Brahma, 43.
Browning, R., " The Boy and the An-
gel," quoted, 367 ; compared with
Tennyson, 368.
Buddha (Gautama), 39 ; character of
teaching, 40; collection of reputed
sayings, 40; comparison with
Christ's sayings, 41 ; lives of B.
mostly legendary ; likeness to gos-
pel accounts of Christ, 42 ; tempta-
tion by the Evil One, 42; relation
of Buddhist and Christian tradi-
tions, 42 ; B. in later Hindoo tradi-
tion an incarnation of Vishnu.
Buddhism, 39 ; not a dogmatic revolt
from earlier Hindoo ideas, 57 ; its
dogma of an incarnation of Gk>d the
only historical counterpart to that
of Christianity, 58 ; tolerant charac-
ter, 275.
Bushnell, H., "Christian Nurture,"
most epochal book of last century in
America, 362; doctrine of child
nurture fruitful in psychological
investigations, 362.
Capttolinb temple, 118.
Carey, Professor, " Synoptic Gos-
pels," quoted, 223.
Christian angelology and demonology,
276; radically similar to Ethnic
372
INDEX
ideas, 276; essentially polytheistic
in Middle Ages, 278.
"Christian Register," quoted, 354,
note.
Christian religion, no more "histori-
cal " than Ethnic religions, 194,
197 ; comes under the strict law of
historical evolution, 198 ; traditional
view of, as the one divine gospel,
199 ; entrance into Greek world be-
gins a new chapter of history, 210 ;
its philosophy radically changed,
211 ; Paul and early Fathers influ-
enced by Greek thought, 211 ; close
historical connection between Chris-
tian and Ethnic religions, 212; in-
tolerant as compared with Ethnic
religions, 275.
Christian theology essentially a Chris-
tology, 220.
Christianity, as a world-religion, 281;
religion and the religious instinct
in men essentially one, 282; God,
one, 282 ; world-religion finally one,
283; not an external vmity, 283;
creeds and dogmas barriers to unity,
283 ; comparative ineffectualness of
Christian missions, 285; necessity
of revival of Christ's original gospel,
286 ; its ruling force, 286 ; crisis in
history of, 291 ; how made ready
for its work, 293 ; causes of unreadi-
ness, 293 ; gradual shifting of reli-
gious leadership, 297 ; exposed to
dangers within and without, 298;
as organized, exposed to two perils,
298 ; churches wedded to forms of
religious truth out of joint with our
times, 301 ; campaign of education
imperatively needed, 302; proper
teaching of the young, 302; false
reliance on perpetuity of organized
chiurch, 303 ; no institution can live
simply on its past, 305; peculiar
character of religious insincerity,
306 ; sincerity of Christ, 306 ; ethics
of Plato and Aristotle, 307 ; influ-
ence on church, 309 ; " officiosum
mendacium,^^ 309; Old Testament
ethical teaching, 310 ; effect on eth-
ics of the theory of " double sense "
in Scripture, 311 ; lawful use of dis-
simulation against heretics, 311 ;
Augustine's " contra mendacium,^^
312; ethics of "offlciosum menda-
cium^^ continued after Protestant
revolt, 314 ; inherited virus of in-
sincerity in the church to-day, 315 ;
Aristotle on dissimulation, 319;
sin of suppressio veri, 320 ; modem
Biblical exegesis, 320 ; " I go not up
to this feast," 321 ; change of ovk
to ovwoi, 321 ; Jerome, quoted, 321 ;
charges of Porphyry, 322 ; Jerome's
defense, 322 ; Lardner, N., quoted,
324; Alford's exegesis, 325; ex-
planation of Alford's extraordinary
interpretation, 327 ; fatal flaw, 328 ;
effect of new light on Johannine
problem, 329; Tholuck's exegesis,
330 ; Bishop Ellicott rejects pre-
vious interpretations, 331 ; his own,
an amazing " wresting of Scrip-
ture," 333; results of theory of
" officiosum niendacium,''^ 334 ; re-
action through new spirit of the
age, 335 ; Christianity like an old
palimpsest, 336; the apocalypse,
its interpretation, 338.
Clement, epistle of, 227.
Comforter (Paraclete), not mentioned
by Justin Martyr, 240; Irenseus
first to mention it, and quote from
Fourth Gospel, 241; of Greek ori-
gin, traceable to Philo, 262 ; doctrine
of, not taught in the synoptics, 263.
" Congregationalist," quoted, 354,
note.
Constantine, devoted to worship of
sun-god, 25.
Cross, sign of the, 94 ; origin, pre-
historic, 94 ; f oimd in all parts of
the world, 96 ; not original with
Christianity, 96 ; pre-Christian, dif-
ferent in significance from Chris-
tian, 97, 99 ; early form, 97 ; Latin
form, later, 97 ; made by Constan-
tine the great symbol of Christianity,
99 ; gradual blending of pre-Chris-
tian and Christian conceptions, 100;
illustrated from early Christian art,
100 ; history of : La Religion des
Gaulois, Bertrand, 102, note.
Crucifix, origin as late as seventh
century, 97.
Dabk Ages, religion of, one of cre-
dulity, fear, and cruelty, 279.
INDEX
373
Darmesteter, J., Avestan scholar,
quoted, 67.
Darwin, Charles, " Origin of Species "
(Oct. 1, 1859), 292.
Defoe, 20.
Emmons, N., quoted, 25."*.
Ethnic religions, traditional view of,
as essentially evil and false, result
of historical ignorance, 182 ; Paul's
indictment against, equally appli-
cable to a degenerate Christianity,
182 ; upward progress of, 183.
Evolution, physical versus historical,
4 ; illustrated in the history of reli-
gions, 5; Christianity no exception,
6 ; law of, historical, universal, and
without break, 191.
"Evolution of Trinitarianism " criti-
cised, 216-218, 360,
Faibbaibn, a. M., 19.
Family, the, root of trinitarian idea,
22.
Father, origin of term as applied to
God, 23.
Feminine element in Trinity, absence
of, in Christian dogma, 253 ; Mary, a
true human mother, 253 ; substitu-
tion of Holy Spirit for Mary, 254 ;
in " Gospel of the Hebrews " the
Holy Spirit is called Christ's mo-
ther, 255 ; why the feminine ele-
ment failed to prevail, 255 ; loss felt
in Christian consciousness, 256.
Fergusson, J., " History of Architec-
ture," plan of triple Etruscan tem-
ple, 118.
Fourth Gospel, first gives theory of
Comforter and procession from the
Father, 281 ; Athanasius rested de-
fense of homoousian trinity prima-
rily on, 262 ; historicity of, 262 ;
whether the words imputed to
Christ concerning Comforter were
spoken by him, 262. (For writer's
judgment on authenticity of, see
Appendix A on "The Johannine
Problem," m " Evolution of Trini-
terianism," 264.)
G-ATHAs, oldest Avestan writing, 68 ;
picture of Zoroaster, 68 ; evolution
of supernatural and miraculous ele-
ments, 68 ; remarkable resemblances
to events in life of Christ, 68.
Generation, eternal, developed by Plo-
tinus, emphasized by Origeu and
Athanasius, 252.
Generation idea, behind divine triads,
22 ; fundamental to all Ethnic trini-
ties, and to Christian dogma, 251.
Gibbon, E., quoted, 90.
Gnosticism, Zoroastrian in origin, 77,
88.
God,' the earliest conception of, 33;
can exist only in trinity, so held by
Plotinus and present day theolo-
gians, 249.
Greek religion, originally polytheistic,
92 ; earlier philosophy of, 124; new
epoch of Socrates, Plato, and Aris-
totle, 124.
Haecsel, Eenst, " The Kiddle of the
Universe," 350.
"Hebrews, Gospel of," early gos-
pel, mostly lost, 255 ; quoted, 255.
Heartley, C. A., Harmonia Syrtibo-
lica, 235.
Holy Spirit, evolution of, as third Per-
son of Trinity, 222 ; in Old Testa-
ment always adjunctive or adjecti-
val, setting forth the divine activity,
222; Christ's doctrme of, 223 ; Paul,
Jewish monotheist, 224; used the
term as synonymous with God, 224;
illustrated tendency towards per-
sonality, 225; doxologies, to God
only, 226 ; view of i)ost- Apostolic
Fathers, 226; tendencies towards
evolution of H. S. , as third person,
along three lines of movement, 235 ;
Justin Martyr, wavering "view of,"
239 ; question whether H. S. is a
member of Trinity or creature not
settled until Nicene age, 240 ; Ori-
gen and Arius held that H. S. had a
beginning in time, 240; procession
of, in Christian trinity, 253 ; doc-
trine of H. S. as third person, a sort
of historical necessity, 254; "pro-
cession " does not appear in creeds
until fourth century, 261 ; why pro-
cession of third person instead of
generation, 261 ; found in Fourth
Gospel, 361 ; real meaning of proces-
sion, 265.
374
INDEX
Homer, use of, prohibited by Plato in
scheme of education, 92.
Huss, John, violation of safe conduct
by Council of Constance, 313.
loNATiAN Epistles, seven longer,
largely interpolated, 236; seven
shorter, fewer interpolations, 236;
not to be accepted as genuine, 236 ;
results of comparison of two ver-
sions, 236, 237 ; " Comforter " and
"Word" found in longer, but not
in shorter, 238 ; conclusive testi-
mony to fluxive character of early
trinitarianism, 238.
niad, its trinity, 103 ; subordination-
ism, 105 ; mediational character of
Athene, 105.
lUingworth, J. K., quoted, 195 ; treats
Christian dogmas as historical facts,
196.
Incarnation, two classes of theory of,
51 ; distinction between incarnation
and mediation theories, 52 ; stages
of evolution of dogma, 71.
Inge, W. R., holds that Plotinus was
not a pantheist, 183 ; apparent mis-
understanding of phrase "sameness
and otherness," 184 ; view savors of
8abellianism, 185 ; extracts from
the Enneads that prove Plotinus a
pantheist, 185 ; misunderstanding
of term exacrTos, 186 ; says " Ploti-
nus is no Buddhist," 188.
Irenseus, first to give a creed on trin-
itarian basis, 241 ; introduces third
stage of evolution of trinity, 242 ;
marked by use of Fourth Gospel,
and doctrine of Comforter, 242.
" Isis and Osiris," attributed to Plu-
tarch, genuiueuesa somewhat doubt-
ful, 137.
Jesds Cheist, had no mediation doc-
trine, 60 ; a truly historical person-
age, 192 ; legends of miraculous
birth common to all religious epochs
and characters, 193 ; such legends
misgrowths of a credulous and un-
critical age, 194 ; J. C, not the
author of new dogmas, 201 ; or of a
new philosophy, 202 ; or of a new
system of ethics, 203 ; new " moral
consciousness " of character of God
and of man's relation to Him, 205 ;
love, the substance of religion, 205;
gospel originally given in Hebrew-
Aramaic, 206; divinizing of J. C,
the liistorical starting point of Chris-
tian trinity, 270 ; and the theological
centre of Christianity, 271 ; fallacy
of apology concerning C. as histori-
cal person, 272 ; most honored when
truth told of him, 279.
Jupiter Capitolinus, 118.
Kant, E., quoted, 319.
Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, 47 ;
pre-Christian, 50; differences be-
tween it and the Christian dog^ma,
Lectistebnium, 118.
Lightfoot, Bishop, on Ignatian Epis-
tles, 236.
Aoyos (logos), unfortunate error of
Latin version of N. T., perpetuated
in English versions, 128; meaning
of, in proem of Fourth Gospel, 129 ;
introduced by Heracleitus into phi-
losophical language, 129 ; Plato's use
of, 129 ; how logos doctrine is traced
to Plato, 130 ; Philo's substitution
of Aoyo? for ^vxv as mediation prin-
ciple, 131 ; logos of Fourth Gospel,
132.
Lonsdale and Lee, translators of
^neid, quoted, 121.
Maha-Bharata, 43.
Marduk, "first-bom," "only begot-
ten," "son of Ea," 25.
Mary, Virgin, doctrine and cultus of,
not peculiar to Christianity, 71 ; mo-
ther of Jesus, 114 ; raised in Catho-
lic theology to divine rank, as
mediator, 114 ; represents the
feminine element in mediation, 114;
"Queen of Heaven," 116; process
of evolution of dogma of, 252 ; pop-
ularity of cult of, in the Middle
Ages, 257 ; Catholic effort to place
M. in the Trinity, 258; at Christ's
side in paintings, 258 ; cult of M.
growing among Protestants, 259;
how defensible, 260 ; only possible
direct witness of virginity, 263.
McCosh, J., " The Supernatural in re-
INDEX
375
lation to the Natural," 346 ; repre-
sents the traditional pre-Darwlnian
view of nature and miracle, 346 ;
accepts full historicity of Scrip-
ture miracles, 347 ; holds that the
laws of nature may admit of excep-
tions, 347; with Dr. L. Abbott,
who admits a single exception,
viz., the miraculous birth of Christ,
348.
Mediation idea, how it led to a trinity,
28 ; tended to union with generation
idea, 28; difference between Mith-
raic and Christian, 85.
Mediator, origin of idea of, 26 ; in the
Ethnic trinities, 27 ; in Plato, 27 ;
in Vedic hymn to Agni, 27 ; Sosiosh
as Zoroastrian, 79 ; /xeaiTTjs (media-
tor) introduced by Philo into Greek
philosophy, 131 ; made the keynote
of Paul's Christology, 132 ; also of
Epistle to Hebrews, 132.
Michelet, French historian, in Bible
de V Humanity expresses preference
for dualism, 89.
Mill, James, view of dualism as theory
of universe, 89.
Mills, L. H., quoted, 65.
Mithra, sim-god in Yedas, 81 ; in
Avesta, creature of Ormuzd, 81 ; in
later Zoroastrianism, the great me-
diator, 81 ; Mithraic triad, 82 ; spread
of Mithraic cult in Roman world,
82 ; takes place of Ormuzd as head
of Zoroastrian trinity, 84; temples
of, closed by Theodosius, 89 ; Mith-
raic cult, overthrown by Christian
emperors, 89, 90 ; to be condemned,
91.
Mohammedanism, had a mediation
element, 60 ; half-brother to Chris-
tianity, 275.
Monotheism, as the primitive revela-
tion,? ; of Genesis as reformed ver-
sion of older polytheism, 78.
Moses, a " mediator," but not deified,
59.
Mythology, essentially a system of
symbolism, 102; product of imagi-
nation, 102 ; comparison of Greek
with other forms of, 103.
New Platonism, begins with Philo
and Plutarch, 136 ; teat words ; ideal-
ism, mediation, evolution, 136 ;
change from Platonism radical, 136.
Nimbus, or aureole, sign of saintliness
or divinity, 101 ; connection with
sign of cross, 101.
Numbers, sacredness of, 15 ; 8i)ecial
sacredness of seven and three, 16;
Pythagorean idea of the propitious
character of odd numbers, 16.
Numenius, midway between Plutarch
and Plotinus, 148; "three gods,"
148 ; follower of Plato, 148 ; signifi-
cance of, 149 ; generation doctrine
applied to whole trinity, 150 ; the
world, a member of trinity, 150.
Odyssey, of later date than Hiad, 105;
Athene supplants Here, 105 ; Apollo
becomes member of trinity, 106 ;
mediating function joined to sec-
ond person, 106 ; Odyssey com-
pared with Iliad, 106 ; its theme,
107 ; chief characters, 107 ; Athene
the central x>ersonage, 108 ; O. un-
rivalled in Ethnic literature, 112;
second person of trinity a woman»
113 ; O. compared with ^neid, 122;
"Divine Song" of Ethnic Bible,
123.
Old Testament, ethical teaching of,
310.
Origen, theory of mediatorship be-
tween God and Satan, 86, 88; O.
laid foundation of completed dogma
of Holy Spirit as third person, 242 ;
regarded H. S. as a creature, 243 ; a
monotheistic trinitarian, 243.
Pantheon, pagan temple, dedicated to
" Mary and all the saints," 278.
Paul, Greek training of, 207 ; founder
of Graeco-Roman Christianity, 208 ;
instrument of transfer of Christian-
ity from Semitic to Aryan world,
209; mediation doctrine of, de-
fended against view of Dr. Lyman
Abbott, 213 ; not an Arian, 214 ; did
not make Christ identical with God,
214.
Paulsen, " System of Ethics," quoted,
319.
Penelope, painting of, at Pompeii, 107.
Persian religion, relation to Indian,
64.
376
INDEX
Petrie, Flindera, quoted, 210.
Philo, agency in developing Logos
doctrine, 130 ; historical founder of
logos mediation theology, 131 ; in-
troduced the term /u.e<7tr»js (media-
tor), 131 ; not a trinitarian, 132 ; his
" mediator " not a strict person, 133.
Plato, called God, Father, 24 ; quoted,
62 ; idealistic dualist, 125 ; media-
tion doctrine, 126 ; three principles
of being, 126 ; how the phenomenal
world is produced, 126; basis of
trinitarian development, 127 ; germ
of Logos doctrine, 128 ; eliminated
fabulous materials from philosophy,
134 ; trinitarian germs, 166 ; ethical
views, 307 ; opposed use of Homer
in education, 307 ; " lie in words "
sometimes necessary, 308 ; influence
of, on Christian morals, 309.
Pliny, Elder, quoted, 16.
Plotinus, historical connection with
Numenius, 152 ; differences between
them, 152 ; influence of Plato and
Aristotle, 153 ; philosophical system
essentially original, 154 ; Plotinian
trinity alone the work of a single
religious genius, 154 ; built a meta-
physical trinity on Platonic founda-
tions, 155 ; trinity has no mytholo-
gical background, wholly transcen-
dental, no divine incarnation, 156 ;
originality of genius, 157 ; a man
of faith, 157 ; unique power as a
thinker, 157 ; aim practical and re-
ligious, 159; analysis of famous
chapter, V. 1, in the Enneads, 160;
souls mimortal, and descended
from metaphysical world, 160, 161 ;
assumes idealistic dualism, 161 ;
" Sameness and Otherness," Plato's
dualistic key, adopted, 164; full
evolution of a trinity, 168 ; peculiar
double character of third hypostasis,
172 ; eternal generation of trinity,
173; subordination of second and
third hypostases, 173 ; soul homoou-
sios with God, 174 ; opposes Gnos-
tics, 174 ; limits trinitarian evolu-
tion to three, 175 ; three hypostases
not personal beings, 176 ; " other-
ness " the bridge from transcendent
to material world, 177 ; moral power
of, 178.
Plutarch, quoted, 16 ; styles the gods
*' saviours," 74 ; a Platonist, 135 ;
ruling feature of his system, media-
tion, prepared way for Plotinus, 134;
monistic rather than dualistic, 136 ;
new philosophic key, evolution, 136 ;
a philosophical eclectic, 138 ; found
in the Egyptian Osiris myth, a phil-
osophic trinity, 138 ; seeks to bring
Plato's three principles of existence
into harmony with the Egyptian
triad, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, 142 ;
affinity not real, 143 ; opened the
path from theism to pantheism, 144 ;
two steps towards it, 145; led the
way to the trinity of Numeuius,
148.
Polycarp, Epistle of, 228.
Polytheism, traditional view of its
origin, 7 ; Paul most influential ex-
poimder, 8 ; historical view of ori-
gin, 8.
Porphyry, letter to Marcella, 180.
Pythagoras, held in great repute by
Greek Fathers, 248.
Rawlinson, G., on Egyptian trinities,
15.
Reconstruction, in theology, 341.
Renan, E., quoted, 90, 258.
Revelation, book of, Zoroastrian ele-
ments, 76.
R^ville, Albert, Histoire du dogme de
la divinitS de JSsus Christ, quoted,
258.
Rdville, Jean, La Religion sous les
Severes, quoted, 88.
Roman religion, appendix to Greek,
116 ; abstract character, 117 ; trin-
ity, 117 ; Capitoline trinity, of
Etruscan origin, 110 ; comparison
of R. trinity with Greek, 119.
Sanday, Professor, suggestion con-
cerning origin of Apostles' Creed,
232.
Satan, Ahriman of A vesta, 77 ; de-
velopment of doctrine of, in the
church, 86; Origen's doctrine of,
drawn indirectly from Zoroastrian-
ism, 86.
Sayce, Professor, quoted, 23.
Schaff, P., 21 ; quoted on Apostlea*
Creed, 234.
INDEX
377
Seneca, quoted, 61 ; " Letters of Paul
and Seneca," spurious, 61.
Servius, commentator on Virgil,
quoted, 118.
Shedd, W. G. T., 19.
Smith, H. B., quoted, 10.
Soaiosh, Zoroastrian "saviour," 73;
mythical being, 74 ; supernatural
son of Zoroaster, 74; divine mes-
senger of Ormuzd to raise the dead
and judge the world, 75.
Strauss, D. F., quoted, 342.
Symbolism, fundamental in human
thought and language, 94.
Symbols, of cross, 94 ; of sun, 95 ;
their religious character, 96 ; found
in aU parts of world, 96; of cross
and wheel, 98 ; original significance,
98,99.
Swastica, Hindoo gammated cross,
Talmud, quoted, 224.
Tauribolium, rite of Mithraic wor-
ship, 83,
" Teaching of Twelve Apostles," 229 ;
illustrates inchoate character of
trinitarian idea, 231 ; no trace of
Pauline mediatorship, 231 ; Christ
the " servant of God," 231 ; doxol-
<^es monotheistic, 231 : baptismal
formula, first in trinitarian form,
231.
Tennyson, Alfred, quoted, 62, 366;
compared with Browning, 368.
*' Tetractys," Pythagorean term,
usual form of oath, 246.
Theologry, the new problem of, 340;
two sides or aspects, 341 ; contrast
with problem of nineteenth century,
342 ; " Origin of Species," 343 ;
mortal confiict betweeen law of im-
interrupted evolution and the tra-
ditional principle of supernatural
intervention by special creation
and miracle, 343 ; victory of science
and historical criticism, 344, 345 ;
the new problem, the complete
harmonizing of scientific, historical
and religious truth, 344; downfall
of old theology, 344 ; the new, must
be scientific, 350 ; other aspect of
problem, 351 ; effect of harmonizing
of science and religion on missionary
movement, 351 ; false assumption
that Ethnic religious systems are
effete, 354, note ; problem of Chris-
tianization of world more complex
than ordinarily supposed, 355, note ;
great Oriental religions cannot be
overthrown by theological dogmas,
356; construction of new theology
simple and easy, 355, 366 ; essential
feature, anthropological, 357 ; de-
velopment rapid, 358; monism
versus dualism, 359 ; new theology
not metaphysical but moral, 360,
361; effect of Bushnell's "Chris-
tian Nurture," 362 ; grounds for
optimistic hopefulness, 364 ; Tenny-
son as representative of reUgioua
temper of nineteenth century, 366 ;
Browning, of the twentieth, 367 ;
faith, freedom and peace, watch-
words of the future, 368.
Theophilus, makes "wisdom" third
person in place of H. S., 241.
Three, the complete or perfect num-
ber, according to Aristotle, 16.
"Transcript," Boston, quoted, 354,
note.
Triad, a principle of nature according
to Aristotle, 17.
Triadal idea, 244 ; how it entered into
Christian theology, 248.
Triads, widely spread over the world,
7 ; relation to Pantheism, 11.
Trimurti, Hindoo, 43; history of its
evolution, 43-45.
Trinitarianism, its origin, 9 ; a half-
way house from polytheism to the
doctrine of the divine unity, 10;
Zoroastrian, why comparatively in-
complete, 78.
Trinities, Ethnic, comparatively late
in development, 12 ; historical ori-
gin unknown, 14 ; result of a long
evolution, 14; why trinity rather
than duad or quatemity, 14; ex-
planation of rise of, 22 ; stage to-
ward pantheism, 29 ; of diverse and
independent origin, 32 ; result from
common religious instincts and
needs of human nature, 32 ; subject
to various evolutionary changes, 35 ;
persistency of trinitarian idea, 36;
Ethnic and Christian, alike under
the common law of historical evo-
378
INDEX
lutjon, 219, 243; comparison of
internal characteristics, 243; in-
ternal resemblances, 250 ; mediation
element, the closest bond, 266;
mediational terms characterize
Ethnic trinities as the Christian
dogma, 267 ; French critic quoted,
268 ; internal differences, 270 ; in-
flexibility of Christian dogma due
to external rather than internal
causes, 274 ; resemblances radical,
differences superficial, 279.
Trinity, Christian dogma of, supposed
to be part of original revelation in
Genesis, 12; "social trinity" criti-
cised, 19; Vedic, 37; Brahmanic,
43; Christian dogma derived from
Greek philosophy, 219 ; a historical
evolution, 222; illustrated in case
of third person, 222; the word
trinity (Greek, rpias, Latin, trini-
tas) does not appear till Theophilus
(A. D. 168-188), 239.
Ultssbs, hero of Odyssey, 106.
Vkdas, 37.
Virgil, quoted, 16 ; Capitoline trinity
in the JCneid, 120; fatalism, 121;
JSneid compared with Odyssey,
122.
Virgin births, in Ethnic religions, 71.
Vishnu, incarnation of, 47.
Watts, Isaac, character of hymns,
318.
Westcott, Bishop, quoted, 15.
Wordsworth, quoted, 369.
Zend-Avesta, dates of, 67 ; completed
before Christian era, 69 ; quoted,
91.
Zoroaster, whether a myth, or histori-
cal person, 51, 64 ; a practical re-
former, 65; monotheist, 65; life
largely legendary, 66; explanation
of resemblances between lives of
Z., Buddha, and Christ, 70; reli-
gious teachings of, 72 ; closely akin
to later Judaism, 73 ; historical con-
nection with J., 73.
Zoroastrianism, a reaction from poly-
theism, 64; its later dualism, an
evolution, 65 ; post-exilic Jewish
ideas derived from, 73 ; three stages
in development of, 73 ; historical
connection between Z. and Chris-
tian eschatology, 75.
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