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FROM THE LIBRARY OF
ROBERT MARK WENLEY
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
1890
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GIFT OF HIS CHILDREN
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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v
THE
TRINITIES OF THE ANCIENTS;
OR, THE
MYTHOLOGY OF THE FIRST AGES,
AND
THE WRITINGS OF SOME OF THE PYTHAGOREAN AND
OTHER SCHOOLS, EXAMINED,
WITH REFERENCE TO THE
KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRINITY ASCRIBED TO PLATO,
AND OTHER ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
BY
ROBERT MUS HET.
“ As man is formed by nature with an incredible appetite for truth ; so his strongest
pleasure in the enjoyment, arises from the actual communication of it to others.”
WARBURTON'S Divine Legation.
LONDON:
JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.
M.DCCC.XXXVII.
Т gt-wenty site
4-4-39
0 h - 39 V.A.
TO
WILLIAM MUSHET, ESQ.,
OF GRAY'S INN.
THERE is no one to whom I can more appropriately dedicate
the following pages than to yourself; not only on account
of a community of tastes, sentiments, and opinions, but as
a token of ancient friendship; and because the subject to
which they are devoted has been one of mutual interest,
which we have frequently discussed together, in those hours
of rational relaxation for which I am so greatly indebted
...
to you.
You were then inclined, as I was, to regard the opinion
-attributing to Plato a knowledge of the Trinity-with
considerable distrust and suspicion; and when afterwards
you turned your attention to other objects, I proceeded, in
the indulgence of my inclination, to prosecute an inquiry
into the evidence on which that opinion is supposed to
rest.
This volume contains the result of the inquiry, so far as
I thought necessary to pursue it. You will perceive there
a 2
iv
DEDICATION.
is, at least, a strong presumption, that our suspicions were
well grounded.
The fallacies into which writers on this subject have
fallen, appear to be these : they did not distinguish the
Triads (as they are called) of the Ancient Mythology,
from the original principles of Pythagoras and Plato;
they assumed the casual, if not accidental, enumeration of
these principles, as sufficient evidence of belief in a Trinity;
and they placed an implicit reliance on the corrupt and
fallacious versions of the Eclectic Philosophy.
PREFACE.
THOUGH, I believe, there is nothing received less
graciously than the apologies of authors, I will take
upon me to say a few words in my own behalf, not
so much to extenuate faults, or to plead for errors,
as to explain the reason why this work was sent
into the world.
The origin of the Essay was this :- In the course
of my studies, (which happened to lean towards this
subject some time since,) I had perceived, that by
most of our writers on the theology and philosophy
of the Ancients, it was constantly asserted, that
Plato enjoyed some of that knowledge which we
possess, through the Christian religion, regarding
the great mystery of the Divine Nature,--a Trinity
of Three Persons in the Godhead. Some appear to
take this fact for granted, as if it had been finally
decided; and they pass it over with an incidental
allusion, or an unqualified affirmation, with much
vi
PREFACE.
of that devotion which we pay to self-evident truth:
others, again, having an object to gain, or an hypo-
thesis to support, have attempted to prove their
opinion with such arguments as the subject can
supply; and, in fulfilling this task, we must admire
their learning, if we are not convinced by their
reasoning
As I was conscious, from the beginning, of some
misgivings in my own mind,-first, as to the truth
of the assertion, and, secondly, as to the cogency
of the conclusions arrived at by these writers,—I
made it a source of amusement to collect what
evidence I could, conveniently, to oppose their
arguments, and to satisfy myself of their truth or
falsehood.
When the inquiry was brought to a conclusion,
so as to confirm my preconceived idea, I judged
(with what justice or truth I know not,) that the
fruits of it might be useful and instructive to
others, whose pursuits would bring them constantly
in contact with the opinion which is attempted to
be refuted. Such as they are, I willingly bequeath
them to the reader.
But as this Essay was not originally designed to
PREFACE.
vii
meet the public eye; and as the inquiry was pur-
sued at long intervals in a desultory manner, just
as inclination prompted me, or as the manifold
avocations of life allowed me quietude and leisure,
I had some apprehensions that the arguments were
not developed so clearly, nor the evidence collated
and arranged so carefully, as if it had been under-
taken with the object of publication immediately in
view. However, I have striven to compensate, in
some degree, for the defects and irregularities of my
first mode of proceeding, by reducing the “indigesta
moles” of the primary materials to their present
form; having tried to breathe into them some of
the spirit of order and harmony. And it is hoped
the sage maxim of the Latin poet has not been
violated with respect to brevity and propriety :-
Id arbitor,
Adprimè in vitâ esse utile, nequid nimis.
If I am too sanguine in thinking, that I have
conclusively disproved the opinion of Plato and the
ancients having a knowledge of the Trinity, I am
certain that the weakness of the argument rests
with the author, and not with the subject. There
viii
PREFACE.
is enough given to excite doubt and inquiry at all
events; and he who is disposed to extend his
researches further, will, I have no doubt, be more
and more convinced of the truth, that the opinion
referred to is without foundation, and the super-
structure raised upon it is, consequently, without
stability.
It might appear almost superfluous to make any
observations here on the prevalence of this opinion.
I will, however, limit myself to the early Fathers
and to the ancient philosophers.
With respect to Plato himself having some
knowledge of the Trinity, it seems to have met
with universal concurrence in the early times of
our religion, by the Christians as well as by the
pagans.
There is no feature of that interesting period
more curious, if not extraordinary, than this general
acquiescence in that which I am now convinced
has no foundation in truth. The pagan Platonists
had probably some reason for their conduct: the
rivalry of the new religion brought into being
things new and strange; but I can find no more
tangible explanation for the conduct of the Chris-
PREFACE.
ix
tian writersthan the conjecture, that they were
deluded or deceived by the specious Eclectic system
of philosophy, whose singular interpretations of the
expiring mythology, and of the writings of the
ancient philosophers, obliterated all the landmarks
of certainty and of truth. The
The pagans fancied they
saw a resemblance between the Christian Trinity
and the doctrines of Plato and others: the Fathers
met them more than half-way, and in the end
willingly confessed, that this essential truth of our
religion was known before Christ revealed it a
second time to mankind*.
It has been supposed, that the Christian Fathers
complied with, and acquiesced in, the notions of
the pagan Platonists, by way of an argumentum ad
hominem, (being, as it were, all things to all men,
for the sake of proselytism,) that they might the
“ As the Platonic pagans, after Christianity, did approve
of the Christian doctrine, concerning the Logos, as that which
was exactly agreeable with their own; so did the generality
of the Christian Fathers, before and after the Nicene Council,
represent the genuine and Platonic Trinity as really the same
thing with the Christian; or as approaching so near to it, that
they differed chiefly in circumstances, or in the manner of
expression."-Intell. System, vol. iii. p. 185. .
X
PREFACE.
easier reconcile the heathen to the doctrine of the
Trinity, by showing that it was not so great a
mystery, or, at least, not so insurmountable an
obstacle, as to have baffled the acute understanding
of Plato. But I apprehend this is more fanciful
than true.
As to the pagan Platonists themselves, they do
not appear to have had any fixed or permanent
ideas on the subject. The doctrine professed by
some of the most eminent of them, was unquestion-
ably repugnant to the essential nature or charac-
teristic of a Trinity.
We may be certain of this, that if there had
been no Christian doctrine, all the wild specula-
tions of the early period of the Church would never
have had a being : destroy the cause, and there
will be no effect.
There are many and great reasons why Plato,
* the Swan of Socrates," was held in such esteem
and admiration by both Christians and pagans at
that time. His System of Morals, taught to him
by his great master, and infused into his writings,—
the beauty and fascination of his style, and the
elevated character of his philosophy, all con-
PREFACE.
xi
curred in exalting him to that pitch of glory and
distinction.
He enforces upon us the beauty of virtue, and
the excellence of truth; he inculcates self-denial;
deprecates all pleasures merely sensual; and excites
our preference for intellectual rather than for
corporeal delights.
R. M.
LONDON,
April 12, 1837.
CONTENTS.
PART I,
ON THE IDOLATRY OF THE FIRST AGES.
Page
19
Introductory Chapter
CHAPTER I.
The Prevalence of Compound Deities in Ancient
Nations
37
CHAPTER II.
These compound Deities, in a three-fold Nature, or
Triad
49
CHAPTER III.
The Triad ; the three Kings or Royal Personages,
deduced from Ancient History.
67
CHAPTER IV.
The Subject continued ; with some Observations on the
Origin of the word Novs, afterwards called also
Λογος
82
xiv
CONTENTS.
PART II.
ON THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO,
&c.
CHAPTER I.
Page
The Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers express the
Unity of God; but they are silent on the Subject
of a Trinity in this Unity
99
CHAPTER II.
The Opinions of some Moderns on the Trinity of Plato
examined
114
CHAPTER III.
On the Theology of the Timæus of Plato
127
CHAPTER IV.
Some Observations on the Parmenides of Plato
136
CHAPTER V.
Of Plato's System of Ideas relative to a 'Trinity
153
CHAPTER VI.
On the Religion of Plato; and some Conjectures on his
Epistle to Dionysius
171
CONTENTS.
ху
PART III.
ON PLATONISM, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS
MOST EMINENT PROFESSORS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
Some Observations on the Origin and Progress of
Platonism
181
CHAPTER II.
The Subject continued
195
CHAPTER III.
No true Trinity in the Platonic Doctrine
210
NOTES.
223
PART THE FIRST.
ON THE
IDOLATRY OF THE FIRST AGES.
B
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
THERE is an opinion entertained by some learned
writers, both ancient and modern, which I purpose
to examine in the ensuing Essay. The opinion
alluded to is, that Plato had the knowledge of a
Trinity of three persons in the Divine Nature, which,
these writers assert, may be proved out of his own
genuine writings. This hypothesis has been main-
tained with great learning and ingenuity; especially
the celebrated author of “ The Intellectual Sys-
tem of the Universe," who would persuade us, that
the Grecian philosopher was as orthodox a Trinita-
rian as himself.
According to Dr. Cudworth, this doctrine was not
peculiar to the theology of Plato; it was generally
entertained and believed by many of the ancient
theistical philosophers; having had its origin in more
remote antiquity. In reference to its derivation, he
does not hesitate to call it, a “ Hebrew, Chaldaic,
Orphic, as well as a Pythagorean dogma, or cabala.”
In this conclusion he only follows the later' Pla-
Throughout this work, I shall make use of this term
always to denote the Platonists who flourished during the first
ages of Christianity. The others before them I call disciples
or followers of Plato.
B 2
20
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
tonists, to whom he was probably indebted for this
opinion. Plotinus acquaints us that the Trinity was
known and recognised long before Plato's time,
which had come down from the Pythagoreans, who
borrowed or received it from the Egyptians. And
Proclus assigns its origin to Chaldea. From all
which it is manifest, that these men regarded the
Chaldaic, Orphic, and Pythagorean, or Platonic
triads, as one and the same doctrine, relating to the
same object of belief, and springing from the same
fountain.
It is my aim to point out this fallacy, and to show
from the writings of the later Platonists themselves,
that the Trinity which they profess to have deduced
from the theology of Plato, has nothing in common
with the ancient triads of the Chaldeans and Egyp-
tians ; nor could it possibly have been derived from
them.
This mysterious doctrine of three persons in the
Divine Nature, was strenuously maintained by these
philosophers of the first ages of Christianity, how-
ever much they corrupted it by their own fanciful
illustrations. And so certain were they, that it was
known and believed by Plato and the ancients, that
they did not scruple to charge the Christians with
having purloined it from their works. I purpose, there-
fore, to trace this error, so as to make it appear evident,
that they were, in a great measure, indebted to the
Christian religion for any exact knowledge which
they had of this subject; that their mode of descrip-
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
21
tion was imitated from it; and that the mistake of
supposing their doctrine to be of very ancient origin,
principally arose from confounding the triads, or
compound divinities of antiquity, with the Pytha-
gorean or Timæan principles of all things.
The later Platonists were not the only learned
men addicted to this delusion, of believing Plato to
have had an acquaintance with this great and funda-
mental truth of our religion; some of those called
the “ fathers of the church” fell into the same error,
as we may see from many passages of their acknow-
ledged writings. The only difference between the
pagan and the Christian in this respect was, that the
former pretended to discover the birth of the Trinity
in the superstitious land of Egypt, while the latter
assigned its source to the Hebrews.
Theodoret thus expresses himself on this point.
Plotinus and Numenius, explaining Plato's sense,
declare him to have asserted three eternal principles,
Good, Mind, and the Soul of the World; which were
by Plato purloined from the philosophy and theology
of the Jews." Eusebiust of Cæsarea, and other
learned fathers coincide in this conclusion.
Whether the Hebrew philosophers had so precise
and remarkable a knowledge of this subject, as these
men would persuade us, was really entertained by
Plato and Pythagoras, might be liable to some dis-
pute; but there seems no tangible evidence what-
2 Vide note A.
3 De Principio, vol. ii. p. 496.
4 Pr. Ev. lib. ii. cap. 20
22
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
ever to suppose, that the latter borrowed any of their
opinions from the former; nor is it probable they
ever were in Judea", where alone they could have
had access to their writingsø, or have had an oppor-
tunity of conversing with their priests. Even if
this had happened, (of which there is not the least
proof, it is not likely that they would have bor-
rowed from a people so very obscure as the Jews
were at that period, (so far, at least, as the Greeks
are concerned,) for they enjoyed scarcely any repu-
tation for learning or philosophy.
Another argument, still more convincing, against
this assumption, is, the gross ignorance of the Greeks
in their writings relating to the Jews, whether they
treat of their polity or of their religion; which
scarcely could have happened, had their learned
travellers enjoyed that knowledge which has been
supposed Even Plutarch, who flourished many
ages after Plato, when we might expect a greater
diffusion of information respecting the manners and
peculiarities of different nations, was so ignorant of
the Jewish religion, that he makes the Hebrews to
be worshippers of Bacchus! And Bryant, in his
“ Ancient Mythology,” presents us with a singular
6
5 Dacier's Life of Pythagoras. The author is of opinion that
Pythagoras never was in Judea.
According to the historian of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, their sacred writings were not accessible to
Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years after the death
of Plato."--Gibbon, cap. xxi, note.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
23
instance of this kind, arising out of the Grecian
custom of ascribing to foreign words the meaning
which they had in their own language, where they
discovered a resemblance in sound, however remote.
“ The Greeks in Egypt, hearing that the chief tem-
ple of the Jews was called Ovrov, Onium, and, as I
have often observed, catching at every similitude of
sound, they imagined that this name was derived
from the Greek word Ovos, which, in their language,
is well known to signify a particular animal. They,
therefore, concluded that they had found out the
secret object of the Jewish worship, and that all
their devotion was paid to an ass. This notion was
soon propagated; and it was asserted, that in the
vestibule of every Jewish temple there was an ass's
head!
From this, and other evidence which might be
adduced, if it seemed necessary for our purpose, it
appears idle to imagine that any of the doctrines of
the Grecian philosophy were borrowed from the
Jews.
It was probably the zeal of the Christian fathers
which urged them to adopt this error. The same
biassed spirit is manifest in the writings of Josephus,
who would attribute everything good to his own
countrymen.
There is, I apprehend, more truth in the com-
monly-received notion, that Egypt was the parent of
the Grecian mythology, whence it was brought by a
colony of emigrants who settled there.
24
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
1
According to Bryant, the Egyptians again were
indebted for their religion to another fountain of
greater antiquity, which he imagines to be the Am-
monian worship; or the idolatry of the descendants
of Ham. That, in truth, the Pagan mythology,
however changed and diversified by the different
tribes by whom it was received, or modified by
time and circumstances, was originally derived from
one common source, in remote antiquity. The
resemblance of the several idolatries of different
nations has been remarked by many learned men,
even among the ancients. Macrobius did not
scruple to assert that all the Grecian gods, however
metamorphosed by that ingenious and elegant peo-
ple, were all so many different powers or appellations
of the sun. Other unprejudiced mythologists con-
ceived Jupiter, Apollo, and all the superior divinities,
to be the several names of one god; that the female
divinities, as Rhea, Ceres, &c., however diversified by
the Greeks, were only various titles of the chief god,
Jupiter, or by whatever name he may be styled.
It is my intention, with the aid of the learned
and sagacious Bryant, to offer some preliminary
remarks on the mythological systems of the first
ages after the Deluge; and especially on the com-
pound deities prevalent in all ancient nations. My
object is to show who or what these compound
divinities really were, and by what reason this idolatry
became so widely spread, and so deeply rooted in the
human mind.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
25
Another object, which more immediately bears on
the subject of this Essay, is, to trace the origin of
the triads found in most ancient mythologies; to
show who they represented; and how, in the end,
these supposed principles, or causes of all things,
became incorporated with the Platonism of the
Christian era.
As we proceed it will be observed, that the chief
gods of every country (described in a three-fold nature),
by whatever varieties they are distinguished, whether
in the peculiarity of their worship, or in the names
and characters ascribed to them, may be traced to one
original source, in the worship of deified men. The
histories given of these compound gods, prove them
to have been mere mortals; for the scenes of their
conquests and triumphs are laid not in heaven, but
on earth. They are born, live, propagate their
species, like other men, and then die.
That such a custom, as ancestor-worship, was
practised, we have the living testimony of the Greeks
and Romans, who probably carried this to a more
idolatrous extent than either the Chaldeans or Egyp-
tians. And if such religious rites were instituted
by these accomplished nations to some of their prin-
cipal heroes, who were known to have lived and
died as mortals, we cannot be surprised that people
of a more distant era, perhaps less refined than they
were, should be addicted to the same superstition.
We shall find, that these ancient gods are said to
have been the first kings of every country. From
26
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
them (or from the one supposed to be the chief
deity,) are dated the first historical events; even
time itself is said to commence with them. From
the concurrence of their histories among the ancients,
we may perceive who they represented. They mani-
festly referred to one family; for the histories related
of the compound gods of Egypt, are applicable, and
analogous to those of Babylonia, India, and Persia,
having been founded on the same occurrences, and
derived from the same source.
Besides this, another branch of idolatry shall be
noticed, which seems to have been diffused over the
greater portion of the globe then inhabited; this is,
the adoration of the sun and the heavenly host; so
that we may regard the ancient mythology as a mix-
ture of this, and the worship of the human creature.
I purpose, then, to examine that notion before
alluded to (this being the scope of our inquiry, and
for the illustration of which these preliminary ob-
servations are intended), of Plato, as well as other
ancient philosophers, having a knowledge of a Trinity
in the Godhead.
To demonstrate the fallacy of this hypothesis, it
will be necessary to give some account of Plato's
theology, and the opinions held by his disciples,
which have come down to us, either in their own
writings, or recorded in the works of others. From
a strict analysis of this kind, it shall appear, that the
ancients possessed no knowledge of the doctrine at-
tributed to them; that they had not even a suspicion
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
27
of it; and that no such construction can properly
be placed on the language of Plato. If we find any
allusions to the triads, or compound deities of the
Egyptians, and other mythologies, in his writings, we
may safely conclude that they referred to the deified
objects already mentioned.
It is hard to be conceived, how men of learning
and judgment could adopt an opinion of this kind,
without the most incontestable evidence. For surely
the Trinity is a doctrine the least obvious to the
understanding of one to whom revelation was a
“ dead letter.” Even to us, to whom it has been
revealed, how full is it of wonder and mystery! No
man can presume to assert that his faculties can
comprehend or fathom this divine mystery: human
reason is inadequate to the task; and when thus
employed, our only recompense is the utter hopeless-
ness of all our efforts to explain that which is wisely
hidden from our feeble and limited minds. And
yet a Pagan philosopher, who had no revelation for
his guidance, to whom even the existence and
nature of God was a dark enigma, is supposed, by
the light of his own reason, to have adopted and
freely believed a doctrine which is so infinitely
beyond the limits of human reason !
Without reve-
lation, he embraced that which revelation has left
still a wonder and a mystery! and which, if it
were explained to us, would perhaps be more incom-
prehensible than ever. But how can the mind
receive and freely acknowledge that which is not
28
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
revealed, and which, without revelation, could never
be so much as thought of, or conceived? However
excellent and successful were the efforts of Plato
and Socrates, in estimating the nature and attributes
of God, they were the legitimate offspring of reason
well applied and directed; but to have soared beyond
this, and to have penetrated the veiled and unre-
vealed mystery of the nature of His existence, which
reason can never grasp or conceive, appears a violent
contradiction.
Yet Dr. Cudworth, and those who agree with
him, must necessarily admit all this. They admit
even more than this; for Plato is represented not as
a Pagan, who, receiving this doctrine from another
source, corrupted it, by calling it three principles
distinct, or three kings; but he actually is said to
hold the co-essentiality and consubstantiality of the
three archical hypostases: that he was no Arian,
but an orthodox Trinitarian!
Another objection suggested by the prima facie
view of the case, is the converse of that propounded
in The Intellectual System of the Universe, where the
learned author imagined such a correspondence as
this, between Platonism and the Christian religion,
to be a great benefit to the latter. 66 We conceive,
that this parallelism, betwixt the ancient and the
Christian Trinity, might be of some use to satisfy
those amongst us, who boggle so much at the Trinity,
and look upon it as the choak-pear of Christianity;
7 Vol. i. p. 61, Preface.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
29
when they shall find, that the freest wits among the
Pagans, and the best philosophers, who had nothing
of superstition to determine them that way, were so
far from being shy of such an hypothesis, as that
they were even fond thereof."
This author having proceeded so far, might have
given us a view of the other side of the picture, and
candidly stated to what extent such an admission as
this might also have been injurious to Christianity,
by robbing it of its characteristic originality; and in
giving to scepticism an intrument of considerable
force, by which to contest its divine origin. We
shall observe presently, that such an argument as
this, was really employed by a celebrated writer of
modern times, who shows how much our religion is
beholden to the dreams of Plato, and the soberer
speculations of Aristotle. But the truth seems to
be, that Dr. Cudworth had a preconceived hypothesis
to support,—and how much will a man sacrifice to
this object! The force of the simple and naked
truth, is often paralyzed for the sake of a theory or
hypothesis. And, as if sensible of the difficulties by
which it was surrounded, and not unconscious to the
prejudice which a Christian may reasonably entertain,
of the originality of the Trinity in his own religion,
he uses the above apologetic strain of expression, to
prepare the reader for the many surprises and en-
counters he is likely to meet with in his argument.
The Christian must first lay aside any partiality he
may indulge in favour of the origin of his Trinity;
30
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
and then be prepared to receive the startling result
of Dr. Cudworth’s reasoning, That this doctrine was
a well-known “dogma,” or “cabala,” long before the
later revelation made to mankind : that the three
persons were not conceived by Plato, as three kings,
having a separate and independent existence, but
exactly in the same light in which we believe the
nature of this mystery.
It is my purpose, therefore, to examine the argu-
ments of this learned author, and to point out the
degree, and the nature, of the evidence on which
his hypothesis is founded. I am sensible of the
boldness of the undertaking, in encountering a writer
of such gigantic learning and profound acquirements
as Dr. Cudworth. But as learning is only an instru-
ment by which truth is to be sought for, and not
truth itself, so far only is it worthy of esteem, or of
emulation. Wherever it is otherwise employed, it
can neither be admired nor respected. Far am I,
however, from insinuating that Dr. Cudworth was
not reasonably convinced of the truth of his argu-
ment, though his evidence does not seem to warrant
his conclusions. The character and piety of that
distinguished Christian exalts him far above any
such charge as this. So long as profound erudition
is admired by mankind, so long shall he receive the
reward of all his exertions in the gratitude of pos-
terity. Before I conclude, it may be necessary to
say a few words more, relative to this great author,
and to those to whom I have been otherwise in-
debted for the evidence which I adduce.
.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
31
A considerable share of The Intellectual System of
the Universe, is devoted to the discussion of the Trinity
of Plato. The author, with the hand of profusion,
and a mind overflowing with learning, in that branch
of his work lays before us all the knowledge which
he supposed to bear on the doctrine, that could be
gathered from the eminent, as well as obsolete and
obscure, writers of antiquity. There is scarcely a
passage or an allusion that escaped his penetration.
He absolutely overwhelms us with quotations in
illustration, or in defence, of his hypothesis. But
there is one single fault or omission, which well nigh
subverts his ingenious structure, and which is of
great service to our cause. He chiefly resorts to the
later Platonists for evidence in support of his argu-
ment. Plato and his writings are rarely ever men-
tioned or referred to, in respect of that Trinity of
divine hypostases. He does not show that such a
doctrine as this, was ever so much as alluded to by
any of the genuine disciples of Plato, which could
not have happened, had they been so intimately
acquainted with it as he imagines. It is only by
inference, and that of great uncertainty, that he
deduces a trinity from Plato's works---supported
only by a few obscure expressions, which are of
doubtful signification, and might possibly refer to
something of a very different nature.
Those Platonists, to whom he is so greatly beholden
for his testimonies, as Plotinus, Proclus, and others,
were not so much followers of Plato, as professors of
32
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
the Eclectic system, whose very essence consisted in
the choice of its doctrines from every possible source,
as they were determined on, or thought fit, by the
founders of this philosophy. It was not Platonic,
nor Timæan, nor yet Pythagorean, nor Aristotelian,
but a mixture of all these, with an abundant effusion
of obsolete fables, night-mare dreams, and a con-
siderable sprinkling of magic and superstition.
Their theology, as it is falsely named, is a ridiculous
version of the mythologic systems of different coun-
tries mingled together. They adopted the Grecian
theogony, and made it “ the basis of their procedure,”
divesting it of that fabulous or poetical charm, which
alone can make it endurable to a refined and cul-
tivated mind. Every fable of the gods, immortalized
by the Grecian poets in their exquisite writings, was
adopted by these “divine men,” and robbed of all
its attraction, by a new or allegorical interpretation.
The licentious stories related by Homer and Hesiod
of their divinities, for which they were reprobated by
Plato, and consigned to the tortures of Hades by
Pythagoras, were freely and willingly received into
the category of their truths. But the amours of
Jupiter or of Venus, were no longer considered such
as the license of poetic fiction and fancy described
them: in the hands of these interpreters, they be-
came “divine energies,” and “ deific unions,” such as
are worthy of immortal beings.
Of these spurious followers of Plato, or later
Platonists, I shall have, therefore, a great deal to
say hereafter.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
33
2
To Mr. Taylor, and his notes and explanations,
I am greatly indebted for my knowledge of their
philosophy and theology. He is a disciple of the
school of Proclus, and a bigoted follower of the later
Platonists; and, as such, his interpretation of their
system may be relied on. He would persuade us,
that he strictly adhered to Plato's genuine writings
and doctrines; this, however, is on his part a great
error or delusion.
I cannot mention the name of Jacob Bryant,
without reverence and admiration. His love of
truth; his profound and extensive learning; and his
admirable judgment, constitute him a great authority
in everything relative to antiquity. To his writings
I am under great obligation, for some opinions and
illustrations in the following Essay.
I am happy to say, that I coincide in most of his
conclusions, wrought out by unparalleled industry,
and surprising erudition. His great work on The
Ancient Mythology, must continue to be the wonder of
posterity: it is honorable, as much to the country in
which it was produced, as to the great and inestimable
author himself.
It will be readily perceived, how much I am
indebted to Bryant; especially in the preliminary
observations on ancient idolatry. I am inclined to
agree with him in his strictures on some of the
Grecian writers, on whom we cannot safely rely,
when they treat of the events of remote antiquity.
Their accounts of ancient history are not to be
c'
34
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
trusted. They were guilty of great misinterpreta-
tions, chiefly arising from an undue opinion of their
own country; a contempt for those whom they styled
barbarians; a false idea of the antiquity of Greece;
and from a strange custom of proceeding; as if the
languages of other countries, more ancient, were really
derived from their own. They likewise invented
innumerable ingenious fables to support any pre-
conceived notion, which perhaps, had no better
foundation than the accidental similitude, in sound,
of a foreign word, to one in the Grecian language.
I cannot do better than refer the reader to Bryant's
“ Dissertation upon the Helladian and other Grecian
Writers," for a proof of what I have advanced
above.
The whole “ Ancient Mythology” is full of instruc-
tive examples of this fact.
“ Cory's Collection of Ancient Fragments, has
been of great service to me in one branch of this
Essay. When this useful work fell into my hands,
I rejoiced to see how much support I derived,
by way of proof and illustration, from these very
ancient and very curious records of antiquity,
The division I have adopted in the following work,
seemed to be the most simple and natural.
1. I make some remarks on the compound deities
of ancient nations, on the triple forms sometimes
assumed by them; on the worship of the celestial
host, and its prevalence; on the deification of mortal
creatures; and point out who these deified persons
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
35
1
really were; and then, by inference, attempt to trace
to this practice, the origin of the Chaldaic, Orphic,
and, subsequently, the Platonic triads, or trinities.
2. I then examine the philosophy and theology
of Plato, as they have descended to us, in his copious
writings; and of other celebrated characters of an-
tiquity; showing their opinions respecting the Great
First Cause; in which it shall be made manifest that
they had no suspicion of such a doctrine as a Trinity
in the Godhead. I must likewise notice, and that
at considerable length, Plato's system of Ideas, from
which originated the Second Person, or noyos, of the
later Platonists.
3. I proceed, after this, to give some account of
the histories and characters of these Platonists; in
which is developed the extent of their corruption of
the genuine philosophy of Plato; and some critical
account of the later Platonism itself; in which the
errors and misrepresentation of these writers shall be
pointed out; and to what extent they were indebted
to the Christian religion for their trinity of archical
hypostases.
C 2
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
THE PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES IN
ANCIENT NATIONS.
FROM various causes, the religious systems, or mytho-
logies of the ancients, as they can now be estimated
by us, appear to be full of confusion and contradic-
tion. It would seem, however, that so far as the
public or popular religion is concerned, the belief
in compound deities was general, if not universal.
These were looked upon as principles and causes, in
the universe; supposed to be devoid of that inferio-
rity and subordination, applicable to a lower class of
deified natures.
Beyond and above these causes, again, the learned
and the wise seemed to have a glimpse, however
dark and confused, of another Being without multi-
plicity or complexity of existence, who was dis-
tinguished as the Highest God, and Eternal Cause
of all things. But even among these, this Being,
and the inferior causes, were frequently confounded
and mixed, as if it were only in moments of abstrac-
tion, that they could conceive the existence of the
Supreme God
38
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES
It has been thought by some, that these popular
gods of antiquity were only so many personifications
of the elements of nature; and that even the Zeus
of Greece, and the Jupiter of the Romans, had no
higher origin. But I cannot agree in this opinion;
for though it is manifest, that secondary causes were
worshipped; there is no evidence to determine us
in assigning to them such a material origin'. This
notion seems to have been deduced from the Grecian
mythology (for it cannot properly, or with any
reason, be applicable to that of other nations), which
may be interpreted in many different ways; for it
was no more than a structure raised by the fertile
ingenuity of the Greeks on a more ancient founda-
tion. They were as much perplexed with their own
religion as we are at this day; which is apparent from
the gloomy and desponding speculations of some of
their most learned men. They were, as we have
said, indebted to a foreign source for it; but
through time and the singular fancies of that won-
derful people, it became so changed and transformed,
that the likeness of the parent was lost, or destroyed,
in this, its offspring.
A great part of that confusion and contradiction,
incidental to the Grecian mìythology, may be ex-
plained by supposing the Greeks to have mistaken
the mere titles of the divinity worshipped in other
countries, for so many distinct and independent
1 Vide Note B.
IN ANCIENT NATIONS.
39
existences. Bryant alludes to the custom in this
passage: “This blindness in regard to their own
theology, and to that of the countries whence they
borrowed, led them to misapply the terms which
they had received, and to make a god out of every
title.” He agrees with Macrobius, and other an-
cients, who thought these gods were so many appel-
lations of one deity—the sun. It may be observed,
that some of the freest and best mythologists among
the ancients were of opinion, that Jupiter, Pluto,
Apollo, and Proserpine and Ceres, were names only
of one god.
The Stoics regarded the mundane animal, endued
with an intellectual soul, as the chief cause; and as
they supposed this spirit to pervade all nature, the
worship offered to other gods, was adoration paid, in
fact, only to parts of this great deity.
The nearest approach to the opinion above is
to be found in the expressions employed in more
ancient systems of mythology, where we have ma-
terial objects stated to be the causes of all things.
Chaos, ether, water, and air, and others of a like
nature, are such as we have alluded to; but though
they are called causes and principles, they do not
seem ever to have been worshipped as gods; and,
therefore, they must be imagined to represent mere
material agency under the guidance of an intelligent
Being. In truth, there may be discovered above
2 An. My, vol. i. p. 383.
4 Vide Note C.
3 p
Id. p. 387.
40
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES
these material causes, another efficient and primary
cause, namely, God, who is distinguished from these
subordinate agents. Thus, when it is said that from
water was produced the earth, or the world, we have
clearly only a material agency; we must, therefore,
raise our thoughts above this, and acknowledge one
Intellectual Being, who brought the earth forth from
the water, and who became the plastic power; the
orderer and disposer of all things. We shall see,
hereafter, that it is probable some of these terms,
mentioned above, might really be applicable to histo-
rical events, regarding the dispensations of Almighty
Providence to earth and its inhabitants.
These mythologists, who manifestly looked to One
above material things, are therefore to be honor-
ably distinguished from the atheistical speculators
of some of the Grecian schools, who, having reason
and intellect themselves, did deny them to have any
influence or place in the creation and government
of the world. They recognised no power, no cause,
no agency beyond inert matter, and grim necessity.
Such are the systems of Democritus and Epicurus,
who, in the words of Lucretius, their great expounder,
made all things out of atoms, or seeds; in whose
order and disposition no reason or counsel were
allowed.
5 Thales called water the first principle of all (material)
things; but it was Mind or God that formed all things out of
the water. Aquam dixit Thales esse initium rerum Deum
autem eam mentem, quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret.” Cic. De
Nat. Deor. lib. i. cap. 10.
IN ANCIENT NATIONS.
41
“ Nam certe neque consilio, primordia rerum
Ordine se quæque, atque sagaci mente locarunt;
Nec quos quæque darent motus pepigere profecto 8.”
For the purpose of reconciling those contradic-
tions and discrepancies, found in the systems of
mythology; which clearly arose from no accidental
circumstance, as they are universal throughout every
known religion of antiquity (except the Jewish
of course), and interwoven with the very fabric;
arising, as it were, from the nature of things, I would
divide the history of the first ages into epochs, after
this manner:
1. We may suppose with reason, that for some
time after the flood, the progenitors of mankind
lived in a state of great innocence and simplicity.
That they worshipped the God who saved this rem-
nant of the human race, as a perfectly spiritual and
benevolent Being; being led and guided by the pure
and simple precepts of Noah, in their mode of
adoration.
2. Then symbols being introduced to typify the
Deity; the sun might reasonably be regarded as his
great representative; and other symbolical objects
might be used in His worship.
3. There is an inherent propensity in man to
confound the symbol and the thing signified by it.
To imagine that mankind should always clearly
distinguish the one from the other in religion, is to
6 Lucret. lib. i. ver. 1020,
42
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES
presuppose a permanency, to some extent, in their
original purity; stability in religious rites; and im-
mutability in the human mind.
Mankind, however, have inclined to retrograde,
rather than advance, in purity of religion. The
Hebrews of old, with all their knowledge of God,
could scarcely keep themselves above idolatry.
So the posterity of Noah, in course of time, re-
lapsed into the worship of the symbol of the true
God. The sun, the sensible representative of his
glory, had those rites transferred to it, and prayers
offered up, which are the prerogatives only of the
intellectual and invisible Being. The heresy intro-
duced by the family or descendants of Ham, was
undoubtedly of this nature. Nimrod and his fol-
lowers adored the sun and celestial host; which in a
simpler age were regarded only as types, or material
symbols, of the Supreme Deity.
4. But even this Sabaism, or sun worship, seemed
of too pure and unsubstantial a nature to be per-
manently practised, without some alloy. Hence, in
the course of time, the very founders of this idolatry
were themselves confounded with their gods, and
worshipped accordingly; so that the object recognised
once as the symbol of the Deity, was transferred to
these creatures of frailty and mortality. Probably
at first, some of the immediate descendants of Ham,
who rebelled against the precepts of Noah, and set
up gods for themselves, arrogated to them the titles
used by the Persians and other sun-worshippers :
IN ANCIENT NATIONS.
43
such as children of the sun, offspring of the gods;
until at last they were really looked up to as the
real progeny of heaven, and adored as such. In
conformity with this, Bryant acquaints us, that Bel
was an ancient name of the sun, when worshipped
as the chief deity; but when the followers of Nim-
rod awarded to him this appellation, he was by his
descendants confounded with the sun, and worshipped
also.
We shall see, likewise, that Osiris, Jupiter,
Orus, Dionusus, and other names, denoted the sun,
while at the same time they were applied to deified
men.
This is clearly proved from the symbolical super-
stition of the Egyptians, in which we discover the
symbols of Osiris and the sun to be substantially the
There is, in truth, Osiris, the luminary of
day; and Osiris, the deified ancestor, of whom the
sun became a significant type. So the symbols of
Isis were also applicable to the moon. But there
can be no doubt that the histories of Ammon and
Osiris relate to beings of this earth; and cannot be
reconciled to the sun, or any heavenly gods.
From this constant collision of terms arises most
of the perplexity and confusion to which we have
alluded; and if we bear in our minds the distinction
I have pointed out, we shall have little difficulty in
reconciling all the discrepancies of the ancient
mythology.
5. That which was exemplified in the worshippers
of the sun, in confounding the symbol with that
same.
44
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES
which it materially represented, is made still more
conspicuous in the animal-worship of the Egyptians.
It might be, indeed, disputed, whether the priests,
and other educated natives of that country, really
regarded the animals in any other light than mere
sacred symbols of their gods; but certainly the pro-
fanum vulgus were not likely to draw so nice a line
of distinction; nor was it the interest of the priest-
hood to enlighten them on this point.
There seems to have been something of gratitude
elicited in this creature-worship; for those animals
were most reverenced, which, in some degree,conferred
obligations on man, by promoting his comfort, and in-
creasing his security. However, there are examples
to the contrary; for in Upper Egypt, it is said, the?
crocodile was worshipped, which could not have been
on this account; and what is rather singular, the
very creature which was believed to injure or de-
stroy this formidable deity, was held in the greatest
sanctity". The crocodile was a symbol of the evil
genius, or Typhon; the ichneumon, that of Osiris,
the good and benevolent deity.
The Greeks and Romans were equally guilty of
unpardonable superstition. They had, however, the
art to adorn it with so much beauty and fascination,
that it excites in us little of the disgust and abhor-
rence we feel for the wretched and debased religion
of Egypt. The gods of woods, fountains, and of
1 Dio. Sic., cap. 3.
8
Herodot., lib. ii. cap. 67,
IN ANCIENT NATIONS.
45
groves, are also more poetical and attractive images,
than deities presented to us in the form of croco-
diles, goats, bulls, and monsters made up of the man
and the brute. This strong contrast stamps the
taste and genius of the respective people.
In the worship of heroes and deified men, the
'Greeks and Romans only followed a very ancient
practice, to be perceived in the religious rites of the
Chaldæans, Egyptians, Indians, and other nations,
with whose mythologies we have any acquaintance.
Some of these nations, as the Chaldæans and Indi,
retained the sun-worship purer than others, as the
Egyptians and Greeks; the former of whom rapidly
sunk down lower in superstition every generation.
And if we were to credit the accounts of some!
modern travellers, they are as conspicuous now as
ever, for their credulity.
There cannot be a doubt that some of the ancient
philosophers rose above the popular creed, and
recognised and acknowledged one infinite and
eternal First Cause. All the other gods they
believed to be beings created in time, who served as
agents or ministerial powers, or secondary causes of
the Chief Being. These subordinate deities were
the stars and demons, or deified men. However,
the mythologic systems seem to have made no such
10
10
9 Vide Note D.
Savary's Letters.
" The frantic ceremonies the pagan re-
ligion authorized, are now renewed around the sepulchres of
Santons, before the churches of the Copts, and in the fairs I
mentioned.'
46
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES
It was
distinction as this. If the priesthood were them-
selves sensible of this great truth, it was part of
their artful policy to keep it from the minds of the
great body of the people, who looked not beyond
their popular Jupiters and Junos. Plutarch, one of
the wisest and most learned priests of antiquity,
attained some knowledge of such an Eternal Cause;
but how dark and doubtful was this abstract idea,
when it failed to influence his practice as a priest,
or to free his thoughts from that childish supersti-
tion, so apparent in all his writings !
There was a practice very prevalent, which neces-
sarily debarred the ignorant and uneducated from
having any idea of this Great First Cause.
maintained by the philosopher, as well as by the
priest, that the vulgar had nothing to do with sacred
things; and that, consequently, they must silently
acquiesce in the religion as established, and in every
fraud and delusion of the priesthood. Then again,
among the Greeks especially, the office of priest,
and the profession of philosopher, were perfectly
distinct from each other. It was laid down as a
sort of maxim, that the one should not encroach
upon the province of the other; that the philosopher
should scrupulously eschew everything relating to
the public religion.
This was an artificial distinction of great injury
to the propagation of truth ; for religion had no
chance of benefiting by the speculations of the phi-
losophers, who had matured their opinions of the
IN ANCIENT NATIONS.
47
Deity by long study and contemplation. Hence,
the false religion of the country was connived at by
the very men who alone could have purified and
refined it. We must acknowledge, however, the
lamentable fact, that few of them had any anxious
desire to promote truth. Their great aim was to
maintain an hypothesis, or found a school; their
greatest ambition to establish new doctrines in
opposition to old ones; and they were, for the most
part, indifferent to anything but their success.
Then, again, had the philosophers proffered their
services to the priesthood, to redeem the people from
their savage ignorance respecting religion; they
would have received no encouragement from that
quarter. To have enlightened the people, was to
undermine the very foundations of their power; its
whole stability depended on the fraud and delusion
kept up by them. The antiquity of their practice,
and the legends upon which it rested, carried more
force and authority than all the speculations of
reason, however noble, excellent, and refined. And
how powerful was such an argument as this, to a
nation who affected so great a veneration for anti-
quity as the Grecians! The death of Socrates bears
undying testimony to the fraud and hypocrisy of
their debased and licentious priesthood; and teaches
us how dangerous it was for one of the profession
of philosopher, to seem to encroach upon the pro-
vince of the priests. This happened in an age which
shed glory over the land of Greece; when wisdom
48
PREVALENCE OF COMPOUND DEITIES.
and learning reached the highest perfection; when
the taste was distinguished for its exquisite refine-
ment; and yet, during this era, the priesthood clung
to their fables and legends; riveted the people more
and more in their chains; and exercised their power
for the persecution of truth, and the propagation of
error.
Plato and Socrates, no doubt, acknowledged one
eternal, unmade Cause, a spiritual and intellec-
tual Being; but this did not hinder them from
reverencing a multiplicity of inferior, but generated
divinities. They regarded these as causes, or agents,
under the guidance and government of the First
Great Cause. This was the pure deduction of
human reason. The mythology, or popular religion,
on the contrary, rested on ancient prescription; no
gods were lawful but those whose existence was
founded on tradition".
11 There are exceptions to this rule. New gods were, from
time to time, introduced into both Greece and Rome, as circum-
stances seemed to require. The general system, however, was
prevented from falling to pieces by an unbounded reverence for
tradition and antiquity, which was of itself sufficient, when the
system was neither affected by public opinion, nor injured by
the refined speculations of philosophy.
49
CHAPTER II.
THESE COMPOUND DEITIES, IN A THREE-FOLD
NATURE, OR TRIAD.
son.
THERE is a feature of ancient mythology of great
consequence to us, in our inquiry; that the deity of
most nations is described in a three-fold state, or
nature; most frequently as a father, a wife, and a
This compound god, or three divinities, is pre-
valent in every system of antiquity; and there is
such a remarkable correspondence in their histories
and characters, that they must refer to the same
persons.
The chief of these three, namely, the father, was
sometimes looked upon as the cause of all things;
and described to us as an active and intelligent
being, possessed of great virtues, as justice, good-
ness, and wisdom. But there is a strange anomaly
in his divine nature, or divine origin, for all the
actions attributed to him, happen here below; and
not in heaven.
Homer, in his great poem on the mythological
legends of Greece, very properly represents his gods
as dwelling in heaven; and from thence they de-
scended on earth, when they concerned themselves
in mundane affairs. These other deities alluded to,
are not described after this manner. They are said
to live and die, and be buried like mere mortals.
D
50
COMPOUND DEITIES,
They perform pilgrimages over the whole earth, and
return as great conquerors.
The father, or chief god, is called the first planter
of the vine; the first husbandman; and the first who
erected altars to the gods. He taught mankind know-
ledge and science; and he is reputed to have been
a person of great benevolence, justice, and goodness;
all which, along with his sufferings and death, can
only relate to a human being, and not to a god.
Who this personage was, will be
be afterwards
explained.
It is said of the Babylonians, that they acknow-
ledged a threefold god, whom they denominated
Apasoon, and Tauthe, (allegorically represented
to be his wife,) who gave being to a son called
Moymis. Damascius, who gives us the relation, says,
this people, like the rest of the barbarians, passed
over in silence the one principle of the universe,
namely, the Eternal Cause; so that Apasoon was
only an inferior, or subordinate deity. Tauthe is
styled the mother of the gods; being the same in
truth with Rhea, Isis, Ceres, and the rest of the
superior goddesses. From these three descended a
progeny, and from this family another, until we reach
Belus, who is distinguished as the fabricator of the
world.
It might be inferred from this, that the Baby-
lonian triad really existed prior to the demiurgus;
but this confusion of language arises from the mis-
1
An. Frag. p. 318.
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
51
;
application of terms, and the misappropriation of
different titles of one to many divinities.
This Apasoon was no doubt a deified person. The
sun was his emblem as such : and he was also worship-
ped as the sun. He is represented as the ancestor
of Bel, or Belus; but this is also a title of the sun;
and as such he was the same with Apasoon. When
we come to treat of this subject in detail, it may be
proved, that as the sun they were the same; but as
deified men, the one was truly descended from the
other; and after some generations.
Belus, as the deified mortal, is here called the
creator of the world; but this is a great mistake;
for he himself was an inhabitant of the earth. It
must be, therefore, Bel, as the sun, who is so styled.
All this confusion arises from an universal custom
of giving the same names to objects of a distinct
nature.
I am inclined to think, that the demiurgus of
Proclus, who is situated somewhere about the same
place, in his procession of gods, as Belus occupies in
the Babylonian system, was borrowed from this
source; and that the intermediate triads, or unities,
between the first god and the creator, are the same
with those progenies of the Babylonian family. I
have some suspicion of this from Damascius himself,
who, in this description, conceives the son Moymis
to be no other than the intelligible world, without
inquiring into the sense signified by the ancient
mythologists. We have already observed, that Proclus
D2
52
COMPOUND DEITIES,
called the triad a Chaldean doctrine; and he pre-
tends to have been indebted greatly to that nation,
for much of his spurious philosophy.
The Phænicians are said to have recognised the
elementary natures, ether and air, as the two first
principles, from which was begotten (or sprung out
of,) Ulomus, the first god, who again gave being to
the other inferior divinities. These two words, ether
and air, had probably some secret signification, and
alluded rather to events than to things. And being
mere material agents of a higher power, they could
only be recognised as secondary, and not as primary
causes. The Phoenicians seem also to have passed
over in silence the one principle of the universe, God
himself.
All the refinement of Damascius, or him from
whom he derived this knowledge, is superfluous.
He calls Ulomus, the summit of the intelligible order
of gods, who produced from himself Chusorus, the
first expanding principle, and then the egg: which,
following the Platonic version, he styles the intelli-
gible mind; while Chusorus signifies the intelligible
power. All this arises from ignorance of the his-
tories and families of the persons deified by the
Phoenicians.
In the above description, however, truth is not
entirely lost sight of; for Chusorus was really a
descendant of Ulomus.
According to the etymology adopted by Bryant,
this word Chusorus is compounded of Chus, or Cush,
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
53
and Orus, a title of the sun. Hence it signifies
Cush, the son of the sun; and as such he was wor-
shipped.
Chus, by the Egyptians and Canaanites, was
styled Or-Chus, and Chus-Or; the latter of which
was expressed by the Greeks, Xpvowp, Chrusor; and
we learn in Eusebius, from Philo, that Chrusor was
one of the principal deities of the Phoenicians, a great
benefactor to mankind; and by some supposed to
have been the same as Hephaistus. Both the
Tyrians and Sidonians were undoubtedly a mixed
race, and preserved the memory of Ham and Chus,
equally with that of Canaan?.?
This learned author presents us with a singular
quotation from Sanchoniathon, respecting this per-
son, Chrusor, which manifestly proves him to have
been a deified mortal. Speaking of the great benefits
conferred by him on mankind, he concludes by saying,
Διο και ως θεον αυτον μετα θανατον εσεβασθησαν" for
which reason, after his death, they worshipped him as a
gods.
Chus was the son of Ham, who was represented
to be the sun, or Helius; so that he was only one of
the children of the sun. “ If then Chrusor be, as I
have supposed, Chus; the person so denominated
must have been, according to the more ancient
mythology, the son of Helius and Dios. We find,
accordingly, that it was so.” We can, then, pene-
3
9 An. My. vol. ii. p. 50.
Id.
. p. 51.
* Id. p. 61.
54
COMPOUND DEITIES,
trate the obscurity of the Phoenician genealogy of
the gods, and see to what family it referred.
If these two words of Damascius, Alonp and Anp,
Ether and Air, be not a corruption of two ancient
proper names, mistaken for Grecian words, we might
imagine the former to allude to heaven or the firma-
ment, and the latter to be synonymous with the
violent wind, of other ancient mythologies.
It is remarkable that Typhon, among the Egyp-
tians, was really a personification of a tempest, as
well as of an evil genius.
Plutarch, in his Treatise on the Mythology of
Egypt, says®, Typhon signified something violent and
unruly; but the confused account which he gives of
this deity, proves how greatly perplexed he was
with that portion of his history, which manifestly
relates to the deluge, and of which he probably had
no suspicion. Truth, however, may be elicited from
this incongruous collection of fables.
In another part of his entertaining treatise, Plu-
tarch informs us, that by Osiris, the Egyptians mean
(sometimes) Nilus; and by Isis, the earth; and that
Typhon is the sea, into which Osiris fell and lost
$ An. My. vol. i. p. 21. Radical Ait. Bryant says, that Ait
was a title of Ham, or the sun; and was compounded thus :
Athyr, or Ath-ur; and places were so called from the worship
of the sun.
“ Ethiopia was named both Aitheria and Aeria,
from Aur and Athyr." Again, “Aur sometimes expressed Or,
Ur, and Our, signified both light and fire. Hence came the
Orus of the Egyptians." p. 15.
6 Isis et Osiris.
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
55
himself, being tossed to and fro in the tempestuous
deep. This is so far consonant with true history;
but it is not to be supposed that this term Nilus
alluded to the river of that name; for the descrip-
tion evidently refers to a person, which may be
proved out of many other parts of the work. We
may observe, therefore, that Osiris, in this character,
alluded to the great progenitor of mankind, Noah;
and that Typhon was a sort of incarnation of the
deluge. Hence, Bryant acquaints us, that “ Typhon?
signified a deluge. The overflowing of the Nile
was called by the Egyptians, Typhon.” But that it
signified a violent wind or tempest, also, is clear.
Tuo-wvº, aveuos jeryas. By Typhon is meant a violent
wind.
The Egyptian triad, or compound deity, bears a
strong resemblance to the Chaldean or Babylonian.
Osiris is the husband of Isis, who gives birth to an
only-begotten son Orus. Isis is a goddess, who has
many titles given to her, and is represented in a great
variety of characters. She is sometimes the moon,
sometimes the earth ; at other times nature, and a
personification of her generative principle. Osiris
is represented in the double character of a dei-
fied person, and the chief deity, the sun. Bryant
conceives Orus and Osiris as dæmons, or deified
8
? An. My. vol. iii. p. 162.
Bryant says, “ Typhon was a derivative from Tuph, which
seems to be the same with the Suph of the Hebrews. By this
they denoted a whirlwind."-vol. iii. p. 164.
56
COMPOUND DEITIES,
mortals, to be the same person under different
names. There seems some truth in this conclusion.
Let us suppose Osiris to be Noah, and we shall
understand this passage from the learned writer'.
“ The renewal of life was, by the Egyptians, esteemed
a second state of childhood. They accordingly, in
their hieroglyphics, described Osiris as a boy, whom
they placed upon the lotus, or water-lily, and called
Orus.” This plant was a sacred emblem, which
grew above the waters of the Nile, rising with the
flood; and it was considered a very appropriate type
of the ark overtopping the waters of the deluge.
Orus, then, was Osiris in his second state;
regarded also as a second birth. According to
Plutarch, he returned from Hades, after having been
enclosed in an ark in a state of death; his return
being a sort of second existence. Hence, by the
mythologists, he is denominated the first-born of
mankind; and under the title of Protogonus, he is
thus described in the Orphic hymns:
10 O mighty first-begotten, hear my prayer,
Two-fold, egg-born, and wand'ring through the air.
He is called egg-born, because an egg was conceived
to be a very proper emblem or representative of the
ark. Such is Bryant's opinion, maintained with sin-
gular ingenuity. An egg contains the embryo of
the bird; and the ark contained the germ of the
future race of mankind. Hence we have an expla-
9
An. My. vol. iii. p. 169.
10 Hymn 6 (Taylor).
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
57
nation of this object being regarded as a principle,
in some ancient religious systems. It was looked
upon as the womb of nature, from which the
very
gods sprung forth into existence: the mother of all
things. It is supposed that Isis in her maternal
character, and as the wife of Osiris, is a personifica-
tion of the ark; from which Orus came forth in his
second childhood. If there is any truth in this
hypothesis, we can, by means of it, explain the fable
of Typhon and the mundane egg.
“ The Orphic egg mentioned by Proclus, was
undoubtedly of the same purport. It seems to have
been a favourite symbol, and very ancient; and we
find it adopted among many nations. It was said,
by the Persians, of Oromasdes, that he formed man-
kind, and enclosed them in an egg.
Protogonus, called sometimes Phanes, is de-
scribed as bursting this egg, and leaping forth into
light, in the Orphic theology. From him, it is said,
sprang the race of gods and mortals. This person-
age is the same with Dionusus, who was called matep
ποντου, πατερ αιης.
Typhon, the incarnation of evil, (originally con-
sidered as the genius of the deluge,) was a person
represented in various ways. He is called, by the
Egyptians, the brother of Osiris, with whom he
struggled for supremacy. But this is a name given
sometimes to the Most High himself, or the God of
12 Ib.
1 An. My. vol. iii. p. 165.
P.
166.
58
COMPOUND DEITIES,
13
66 The
the Deluge, who is called, therefore, the Typhonian"
Deity. When mankind relapsed into the idolatry
of sun-worship, Typhon was then called Helius, and
was adored as the chief god. This singular estima-
tion of the evil genius seems to have perplexed Plu-
tarch"4, who was ignorant of the reason of this
application of the term. He only regarded him in
his popular, or subordinate character, as a material
agent in the hands of God. Bryant affords us this
explanation of the apparent inconsistency's.
Grecians have comprehended several characters
under one term, which the Egyptians undoubtedly
distinguished. The term was used for a title as well
as a name; and several of those personages who
had a relation to the deluge were styled typhonian
or diluvian.”
Plutarch gives us a very curious history of Osiris
and the ark. He relates that Typhon (namely, the
Typhonian deity,) formed an ark or coffer of beau-
tiful and exquisite workmanship, in which he shut
“Every man admired this fine piece of
workmanship, and Typhon, in a merry mood, pro-
mised to bestow it upon him whose body would fit
it.” Having secretly taken the measure and pro-
portions of the person of Osiris before the coffer
was exhibited, he invited the god to enter it, and
up Osiris.
1
13 An. My. vol. iii. p. 166. .
14 Isis et Osiris. He acknowledges that the Egyptians some-
times regarded Typhon as the chief god, Helius, or the sun.
15 An. My. vol. iii. p. 167.
16 Isis et Osiris.
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
59
then he and his accomplices let down the lid upon
him, which they fastened with nails and melted
lead; after which they conveyed it away, and threw
it into the sea. He says, it was afterwards cast
ashore on the coast of Byblus by the waves or tide.
Elsewhere he illustrates the shape of the chest or
coffer by the significant metaphor of the moon's
crescent, which, when decreasing, assumes a horned
shape, resembling a ship or boat.
Under this fable, we can clearly perceive the
ancient history to which it refers. Osiris was Noah;
and Typhon the God of the Deluge. That part re-
lating to the proportions of the body of Osiris, may
possibly allude to the instructions given in the for-
mation and construction of the ark.
Plutarch, agreeably to the mythology of some other
people, says, that the Egyptians sometimes repre-
sented water as a principal or original cause.
Whether this was on account of its relation to the
deluge is problematical. Orpheus, in the hymns
ascribed to him, personifies the sea, calling it
Oceanus; and to it he imputes the origin of gods
and men, as he did also to Protogonus.
Ocean I call, whose nature ever flows,
From whom at first both gods and men arose.
It may have been observed, that in the compound
deity of Egypt, there was really a personification of
an evil principle; a peculiarity common to other
nations; and which may probably have originated in
a corruption, or misconception of the character of
60
COMPOUND DEITIES,
the diluvian deity. The history of Typhon alluded
to this ; which may have crept in, when mankind
lost the knowledge of the true God, and fell into
idolatry.
The Orphic theology is said to have been the
fountain of the Grecian. It is of the same nature
with those systems I have mentioned; and seems to
have been derived from the same source, however
much it was changed and diversified in the hands of
the Greeks. The Orphic triad, or compound nature,
consists of Uranus, Phanes, and Cronus. It is also
called Metis, Phanes, or Eros, and Ericapæus, which
some interpret Counsel, Love, and Lifegiver.
If we look to the Grecians for any satisfactory
explanation of this subject, we shall be greatly dis-
appointed. Their theologists confounded the sys-
tems as they came to their hands, and, from igno-
rance, or vanity, misinterpreted everything connected
with them, so that the resemblance of the father is
defaced in the child. They adopted the terms of a
foreign language, and translated them, as if they
were of Grecian origin, without considering the
signification they bore in the language from which
they were borrowed. And so much did their reli-
gion perplex them, on account of this ignorance,
that scarcely two theologists are found to agree, in
the nature and character of their gods.
The numerous appellations given to the sun, in
other countries, were received by them as so many
distinct divinities, and they formed for them some
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
61
history or story to support the delusion; assigning
to them their several departments in their mon-
strous theogony.
Plutarch acknowledges the Greeks were beholden
to the Egyptians for the names of their gods : these
they tortured, for the sake of pleasing the ear, and
then applied to them the signification those words
bore in their language, which seemed to have the
greatest resemblance in sound.
We must look, then, to another quarter for the
nature of the Orphic triad, which the later Plato-
nis, s assert is the origin of their trinity. Proclus is
right in ascribing its derivation to Chaldea; for the
persons of this and the other triads were all from
the same fuuntain, however transformed and obscured
through time.
I have already observed who Phanes or Proto-
gnus alluded to, as a person: it was also a title of
the sun. Bryant ingeniously conjectures, that the
name of Eros given to him had no relation indivi-
dually, but referred to the Iris, or rainbow, which
God had placed in the sky, as the symbol of his
covenant with Noah and his family. The Greeks
modifying the word which expressed this syinbol,
called it Eros or Love, and constituted it a distinct
god. Hence the saying that Love was the most
ancient of all the gods; and the distinction which
was made between this being and their goddess
Venus. The one was love without passion,-a pure
and intellectual existence; the other needs no de-
scription.
62
COMPOUND DEITIES,
Cronus was a name given to Noah, as I shall
show more fully hereafter; though it was, like Osiris,
applied also to the Supreme Deity. This application
of the same title to beings or persons, constitutes the
main difficulty of solving the ancient mythology.
Upon this basis has Bryant proceeded in his great
work, and whether he has succeeded, I leave to the
judgment of those who understand and value his
inestimable labours. The names of Noah were
sometimes awarded to his sons and descendants,
and therefore, in such cases, they do not so much
distinguish the persons, as the families or tribes to
which they belonged.
There is a passage in the Panchean Fragments,
which I will give, that may throw some light on
that other person of the Orphic triad, Uranus;
leaving a more particular discussion for another
chapter. The first king of that people was Oura-
nus, a inan renowned for justice and benevolence,
and well conversant with the stars. He was the
first who honoured the heavenly gods with sacrifices,
upon which account he was called Ouranus. He
had two sons by his wife Hestia, who were called
Pan and Cronus; and daughters, Rhea and Demetra.
And Cronus reigned after Ouranus, and married
Rhea, and had by her Zeus, and Hera, and Poseidon,
&c.” Then come other families from them. The
whole confusion here arises from mistaking titles
for persons. For Ouranus, and Cronus, and Zeus,
are one and the same person. And so are the
66
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
63
female divinities: the same with the Isis of Egypt.
The attributes of justice and benevolence are con-
stantly given to Noah. And there can be no doubt
that the persons above, whether one or many, were
deified mortals.
It
may
be observed that the Greeks, in adopting
the gods of other and more ancient countries, so far
misconceived the nature of some, that they made a
sort of caricature of them "? It may be supposed
they translated the foreign terms or titles into their
own language, and from this invented some ridiculous
history, corresponding to the misinterpreted appella-
tion. Of Pan, the same with the sun in other
countries, they made a filthy satyr. Pluto they made
god of hell.
Bryant conceives the supposed author of the
Orphic Mythology, to have been himself a deity, and
that his character shows him to be the same with
Orus of the Egyptians'. The history related of
him, he is of opinion, refers not to an individual,
but to a people called Orpheans--worshippers of
the sun. Orpheus was said to have been twice in
a state of death ''; “which is represented as a two-
fold descent to the shades below.” It happens, also,
that there was something mysterious in his death 20
17 Vide Note E.
“ Under the character of Orpheus we are to understand a
people, named Orpheans; who, as Vossius rightly intimates, were
the same as the Cadmeans.”—yol. ii. p. 417.
19 Ib. p. 411.
20 Ib. p. 423.
1
64
COMPOUND DEITIES,
“ for it seems to have been celebrated with the same
frantic acts of grief, as people practised in their
lamentations for Thamuz and Osiris, and at the rites
of Baal.” He was the same person as Osiris and
Dionusus; represented also as Apollo, or the sun.
There is another triad, or compound deity, on
which I will offer a few observations, before con-
cluding this chapter. If we were to credit the
opinion of a modern author of great pretensions
(Lord Monboddo), we would discover among the
Brahmins of India, a triad infinitely excelling all the
others I have mentioned. By them it was regarded,
as a trinity of three divine hypostases in one God.
This deity is expressed in their language, by the
names of Rama, Visnou or Vishnu, and Chrisna ;
which, according to him, answer to the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost of the Christians. Here are his
own words21 :-“ The Hindoos derived their whole
theology and science from Egypt; and even at this
day the doctrine of three persons of the Deity, in
one substance, is an essential part of the creed of
the Brahmins, and they call those by the same names
as we do,—the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Now let us examine his authority for this extraor-
dinary assertion. “ This fact is told in a French
book written by one La Croze, entitled, “ Histoire
du Christianisme des Indes, vol. ii. lib. iv. p. 48.
And he relates it on the credit of one Manuel
Godhino, a Portuguese, who was in India in the
21
Orig. and Prog. of Language, vol. iv. p. 339 (note).
IN A THREE-FOLD NATURE.
65
>>
year 1663. And I had the fact attested by an
acquaintance of mine, who had been many years in
India.” Such is the credulity of scepticism! We
may justly say of Monboddo, what Pliny said of the
Greeks; for he was in his taste a Grecian. “ Mirum
est quo procedat Græca credulitas! nullam tam
impudens mendacium est, ut teste careat.
This writer would make us believe the opinion
of Plotinus and the later Platonists, that the Trinity
was an acknowledged doctrine, not only before the
Christian religion, but before the times of Pytha-
goras and Plato. This is all assumption, however, for
he makes no attempt to prove it. As he assures us
the Indians were indebted to the Egyptians for their
theology, he might also have pointed out a trinity
in their religion, characterized in the same manner
as the trinity of the Brahmins.
But if these triads are transcripts of the Chris-
tian doctrine, how does he dispose of the evil prin-
ciple or demon ?, acknowledged by the Indians as
well as by the Egyptians? He cannot surely have
been acquainted with the nature of these compound
deities. The Indian mythology was a branch of
the ancient idolatry so often alluded to, called by
Bryant the Amonian worship, or the adoration of
the sun.
22 Plutarch, in his Isis and Osiris, says, that Pythagoras and
Plato considered the gods of Egypt to be demons, that is, deified
mortals. Typhon was a principal god; and, therefore, an evil
demon.
E
66
COMPOUND DEITIES, ETC.
There is a great resemblance between the Baby-
lonian and the Indian mythology; from which we
can trace the derivation of the one from the other.
Lord Monboddo is not quite correct in assigning
the origin of the latter to Egypt; though the reli-
gion of that country was another great branch of the
general idolatry, afterwards changed by the genius
and the singular superstition of the people. The
Chaldeans, the Persians, Indians, and some other
eastern nations, seem to have retained the original
idolatry purer than the Egyptians.
Rama, according to Bryant, was a name of the
chief deity,—the sun; the same with Amon and
Apollo. “ Ramis and Ramas denoted something
high and great; and was a common title of the
deity. He was called Rami, Rama, Ramas, amongst
most nations in the East 23.3 He was called also
Rama-Athan,----the great fountain of light,—the sun.
Vishnu was represented in the form of a fish;
and referred to Noah and the deluge. The same
emblematic representation was prevalent among the
Babylonians; and we shall see, hereafter, to whose
history it alluded, as given to us in some fragments
from Berossus.
-
23 An. My. iii. 140.
67
CHAPTER III.
THE TRIAD; THE THREE KINGS OR ROYAL PER-
SONAGES, DEDUCED FROM ANCIENT HISTORY.
SUCH an event as the deluge must at all times con-
stitute an era in the history of our world. To those
immediately connected with so great and awful an
occurrence, it must have left an impression not to
be effaced for ages. Parents, no doubt, in lively
language described it to their children, and these
to their children, so that it would go down from one
generation to another, little impaired in its promi-
nent features. We can well imagine also, that
those persons connected with the deluge, Noah and
his family, were, by their descendants, regarded with
peculiar veneration. The character given to the
chief personage by Moses, shows how much he
merited the esteem and admiration of posterity.
It is probable, likewise, that the commemoration
of the event was kept up with great strictness and
exactitude; and that religious rites were introduced
for this exclusive purpose; for it cannot be supposed
that Noah passed over his deliverance in unexpressed
gratitude; and failed to establish some peculiar rite,
to return thanks to God for the salvation of this
remnant of the human race. We shall, therefore,
E 2
68
THE TRIAD.
find that such is implied in the various accounts
given of him; for it is constantly said, he was the
first who erected altars to God.
The sacred historian is not the only one who
gives an account of this great calamity. We have
frequent allusions to it in the preserved writings of
some very ancient authors, more or less precise.
In the extant fragments of Berossus', a priest of
Belus, or the sun, of the age of Alexander the
Great, we have an account of the deluge, which
wonderfully resembles that of the Sacred Writings,
and corroborates its perfect truth. It
It may be
per-
ceived, however, that the Mosaic account enjoys
great advantages over the profane, in precision of
language, and accurate description. In truth, the
account of Berossus was, no doubt, compiled from
the memorials of Chaldea, whether handed down in
oral tradition, or, what is more probable, in records
preserved by the priests of the sun.
It has been observed, that the Vishnu of the
Brahmins was represented in the form of a fish: so
the Babylonian deity assumed the shape of half a
fish and half a man; thus alluding to, or typifying,
the history presented to us by Berossus. He in-
forms us, that a monster named Oannes, appeared
from the sea bordering on Babylonia, in ancient
times, whose whole body was that of a fish; but his
head was the head of a man. Though an animal of
1
Frag. of Chaldean History.
THE TRIAD.
69
this nature, he is said to have possessed an articulate
voice, and to have spoken in the language of men.
But, with singular inconsistency, Berossus ac-
quaints us also, that this animal was devoid of
reason; yet he is said, at the same time, to have
taught letters and science to mankind; to have in-
structed them in the building of cities and temples;
and, in fact, to have taught them every useful art
which tends to civilize and promote the happiness
of the human race.
Though all this could not be properly attributed
to the individual patriarch Noah, yet it might very
well be said of his immediate descendants. It is
the character given them, wherever memorials can
be discovered of this ancient family; and it appears
to distinguish, more especially, the posterity of Ham,
who are constantly celebrated by reason of their
wisdom and knowledge.
But it is not necessary to think that the obscure
history of Oannes alluded to one person in particular.
It would more correctly refer to the whole remnant of
the human race, who were miraculously saved at the
deluge. For there is nothing more natural than to
symbolize this great event, under the form of half-
fish and half-man; the one alluding to the ark, the
other to those enclosed in it.
The Grecians composed the fable of the Centaurs,
from the ridiculous mistake of believing the man
and the horse or bull which he rode to make one
entire animal; the Babylonians, under the emblema-
70
THE TRIAD.
2
tical form of a monster, represented the insensible
ark, and the reasoning and intelligent beings who
were for a time enclosed within it.
Bryant somewhere ingeniously says, that the
Egyptian crocodile was sacred, on account of its
being regarded as a very appropriate symbol of
the ark.
Berossus, in another part of this fragment, gives
a more exact account of Noah and the deluge, under
the name of Xisuthrus, whom he supposed to be the
tenth king of Chaldea. It is said, that the deluge
happened in his time; and that the deity Cronus
appeared to him, and warned him of the coming
event, which was to destroy the human race. This
which follows is perfectly consonant with the Mosaic
history. “He enjoined him to build a vessel, and
take with him into it his friends and relatives; and
convey on board everything to sustain life, together
with all the different animals, both birds and quadru-
peds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep".
The memorial of the deluge is to be found, more
or less, incorporated with the theologies and his-
tories of Chaldea, Egypt, and Greece; and other
nations of antiquity.
3 >>
3 Cronus here signifies the Supreme Being. We shall find,
however, that the same title was given to Noah, when demon-
worship was introduced.
3 Cory's An. Frag. p. 27, to which I refer the reader for
the rest of this exact history; also to Bryant's Ancient
Mythology
THE TRIAD.
71
Time itself is said to commence from this event.
All science and knowledge are said to have been
discovered, and first taught by the progenitors of
mankind, concerned or connected with that occur-
rence. Bryant imagines, that the mysteries of the
ancient mythology related to the deluge, and to the
preservation of mankind; and that the grief and
lamentations, the rapturous joy, the frantic gestures,
and other demonstrations of woe and rejoicing, were
instituted in commemoration of the lost world, and
subsequently of the salvation of Noah and his family.
Something of the same nature was obscurely signified
in the Egyptian worship, in the wailings for the loss
of Osiris, and the shouts of joy which were raised,
when he was supposed to be found again".
Moses relates, that Noah was a good and a just
person; and that it was for his sake, that the world
and its inhabitants were not utterly destroyed. We
may, therefore, suppose, that from the great sanctity
of his character, he was regarded by his family and
descendants with peculiar veneration. Accordingly,
we find him distinguished by every great and honor-
able title, esteemed by the ancients, and considered
to be the exponent of goodness and of greatness; as
the first husbandman, the first who erected altars to
4 Cronus is translated Time by the Greeks; but is this not
an error, arising from the cause so often mentioned, of applying
to ancient titles, the meaning which the word bore in the Greek,
that had some resemblance in sound ? Cronus, or Time, was
a person of the Orphic triad.
5 Vide Note F.
72
THE TRIAD.
God; as he who brought men from ignorance to
wisdom, and from a savage and brutal, to a civilized
and humane existence.
He is called also, in reference to his situation
after the deluge, the first-born of mankind; the first
king of every nation (though improperly applied);
and his family were looked upon also as kings, and
mighty conquerors.
This reverence for Noah and his family, in course
of time, degenerated into idolatry, when religious
rites came to be instituted to their honor. The
Most High, who brought them through the deep,
was forgotten, or disregarded; and these, the crea-
tures of His will, were, in time, considered to be the
true saviours of the world
In' progress of time, when there was a falling-
off from the truth, we mnight expect that a person
of so high a character as Noah, so particularly dis-
tinguished by the Deity, could not fail of being
reverenced by his posterity; and when idolatry pre-
vailed, that he would be one of the first among the
sons of men, to whom divine honors would be paid.
We might conclude that these memorials (of the
deluge) would be interwoven in the mythology of
the Gentile world, and that there would be con-
tinually allusions to these ancient occurrences, in
the rites and mysteries, as they were practised by
the nations of the earth.”
6
They are also denominated mediators.
7 An. My. vol. iii. p. 6.
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73
Noah being the head of his family, to him was
allotted the settlement of his children, and the parti-
tion of the earth among his three sons, Ham, Shem,
and Japheth. He, no doubt, instructed them in the
regulation and management of their affairs, as well
as in the duties which they owed to God, and the
proper worship due to Him. For this reason he is,
therefore, called the first lawgiver; and sometimes,
the first who taught geometry to mankind, as well as
the original founder of altars and religious rites.
But it seems that a branch of this ancient family
had within them the seeds of rebellion and of ido-
latry, developed afterwards in their discontentment
at the partition of the earth, as adjusted by Noah.
They appear to have despised their own territory,
and coveted the possessions of the tribe of Shem.
And their dissatisfaction at their own settlement,
and defiance of the precepts of their great progenitor,
in the ordination of earthly as well as of heavenly
things, led them also to deny the true God, and
to establish a religion of their own creating. That
fierce ambition and lawless desire which inspired
hatred and revenge to men, likewise undermined
their loyalty and obedience to the King of heaven
and of earth.
Nimrod, the son of Chus, of the family of Ham,
seems to have been the first who publicly revolted
against God and man.
The seeds sown, perhaps,
years before, were developed and brought to maturity
in the mind of this person, who may be said to have
74
THE TRIAD.
possessed the will and the abilities to carry his plans
into execution. For he was a man of aspiring ambi-
tion; and from the numbers of his followers, he
evinces the qualifications to command: his pre-
sumption was equal to his subsequent bold and
daring actions.
Nimrod, by some, was regarded as the first king
of the earth, which is probably consonant to truth.
He seems to have aimed at universal sovereignty.
By Berossuse he is called Alorus', the first king of
Babylon, “and gave out a report, that God had
appointed him to be the shepherd of the people.”
He was styled, also, Belus or Bel, a title of the sun.
He was the first Titan or giant, a general name given
to his followers.
In the rebellion of Nimrod, it is my purpose
more particularly to observe the idolatry introduced
by him.
The sacred historian informs us, that the osten-
sible object of erecting the tower of Babel, upon
the plains of Babylonia, was, “ lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the earth.” That the inten-
tion of the rebels was to form a beacon or centre-
8 An. Frag. p. 32.
Alorus was originally a Babylonish god and hero. As a
god it represents the sun, the god of light and fire; when it
betokens a man, it seems to refer both to Chus and Nimrod;
but more particularly to the latter, who was the first monarch
on earth, and the first deified hero. An. My. vol. vi. p.
119.
Bryant says, also, that the meaning of Alorus is the god of
fire, or the sun.
THE TRIAD.
75
point, around which they might congregate and
concentrate their force; and then give defiance to
the whole world. It ought to be remarked, that
the country here did not belong to them; but to
the family of Shem, which rendered this caution the
more necessary; so that any sudden irruption by
those, spoiled of their possessions, might, by this
concentration of force, be successfully repelled.
But I cannot help believing, that besides this
ostensible object in erecting the tower, there was
another concealed purpose, not alluded to by Moses,
for wise reasons; that it was intended for a temple,
an idolatrous temple, reared to the honor of the
sun and the celestial host,—the religion instituted
by Nimrod.
Berossus gives the historical event with great
accuracy. “They say', that the first inhabitants of
the earth, glorying in their own strength and size,
and despising the gods, undertook to raise a tower,
whose top should reach the sky, in the place in
which Babylon now stands; but when it approached
the heavens, the winds assisted the gods, and over-
threw the work upon its contrivers; and its ruins
are said to be still at Babylon; and the gods intro-
duced a diversity of tongues among men, who at
that time had all spoken the same language; and a
war arose between Cronus and Titan.”
In another fragment, taken from Hestiæus, it is
10 An. Frag. p. 34.
76
THE TRIAD.
mentioned who the god was, to whom this tower or
temple was erected.
“ The priests who escaped
took with them the implements of the worship of
the Enyalian Jove; and came to Senaar, in Baby-
lonia.” This Jove was the same with Bel, or Belus,
of the Chaldeans, as Berossus testifies": - This
Belus, by whom they signify Jupiter.” And Jupiter
was undoubtedly a title of the sun', how much-
soever he was diversified and multiplied by the
Greeks and Romans. We may collect this from the
description given of the sun in the Orphic hymns:
Immortal Jove, flute-playing, bearing light,
Source of existence, pure, and fiery bright, &c. 13
Nimrod founded the city of Babel, or Babylon,
and, assuming the title of the sun, he is sometimes
called Bel or Belus; and after his death, he was dei-
fied and worshipped as a hero, or demi-god; for his
ancestors were properly considered to be gods.
“ The city of Babel, where was the scene of those
great occurrences which we have been mentioning,
was begun by Nimrod, and enlarged by his posterity.
It seems to have been a great seminary of idolatry;
11 An. Frag. p. 25.
12 Varro enumerates three hundred Jupiters, arising from
mistaking titles for so many distinct divinities.
18 Hymn to the Sun.
14 “ And as the city was devoted to the worship of the sun,
it
was also called the city of Bel-on, sive civitas Dei solis, which
was afterwards changed to Babylon." Bryant on the Dispersion
of Nations.
THE TRIAD.
77
and the tower, a stupendous building, was erected in
honor of the sun, and named the tower of Bel.”
Many mythological fables were constructed on the
event of the overthrow of the tower; and the de-
struction of those who arraigned Heaven and “de-
spised the gods."
There is a remarkable description in the Sibylline
oracles, given in the Ancient Fragments", to which
I have been so greatly indebted'. Subsequently
“ the oracle mentions Cronus, Titan and Japetus, as
the three sons of the patriarch, governing the world
in the tenth generation.”
Και τοτε δη δεκατη γενεη μεροπων ανθρωπων,
'Εξ ουπερ κατακλυσμος επι προτερους γενετ’ άνδρας,
Και βασιλευσε Κρονος, και Τιτάν, Ιαπετος τε.
It
may
be observed, that these three persons are
here styled kings. Cronus represents Shem; Titan,
Ham; the other is obvious. Though Shem is here
called Cronus, it is, more properly, a name given to
his father Noah; and although there is no reason
given for this misappropriation, we may well imagine
that he was so called from his being the favourite
son, and the most obedient descendant of the
patriarch. It will be seen afterwards, that these
distinctive names are often given to denote the
tribes or families, and not the individuals.
Bryant conceives the fable of Vulcan (the god
of fire,) who was cast down from heaven, and thrown
16 Vide Note G.
17 An. My. vol. iv. p.
60.
15
p. 51.
78
THE TRIAD.
into the sea, to be founded on this ancient story.
There does seem something analogous in this verse
from Homer :
He seized him by the foot, and headlong threw
From the high tower of Belus 18.
This is said of Vulcan being thrown down from
heaven by Jupiter.
The first defection, then, from the worship of the
Most High, seems to have been the adoration of the
sun, and the celestial host. The great luminary of
day, the source of light and of heat, the most
natural and appropriate emblem of the Divinity,
was regarded by his worshippers as the chief of all
the gods, and the cause of all things. By whatever
variety of characters, or diversity of titles, this deity
was distinguished in different countries, he may be
traced to this idolatry. The three hundred Jupiters
mentioned by Varro are only names of one great
divinity. Macrobius bears witness to this interest-
ing fact'.
The sun was at first adored with symbols of the
purest and simplest nature. No sacrifices seem
originally to have been offered to this deity. The
objects which were supposed by his votaries to par-
take in any manner of his sensible attributes, were
esteemed sacred, and looked upon as einblems of his
glory or brilliancy. The element of fire, commonly
used in his adoration, was such an emblem ; par-
18
Iliad, v. 591.
19 Vide Note H.
THE TRIAD.
79
ticipating, as it were, of his nature, and bearing a
striking resemblance to those attributes.
The idolaters who instituted this worship, do not
seem to have abided long by it in its simplest and
purest form; the most natural and most refined of
every species of idol or creature-worship. In course
of time, the titles of this deity were awarded to
some of their principal ancestors, by mankind, more
especially to Noah and his three sons; and they and
their children came to be called, accordingly, sons
of god, princes of light, and other titles of a like
purport.
In this custom we may trace the natural progress
of idolatry. In the first instance, the sun was an
emblem of the Most High, regarded as the ex-
pressed and sensible image of his glory and benefi-
cence; but as men fell into ignorance and error,
the symbol came to be confounded with God whose
representative it was. Then, again, the adoration of
the symbol in its originally pure and simple nature,
was obscured and degraded by the admixture and
participation of deified men in its worship. By the
custom of bestowing the various titles of the sun,
upon some men venerated as benefactors of the
human race, mankind, in time, were conducted to a
yet lower species of idolatry; for they came to look
upon the “ children of the sun” as the real progeny
of that god, and worshipped them accordingly. The
heads of the family were gods; the others had reli-
gious rites instituted to them, as demi-gods and
80
THE TRIAD.
heroes. From this mixture of the symbol and that
which it represented; of the sun-worship with the
worship of deified mortals; of the type with the
antitype; arises all the complexity and confusion
perceptible in the ancient mythology. The chief
deity is sometimes described in his celestial cha-
racter as the glorious orb of day, in all his benignant
attributes; and again, we find him reduced to a
mere mortal nature such as ourselves, who rules over
a tribe, propagates his species, and then dies and is
buried like other menº. Hence" probably arose the
heavenly Jupiter and the terrestrial Jupiter; the
mundane and the super-mundane gods of later my-
thologists; the former the sun and celestial host;
the other the deified ancestors of the human race.
The idolatry alluded to seems to have spread as
widely as the adoration of the sun. In truth, the
one was the associate of the other, arising out of
similar circumstances, and being propagated by the
same people. Where we discover the one religion,
we find, more or less, memorials of the deluge, and
the consequences to which it led; in the undue
veneration of mankind for those connected with that
great event.
Of the three sons of Noah, Ham was held in the
20 Vide Note I.
21 Great stress is laid upon this distinction by the later
Platonists. In truth, it is the very essence of their polytheism;
affording great room for refinement and manifold subtleties. In
their hands it was found a most convenient instrument by which
to overcome obstacles, and reconcile apparent contradictions.
THE TRIAD.
81
greatest estimation by the first idolaters, and their
posterity. He was looked up to as the sun, as the
chief deity, and as the creator of the world. His
worship prevailed among many nations of antiquity.
The Jupiter Ammon of the Egyptians was this per-
sonage, who was regarded by them as the same with
the sun.
This extract from a Chaldean fragment bears re-
markable testimony to the introduction and practice
of ancestorial worship. “ But 18 after this, their suc-
cessors, overstepping the intentions of their ances-
tors, that they should honor them as their progeni-
tors, and the inventors of good things, with monu-
ments alone; honored them as heavenly gods, and
sacrificed to them as such."
18 An. Frag. p. 56.
F
82
CHAPTER IV.
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED; WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD Novs, AFTERWARDS
CALLED ALSO Λογος. .
THE Amonian idolatry, in passing into different
countries, and being introduced among various
tribes of people, must have undergone some change
in its progress, either through the influence of time,
or according to the character and disposition of
those by whom it was adopted. Notwithstanding, it
is never so much altered or obscured, as to have
obliterated wholly the traces of its origin. Having
primarily come from Babylonia, it extended its em-
pire far and wide, being conveyed by the defeated
rebels who fled from the overthrow of the tower of
Babel. It was either eagerly adopted by the dif-
ferent tribes to whom it was introduced ; or forced
upon them by their successful conquerors; and if
we were to take Egypt' as an example, it might be
said that the new was a great improvement on the
former religion.
]
The Egyptians were indebted for the Amonian idolatry to
their shepherd-kings, who held that country in subjection for
some hundred years. It would appear, that before this epoch,
they were guilty of some debased superstition ; for it is said,
that these sun-worshippers were so disgusted with their reli-
gion, that they overthrew their temples and forbade their reli-
gious rites.
THE TRIAD.
83
The people who carried this worship into so many
countries were highly celebrated for their know-
ledge, wisdom, and science. They seem to have im-
proved every country which they conquered, or in
which they made a settlement; and hence we have
constantly memorials of this kind in the history of
almost every nation. The ancients supposed that
they were indebted to certain individuals for the
first introduction of letters; but Bryant, and I think
properly, says, they mistook a tribe, or å migration
of people, for an individual. Thus the Greeks
awarded this honor to one Cadmus; whom they indi-
vidualized from a people called Cadmeans; a title
probably characteristic of their worship; for it was
a custom among these idolaters to arrogate to them-
selves the peculiar name of their worship, or of their
chief deity. They called themselves, sometimes, also,
after one of their venerated ancestors, which Bryant
believes this Cadmus to have been, if, indeed, there
ever was such a person.
Orpheus had probably his origin in this custom;
for there is no history of this person on which we
can place any reliance. The Orphic theology is un-
doubtedly a branch of the Amonian worship, which
was subsequently introduced among the Greeks”,
L
2 The Grecians admit that they were indebted to a foreign
source for their letters. A colony of the sun-worshippers
settled in that country at a very early period. The inhabitants
before this era were, like the Egyptians, at a very low ebb of
civilization.
F 2
84
THE TRIAD.
and refined upon by them. We must, therefore, re-
gard the Orphic triad as of precisely the same origin,
and relating to the same persons, as the triplex
deities of Chaldea and Egypt. Some philosophers
have begot many subtleties on these triads of the
ancients, deducing from them, among other myste-
ries, the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead.
But as we withdraw the veil of sophistry, and dis-
close truth in her native simplicity, we shall perceive,
that the objects of their speculation originated in
the worship of the patriarch and his three sons; the
one being denominated the founder of the triad, the
father of the three kings, or royal personages, or by
whatever name they may be styled.
We have already seen that Noah is to be distin-
guished in history by various titles, among others
of Cronus. In the fragments of Berossus, he is
figured under the emblematical form of half a man
and half a fish; which may either be conceived of
him in particular, or of all contained in the ark in
general. I have observed, also, that it is not un-
frequent to call a family or tribe by the name of its
founder; so that when we find it said that a war
sprang up, after the deluge, between two persons,
we must suppose this of their families or descend-
ants. Hence in a Chaldean fragment, preserved by
Alexander Polyhistor, it is said, “ After the deluge
lived Titan and Prometheus, when Titan undertook
a war against Cronus." Berossus says the same
thing happened after the destruction of the tower of
THE TRIAD.
85
Babel ; which refers to a war between the family of
Shem, and that of Ham, or Cush, who are invariably
called Titans and giants: The tribe of Shem were,
no doubt, fighting for the possessions allotted to
them, but which had been surreptitiously obtained
by the other family. We have seen, likewise, that
the Sibylline oracles particularize the three families
under the names of Cronus, Titan, and Täpetus.
These persons were called the first kings of the
country into which the idolatry was introduced; and
accordingly they are placed in the catalogue of their
kings; thus engrafting the general history of the
human race after the deluge on their own particular
annals. But these three persons are not only styled
monarchs of the whole earth, but gods also; so that
we find the reign of the gods to precede that of the
demi-gods, heroes, and mortals. In the old Egyp-
tian chronicle, the first dynasty is put down in this
order:
Reign of the gods.
“ To Hephæstus is assigned no time, as he is
apparent both by day and night. Helius his son
reigned three myriads of years. (These two are
titles of the sun.)
" Then Cronus and the other twelve divinities
reigned 3984 years."
These last gods refer to the deluvian families; but
it ought to be remarked that the above twelve ought
66
3 An. Frag. p. 89.
86
THE TRIAD.
to be eight", for such was the number in the ancient
mythology. The number eight was esteemed sacred
by the ancient Egyptians; called by them the sacred
or holy ogdoas, which consisted of eight persons in
a boat, who were regarded as the most ancient gods
of the country.
“ This number was held sacred,
and esteemed mysterious by other nations.” It
alluded to the ark, and the eight persons enclosed in
it. I need only allude to the well-known represen-
tation of Osiris and the sacred ark, or boat.
In the enumeration above, the title Cronus refers
to the patriarch, though he never assumed sove-
reignty in his own person. Such a latitude is allow-
able, though not strictly consonant with truth. It
was a practice of the ancients to describe him as a
monarch with all the emblems of royalty; probably
on account of his being the head and fountain of the
whole human race. As I have often repeated, he
was more particularly distinguished as a husband-
man and planter of the vine.
In a passage quoted from Eusebius, on the Egyp-
tian dynasties, the sun is in the same manner as the
above placed first; then follow® Agathodæmon,
4. “There is a very ancient god among the Egyptians who is
called Heracles; and they assert that from his reign to that of
Amasis, 17,000 years have elapsed; they reckoned him among
the gods when the number was augmented from eight to twelve."
Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 23.
5 An. Myth. vol. iv. p. 11.
Bryant supposes this benign deity to be Noah, who was
crowned with the lotus, and called Noë Agathodæmon. He
6
THE TRIAD.
87
Cronus, Osiris, Typhon, and Orus, who are styled
the first kings of Egypt. It is manifest these so-
called kings are all titles of one person, except,
indeed, Typhon, whose history we have already ex-
plained. Bryant acquaints us that “when the ado-
ration of the sun was introduced by the posterity of
Ham, the title of Helius was, among others, conferred
on Noah. The other names by which he was
called related more especially to his history and
character, as Prometheus, Deucalion, Atlas, Osiris,
and Zuth?
I conceive, then, there cannot remain a doubt,
that those who were called the first kings of every
nation, were the same persons as the gods who were
worshipped: that the deities of Egypt and even of
Greece were really deified mortals, to whom the
idolaters awarded the various titles of the sun. In
a fragment from Epiphanius, we have it stated in
corroboration of this, that it was not until some
time after idolatry was introduced (namely, the
Sabian worship) that Cronus and Rhea, Zeus and
Apollo, and the rest, were esteemed as gods.
The Cabiritic worship seems to have particu-
adds this curious note, “ the name of Noe, the Greeks trans-
posed and expressed Neo Ayatodatuwv."- vol. iv. p. 202.
.
9 Vide Note K.
8 « Who these Cabirim might be, has been a matter of un-
successful inquiry to many learned men. The most that is
known with certainty is, that they were originally three, and
were called by way of eminence, the great or mighty ones, for
that is the import of the Hebrew name."-Bishop Horsley.
88
THE TRIAD.
11
larized the three sons of Noah, who were called the
three, and the great and mighty ones. Bryant says,
“ The original Cabiritic divinity was Zeuth; the
same as Dionusus, though by some writers idly dis-
tinguished.” He acquaints us, also, that it was the
opinion of Pausanias that he was the same with
Prometheus, the father of mankind. The sons of
this chief god were called the sons of Sadyc, the
just man, and “theyłº are represented as demons,
and in number three; and they are sometimes men-
tioned as the sons of the great artist Hephaistus,
the chief deity of Egypt
The Prometheus mentioned by Pausanias is a
title of Noah, and the same as Deucalion, as Philo
affirms. " Deucalion was Noah. The former name
was prevalent among the Greeks; but the Chal-
deans called him Noë, in whose time happened the
Deluge.”
After these prefatory remarks, I will now pro-
ceed to throw some light on the origin of the Orphic
triad; and attempt to deduce it from the Cabiritic
mystery, or doctrine of three persons, over whom
there was supposed to rule a chief or superior.
Proclus' assures us that the Orphic triad of
Uranus, Phanes, and Cronus, is substantially the
same with the three kings of Plato. And according
to him, also, the other Platonists held a like opinion.
Amelius, refining on the others, imagined a three-
9 An. Myth. vol. iii. p. 342.
1 Vide Note L.
12 Procl. in Tim. ii. 93.
10 Id.
THE TRIAD.
89
**
fold demiurgus; and the three intellects to be the
three kings, which, he says, are the same as those
mentioned by Orpheus and Plato. These persons
of the triad, however much obscured by fable and
sophistry, relate to Noah and his family; and are
really the demons of the ancients, called, as Bryant
says, the Baalim in Scripture. Even Hesiod, in his
Opera et Dies, makes some allusion to these persons,
and when they lived. “ The demons lived in the
time of Cronus ;" and that they were deified men
we have the same testimony:
Αυταρ επει κεν τουτο γεγος κατα γαια καλυψεν, ,
“Οι μεν Δαιμονες εισι--
Εσθλοι, επιχθονιον, φυλακες θνητων ανθρωπων.
“ When they died, they became demons, a sort of
benevolent beings, who resided within the verge of
the earth, and were called guardians of mankind.”
Now Cronus, as we have seen, is Noah; and there
can be no doubt that the meaning of this Orphic
hymn alludes to Noah also, who is called Phanes 13
and Protogonus “ I invoke Protogonus, the first
of men, who was of a twofold state or nature; who
wandered at large under the wide heavens enclosed
in an ovicular machine, (whence he was called
Noryevns-ovi genitus,) who was also depicted with
golden wings.”
14
13 Bryant thinks Phanes is Eros-or Iris, the rainbow;
which may be true; but certainly it is also a title of Noah,
from the description given of him.
14 An. My. vol. iii. p.
203.
90
THE TRIAD.
Bryant, out of Proclus himself, affords singular
confirmation of all that has been advanced. The
latter nearly approximated to the true history, which
he had, no doubt, from some ancient source; but,
from ignorance of its purport, he turns it to ridicule.
“ As Cronus was no other than Zeus's, we may
find the account of the triad further explained in the
history of the latter; and by the same author (Pro-
clus): Ζευς και προ (or perhaps, ο πατηρ) των τριων Κρο-
νιδων, ούτος εστιν και των ολων δημιουργος, « Time and
all things among the ancients were deduced from
Noah (or Cronus); hence they came at last, through
their blind reverence, to think him the real creator,
Anuloupyos; and that he contrived everything in
his chaotic cavern;-ταυτα πατηρ ποιησε κατα σπεος
nepoeldes.” This is curious; but how much more sin-
gular does it appear, when we find Proclus, the Cory-
phæus of Platonism, and the great expounder of the
trinity, aiding us so far as to declare, that this very
Cronus was the founder of the Triad''! Baoineus
Κρονος υποστατης εστι-της αμείλικτου Τριαδος, « King
Cronus is the founder of the fierce Triad '7.' Now
Cronus being Noah, the three Cronii mentioned by
Proclus as Tplov Kpovidwv, are the three sons of the
patriarch ; so that the Platonic triad is founded on
the ancient demoniacal worship of these three per-
15 An. My. vol. iii. p. 107.
16 Proc. Tim. lib. y. cap. x. p. 265; also An. My. vol. iii.
p. 108.
17 Vide Note M.
THE TRIAD.
91
sons. The ancients are ridiculed by Proclus for
entertaining the notion that Cronus was the real
Demiurgus; but the Greeks were manifestly guilty
of the same error, for their Zeus or Jupiter had no
higher origin, though the Platonists called him the
true creator of the world.
Moses informs us that the earth was divided
among the three sons of Noah. Homer alludes to
this settlement in his great poem :
Three brother deities from Saturn came,
And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame,
Assigned by lot, our triple rule we know 18.
These were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. We may
conclude, then, that the ancient, as well as the Pla-
tonic triad, which is said to be the same with the
Orphic, Chaldean, and Egyptian, was derived origi-
nally from this demoniacal worship, though men lost
its true history, and attributed it to another source ;
awarding to it also a different nature and character.
“ As all mankind proceeded from the three fami-
lies of which the patriarch was the head, we find
this circumstance continually alluded to by the
ancient mythologists. And the three persons who
first constituted these families were looked upon
both as deities and kings.”
The ancient mythology agrees in acknowledging
two primary principles of all things; the one male
and the other female 20. - From the two, or more
18 Iliad, b. xv.
19 An. My. vol. iii. p.
108.
20 Cory's Intro. Dissertation, p. 34.
92
THE TRIAD.
frequently from the male, proceeded three sons or
Hypostases, which, when examined severally, are
each one and the same with the principle from which
they sprung; but when viewed conjointly, they con-
stitute a triad, emanating from a fourth yet older
divinity, who by a mysterious act of self-triplication,
becomes three, while he yet remains but one, each
member of the triad being ultimately resolvable into
the monad.” Whether the most ancient mytholo-
gists reasoned or subtilized after this manner would
be difficult to prove; nevertheless the whole mys-
tery is resolvable into its elements in the worship of
deified men.
Though the writer above does not seem to agree
with us in the conclusions arrived at, yet he admits
much to strengthen our position; for, after asserting
that the polytheism of the ancients “is resolvable
into the original god or goddess,” he notices the
human or terrestrial, and the physical or celestial
aspect in which the primary principles appear to
These we have marked or distinguished by
calling the one the idolatry of sun-worship, and
the other the idolatry of worshipping mere deified
mortals.
This writer continues after this manner: “In his
terrestrial character, the chief hero-god, under
whatever name, is claimed by every nation as its
progenitor and founder. And not only is he cele-
brated as the king of that country in particular, but
of the whole world.” He acknowledges also, that this
us.
THE TRIAD.
93
deity, in his human character, was looked upon as
the father of mankind; and in his celestial character,
he was held to be the sun: all which coincides with
what we have advanced. This is the first or male
principle, alluded to above, represented in this mixed
or twofold character.
The same writer says 2), “ But the character of the
great goddess is of a more complex description. As
the companion of man, she is the ark, which was
regarded not only as his consort, but his daughter,
as the work of his own hands; and his mother, from
whose womb he again emerged, as an infant, to a
second light; and his preserver during the catastrophe
of the deluge. As the companion of the sun, she is
either the earth or moon : not that the distinctions
between the human and the celestial characters are
accurately maintained; for they are so strangely
blended together, that the adventures applicable to
one are frequently, and sometimes purposely, mis-
applied to the other.”
It may be true, as he says, that demonolatry was
introduced subsequently to the worship of nature
and the elements; but I do not see how this inter-
feres with our conclusions, that the triad was origi-
nally derived from the former. I have, indeed,
admitted as much.
Before I bring this branch of our inquiry to a
conclusion, I will lay before the reader a very
Cory's Intro. Dissertation, p. 36 and 37.
94
THE TRIAD.
curious hypothesis of Bryant's, which, if founded on
truth, would explain the origin of the word Novs, so
frequently used in the disquisitions of the later Pla-
tonists. It would prove, along with all that we have
already laid down, that the whole Platonic theology,
as developed by the philosophers of the Christian
era, was based on a misconception of the true cha-
racters and histories of the persons mentioned in it;
and that the second person of their trinity, in par-
ticular, originated from a misunderstanding of the
word by which they expressed him; thus following
the custom of the Greeks, in perverting the genuine
signification of foreign names. That the word or
name of Noah was altogether lost among the ancient
Pagans, is disproved by the fact of its occurring in
some very ancient writings. Among the people of
the East, more especially in Chaldea, he was called
Noas, Naus, sometimes contracted to Nous.
Bryant, in this singular passage, throws great
light on the subject: “Anaxagoras" of Clazomenæ
had been in Egypt, and there obtained some know-
ledge of this personage. He spoke of him by the
name of Noas, and Nous; and both he and his dis-
ciples were sensible that it was a foreign appellation;
yet he has well nigh ruined a very curious history,
by taking the terms in a wrong acceptation, and then
making inferences in consequence of this abuse.
• The 23 disciples of Anaxagoras say, that Nous is by
22 An. My.
23 Euseb. His. Synagoge, p. 374.
THE TRIAD.
95
interpretation the deity Dis, or Dios; and they called
Athena, Art or Science; they likewise esteem Nous
the same as Prometheus.”” Upon which Bryant
proceeds to say, “ He then informs us why they
looked upon Nous to be Prometheus, because he
was the renewer of mankind, and was said to have
fashioned them again, after they had in a manner been
extinct. All this is to be inferred from the words
above. But the author, while he is giving us this
curious account, starts aside, and, forgetting that he
is confessedly treating of a foreign term, recurs to
his own language, and from thence frames a solu-
tion of the story. He tells us that Nous, which he
had been speaking of as a proper name was, after
all, a Grecian; vous, the mind; that the mind was
Prometheia, and Prometheus was said to renew man-
kind by new-forming their minds, and leading them
by cultivation from ignorance to knowledge.?
That conjecture of Anaxagoras, that Nous was
the deity Dis or Dios, leads us to the solution of
another appellation of the patriarch, compounded of
these two words, called by the Grecians Dionusus;
and which they translated Divine Mind or Intellect;
but which really signified Divine Noah. Macrobius
24 Plato in his Cratylus, says, that according to some ancients,
'Aonva was nothing but Nolls, or diavola, mind or understanding,
personified and deified. He thought, also, that those who gave
that name signified by it Divine Wisdom, calling it Adnya, as
cov vonow, the Understanding of God, as if the word had been
at first covon, afterwards changed to Aonva.Cud. Intell.
System, vol. ii. p. 103.
96
THE TRIAD.
clearly fell into this mistake when he said, “ Physici
Alovvoov, 4los vour—dixerunt.” They say that the sun
is the mind of God. For Dionusus was the same
with the sun in his celestial character.
Bryant says, that Alos was the ancient term for
the word Deus, God; which renders the above still
more satisfactory. This curious error (if the hypo-
thesis be founded on truth) was encouraged greatly
by the later Platonists, who, not comprehending the
true signification of the term Nous, regarded it in a
mysterious light. “ Proclusa is continually ringing
the changes upon the terms voos, voepos, and vontos;
and explains, what is really a proper name, as if it
signified sense and intellect. In consequence of this,
he tries to subtilize, and refine all the base jargon
about Saturn and Zeus; and would persuade us, that
the most idle and obscene legends related to the
Divine Mind.”
From these terms the Platonists formed their
triads of intelligible and intellectual gods, or rather
demons. “They are apelekTOS Tpias, called like-
wise η νοητη και νοερα τριας-των νοητων-και νοερων
Dewv, fierce triad, intellectual and intelligible triad,
the intellectual and intelligible gods.”
25 An. My. vol. iii. p. 104.
26 Id. p. 111.
PART THE SECOND.
ON THE
THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
OF PLATO,
&c.
G
99
PART THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
THE OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS EX-
PRESS THE UNITY OF GOD, BUT THEY ARE SILENT
ON THE SUBJECT OF A TRINITY IN THIS UNITY.
In these preliminary observations it was my object
to trace the origin of the triads to the deification
of mortal natures, (though I may seem to have been
seduced by the extent, interest, and diversity of the
subject, to treat of it more at large than was neces-
sary for that purpose,) and to show to what source
the Platonists were indebted for their trinity of
causes or principles, so far as it related to the
Orphical, and other ancient systems of mythology.
On the same grounds, we may conclude, that if
Plato really entertained such a doctrine as this (bor-
rowing it, as Proclus says, from Orpheus), which he
expressed by “ Three Kings,” it had no higher origin
than in the worship of demons. However, he does
not, in his writings, judge it to be of such importance,
as even to allude to it in his known and expressed
ideas of the primary causes of all things. For there
cannot be a greater absurdity than the practice of
G 2
100
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
some of his professed followers (the later Platonists),
who egregiously confounded the ancient triads, with
the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrines, of the first
causes or principles of all things, which are styled
God, Idea, Matter, and the Soul of the World. That
these philosophers were guilty of this extraordinary
error, is certain: we shall be convinced of it as we
proceed to treat of their philosophy or theology.
We have seen that Proclus himself, and Amelius
also, both great advocates for a trinity, assert the
Orphic triad, and the three kings of Plato, to relate
to the same persons, and to be derived from the same
fountain. Yet these men strenuously preach to us,
that the trinity of Plato is composed of the Good,
Intellect, and the Soul; or, as others have it, of
being, life and intellect; or God, the intelligible
intellect, and the intellectual or supermundane soul
of the universe.
As we are about to institute some inquiries into
the real opinions of Plato, as laid down and ex-
pressed in his own genuine writings, I will first
offer a few remarks on the notion or conception of
God entertained by some other philosophers of his,
and of the Pythagorean school, for the purpose of
seeing whether any allusion is made, in their de-
scriptions of the Divine Being, to that doctrine of
archical hypostases, said to be a Pythagorean, Par-
menidean, as well as a Platonic “dogma or cabala.”
It will not be denied, that in the manifold expres-
sions on this subject, discovered in their recorded
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
101
opinions, they had abundant opportunities to make
some allusion, however faint and obscure, to the
doctrine so freely ascribed to them. But they seem
to have studiously shunned these opportunities, for
there is not one passage, not one expression, which
can by any ingenuity bear such a construction.
Notwithstanding this great obstacle, Dr. Cud-
worth, in his learned work on The Intellectual System
of the Universe, would persuade us that Plato was a
very
orthodox Trinitarian. He is not satisfied with
the proof, that Plato held the abstract idea; but he
declares to us, that he believed as we believe; un-
derstood, as the fathers understood, that, in a word,
he was no Arian, but a true Athanasian.
“ Plato'plainly and expressly agrees or symbolizes,
not with the doctrine of Arius, but with that of the
Nicene Council, and Athanasius; that the second
hypostasis of the Trinity, whether called Mind, or
Word, or Son, is not étepovolos, but yevovotns, or
ouoovoios, co-essential or consubstantial with the
first, and therefore not a creature." And again, he
assures us that, “ Plato' makes the third hypostasis
of his trinity likewise to be ouoouoios, co-essential
with the second, as he elsewhere makes the second
co-essential with the first." This, indeed, is extra-
ordinary language! The proof must be convincing,
to reconcile the mind to such a startling conclusion.
Dr. Cudworth, in some of the first chapters of his
· Intell. System, vol. iii. p. 98.
2 Ibid.
102
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
book, displays his extensive learning, in proving to
us, that all the ancient philosophers, with a few
exceptions, really maintained and confessed the
existence of One Supreme, Uncreated, and Eternal
Cause, by whatever appellation he was distinguished
or expressed; and that the other deities, acknow-
ledged and worshipped by them, were avowed to
have been created, or generated, by this chief Deity;
being therefore mere creatures, and subordinate
agents. These wise men, who emerged from the
chaos of the vulgar religion, and beheld God in the
unity and supremacy of his nature, would not admit
(for the reason that they could not understand) more
than One perfect and Eternal Cause.
Accordingly, Onatus the Pythagorean declares,
“ That there is not only one God; but He is the
highest and greatest God, the Governor of the
world. But beside him there are many other deities
who differ in power; He ruling over them, and
excelling them in power, greatness and virtue.
These inferior gods were the animated stars, and
other heavenly bodies.
That Pythagoras himself held such a pure con-
ception of the Divine Nature, we have the testimony
of many witnesses and authorities. St. Cyril thus
expresses his opinion: “We* see clearly that Pytha-
goras maintained, there was one God of the whole
universe; the principal or cause of all things; the
3
Apud Stobaeus. Ecl. Phys. lib. i. p. 4.
Con. Julian, lib. i. p. 30.
.
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
103
illuminator, animator, and the quickener of the
whole; the origin of all motion; from whom all
things were derived, and brought out of nonentity
into being."
Anaxagoras, an ancient and very wise philosopher,
treads on the very ground, where we might expect
some notice of a Trinity. But he makes no such
distinction of hypostases; nor distinguishes vous
from the first or third person: on the contrary,
he simply calls God an Infinite Mind, who rules
and governs the whole world; thus opposing the
atheistical notion, then prevalent, that matter, or a
congeries of atoms, was the cause of all things; and
that mind had no place in the creation or govern-
ment of the world.
This sage made still a greater reformation in the
common notions of divinity; for he would not admit
the sun to be anything else but an insensible body
of fire; and he denied that any of all the celestial
host, the moon, or the stars, were gods, as some
erroneously believed: in consequence of which he
was fined by the Athenians.
Socrates, in his Apology, given in the version of
Plato, seems to ridicule this notion of Anaxagoras,
that the celestial bodies were devoid of divinity;
and unworthily charges him with holding atheistical
tenets; as if his other nobler declaration did not
entirely relieve him from such a calumny. How-
ever, Plato, in Phædo, qualifies and dilutes this
harsh aspersion of Socrates; and says, that he did
104
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
not so much condemu Anaxagoras on the score of
his denying the stars to be deities, but rather that
he did not acknowledge any secondary causes of a
mental nature, leaving matter to its own guidance,
and to work out its own operations; bringing mind
in only where material causes could not explain the
phenomena. From which it appears, that this phi-
losopher attained greater purity and simplicity in his
theological notions than either Socrates or Plato;
for he does not seem to have admitted any but
material causes, save his Supreme God, or Infinite
Mind. Socrates commends Anaxagoras neverthe-
less, because he declared mind (and not matter) to be
the ruler and governor of all things; in which Plato,
no doubt, freely coincided.
Aristotle also praises him, because he makes
mind to be the first principle; the cause also of
motion; and of well and fit. 'Ayaşayopas to aitiov
του καλως και ορθως νουν λεγει, which Plato expresses
by, the cause of all good things.
Dr. Cudworth finding Anaxagoras call good a
principle, as well as mind, fancies that he mentioned
two hypostases of a trinity, when it is manifest that
the philosopher signified no more by this, than that
mind ruled all things; but the good was the motive
which moved it to act, for the wisest and best of
purposes: hence Aristotle says, that mind is the
cause of motion, and of well and fit likewise.
5 Vol. i.
p.
249.
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
105
Stobæus cites a passage from Archytas, a Pytha-
gorean, and cotemporary of Plato, which holds, that
beside matter and form, there is a greater and pre-
eminent cause, who is God® : “ There is another
more necessary cause, which, moving, brings the
form to the matter. This is the chief and most
powerful cause, which is properly called God: so that
there are three principles of all things, God (or mind),
matter and form : God, the Artificer and Mover;
matter, that which is moved; and form, the art
introduced into the matter."
That the Supreme Being was called Mind, or a
Mental Cause (in opposition to the material one
maintained by the Atheistical school), without any
expressed or implied perception of His existence as
the second hypostasis of a Trinity, we have even the
acknowledgment of Dr. Cudworth, who informs us
that Timæus of Locris, among others (from whom
Plato greatly borrowed,) of the Pythagorean school,
called God vovs, mind, as well as t'ayadov, the good.
He also styled him the Creator of all good things;
but without any sensible distinction of persons: he
seems to have regarded these only, as appropriate
and characteristic names to specify the intellectual
and moral attributes of the Divine Nature.
“ Moreover," continues Dr. Cudworth,
66 he
6 Ecl. Phys. p. 32.—This passage ought to be particularly
observed, and noted; as it is the true Pythagorean doctrine,
and the origin of that of Plato.
* Intell. System, vol. ii. p. 276.
106
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
plainly declares (as Plato did also) that this gene-
rated god of his, the world, was produced in time, so
as to have a beginning. Πριν ουρανον γενεσθαι, λογω
ηστην ιδεα τε και ύλα, και ο Θεος δημιουργος του
Beatlovos--before the heaven was made, existed the
idea, matter, and God, the opifex of the best.” From
which it is manifest that this philosopher neither
confounded the idea with God, nor recognised it as
an hypostasis of a trinity, as the Platonists did after-
wards.
But there is still another passage which we can
produce from this Timæus of Locris, that throws
some light on the nature of the Idea ; and clearly
distinguishes it from the Supreme Cause. Only two
are recognised by him, which he styles
“ Intellect and Necessity.” The first, he says, is
of the nature of good, and is called God; the cause of
all things that are most excellent; or, as Plato has
it, “the Artificer of the best, and the Cause of all
good.”
This which follows is important, as evincing the
genuine doctrine of Plato. “Those which are con-
sequent, and concauses rather than causes, may be
referred to necessity, and they consist of Idea, or
Form and Matter, to which may be added the Sensi-
ble (world), which is as it were the offspring of
these two."
Now here Timæus separates most exactly the
intellectual and the ideal cause,--the one being of
causes
>>
8 An. Frag. p. 301.
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
107
the nature of good, of a moral as well as an intel-
lectual nature; whilst the other is the contrary of
these, and ascribed to necessity. It ought to be
observed also, that this intellect and that goodness
are mere attributes of God, and not persons; and
that the Idea, on which the whole hypothesis of a
second person in the Platonic trinity is founded,
cannot possibly, from these words of Timæus, be
tortured into any such meaning. For, as it is
ascribed to necessity, it can no more be looked upon
as God, or an hypostasis of God, than matter itself,
along with which it is properly classed.
Then, again, as it is denominated a concause
rather than a cause, it must necessarily be subor-
dinate to the chief cause, and a mere agent of his
will; unless we believe Timæus to have held the
monstrous fallacy of some of the ancients, that God
himself is a mere creature of necessity; and that he
is as much subject to it, and as much restrained by
it, as we are by the air we breathe; or by the unseen
power which limits our ambition or our desires to
this sublunary sphere.
Plato closely followed Timæus and the Pytha-
goreans in his estimate of the Divine Being; and
those other causes to which I have alluded.
According to many great authorities, Plato held
only One eternal and unmade Divinity; the Maker
and Governor of the whole world.
“ It is manifestº, (says Eusebius,) that Plato
9 Pr. Ev. lib. xi. cap. 13, p. 530.
108
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
really acknowledged only one God, however, in
compliance with the language of the Greeks, he
often spake of gods, plurally.”
This is not quite in accordance with Plato's belief,
for he certainly maintained a plurality of gods, whom
he distinguished, however, from the chief god, as
being generated in time, and, therefore, mere subor-
dinate creatures. Dr. Cudworth 10
Dr. Cudworth" acknowledges that
this god of Plato's was expressed by a variety of
appellations, not, however, as distinguishing the
mysterious mode of his existence, but for the natural
and obvious purpose of characterizing his various
attributes. For what is there extraordinary in any
one asserting that God is an Intellectual Being;
having all goodness and perfection in Him; good-
ness being that attribute of His nature, which
moves him (if we dare use the expression) to create
all things after the best manner, and for the happi-
ness of his creatures? We might say, without the
implication of alluding to persons in the Godhead-
that this Being is good itself; the essence or
abstraction of all goodness; the very summun
bonum ; that he is also an Infinite Mind, having all
wisdom and knowledge, as he possesses all possible
goodness in His nature. Now, this is no more than
what Plato signified by the names he employed to
express his Eternal Cause. Besides the good", he
likewise styles him ó acos, by way of eminency;
10 Intell. System, vol. ii. p. 295. .
11 Ibid.
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
109
sometimes ó anjelovpyos, the maker or creator, and
father of all things; sometimes, also, Novs navtov
Baoilevs, Intellect, the king of all things: the sove-
reign Mind which orders and passes through all
things; the first God; the greatest God; and the
greatest of the gods.
It is certain that Plato signified no more by his
Good and Intellect than Aristotle and Anaxagoras
did, who were more explicit than the former, ex-
plaining them as I have done above; that Good
is that which moves Intellect to will and execute
everything in accordance with it; for Intellect in
God does not seem necessarily to imply the goodness
of His nature.
Dr. Cudworth assures us that the Trinity was also
a Pythagorean as well as a dogma of Plato's, the
proof of which he imagines to be comprised in a
passage from the writer De Placitis Philosophorum;
but, I apprehend, the contrary may be deduced from
it'? “His first principle is God and (or) Good,
which is of the nature of unity, and a perfect Mind;
but his other principle of duality is a demon or evil
principle.” Again, Plutarch says", “Pythagoras's
12 Lib. i. cap. 7, p. 881,
13 Lib. i. cap. 3, p. 876.–Plutarch is not to be implicitly
trusted in these matters. He somewhere ascribes the same belief
of an evil demon to Plato.
Pythagoras called God "the One," in which he was generally
followed by those of his school. Matter he called “two,"
according to some. Dacier, in his Life of this philosopher, says
he called God also a Quaternion.
110
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
principles were a monad and an infinite duality;
the former of them an active principle, Mind or
God; the latter, passive and matter.” Without
condescending further to prove a point of such con-
sequence, Dr. Cudworth is satisfied with this demon-
stration from Plutarch, and proceeds, accordingly, to
raise a structure on this feeble foundation. He
passes over the argument in this manner :-“ Pytha-
goras * is generally reported to have held a trinity
of Divine hypostases.
The three principles ascribed to Pythagoras by
others, are, no doubt, those we have before mentioned,
God, Idea, and Matter; which, upon the authority
of Aristotle', were called also the Beginning, the
Middle, and the End; for all the philosophers of his
school seem to concur in this general doctrine. And
we may conclude that the names, as Monad, Good,
Mind, and others, expressed no more than the
language used by Timæus and Plato; having no
reference to the persons of the Godhead. We have
Parmenides, likewise, charged with a knowledge of
the same mysterious truth; but upon no better
foundation than prejudiced assumption, and a passage
from Plotinus, written under a misapprehension of
the subject which he treated. “Parmenides in Plato,
speaking more exactly, distinguishes three divine
unities subordinate; the first, of that which is per-
fectly and most properly one; the second, of that
14 Intell. System, vol. ii. p. 231.
15 De Calo.
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
111
which was called by him one-many; the third, of
that which is expressed one and many: so that
Parmenides did also agree in this acknowledgment
of a trinity of Divine or archical hypostases.” The
reason assigned for this interpretation is, that this
ancient philosopher called the Supreme Being 16,
« το έν and μονάς, a unity and monad; because he
conceived that the first and most perfect being, and
the beginning of all things, must needs be the most
simple.”
Let us, for a moment, assume this mode of inter-
preting Plato's dialogue to be correct (of which
we shall see some reason for doubt by and by), it is
manifest that Plotinus is guilty of great discrepancy
in speaking of these divine unities.
For if they
allude to a trinity, the one-many must refer to the
second person, or the Infinite Mind: yet “Plotinus
seems to think that Parmenides, by his one, did really
mean a perfect Mind, for he cannot conceive any
true entity below that which understands;" and the
same may be said of that isolated and solitary Monad
situated above Intellect.
As he is expressly treating of divine persons, he
clearly confounds the first with the second; and
inadvertently opens the secret of the Parmenidean
doctrine, that the Infinite or Perfect Mind, and
TÒ Év, are one and the same person. Dr. Cudworth,
implicitly relying on this mode of solution, informs
16 Intell. System, vol. ii. p. 255.
112
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
us that the second hypostasis is the perfect Intellect,
called, by Parmenides, év qayta, one-many, or one
and all things, in which he opposes that admission
of Plotinus, that Parmenides regarded the first hypo-
stasis to be also a perfect Mind.
“ The second of them, which is a perfect Intellect,
was, it seems, by him called, in way of distinction,
Év moda or tavra, one-many or one-all-things; by
which all things are meant the intelligible ideas of
things, that are all contained together in one perfect
mind.” From which we may draw this inference,
that the perfect mind was really the same person as
the one, but it was called év mavra, because, even
according to Plotinus, “he was likened to a sphere,
because it comprehends all within itself.” According
to this, then, God was called by Parmenides the one,
and the one-many or the one-all-things, because
everything is coinprehended by his infinite essence.
Dr. Cudworth says, on the same subject, that “it
was the first of those hypostases that was properly
called, by Parmenides, év to mây, one, the universe of
all: that is, one most simple Being, the fountain and
original of all.” By which he contradicts the pre-
vious hypothesis, that the first was one; and the
conclusions of the later Platonists, who looked upon
these other expressions of Parmenides to imply not
a simplicity but a multiplicity.
However, as I intend hereafter to write more at
large on this subject, it would be better to desist from
saying more now, except to make the observation that
OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS.
113
t
these philosophers do not seem to have been aware
that Parmenides called the material universe also the
one, which is expressly mentioned in Plato's dialogue
of that name; and it was this, and not God, which he
likened to a sphere, as containing all things within
itself. By him God was called one, as Pythagoras did
before him. The universe was one also, and all
things.
H
114
CHAPTER II.
THE OPINIONS OF SOMÊ MODERÍNS ON THE TRINITY
OF PLATO EXAMINED.
I THOUGHT it necessary to collect these few scattered
rays of light from the theology of the wisest of the
ancients, for the purpose of showing how little evi-
dence there exists, in their recorded opinions of the
Supreme Being, to warrant the conclusion that they
entertained the doctrine of a trinity in the Godhead.
It appears that they regarded God, Jupiter,
(highest God,) and the Divine Mind, and other
appellations, by which He was expressed, as words
of the same purport, signifying His peculiar attri-
butes; His unity, and superiority over generated
natures. The Infinite Mind of Anaxagoras; the
Good of Timæus and Plato; the Immoveable One of
Aristotle and Parmenides; and the Monad of Pytha-
goras, are all so many titles of One Person, suited to
the taste of those who applied them; or created out
of a laudable desire to convey their notions of a
Mental in opposition to the Material Cause of the
Atheists.
There are three principles concurred in by most of
these philosophers, probably first taught by Pytha-
goras-
-which are called God, Idea, and Matter.
And as this ancient doctrine formed a chief ingre-
THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
115
dient in the Platonio hypothesis, I purpose, in due
time, to examine it more particularly.
Before entering upon the theology of Plato; I
with devote this chapter to a few remarks on the
opinions of one or two modern writers, on the Plan
tonic trinity, and more especially on the evidence of
the doctrine in Plato's own writings.
The author of The Intellectual System of the Unia
verse thus expresses his ideas on this subject:
“ Plato', in his tenth book of laws, in professedly
opposing Atheists, undertakes to prove the existence
of a deity; but, notwithstanding, he does not there
ascend higher than to the Psyche, or universal mun-
dane soul, as a self-moving principle, and the imme-
diate or proper cause of all that motion which is in
the world.” Again, “But in other places of his
writings, he frequently asserts above the self-moving
Psyche an immoveable and standing Nous; or intel-
lects which was properly the demiurgus, or archi-
tectonić framer of the world. And, lastly, above this
multiform intellect, he plainly asserts yet a higher
hypostasis; one most simple and absolutely perfect
Being, which he calls tò év, in opposition to that mul-
tiplicity which speaks something of an imperfection
in it, and t'ayabov, goodness itself, as being above
mind and understanding.
And,
accordingly, in his epistle to Dionysius does he
mention a trinity of three Divine hypostases alto-
gether.”
| Vol. ii.
p.
300.
H 2
116
THE OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS
In another place he rejoices exceedingly at the
(imaginary) similitude, which he discovers between
the Christian and the Platonic trinity, in that they
agree in ascribing the creation of the world to the
second, and not to the first person in the Godhead.
In another portion of his work he is still more
explicit, in this opinion of there being a trinity
alluded to in Plato's writings. In his commentary
on a passage of the Timæus, where the world is de-
nominated των αιδιων Θεων γεγονος αγαλμα-α created
image of the eternal gods—he thus expresses himself.
* By which eternal gods he there meant doubtless
that το πρωτον and το δευτερον, and το τριτον–
that first,
second, and third, which, in his second epistle to
Dionysius, he makes to be the principles of all things
that is his trinity of divine hypostases, by whose con-
current efficiency, and according to whose image
and likeness, the whole world was created.”
Lord Monboddo, in his Origin and Progress of
Language, arrives at a similar conclusion as Dr. Cud-
worth; though he differs in this; that he denies
Plato to make the most remote allusion to the
trinity in his Dialogues”. “I am persuaded Plato
got out of Egypt his peculiar doctrine of ideas, as
well as the doctrine of the trinity, which he has not
published in any of his dialogues, but kept as a secret
to be communicated to the initiated only, in the
mysteries of his philosophy: or, perhaps, he found
• Vol. iii, p. 85.
s Vol. v. p. 338.
ON THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
117
this mystical philosophy in the books of the Pytha-
goreans of Italy, some of which Laertius tells us
he purchased at a great price.'
Though he dissents on this point from Dr. Cud-
worth, he coincides with him in the opinion that
Plato's second epistle to Dionysius is an exponent
of the doctrine. He allows, indeed, (what Plato
himself says,) that the mystery is expressed, not
briefly only, but enigmatically; so that if the letter,
by chance, fell into strange hands, no one could pos-
sibly divine its occult signification. But if this is
granted, (that the subject is an enigma,) according
to the procedure of this philosopher, and Dr. Cud-
worth, they do not esteem it in that light, but adopt
the most literal and obvious interpretation; that the
three natures mentioned by Plato, were the causes
of all things.
As Plato, however, explicitly enumerates these
natures, the mystery does not seem so much to
relate to the number three, as to their peculiar cha-
racters, and the mode of their existence. For if the
epistle had miscarried and fallen into other hands,
what is the most probable solution which the purport
would suggest to the reader? Certainly the most
obvious and literal one; that Plato alluded to certain
principles, through which, and around which, all things
existed. But can this be denominated an enigma,
the solution of which may be clearly gathered from
the literal expression? Do these philosophers above
act consistently with the premises agreed upon, when
they adopt this literal mode of interpretation?
118
THE OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS
We may conclude, therefore, from the language
used by Plato, that the enigma is not in the three
natures mentioned by him; but in something else ;
which probably related to the peculiar mode of their
existence.
There is another remarkable feature of this letter,
apparently not noticed by Dr. Cudworth; though he
pretends that Plato alluded to a trinity in some of
his dialogues. It is said, “I have never at any
time written anything about these particulars; nor
is there any book professędly written by Plato, nor
will there be.” Which passage renders the enigma
still more difficult of solution; and removes it further
from the literal one given by the later Platonists.
I have observed that Lord Monboddo holds the
same opinion with Dr. Cudworth on this subject;
but if we examine the evidence produced by him,
we shall see how little reason he had for arriving at
this conclusion; and how impossible it is for us to
coincide with him in his belief. In truth, with all
his pretensions to learning, he manifests great igno-
rance of the genuine philosophy of Plato. This
notion appears to have been hastily adopted by him,
without much knowledge of the fundamental prin-
eiples of that philosophy.
As an example of his credulity, he acquaints us,
that he was satisfied of this doctrine of the trinity
being restricted to Plato's theology, the Platonic phi-
4
Epistle of Plato to Dionysius.
ON THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
119
>>
losophers, and the Alexandrine school, until Dr.
Heberden, a friend of his, pointed out a passage in
Seneca's Consolatio ad Helviam, from which it appears
to have been also known to, and recognised by the
Stoics. This is the passage alluded to :-“ Id actum
est, mihi crede ab illo, quisquis formator universi
fuit, sive ille Deus est potens omnium, sive incor-
poralis ratio ingentium operum artifex, sive divinus
spiritus per omnia maxima ac minima, æquali inten-
tione diffusus, sive fatum et immutabilis causarum
inter se cohærentium series."
From this single and isolated passage we have all
the evidence which he affords us. The casual enu-
meration of God, incorporeal reason, and the soul of
the world, (which he probably signified by the divine
spirit,) is sufficient to convince him, that Seneca
acknowledged a trinity of persons ! But if he had
read that epistle of the Stoic's carefully and atten-
tively, he might have seen, that the language could
by no possibility bear such a construction. Besides,
the occasion on which he is said to propound this
mysterious doctrine, seems the most unfit that could
be conceived: a proof itself that Senecą had no
supicion of the meaning given to his words.
The truth is, that the Stoical philosopher was so
uncertain and ignorant of the nature of the Supreme
Being, that he takes this opportunity of expressing
his doubts and perplexities. In his public writings,
and among those of his school, he could confidently
speak and argue on the great and interesting subject
120
THE OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS
of the being, the attributes, and the government of
God; but when, in moments of solitude and study,
his own reflections were turned towards these things,
or when, from a full heart, he was required to offer
consolation to the afflicted, he was sensible how vain
and futile were all the speculations of the schools, on
the nature and existence of the unknown and un-
created Cause of all things.
What consolation can all the logic of the schools
afford to present affliction; what light can it throw
over the dark futurity, when death has withdrawn us
from this earthly and mundane existence? What is
it to the broken heart, whether God, in the language
of men, be called almighty, or incorporeal reason, or
the soul which pervades all things ?
Hence, Seneca, overcome by the dark uncertainty
of his speculations, despondingly confesses that he
knows not whether God be as some call him, simply
an Almighty Power; or as others, Incorporeal Rea-
son, or Infinite Mind; or, as the Stoics argue', the
Soul of the universe; or whether, indeed, he is only
fate, or the immutable chain of material causes.
« Sive fatum et immutabilis causarum," is not the
• The Stoical theology made God to be the universal Soul,
which enters into, and pervades all things. In this, it differed
from that of the Pythagorean and Platonic schools, and other
sects, which called God, an Infinite Mind, a Reasoning Divinity,
and other names. Seneca may have alluded to this, in the
passage above, and might have thus expressed himself, “ Whe-
ther God be, as some say, Almighty God, King of Heaven and
of Earth ; or an Infinite Mind; or an Universal Soul," &c.
ON THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
121
language one would employ in writing of, or alluding
to, a trinity in the Godhead.
This is, however, not the only discovery for which
we are indebted to Lord Monboddo, and others of
his opinions. For in another portion of his work he
informs, us that Aristotle held the nature of man to
be twofold, the intellectual and the animal, in which
he opposed his master Plato, who asserted the nature
of man to be one substance composed of different
parts; then, as if inspired with the same genius
which discovered a trinity in Plato's writings, and
conjured up a like opinion among the Stoics, he starts
aside from the argument of which he is treating, and
says, with amusing gravity®, “ And here I cannot
help observing that this system of morals, (Aristotle's
two natures of man,) enables us to conceive the great
mystery of the Christian faith, the doctrine of the
Incarnation ; for if we believe, as I think we must
do, that the intellectual nature may be united, and
actually is, to the animal, what should hinder us to
believe, that a third nature may be united to the other
two? namely, the divine; and that it was actually so
in the person of Christ.” Again,“ And we will be the
more easily disposed to believe this, if we agree with
Aristotle, that the human intellect has something
divine in it, as he has told us in more than one place;
and it is only with respect to this part of our nature,
that we are said, in Scripture, to be made after the
• Orig. and Prog. of Lang. vol. v. p. 364.
122
THE OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS
image of God. And here we may observe that not
only the Trinity is to be found in the books of
ancient philosophy, as I before observed, but that
also the doctrine of the Incarnation is clearly to be
deduced from the principles of that philosophy.
This shows us how much the study of it must con-
tribute to explain the language of Scripture, and the
doctrines of the Christian theology."
How pleasing and satisfactory to the Christian to
find in these antique systems, so marvellous an
approximation to the revealed truth! What a con-
firmation of his faith, to have it thus expounded by
these great spirits of old, Plato, Aristotle, and the
Stoic! How delightful to have the testimony of
these venerated and pious sages to the mysteries of
our holy religion, and to the great doctrines revealed
by Heaven to mankind of after-ages!
We have
reached the threshold of truth ; nay, we have entered
within its sacred portals, when it is known and
acknowledged that Plato was an orthodox trinitarian;
Seneca not much worse; while the sagacious and
penetrating genius of Aristotle could expatiate on,
and propound the mystery of the Incarnation!
If it were not for the mystical language which
these philosophers employ, we might haply succeed
in working out the whole Christian theology from
their writings, and unfold it as perfect and pure,
as when it issued from the divinity of our blessed
Saviour. Then we might, most reasonably, place
these men side by side with the prophets of the
ON THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
123
Hebrews, and consult them as we would the Sacred
Writings.
How can we, after this, be surprised at Lord
Monboddo's confession, that it was from Aristotle
he derived all his knowledge of the difference be-
twixt things divine and sublunary? or that he should
admire Aristotle and revere the philosophy of the
schools”, “which explains to us the fundamental
doctrine of Christianity, that the Son was begotten
from all eternity,--a doctrine not to be conceived,
and, consequently, not to be believed, by a man who
has not raised his thoughts, by the assistance of
ancient philosophy, from generation and production
of beings temporary here on earth, to the causes
divine and eternal ?”
If the notion of this writer, that the Christian
religion is only a sort of transcript of more ancient
theological systems, required any confirmation at our
hands, I might here add an important discovery,
made by myself, which is another instance to those
already mentioned. In my inquiries, I have stumbled
on one passage, among others, from divers souroes,
which proves this fact to demonstration. I am
astonished that Lord Monboddo overlooked a testi-
mony so very valuable.
It ought to be premised, that it is necessary to
make great allowance for the obscure and mystioal
language used by ancient writers on religion; not
1. Vol. v. p. 373.
124
THE OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS
that they were ignorant of the truths on which they
wrote; on the contrary, they had a profound know-
ledge of them, though it was a branch of their policy
to conceal them, in a cloud of darkness, from the
profanum vulgus !
Alciphron, in his thirty-ninth epistle, makes one
Euthydicus thus write to Epipanius :-“What have
you not lost? The Haloa, the Apaturia, the Dio-
nysia, and the present most sacred Thesmophoriani
festival. The first day was the Ascension: this day
is appropriated for the celebration of the fast; that
which follows is distinguished by the sacrifice of
Calligareia." This refers to ancient religious fes-
tivals, in which we have one to commemorate the
Ascension; and in another a fast is particularly
mentioned.
I conceive, also, that Lord Monboddo, in his
opinion respecting the Incarnation, gave himself
unnecessary trouble, in bringing to light the profound
speculations of Aristotle on this mystery, since he
might, with greater advantage, have consulted
Homer and Ovid, who, in their gods and goddesses,
and their offspring, bear immortal testimony to the
union of divinity with the mortal nature!
Returning from this digression, I will now offer
a few observations on the opinions of Taylor, who,
notwithstanding he widely differs from the two
writers already mentioned, is a true disciple of the
later Platonists, and a faithful expounder of their
doctrines. He asserts, dogmatically, that the Chris-
ON THE TRINITY OF PLATO EXAMINED.
125
tians originally purloined their Trinity from Plato,
but he repudiates the idea, that now there remains
any resemblance between the father and his off-
spring. This may be proved from many parts of his
writings, but chiefly from his general introduction to
the Dialogues of Plato. He says, “From all that
has been said, it must, I think, be immediately
obvious to everyone whose mental eye is not
entirely blinded, that there can be no such thing as
a trinity in the theology of Plato, in any respect
analogous to the Christian Trinity.”
In his introduction to the Parmenides, he gives us
a long quotation from Damascius, the Platonist,
which gives some account of the Orphic theology,
and the ancient triads of principles, whose nature
and origin I have before examined and explained.
He is of opinion, also, that the Platonic trinity was
of Orphical origin, thus agreeing so far with Dr.
Cudworth, Proclus, and others. But he differs with
the former as to the nature of this Platonic trinity.
“From all that has been said respecting the intelli-
gible triad, it is easy to see what a dire perversion
the modern trinity is, of the highest procession from
the first of causes. For, in the first place, instead of
venerating the first god, like the pious ancient phi-
losophers, as a cause ineffable, unknown, and super-
essential, it barbarously confounds him with his first
progeny, and, by this means, destroys the prerogative
of his nature.” From which we may gather this,
(the genuine doctrine of the later Platonists,) that the
126
THÐ OPINIONS OF SOME MODERNS, &c:
triad does not comprehend, numerically or catego-
rically, the first cause; but he is placed above its
and the triad is looked upon as his offspring or
progeny. Hence Taylor thus speaks of the opinions
of Dr. Cudworth, who expunges this first god, and
recognises only the triad of being, life, and intellect,
springing from him. “A superficial reader, who
knows no more of Platonism than what he has
gleaned from Cudworth's Intellectual system, will
be induced to think, that the genuine Platonic
trinity consists of the first cause, or the good, intel-
lect, and soul, and that these three were considered
by Plato as, ini a certain respect, one. To such men
as these, it is necessary to observe that a triad of
principles, distinct from each other, is a very different
thing from a triad which may be considered as a
whole, and of which each one of the three is a part.
But the good or the one is, according to Plato, super-
éssential, as is evident from the first hypothesis of
this dialogue, (Parmenides,) and from the first book
of his Republic. It is impossible, therefore, that
the good can be consubsistent with intellect, which is
even posterior to being ; and much less with soul,
which is subordinate to intellect. And hence the
good, intellect, and soul, do not form a consubsistent
triad."
127
CHAPTER III.
ON THE THEOLOGY OF THE TIMÆUS OF PLATO.
SOME have observed, that as to morals Plato fol-
lowed Socrates, while his theology was derived
chiefly from the Pythagorean school. He was un-
doubtedly a close imitator of Timæus of Locris, in
the dialogue so entitled: it would seem, indeed,
that it was expressly called by that name, from the
conformity of its doctrines, and the resemblance of
its systematic features, to the book of Timæus on
the Soul of the World.
Iamblichus says somewhere, that the whole
theology of Plato may be gathered from the two
dialogues, Timæus and Parmenides; but I appre-
hend that it is to the former that we are to look,
for any clear, systematics and intelligible exposition
of it.
As the doctrines of this dialogue, their nature and
their origin, are of great consequence to our argu-
ment, I will give an extract from the remaining
fragments of the book of Timæus alluded to, which
explains clearly and succinctly the nature of the
idea, out of which the Platonists created their Intel-
lect, or Logos. It is the germ of the theology of
Plato.
128
THE THEOLOGY OF
“ The causes of all things are two, namely, intel-
lect and necessity. Of these, the first is of the
nature of good, and is called God, the principle of
such things as are most excellent. Those (neces-
sarily existing according to the powers of bodies),
which are consequent, and concauses rather than
causes, may be referred to necessity, and they con-
sist of idea or form, and matter, to which may be
added the sensible world, which is, as it were, the
offspring of these two.
“ The first of these is an essence ungenerated,
immoveable, and stable; of the nature of same; and
the intelligible exemplar of things generated, which
are in a state of perpetual change, and this is called
idea, and is to be comprehended (only) by mind.
Matter is, again, the receptacle of form or idea, the
mother and female principle of the generation of the
third essence; for by receiving the likenesses upon
itself, and being stamped with form, it perfects all
things partaking of the nature of generation.”
Again, “Before the world was made existed the
idea, matter, and God, the demiurgus of the better
nature. He fabricated this world out of all the
matter, and constituted the boundary of essential
nature, comprising all things within itself, one, only-
begotten, perfect, with a soul, and intellect.”
1 An. Frag. p. 301.
3 The ideas of Plato are so explained by Laërtius: “He sup-
poses ideas to be certain principles and causes, that such and
such things are by nature what they are." Vita Platonis.
THE TIMÆUS OF PLATO.
129
}
Stobæus informs us also, that Archytas, another
Pythagorean, held similar opinions on these prin-
ciples. “It is necessary to hold that there are three
principles; that which is the subject of things
(matter), form, and that which is of itself motive
and invisible in power, namely, God.” And Aris-
totle probably alludes to the same thing when he
says, “ All things are three, for, as the Pythagoreans
say, all things are bounded by three; for the end
(matter), the middle (form), and the beginning (God),
include the enumeration of everything, and they
fulfil the number of the triad."
Another ancient Pythagorean writer says ex-
pressly, that it is God who brings the form or idea
to the matter; which could never be said of the
second hypostasis of the trinity.
If we proceed now to examine Plato's dialogue,
we shall perceive a marked concurrence with these
more ancient opinions; so that there cannot remain
a doubt, but that they were both of the same origin,
and related to the same theology. Plato esteemed
all things transitory and uncertain, and therefore
unfit for philosophical speculation, except the ideas
or essences of things. Hence he calls the latter,
very properly, real-being, as distinguishing their per-
manent nature from other objects which have only
a generated or temporary existence.
66 It is neces-
sary to define that which is always real-being, but
which is without generation; and what that is which
is generated."
I
130
THE THEOLOGY OF
He then says, the one is apprehended by intel-
ligence, in conjunction with reason: the other, on
the contrary, is perceived by opinion, in conjunction
with the rational sense. We have seen that Timæus
made a similar observation, when he said that the
idea was comprehended by mind.
It is manifest, that every generated nature must
have had a cause of its existence. This cause Plato
denominates Father and Artificer, who formed the
sensible world according to the image or likeness of
another exemplar, or paradigmatical world.
The
reason for which is thus given by Plato: “If the
world is beautiful, and the Artificer thereof good, it
is evident that he must have looked towards an
eternal exemplar in its fabrication.” Had he, on
the contrary, adopted the pattern of a generated
nature, the world would have been neither perfect
nor beautiful. Therefore the Idea was the exemplar
of the sensible world, and, accordingly, God is said
afterwards, in pursuing his plan, to have “placed
intellect in soul, and soul in body, and fabricated the
universe.” For Timæus says, in his book on the
Soul of the World, “ That an animal so constituted,
is superior to one devoid of soul and intellect.”
And Plato argues that, “in this manner, and for
this reason, we must call the world an animal
endued with intellect, and generated through the
providence of Divinity.”
Again, “ For the Divinity being willing to assimi-
late this universe, in the most exquisite degree, to
THE TIMÆUS OF PLATO.
131
that which is the most beautiful, and every-way
perfect of intelligible objects (namely, the exemplar),
he composed it one visible animal containing within
itself all such animals as are allied to it.”
He then proceeds to argue, that as this animal
world is a whole, and every-way perfect being, God
could not have fabricated any other world save this
alone. And, according to the words of Timæus of
Locris, “ As it was God's pleasure to render his pro-
duction most perfect, he constituted it a god, gene-
rated indeed, but indestructible by any other cause
than by Him who made it."
Then, says Plato, “ When the generating father
understood, that this generated resemblance of the
eternal gods moved and lived, he was delighted with
his own work, and, in consequence, considered how
he might make it still more similar to its exemplar.
Hence, as that (the exemplar, or idea) is an eternal
animal, he endeavoured to render this universe such,
to the utmost of his ability,"--namely, as permanent
as possible.
The sun, moon, and stars, created or fabricated by
the same demiurgus, were regarded also as so many
gods, or divine animals. So the earth likewise :-
“ He also fabricated the earth, the common nourisher
of our existence, which, being conglobed about the
pole, extended through the universe,—is the guardian
and artificer of night and day, and is the first and
most ancient of the gods which are generated within
the heavens."
I 2
132
THE THEOLOGY OF
After Jupiter had created the universe, and gene-
rated the souls of the celestial planets (which were
so many deities), Plato imagined him to have ad-
dressed these inferior gods after this manner:-
“Gods of gods, of whom I am the demiurgus and
father, whatever is generated by me is indissolvable,
such being my will in its fabrication. Indeed, every-
thing which is bound is dissolvable; but to be will-
ing to dissolve that which is beautifully harmonized,
and well composed, is the property of an evil nature.
Hence so far as you are generated you are not im-
mortal, nor in every respect indissolvable; yet you
shall never be dissolved, nor become subject to the
fatality of death,” &c.
Then he proceeds to give them some general
instructions; and concludes with these remarkable
words, put into his mouth by Plato :-“ That mortal
nature may subsist, and that the universe may be
truly all (conformable to the great idea), convert
yourselves, according to your nature, to the fabrica-
tion of animals, imitating the power which I employed
in your generation.”
He gave these junior gods control and dominion
over mortal souls, as well as allotted to them the
fabrication of mortal bodies.
* Plato held some curious notions relative to human souls.
The most singular was their pre-existent state ; for he imagined
them to have been created, and to have had a subsistence, pre-
viously to the bodies which they afterwards inhabited, or to
which they were conjoined. This fancy arose from an excessive
THE TIMÆUS OF PLATO.
133
Then, continues Plato, “ At the same time he
who orderly disposed all these things, remained in
his own accustomed abiding habit. But, in conse-
quence thereof, so soon as his children understood
the orders of their father, they immediately became
obedient to them.”
We may conclude, then, that this dialogue of
Plato's is a true and genuine exposition of the
Timæan, or Pythagorean system of theology.
1. We have God the Creator, or demiurgus, a
supreme and eternal Being; who, as a Spirit, existed
in the solitude of his own unity, until such time as
it pleased him to manifest his power in fabricating
the material world, and the inferior divinities.
2. We have existing with Him from all eternity,
either in the Divine Mind, or external to it, the
Idea, or Exemplar, in whose likeness and image the
material world was created.
3. We have Matter, out of which this world or
universe of Plato's was fabricated, which was also
eternal. Hence we revert to the doctrine of
estimate of the soul, which he considered so superior to its
material encasement, that it would be equivalent to a degrada-
tion to suppose that the latter was created prior to the former.
These souls, before they entered the body, were believed to dwell
in the stars, the dwelling-places of the inferior divinities, where
probably they were supposed to be made, according to the in-
structions of the Supreme Being. And after the dissolution of
the body at death, the soul returned again to the habitation of
its kindred star, to enjoy a blessed life, if it had spent a good
life here below.
134
THE THEOLOGY OF
Timæus, that before the world was, existed the Idea,
Matter, and God, the demiurgus of the better nature,
or the cause of all good things.
The ancient philosophers universally agreed in the
pre-existence, if not in the eternity of matter. They
could not conceive a creation out of nothing.
Aristotle, in his Physics, says, IIepi tautns ouoyva-
μονουσι της δοξης οι περι φυσεως, ότι το γιγνομενον εκ
μη οντων γίγνεσθαι αδυνατον. .
“ The physiologists
generally agree in this (laying it down for a grand
foundation), that it is impossible that anything should
be made from nothing."
Plato was' of the same opinion, as well as the
Pythagoreans generally. He alludes to the doc-
trine, in this passage, from the Timæus, “As the
Divinity was willing that all things should be good,
and that nothing should be evil; and receiving every-
thing visible, which was not in a state of rest, but,
on the contrary, which continued moving in confu-
sion and disorder, he reduced it from the chaotic
state, into order and harmony, considering that so to
do was by far the best.”
All that the demiurgus had to do, therefore, was
to reduce matter to order and regularity; and, as
* Plutarch says also, “ It is, therefore, better to follow Plato
(than Heraclitus), and declare loudly, that the world was made
-by God. For as the world is the best of all works, so is God
-the best of all causes. Nevertheless, the substance or matter
-out of which the world was made, was not itself made; but
-always ready at hand, and subject to the artificer, to be ordered
and disposed by him."
THE TIMÆUS OF PLATO.
135
it is expressed, to bring the forms (of the ultimate
existence of things,) to the matter, and stamp them
thereon; assimilating the world, and all which it
contains, to the perfection, the beauty, and the unity
of the divine and eternal paradigm, or idea.
It would seem that some regarded matter itself
as a divinity, a very ancient and venerable god,
(which is scarcely more absurd than Plato's fancy
of the divinity of the earth); but such an idea was
scouted by the school of Plato, though they could
not conquer, but cheerfully acquiesced in, the Epi-
curean dogma, so well described by the poet
Lucretius:
Nullam rem à nibilo gigni divinitus unquam.
5 Lib. i. ver. 151.
136
CHAPTER IV.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PARMENIDES OF
PLATO.
The one, or to év, was a favourite expression of the
Pythagorean school, to express the singleness and
simplicity of the Supreme Being. It, no doubt,
bore some relation to the science of numbers, which
formed a chief and mystical part of its philosophy.
These numbers were analogous to the ideas, or
essences, of the school of Plato, and the Pythago-
reans of his time, and considered, in some respect,
to be principles or causes in the universe. It would
appear, however, that Pythagoras, who introduced
the above expression among the Grecian philoso-
phers, was himself indebted to another source for
it, for it seems to have been a title given to the chief
God by ancient nations, as the Chaldeans and
Egyptians.
Bryant acquaints us with the fact that “ Among'
all the eastern nations Ad was a peculiar title, and
was originally conferred upon the sun ; and if we
may credit Macrobius, it signified one, and was so
interpreted by the Assyrians. Deo, quem summum
maximum-que venerantur, Adad nomen dederunt.
1 Vol. i.
P.
28.
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
137
one.
Ejus nominis interpretatio significat unus.
Hunc
ergo ut potissimum adorant Deum.-Simulacrum
Adad insigne cernitur radiis inclinatis.
And according to the Hermetic Fragments, the
Egyptians maintained that all things proceeded from
“ Hence, from the highest to the last, the doc-
trine of the Egyptians, concerning the principles,
inculcates the origin of all things from the one."
Aristotle, who in some things differed from Plato
and Pythagoras, follows them in this mode of cha-
racterizing the Supreme Beings. “ The unity of the
First Cause, the eternal spring of motion, is himself
immoveable. This principle, on which heaven and
earth depends, is one in number, as well as in
essence."
Plotinus informs us that the Pythagoreans deno-
minated the first god Apollo, the one, according to a
more secret signification, implying a negation of
many. And Sextus Empiricus bears the same testi-
mony relative to the unity, or chief monad. Kai on TWY
καθ' αυτα νοουμενων γενος υπεστησαντο Πυθαγορικων
παιδες, ως επαναβεβηκος το έν. “ The Pythagoreans
placed the one as transcending the genus of all things,
such are essentially understood.” That the First Cause
surpasses and is situated above all the intelligible
ideas of Plato, which are the essences, or essential
nature of all things.
MEV
2 An. Frag. p. 285. From Iamblichus.
8 Meta. lib. 4, cap. 8.
138
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
Again, Syrianus, of the later Platonic school,
observes after his Platonizing manner, that “ the
Pythagoreans called God the one, as the cause of
union to the universe, and on account of his supe-
riority to every being, all life, and all-perfect
intellect."
From all this it is manifest, that the to év was no
creation, or discovery, or peculiar mode of expres-
sion, of Plato's; but a truly Pythagorean title, in-
troduced into Greece by him, which he probably
brought out of Egypt. It distinguished the essen-
tial unity and simplicity of God from the second
principle, the idea, as also from the third, matter,
which have multiplicity in them: hence the idea
was called the many; for being the essence of all
material things, it is diffused through all nature.
Pythagoras called God the one, on account of his
perfect unity. He also called him four, or the qua-
ternion; but it does not seem that he ever styled
him three, though he acknowledged those three prin-
ciples of all things, God, idea, and matter. Pro-
bably he was considered to assimilate to the number
four in relation to the first, second, and third ; as
being the measure and boundary of everything,
which cannot be said so well, or so fitly, of a perfect
unity, which we might conceive to subsist isolated
from those other recognised principles or causes
above. God, therefore, as a perfect spirit, and the
cause of all motion, himself immoveable, a Being
existing from eternity in the solitude of his own
PARMENIDĖS OF PLATO.
139
nature, might be fitly considered to be represented
by the number one, as that of which every conceiv-
able number is composed, and the very origin and
beginning of all multiplicity. But when his crea-
tive power came to be once exerted, and those
subordinate principles called into operation, idea and
matter, then he might properly be represented by
four, as comprehending all things and essences
within himself.
In course of time, however, the Pythagoreans
and Plato came to refine upon the ancient doctrine,
and used the term to év in other and different rela-
tions. Parmenides employed it to express the
singleness and harmony of the universe, which he
called one and all things; as one being, and yet con-
taining all within it. It was used also relatively to
the ideal causes, which were styled one, many, and an
infinite multitude, as implying a certain unity as
well as their diffusion through all nature; for we
shall see hereafter, that each distinct idea was re-
garded as a unity on account of its indivisibility;
and therefore the archetypal universe, the exemplar
of the material, may be properly called one idea and
all essences; hence Plato, in Parmenides, says that
this ideal one, ÉTTL Tavta molta övta veveunuevov, “is dis-
tributed into all things that are many,” which he could
not have consistently said of the other perfect to év,
monad, and perfect unity, God.
From not perceiving, or if perceiving, not acknow-
ledging this essential distinction, the later Platonists
140
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
have given us an erroneous interpretation of the
dialogue of Parmenides. They conceived that be-
cause Pythagoras may have strictly confined the
appellation above to God, all others of his school
did so likewise; and, by this assumption, they have
fallen into manifold, if not ridiculous, errors. Be-
lieving that, in this dialogue, Plato unfolded “ the
celebrated generation of the gods, and every kind of
existence, from the ineffable and unknown cause of
the universe,” they looked upon every idea accord-
ing to its unity as a distinct god; and thus gave an
opening for an extensive, interminable, and absurd
polytheism. From this singular fancy arose the
system of noes and henades of the later Platonists,
which even Dr. Cudworth acknowledges to have
been crotchets of Proclus and his followers.
Proclus gave to every idea, as a unit, or monad,
an existence per se; and constituted it a divine
per-
son, or god. Others, however, as Porphyry, repu-
diated this spurious Platonism, and denied they had
any such existence out of, or independent of, the
divine mind.
That Parmenides regarded every idea in some
respects as one, or a perfect unit, we have the autho-
rity of this very Proclus, who, nevertheless, fell into
the absurd error of fancying that Plato made of
every idea a distinct divinity. “ Parmenides, after
the manner of his own Pythagoreans, calls every
separate substance, (namely, every idea,) on account of
its simplicity, by the common appellation of one." I
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
141
5
shall now attempt to show how the Platonists fell
into the strange error alluded to above.
The Parmenides of Plato is a dialogue the least
intelligible of all his writings. The subject of which
he treats so obscurely and mystically is the system
of ideas, a main branch of his as well as of the
Pythagorean philosophy. These ideas were called
by them sometimes also the forms and essences of
all things; and they were looked upon as the intel-
ligible causes of sensible or visible phenomena.
They were supposed to have an existence by them-
selves, and as Socrates argues, “ they are the esta-
blished paradigms, as it were, by their nature, and
other things, (i. e., sensible objects,) are assimilated
to these, and are their resemblances. The partici-
pation of forms, therefore, by other things, is
nothing more than an assimilation to these forms or
intelligible ideas.” Thus, all such sensible objects
as are great, as are beautiful or good, become so by
reason of participating of these qualities from the
intelligible ideas. The former are hence mere
resemblances of the latter, which were called real-
being, and eternal substances. This is the grand
foundation of this peculiar branch of the ancient
philosophy.
The reason for this doctrine is, that Plato, and
others of his school, would not admit sensible and
generated natures to be proper objects of science, or
of philosophical speculation, on account of their
incessant mutability. They are only the resem-
142
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
blances of other things which are certain and im-
mutable. These shadowy and ideal objects or
essences are eternal with God; and it was in their
likeness that all material things were formed.
Hence says Plato in his Parmenides, “ There is a
certain genus of everything, and an essence itself
subsisting by itself.” And Parmenides asks Socrates
in the dialogue, “ Does it appear to you that there is
a certain species or form of justice, itself subsisting
by itself; also of beauty, and the good, and every-
thing of this kind ?”
Now Parmenides, as Proclus bears witness, called
each distinct idea one ; though this term was like-
wise applied by him, and other Pythagoreans, to
express the unity of God and of the universe.
Hence when it is said, that the essences participate
of the one, or unity, it does not follow that this
should allude to the Supreme Being, though the
later Platonists maintain this, and deduce from this
one their triad of three persons, being, life, and intel-
lect. But let it be granted that the ideas do par-
ticipate in all cases mentioned in the dialogue (which
I do not admit,) of God, it is not a consequence of
this, that they should thereby become so many
distinct persons.
It is allowed by the best interpreters of Plato's
philosophy, that the essences were supposed to par-
ticipate of the Supreme Being, for otherwise they
would be all so many distinct, eternal natures, as the
Platonists maintain. But I cannot see how these
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
143
essences can by this participation of unity become
gods, or persons of a divine trinity. Aristotle says*,
“ The ideas are the causes (according to Parmenides
and Plato) of all other things; and the essence of
all other things below (sensible natures) is imparted
to them from the ideas, as these themselves derived
their essence from the first unity. These ideas are
in the divine understanding, being looked upon by
these philosophers as the paradigms of all created
things."
But let us examine the dialogue more closely and
minutely, and we shall see how far the construction
put upon it by these Platonists can be borne out by
a strict analysis. Parmenides and Zeno seem to
have held the same doctrine respecting the intel-
ligible ideas, though they differed in their modes of
expression. Hence Socrates says, “ Zeno has written
the same as yourself, Parmenides, though by changing
certain particulars, he endeavours to deceive us into
an opinion that his assertions are different from
For you, in your poems, say, that the uni-
verse is one, and he, that the many has no subsistence,
and each speaks in such a manner as to disagree
totally according to appearance from one another,
though you both nearly assert the same thing; on
this account it is that your discourses seem to be
above our comprehension."
Zeno replies to this, and explains the apparent
yours. For
or
* Meta. lib. 1. cap. vi. p. 273. Vide Cud. Intell. System,
vol. ii. p. 261.
144
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
paradox. “ These writings of mine were composed
for the purpose of affording a certain assistance to
the doctrine of Parmenides against those who
endeavour to defame it, by attempting to show that
if the one is many, ridiculous consequences must
attend such an opinion, and that things contrary to
the assertion must ensue. This writing, therefore,
contradicts those who say that the many is, and
opposes this and many other opinions; as it is
desirable to evince that the hypothesis which defends
the subsistence of the many, is attended with more
ridiculous consequences than that which vindicates
the subsistence of the one, if both are sufficiently
examined.”
It ought to be here observed that these philoso-
phers did not absolutely deny the subsistence of the
many. They were only opposed to the mode of
existence assigned by their opponents. While the
latter gave a real subsistence, the former only
allowed it by participation, as I shall explain.
The ridiculous consequence mentioned above, and
implied in the contrary argument, was overcome by
this mode of explanation. For they argue that the
many has no existence, each independently; but
that the one itself becomes many, and the many, one,
by participation.
Socrates, who was not yet thoroughly initiated
into the mysteries of this system, illustrates the
doctrine by these words. “If any one should show
that similars become dissimilar, or the contrary, I
PARMENIDES OF PLATO,
145
should think it would be a prodigy; but if he evinces
that such things as participate both these, suffer
likewise both these, it does not appear to me, O
Zeno, that there would be anything absurd in the
case; nor, again, if any one should evince that all
things are one through their participation of the one,
and, at the same time, many through their participa-
tion of multitude. But I should very much wonder,
if any one should show that that which is one, is
many, and that the many is one." Again, he thus
proceeds, “If any one, therefore, should endeavour
to show, that stones, wood, and all such particulars,
are both one and many, we should say he exhibits
to our view such things as are many and one; but
he does not assert the one to be many, nor the many
one; nor speak of anything wonderful, but asserts
that which is confessed by all men.
From this it is manifest there was a great
difficulty in this doctrine of the one being many.
The difficulty seems to be this. Those who main-
tained the subsistence of the many, must have also
admitted, as a consequence of the hypothesis, that
ideas or forms were either divisible, or were many
in multitude. For example, if the idea called
beauty is supposed to have its resemblance in mate-
rial or sensible things, the beauty of each thing must
either be only a portion of the great, universal, or
exemplar idea, or there must be an infinitude of
such ideas, corresponding in number to all material
objects which possess beauty. This will appear still
K
146
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
clearer in the idea of magnitude. If magnitude
were divided among the participants, each part of
such magnitude would, by comparison, become par-
vitude, which is absurd. If, again, the idea be
regarded as a perfect unity, not participated accord-
ing to the notions of Parmenides, there must be
necessarily a number of such ideas of magnitude,
equivalent to those material objects which are great ;
an absurdity no less than the former, as it is said
“ a part of magnitude cannot be equal to magnitude
itself.”
Now the Pythagoreans overcame this obstacle by
maintaining that every idea is one, or a perfect
unity; and that of any certain idea, as beauty or
magnitude, there can only be one of which all other
things participate. These ideas were regarded as the
archetypes of all beauty and all greatness. So that
ten thousand objects that are great, really partici-
pate all of one single idea, and not of a multitude
of such.
But there is another difficulty to the perfect
demonstration of this doctrine, which presents itself
to our minds. How can many things possessing
magnitude participate of one simple, universal idea ?
Must the idea be not divisible? Or if not, there
must be many such ideas. Parmenides throws some
light on this part of the argument.
6 Does not
everything which participates, either participate the
whole form, or only a part thereof? Can there be
any other mode of participation besides these?
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
147
There cannot. Does it appear to you, then, that the
whole form is one in each individual of many things?”
which would be exactly the same as to agree to the
other hypothesis, that all sensible objects partici-
pating of one universal idea, really participated of a
multiplicity of such ideas. “ As it is, therefore, one
and the same in things many and separate from each
other, the whole will be at the same time one, and
so itself will be separate from itself.” A conclusion
opposed to the Parmenidean doctrine, that every
idea or form is a perfect unity.
The philosopher also demonstrates that no form
can be divisible, (by reason of its unity,) nor can any
object participate only a part of it, for then there
could not be one whole in each individual thing, but
only a portion thereof. Are you, then, Socrates,
willing to assert, that that one form is in reality
divided, and that nevertheless it is still one? For
see, whether upon dividing magnitude itself (namely
the idea), it would not be absurd that each of the
many things which are great should be great by a
part of magnitude less than magnitude itself.”
He then proceeds to state the difficulty in his
argument alluded to above, and to explain how it
may be obviated; for without this, the doctrine
would lose all its proof and consistency.
66 After
what manner can individuals participate of forms, if
they are neither able to participate according to
parts, not yet according to wholes?” They cannot
participate according to parts, for no part, however
K 2
148
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
large, can represent the one idea in all things; nor
according to wholes, for there cannot be more than
one universal idea participated by each individual
thing, otherwise there would be an infinite number
of the same idea; so that instead of there being an
universal idea of beauty, of justice, of greatness,
&c., there would be many such, which is impossible
and absurd.
But how, then, do they participate? It is alluded
to in this passage.
“ If you consider every form as
one on this account, because since a certain multi-
tude of particulars appears to you to be great, there
may perhaps appear to him, who surveys them all, to
be one idea, from whence you think them to be one
great thing. But what if you consider the great
itself (namely, the universal idea), and other things
which are great (sensible objects, for example,) in
the same manner with the eye of the soul, will not
again a certain something which is great appear to
you (something which is neither the form nor par-
ticipant), through which all these things necessarily
seem to be great? Hence another form of magni-
tude will become apparent besides magnitude itself
(the one idea) and its participants, that is, another
magnitude through which all these become great;
so that each of your forms will no longer be one
thing, but an infinite multitude." This is the
essence.
The doctrine of another form of magnitude, be-
sides the one idea, makes Socrates thus express him-
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
149
self relatively to the middle thing, or second magni-
tude; for he does not dispute the subsistence of the
first. “ Perhaps each of these forms is nothing
more than a conception, which ought not to subsist
anywhere but in the mind; and if this be the case,
each will be one, and the consequences just now
mentioned will not ensue. That Socrates is here
speaking of the secondary forms may be collected
from his genuine exposition of the Timæan hypo-
thesis. “ These forms are established paradigms, as
it were, by their nature; other things are assimi-
lated to these, and are their resemblances; and the
participation of forms by other things is nothing
more than an assimilation to these forms." There-
fore, as individuals cannot participate of forms, either
through parts or through wholes, these philosophers
conceived to solve the difficulty by supposing, that
each universal idea participated of a certain essence,
which, though not divisible, had a power of mul-
tiplication corresponding to the sensible objects
partaking of its particular nature. Hence when
anything participates of greatness, it does not par-
ticipate of the one universal idea, except through
this essence; for otherwise, as we have seen, there
would be many universal ideas of one quality or
attribute. This is mentioned in a subsequent part
of the dialogue, when the dialecticians enter upon
their argument.
“ If the one is, can it be possible
that it should be, and yet not participate of essence?
It cannot. Will not essence, therefore, be the
15.09
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
9>
essence of the one, but not the same with the one?
for if it were the same, it would not be the essence
of the one, nor would the one participate of essence.
The one participating of essence becomes one being,
which so far differs from the abstract one, that it
possesses multiplicity, (the universal attribute given
to being by Plato,) and is diffused through all nature,
each idea still retaining its original peculiarity of
participating of one, or unity and essence. “ Can
each of these parts (each essence) of one being
desert each other, so that the one shall not be a part
of being, nor being a part of the one? It cannot
be. Therefore each of the parts will contain both
one and being.” Again, “ Will not this one being
(composed of essence and unity) become an infinite
multitude ?” It will become so far infinite, that
there must be an essence for every sensible object.
Parmenides proceeds to argue, whether these
essences or secondary forms also subsist by them-
selves, as the primary ones were believed to do.
think that both you and any other who establishes
the essence of each form as subsisting by itself, must
allow, in the first place, that no one of these subsist
in us." This seems to have been a matter of great
uncertainty. “Do you see, O Socrates, how great
a doubt arises if any one defines forms as having an
essential subsistence by themselves ?”
I have judged it necessary to treat, so far, of this
dialogue, as I have done, to prove how idle, if not
absurd, are the deductions of the later Platonists, who
66 I
PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
151
would persuade us, that this exposition of the nature
of the ideas was really a profound theological argu-
ment, in which Plato occultly or mystically treated of
the existence of the Supreme Being, and of the trinity
of divine hypostases. These philosophers seriously
believed every idea to be a god; and, consequently,
Proclus denominates this a Dialogue on the Gods.
They imagined that the one so often used by Par-
menides here related to the chief cause; and they
deduced, also, from the dialogue (how, I cannot con-
ceive), a triad of principles, which they call being,
life, and intellect; the one being the head and foun-
tain thereof.
It must be acknowledged, indeed, that Plato
employs very extraordinary language in mentioning
the ideas, which led astray these professed disciples
of his; but I imagine that by gods, in reference to
the ideas, he signified no more than their intelli-
gible nature, in contradistinction to sensible natures;
and perhaps, also, he assigned a sort of divinity to
them in consequence of this superiority, and called
them divine, as causes or concauses of natural
phenomena; but I cannot collect (which would be
too ridiculous to believe), that he ever dreamt of
endowing each idea, as these philosophers did, with
a distinct personality, which is essential to their
being ever considered as gods.
Plato does not distinctly assign the locality of
these ideas, nor describe the mode of their exist-
152
ON THE PARMENIDES OF PLATO.
ence.
.
He only says that they subsist by them-
selves. But the Platonists, theorizing according to
their own premises, fancied them to exist in an all-
perfect intellect, inferior to the First Cause, which
by Dr. Cudworth is held to be, as in the Christian
Trinity, the second person, or Logos of the Godhead.
153
CHAPTER V.
OF PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS RELATIVE TO A
TRINITY.
I HAVE before observed, that the System of Ideas
was more ancient than Plato. It was a Pytha-
gorean, a Timæan, and Parmenidean doctrine, pro-
bably first brought out of Egypt'. The substance
of it, relative to the causes of all things, is com-
pressed in this laconic sentence from “ the Soul of
the World :” Πριν ων ώρανον γενεσθαι, λογω στην ιδεα
τε και ύλα, και ο Θεος δημιουργος τώ βελτιoνος-
Before the heaven was made, there existed in reality
Idea, Matter, and God, the demiurgus of the better
nature.
Plutarch says, that the Egyptians regarded the sun as a
visible image of an invisible and intellectual nature.
2 Plato called his chief God and eternal Cause, the Good.
Aristotle called God, that Novs, or Mind, which is properly the
cause of well and right; and he commended (as we have seen)
Anaxagoras (as Socrates did likewise), who opposed the atheis-
tical or material philosophers in saying, Nουν ειναι και του κοσμου
και της τάξεως πασης αιτιον. .
Plato also, in his Phædo, declares that an Intelligent Being
created the world; and everything was by Him made as good,
well, and beautiful as possible; in which he coincides here, and
in other parts of his writings, with Aristotle and Anaxagoras.
The Platonists, however, will have this Creator to be the
second person of a trinity; and not such as he is described by
these ancient philosophers.
154
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
With respect to the ideas of Plato, and their
mode of existence, there has been great diversity of
opinion. Some have thought that Plato signified
no more by them, than that they were ideas con-
tained in the Divine Mind; others, again, have
contended, that he believed them to exist external
to it.
Existing externally to the Divine Mind, they
might be regarded as “necessary truths;" for they
are said to subsist de natura ; and as Laërtius says,
they are the causes of things being such as they are.
We might say of them what Aristotle says of
mathematical things, “ It is absurd to say they are
in a place; for place appertains only to singulars
(and not to universals, as ideas are), which are
separable from each other by place: but mathema-
tical things are nowhere."
Aristotle did not repudiate these ideas altogether,
though he ridiculed Plato for calling them principal
He believed them to subsist in God, and
to be the ideas of His Mind. From this it would
seem, he interpreted the Platonic ideas, as if they
had an independent existence by themselves; for
otherwise, he would have agreed with Plato and the
Pythagoreans. He wisely discarded the notion, that
they were endowed with any casualty; or, that they
had any influence at all in nature, being the mere
shadowy dreams of Plato's imagination.
causes.
3 Meta. lib. xii. cap. 5.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
155
Though the locum tenens of the ideas is very indis-
tinctly mentioned by Plato; yet we may deduce this
from his writings, especially from some passages in
the Timæus, that above the created and visible uni-
verse, there was also a kind of supermundane, eternal,
and uncreated world, the archetype of the former,
which contains in itself all the intelligible forms or
ideas. 66 The material world is the most beautiful
of generated natures; and its artificer the best of
causes. But being thus generated, it is fabricated
according to that which is comprehensible by reason
and intelligence, and which subsists in an abiding
sameness of being.'
He calls this ideal world an animal, as he also
calls every distinct idea. “He established it as the
most similar of all things to that animal, of which
other animals (ideas) both considered separately, and,
according to their genera, are nothing more than
parts. For this contains within itself all intelligible
animals, just as this world contains us, and other
animals which are the objects of sight.” It is like-
wise called an all-perfect animal, and an eternal
animal.
Whatever Plato may have really thought of this
ideal world of his; whether it existed per se, or only
in God, there cannot remain a doubt that a super-
mundane world is a legitimate inference from his
language. But whether he regarded it as a god is
another matter, and liable to disputation; for though
he may have called it so, he never describes it as
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PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
ܪ
such; and it is not probable that he would have
called it an animal, had he entertained any such
idea. If that word implies or expresses a person-
ality, then we must come to the same conclusion as
the later Platonists, who regarded every idea ac-
cording to its unity, as a god; for Plato distinctly
calls each idea by the common name of “animal.”
If Plato believed this archetypal world to be an
eternal god, he must have held an opinion repu-
diated by the wisest of the ancients; and maintained
that there were more than one Eternal, Chief, and
Independent Cause in the universe; for it is certain,
that neither he nor the Pythagoreans (as I have
already shown) looked upon the “ Idea" as a person
of a trinity in the Godhead; but as something dis-
tinct from the Deity, and ascribed by Timæus to
necessity. It was, in truth, a sort of immaterial
cause, under the control and guidance of God him-
self, for such is it represented by some Pythagoreans,
who speak more distinctly of it than Plato. Some
of the ancients, and even the Platonists themselves,
occasionally represent the ideas, as subsisting in
God. ,
Proclus says, “The* Cause, therefore, knows
the universe, and all things out of which it is com-
posed; he being the cause also of these things. But
if this be true, it is evident that by looking into itself,
and by knowing itself, it knows what comes after
itself."
Philo Judæus, who seems to have been greatly
4 Proclus on Parmen. lib. iii.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
157
perplexed with the paradox of an eternal and super-
mundane world existing with God, discovers this
remedy. God, intending to make a visible world,
first formed an intelligible one; that so having an
incorporeal and most godlike pattern before him, he
might make the corporeal world agreeably to it 5."
There is an error or fallacy to be observed, of con-
siderable consequence; that by many these ideas
have been always represented as intellectual ideas, or
conceptions. They are more properly expressed by
species, or specific essences; for the Pythagoreans
signified no more by their real-forms, of which the
forms of material things, as they are perceived by
us, are mere fleeting and changeable images. A
modern author of great celebrity, draws this very
necessary distinction betwixt forms and intellectual
conceptions; and advances some important remarks
on the ancient signification of the word “idea.”
5 St. Cyril gives this remarkable passage on the subject :
“ Julian, by his intelligible and invisible gods, seems to mean
those ideas which Plato sometimes fancies to be real substances,
having an independent existence. At other times, he repre-
sents them to be only ideas or conceptions in the Divine Mind.”
Con. Jul. vol. ii. cap. 4.
And Harris, in his Hermes, informs us, that “ Nicomachus,
in his Arithmetic, calls the Supreme Being an Artist : ev tn TOU
τεχνιτου θεου διανοια, in Dei artifcis mente.
Where Philoponus
in his MS. Com. observes as follows, texuitnu onoi tov OEOV ás
παντων τας πρωτας αιτιας και τους λογους αυτών έχοντα. .
He calls
God an Artist, as possessing within himself the first causes of
all things, and their reasons or proportions." P. 437, note.
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PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
“ Plato calls them, indeed, ideas, a word which
in him, in Aristotle, and all the other writers of
early antiquity, signifies a species; and is perfectly
synonymous with the other word eidos, more fre-
quently made use of by Aristotle.”
Again, “Is there any one passage in any Greek
author, near the time of Aristotle and Plato, in
which the word idea is used in its present meaning,
to signify a thought or conception ? Are not the
words which in all languages express reality or
existence (which Plato's idea did, being called per-
manent and real-being) directly opposed to those
which express thought or conception only ?”
Notwithstanding this definition of an idea, there
are some particularized by Plato, both in the Timæus
and Parmenides, which can nowhere subsist, except
in a mind. We may imagine him to have dreamt
of forms existing per se; but it is impossible to con-
ceive ideas of beauty, of justice, of goodness, and
such like things, to have any such independent
existence external to the mind. The specific
essences are of a nature very different from mental
conceptions, as these are which I have enumerated.
As we have already seen, the later Platonists con-
ceived that Plato considered every distinct universal
idea to be a deity; but in maintaining this gross
absurdity, they fix a very low estimate of the mind
& Smith's Hist. of An. Logic and Metaphysics.
7 Idem.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
159
of that great philosopher, for if we follow out his
arguments to their legitimate conclusions, (based
upon this assumption of the divinity and personality
of every such idea,) we shall soon become sensible
to the labyrinth of absurdities and contradictions,
into which this process would necessarily lead us.
Justice, beauty, and goodness, as universal ideas,
would be gods; and, as there is a form of a triangle,
and other such things, subsisting by themselves,
which are the archetypes of those forms amongst us,
they must also be gods.
Plato describes the creation of Time by Jupiter,
the Highest Cause, in a very majestic manner, as an
image of Eternity flowing from itself; and as the
one is the exemplar of the other, Eternity will be a
divinity likewise, on the same grounds.
I have observed, that from this dialogue these
spurious followers of Plato, deduced a triad or trinity
of archical hypostases, which Plotinus confirms in
these words :-“ Parmenides in Plato, speaking more
exactly, distinguishes three divine unities subordi-
nate; the first of that, which is perfectly and most
properly one; the second of that, which was called
by him one-many; the third, which is expressed one
and many. So that Parmenides did also agree in
this acknowledgement of a trinity of divine or
archical hypostases.”
For this I am indebted to Dr. Cudworth, who
conceives this explanation to be a key by which we
can open the treasures of that obscure book, the
160
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
Parmenides. But how can this be reconciled with
the dialogue itself, and other parts of the writings
of Plato, in which the peculiar doctrine of ideas is
so frequently treated of, or alluded to?
Socrates, in the Philebus, puts an end to this vain
delusion of divine hypostases, by the very terms
which he employs relative to the ideas. “ It is now
agreed never to introduce into conversation, as an
instance of one and many, the members or parts
into which any single thing may be considered as
divisible, because, when a respondent has once ad-
mitted and avowed that all these ideas) are that
one thing, which is thus at the same time many-
he is refuted and laughed at by his questioner, for
having been driven to assert such monstrous absur-
dities as these (appear to be), that a single one is an
infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude one." In
which the publicity of the argument is acknowledged,
or at least implied; so that it could not certainly
relate to the other doctrine propounded in Plato's
letter to Dionysius, which he expressly states was
never publicly written of by him; and in which
Dr. Cudworth and others perceive a trinity of three
persons in the Godhead.
Plato, in that singular description in the Timæus,
of the generation of the visible world, says, that the
Fabricator created it after the similitude of the
eternal gods ; which is, indeed, a very exceptionable
mode of expression; but there can be no doubt, that
these eternal gods were the same with the divine
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
161
ideas, or exemplars, which, altogether, he denominates
an eternal animal, and animal-itself. " For this,
indeed, contains all intelligible animals (these eternal
gods) comprehended in itself.”
Shortly afterwards he thus writes of the Creator
and Chief Cause, confirming the noble expression of
Socrates in the Philebus, that Intellect is King of
heaven and of earth. “When, therefore, that God,
who is a perpetually reasoning divinity (he is not
called an animal, as he called the Idea), cogitated
about the god (the visible world) who was destined
to subsist at some certain period of time, he pro-
duced his body smooth and equable,” &c.
He likewise calls the universe “a blessed god,”
and the earth the most ancient of the gods under
the heavens. From this it is manifest, that the
language of Plato, in using the word “god” in so
many varieties of meaning, was liable to misappre-
hension, especially by those who snatched at the
literal signification, without inquiring into its bearing
on the general argument. Thus Plotinus informs
us, that mind, or intellect, was begotten of the first
god, which generated all entities together with him-
self—the pulchritude of the ideas which are all
intelligible gods, which gods he believed to have an
existence individually, while Plato could not mean
any more than that they were the eternal essences
of things existing by nature.
Taylor, indeed, says, that the word god was of
various significations among the ancient philoso-
L
162
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
phers; and it is attributed by Plato, as well as by
the ancient theologists, to beings which participate
of the gods: these beings are the divine ideas.-
This is conformable to the genuine speculations of
Plato, who maintained that the ideas participated
of God, as material and sensible things in this world
participate of them. But there is a great difference
between this, and the absurd notion that all these
intelligible ideas are gods.
I am particular and minute on this point, because
Dr. Cudworth, in referring to these eternal gods
abovementioned, says, “ By which eternal gods, he
there meant, doubtless, that to putov, and to
deutepov, and to tpiToy--that first, second, and third,
which, in his Second Epistle to Dionysius, he makes
to be the principles of all things.”
This conclusion is hasty and contradictory, for as
these eternal gods are synonymous with the intel-
ligible ideas (and this is so far acknowledged by the
later Platonists), how can this writer hold the above,
when in other parts of his work he is abundantly
severe on Proclus, for supposing the ideas to be
causes and gods; and would persuade us, that Plato
conceived them to be only ideas of the Divine Mind,
neither having an existence by themselves, nor being
causes in the universe; which is certainly in opposi-
tion to the express language and belief of Plato.
There can be no doubt of the marked distinction
8 Intell. System, vol. iii. p. 85.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
163
which Plato makes between his divine animal and
perpetually-reasoning divinity, the demiurgus of the
world; but if, according to Dr. Cudworth, the ideas
are all in God, then God, in that description given
by Plato, was not contemplating the archetypal idea
subsisting by itself,” but only the thoughts or con-
ceptions of his own mind.
There is some sense and coherence in the notion,
that the sensible was made in the likeness of a
supermundane or intelligible world; but there is
neither sense nor coherence in the assertion, that the
Creator of the world made it an image of himself;
for what material object can ever be an image of a
Spiritual and Intellectual Being ?
As we might expect, the later Platonists do not
all agree, as to the hypostases in their trinity-
The general opinion, however, seems to be, that the
ideal or supermundane world is the second person,
which we have thus stated by Porphyry, an undoubted
pagan, and perverter of Plato's writings. He informs
us that from the Good, or Supreme Cause, was gene-
rated a Mind or Intellect incomprehensible to mor-
tals, which subsisting by itself, contains the things
that really are, and the essences of all beings. Then,
he says, this Mind sprung out of God from all eter-
nity as its cause; notwithstanding this he calls it
self-begotten,” and “ its own parent.”
The Christian doctrine was of some service in this
description; but the author either misunderstood it,
or willingly perverted it, for his own purposes.
L 2
164
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
As the second hypostasis, therefore, was confessed
to be the ideal or intellectual world deduced from
Plato's theology, which contained all the ideas within
it, I shall make some observations and inferences on
this important point.
1. When Plato, in the Timæus, distinctly calls
the Creator a perpetually-reasoning divinity, he must
have signified by this that he was a perfect intellect;
and as the archetypal world is held by the Platonists
to be an Eternal Mind sprung from God, there must
necessarily be two supreme intellects, and not one.
And Dr. Cudworth, who will not acknowledge the
ideas to have a separate existence, but will have
them to be ideas of the Divine Mind, it is manifest
that he annihilates the second supreme intellect
altogether, and merges it in the first.
Then, again, if the ideal world be really the
second hypostasis, as Porphyry maintains, the intel-
lect or Nous of the Platonists cannot be the demi-
urgus of the Timæus, since he represents the
“ animal itself” as something subsisting distinctly
from the perpetually-reasoning divinity. Hence we
must conclude, that the Jupiter Artificer is the Su-
preme Being, and that he alone is emphatically
styled by Socrates, “ king' of heaven and of earth.”
9
Socrates, I have observed, commended Anaxagoras because
he called the Great First Cause a supreme mind or intellect.
Here Socrates calls him by the same name, intending, no doubt,
to oppose the Democritical or atheistical doctrine, which acknow-
ledged none but material, and therefore irrational causes.
According to this philosophy, the world was made by chance or
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
165
If this archetypal world be regarded as a god for
the reasons stated, upon the same grounds we ought
also to maintain that these generated deities of
Plato, the sun, moon, and stars, must also have
their archetypes, which are gods, for they are the
mere images of intelligible ideas. By reason of this
necessary inference, that these are distinct intellec-
tual divinities, and that the archetype of the whole
universe is a composition of a numerous variety of
gods, we find Dr. Cudworth thus lecturing the
Platonists:
“ It was a gross absurdity in those Platonists, to
make the second, in their trinity of gods, not to be
one god or hypostasis, but a multitude of such; as
also was that a monstrous extravagancy of theirs, to
suppose the ideas, all of them, to be so many dis-
tinct substances and animals."
This censure may be very just; but it ought to
be acknowledged, at the same time, that the
“eternal animal,” considered to be the second per-
son of the Platonic trinity, had no better founda-
tion; for its existence rested on precisely the same
grounds, as the existence of every distinct and indi-
by necessity, which Socrates expresses, “fortuitously and at
random.” " Whether shall we say that the power of the irra-
tional principle governs all things in the whole universe for-
tuitously and at random? Or shall we, on the contrary, agree
with our ancestors and predecessors in affirming, that a certain
admirable intellect and wisdom orders all things together, and
governs throughout the whole ?”
10 Vol. iii. p. 65.
166
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
vidual idea; being, in fact, a congeries, or rather a
repository of all such ideas.
The same author says, “ It cannot at all be
doubted that Plato, and most of his followers, very
well understood that these ideas were, all of them,
nothing else but the noëmata or conceptions of the
one perfect intellect, which was their second hypo-
stasis”.” That is, of the later Platonists, who clearly
looked upon the supermundane world, or the
“ eternal animal itself," (whose existence is abne-
gated by Dr. Cudworth,) as their second hypostasis.
From this it appears that the learned writer
conceived the demiurgus, or perpetually-reasoning
divinity, to be the all-perfect intellect, who possessed
in himself that very “ eternal animal," which Plato
believed, or maintained, to subsist by itself, and on
which the Creator looked as the paradigm of the
visible universe. For what can be clearer than his
own words? “ Whatever ideas intellect conceived
by cogitation in animal-itself, such and so many he
11 Vol. iii. p. 67. The author assumes too much in this
passage. For if it were, as he affirms, there would be no differ-
ence betwixt Plato and Aristotle on this point. Their differ-
ence was relative to the existence per se of these ideas. Plato
maintained this, while the other says clearly, that they are the
ideas of the Divine Mind. Aristotle says also, “ That in God,
intellect or mind is really the same thing with the intelligible
ideas." By which he means, that the intelligibles are nowhere
but in the Divine Mind. The reason given is this, that as God
is the architect of the world, he could not look without himself
for the ideas, (as Plato fancied, but rather that they were all
eternally contained in himself.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY.
167
conceived it necessary for the universe to contain.'
In which, intellect manifestly refers to the Creator,
who, according to this, did not contain within him-
self the intelligible ideas, nor the intellectual or
ideal world. So that Dr. Cudworth differs not only
from the Platonists, who esteemed the fountain and
repository of the ideas to be the second hypostasis ;
but even from Plato himself, who makes the Creator,
an intellect, or person, distinct from the archetypal
world.
2. As the intelligible world is one thing, and the
Intellect of the Timæus another, (the genuine theo-
logy of Plato,) the former, judged to be the Intellect
or Logos, by the later Platonists, then the per-
petually-reasoning divinity must be the Supreme
Cause, the same with the Mind of Anaxagoras and
Aristotle, and the King of Heaven and of Earth of
Socrates and Plato. So that it is a mere delusion
of Dr. Cudworth’s to suppose, the Intellect to be the
second person, and, as such, to be emphatically (as
in the Christian doctrine,) the Creator of all things.
And, as he expunges the ideal world, by denying the
subsistence of ideas, as laid down in Plato's writings,
by inference, he reduces the causes to two only,
namely, God and the sensible world.
3. There cannot be a doubt of this sensible uni-
verse being a created thing, except so far as the
matter out of which it was supposed to be gene-
rated by God was eternal. It was represented to
be the third hypostasis of the Platonic trinity. And
168
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS
it was expressly stated by Plato to be a god, endued
with a soul and an intellectual nature. So that we
have here temporals mingled with things which are
eternal; the created with the uncreated.
The doctrine is thus stated by Moderatus, as Sim-
plicius acquaints us. “ He declares, that according
to the Pythagoreans, the first one or unity is above
all essence (or the intelligible ideas), the second one,
which is that which truly is, and intelligible, accord-
ing to them, is the ideas; and the third, which is
psychical or soul (of the created universe), partakes
of the first and second.
Dr. Cudworth does not deny that the sensible
world was represented to be the third hypostasis,
though he attempts to persuade us that it is an
adulterated doctrine 12. “ The third of these hypo-
stases is called by some of them, the immediate soul
of the corporeal world.” And Proclus, who is of
this opinion, says, that Numenius 13 “ called the first
god the father, the second the maker or fabricator,
and the third the thing made.” Eusebius, also, (no
contemptible authority,) bears testimony to this in
these words 14. “ All these things Plato's inter-
preters refer to the first god, and to the second cause,
and to the third, the soul of the world.”
In consequence of this egregious error, of con-
founding temporals with eternals, Dr. Cudworth
found himself in a dilemma from which he could
12 Vol. iii. p.
42. 13 Com. Tim. Platon. lib. ii. p. 93.
14 Pr. Ev. lib. ii. cap. 20.
RELATIVE TO A TRINITY:
169
not easily escape. Hence he says
Hence he says"), “ We conclude,
that this ancient cabala of the trinity was depraved
and adulterated by those Platonists and Pythago-
reans, who made either the world itself, or else Yuxnu
erykoojlov, an informing soul of the world, to be the
third hypostasis thereof, they mingling created and
uncreated beings together, in that which themselves,
notwithstanding, call a trinity of causes and prin-
ciples.” The difficulty is overcome in this manner:
“ It is most reasonable to compound this business,
by supposing with Plotinus and others, that Plato
held a double psyche or soul, one eykooulov or mun-
dane, which is, as it were, the concrete form of this
corporeal world, &c.; another supermundane or
separate, and which is not so much the form as the
artificer of the world.” The inconsistency of this
will be immediately perceived, after what I have pre-
viously recorded of this author having, by inference,
denied the separate existence of the intelligible
world, which is the only one that can be deduced
from Plato; and which is, in truth, that supermun-
dane world mentioned by Plotinus. It is the all-
perfect Intellect of the Platonists, and not, therefore,
the third hypostasis of their trinity. Hence the
soul of the world is a creature, and not an eternal
thing; and cannot be a person of the Godhead.
Hence Dr. Cudworth's trinity of good, intellect, and
soul, is, by his own arguments, reduced to one
hypostasis, as he does not acknowledge the ideal
15 Intell. System. vol. iii. p. 45.
170
PLATO'S SYSTEM OF IDEAS, ETC.
ܪ
world nor the mundane soul to be the other
two.
We revert once more to the original principle laid
down by us (and which has been confirmed rather
than weakened by what followed), that the triad of
Plato was substantially the same with the Pythago-
rean, which was, that before the world was created,
existed God, the Creator, a Supreme Intellect; idea,
the archetype or exemplar of the visible world; and
matter itself, which was universally maintained to
be eternal. The two latter cannot, by any sophistry,
be considered as hypostases of a trinity; for, as we
have seen, they were ascribed to necessity; and it
was only the first who was looked upon as having all
volition in him, as being the chief and only supreme
cause; for the ideas and matter were subject to his
over-ruling power.
It will have been observed, that this Pythagorean
triad could not, by any possibility, have been derived
from the other ancient triads, of which I have
already written at large. They relate to things per-
fectly distinct in their origin, and essentially different
in their nature.
171
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE RELIGION OF PLATO; AND SOME CONJEC-
TURES ON HIS EPISTLE TO DIONYSIUS.
NOTWITHSTANDING the learned author of The Intel-
lectual System of the Universe argues that Plato was
substantially an orthodox trinitarian, and that the
doctrine of the trinity was à Mosaic, Chaldean, as
well as Pythagorean dogma, or cabala, he is guilty of
this singular contradiction, which, in reality, subverts
the very foundation of his hypothesis, resting as it
does on ancient tradition.
“The three principal attributes of the Deity are,
1st, Infinite goodness; 2nd, Infinite wisdom and
knowledge; 3rd, Infinite active and perceptive
power. From which divine attributes the Pytha-
goreans and Platonists seem to have formed their
trinity of archical hypostases.”
It may be recollected that I advanced as much in
a previous chapter; and attempted to show that
Plato signified no more by his Supreme Mind, and
the Good, than that they were mere attributes of
one Spiritual, Intellectual, and Benevolent Being.
Dr. Cudworth, in other portions of his work,
somewhat incautiously, I think, brings Plutarch for-
ward as an authority for Plato's belief in a trinity;
1 Vol. i. p. 426.
172
THE RELIGION OF PLATO,
and refers us to his Isis and Osiris for a confirmation.
But in consulting that learned and amusing treatise,
what do we discover? That besides the good, there
was also an evil principle acknowledged by Plato;
which surely cannot constitute an hypostasis of one
God.
Plutarch says, that Plato held the world to be
moved and regulated, not only by one cause, but
happily by many, or at least by no fewer than two;
of which the one is the Creator of all good things ;
the other of an opposite nature, producing different
and contrary effects --namely, evil things. Plato, he
says, seems also to hold a third cause between the
good and the evil, which is neither devoid of soul
nor reason, nor yet immovable itself, as some think,
but adjacent and inherent in the other two causes;
though it always inclines to the good one. He then
proceeds to point out some resemblance (fanciful,
indeed,) between the notions of Plato respecting these
principles, and the Egyptian deities, Osiris, Typhon,
and Orus, because he found Typhon to be an incar-
nation of the evil principle. This is really all the
light which Plutarch affords. Dr. Cudworth would
persuade us it had some relation to Plato's trinity of
archical hypostases !
As we have refuted the hypothesis of the myste-
rious doctrine of a trinity being even suspected
by Plato, or any of his school, I will now proceed to
make some observations on the religion or theology
professed by him.
AND HIS EPISTLE TO DIONYSIUS.
173
Plato was remotely a disciple of Pythagoras; but,
approximately, he acquiesced in the theology pro-
pounded by his contemporary, Timæus, in his book
on the Soul of the World. He believed in One
Supreme, Eternal, and Spiritual Being, who was the
cause of all things, and for whose sake all things
subsisted. Subordinate to him he also acknowledged
other causes, or principles, of a necessary kind, the
ideas and matter; the one being the forms subsisting
de natura, of which the forms assumed by sensible
or material objects are mere images or resemblances.
These forms, or archetypes, as well as matter, were
conceived to have existed from all eternity. Without
the ideas God could not have generated anything,
or, at least, he could not have generated anything.
good and perfect, since the very perfection and
goodness of the visible universe depended on the
eternal nature of the archetype after which it was
fashioned.
God was not strictly a creator; namely, a maker
of something out of nothing -- as the ancient philo-
sophers could not comprehend a creation in its true
signification: he was considered to be only a plastic
power, who ordered, disposed, and regulated the
matter existing, for his purposes, from all eternity;
and who stamped upon material things the forms
which they assume in nature.
Plato held, that God gave being to a number of
generated deities, or junior gods, who were a sort of
ministerial or adjunct powers in the government of
174
THE RELIGION OF PLATO,
the world. These were the animated stars, or souls
of the celestial host, which were immortal, not by
their own nature, but by the will and goodness of
their creator. The chief god was called by divers
names, to characterize his multifarious attributes.
He was represented as the Summum Bonum, or the
abstraction of universal goodness; as a supreme
intellect, and as the giver of all life, and the governor
of the whole world. He is the generator of the
inferior gods, and the fountain and cause of all
good.
Plato likewise believed the whole world to be a
god, generated, and endued with a soul and intellect,
by the chief cause. In some respects it was looked
upon by him as a principle or cause, for which he is
severely taxed by Aristotle, who justly ridiculed the
idea of any generated or temporal object being con-
sidered in that light.
In the argument of a trinity in Plato's theology,
2 As the religion of Plato and Socrates was probably the
same, I shall here briefly protest against the idle assertion of
some men, that the latter denied all gods but the Eternal
Cause. Tertullian says, “ Propterea damnatus est Socrates quia
deos destruebat? What gods were these? The animated stars?
No! They were the deities of the Grecian mythology. For as
he repudiates in his Apology) the calumny of being called an
atheist, he acknowledges some gods, but not those of the city,
namely, of Athens."
Socrates believed, like Plato, in one Chief Cause, and a host
of generated and inferior divinities, who administered the affairs
and the government of the world.
AND HIS EPISTLE TO DIONYSIUS.
175
great stress is laid on a certain passage in an Epistle
of his to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. This is the
substance of it: “ All things are situated about the
king of all things, and all things subsist for his sake,
and he is the cause of all beautiful things; but
second things are situated about that which is
second; and such as are third in gradation about
that which is third.”
In communicating this information, Plato is pecu-
liarly cautious and mysterious. He desires Dionysius
to destroy the letter after he has read it, lest it
should fall into other hands. And he says, that the
purport of it is expressed in such language, that even
should it, by chance, miscarry, no one could possibly
divine its secret meaning. Whether he apprehended
the fate of Socrates, or whether he was thus cautious
for other unknown reasons, is impossible to decide.
St. Cyril, in this passage, alludes to the first suppo-
sition “ Plato was not ignorant of the truth. He
had the knowledge of the only begotten Son of God,
and of the Holy Spirit, whom he styles Psyche; and
he could have expressed himself more correctly, had
he not dreaded the poison which Socrates drank,
and been afraid of Anitus and Melitus.” As Plato,
in this Epistle, says explicitly, that the peculiar
doctrine alluded to, is conformable to the Socratic
philosophy, I will hazard this conjecture on its
hidden signification.
3
$ Con. Julian, lib. i. p. 34.
176
THE RELIGION OF PLATO,
66
1. That king, around whom all things are situated,
is probably the same with Him, whom Socrates styles
Intellect, the king of heaven and of earth, and who,
as the good, was looked upon as the cause of all
good and of all beautiful things.
It may be observed that Plato, does not say,
around him are. all things that are first;" but
everything whatsoever is situated around Him, com-
prehended in his essence, and subsisting for his sake;
He is the Supreme Cause,—the same with the
Jupiter of the Timæus, the artificer of the best
things.
2. By the second thing (which is not called a
king, but, in general terms, a nature) Plato probably
meant the intelligible ideas, or animal-itself, which
were regarded as causes in the universe.
Even Dr. Cudworth seems to acquiesce in this
mode of solution. Though some might think
Plato to have given an intimation of the noes
(intelligibles) in his devtepov ztepi ta devtepa, second
things about the second; yet by these may very well
be understood the ideas; as by the third things about
the third, all created beings.”
3. The third nature may be considered to be the
Psyche or universal soul of the world, around which
subsist all created, sensible, or material things.
Plato, indeed, affirms in this Epistle, that he had
never written on this subject, nor did he intend to
write; but this might be supposed to refer to a
system, or theory, in which these natures were ex-
66
AND HIS EPISTLE TO DIONYSIUS.
177
plained, their participation of each other defined,
and the mode of their existence, in relation to each
other, pointed out. That there is some probability
in this conjecture may be deduced from his other
writings, in which they are treated of separately and
individually, but never systematically nor conse-
cutively.
M
PART THE THIRD,
ON PLATONISM,
WITH
SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS MOST EMINENT
PROFESSORS.
M 2
181
PART THE THIRD
CHAPTER I.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
OF PLATONISM.
As, I think, it has been demonstrated that no such
doctrine as a trinity of divine hypostases can be
deduced from the genuine philosophy of Plato; nor
from the speculations of his school; or of any of
the various sects of ancient philosophers, who shed
a glory over that era of Greece; and that the triads
of gods, originating in very remote antiquity, were
in their nature and origin absolutely distinct from
the Pythagorean three-fold principles of all things:
it is my purpose now to give some account of the
Platonic theology, and of some of its most celebrated
professors.
The revolutions of empires which followed the
deaths of Aristotle, Plato, and the illustrious men
of that era, changed the whole character and spirit
of the Grecian people, corrupting, if not destroying,
the immortal republic of letters, which even now
excites our reverence and admiration.
Under the successors of Alexander the Great,
182
ON THE ORIGIN AND
1
there sprung up many innovators of the genuine
philosophy, who assumed the general name of Pytha-
goreans. Contrary to the maxim, that philosophy
should never be mingled with the vulgar religion, or
mythology, they combined them into one monstrous
and disjointed system, and tried “ to embellish
truth with fiction; and whether they aimed at con-
firming or invalidating the creed of their ancestors.---
to effect either purpose they invented fables and
lying prodigies.”
A number of these pseudo-Pythagoreans settled
down in the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, and
founded that celebrated school of philosophy which
flourished for many generations after. This country
would seem to have been doomed to be the scene
of every extravagance, and the nurse of every error
and superstition, as if the climate, or the people, or
whateyer other cause, which brought into life the
wonderful mythology of Egypt, was inimical to the
purity and simplịcity of truth. The land which
Herodotus eulogizes for its fertility in the products
of the earth, was as prolific in the propagation of
error and imposture.
Besides this school founded in Alexandria, Dr.
Gillies says, “ Other self-entitled philosophers
travelled over the Greek conquests of Asia, col-
1
Gillies, Aris, vol. i. p. 181. This learned writer, in a
Supplement to that work, gives an excellent sketch of the rise
of the Platonic philosophy.
2 Vol. i. p. 181.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
183
lecting every rite of superstition, and every tale of
wonder, which they afterwards amplified in their
fabulous compositions, for the amusement and de-
light of the idle multitudes assembled in the great
cities, built and hastily peopled by the Macedonian
conquerors.
Gibbonº informs us, that the philosophy of Plato,
about three hundred years before Christ, fell into
the hands of a few Hebrews of liberal mind, who
devoted their lives to religious and philosophical
contemplation. They probably made up a composi-
tion of Judaism and Platonism, which they passed
off for a system; for how could they reconcile the
vague speculations of Plato on religion, with the
certainty of their own sacred writings?
In this declension of learning, which followed the
conquest of Greece (an event which uprooted the
patriotism of the people, as well as their learning),
Pythagoras was much more severely injured in his
character and reputation, than Plato or Aristotle.
He is represented to us as a magical impostor, and
as a person addicted to every puerile fable. And, of
course, he is more admired for his reputed skill in
occult science, than for true wisdom and virtue, by
which he has earned the just applause of posterity.
The wonderful and ridiculous stories related of
him, came down to the Platonists of after-times,
embellished, rather than obscured, by fresh addi-
3 Dec. and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. cap. 21. p. 8.
184
ON THE ORIGIN AND
tions; which were eagerly incorporated by Porphyry
and Iamblichus in their lives of him, written about
the third century of the Christian era. They record,
without a blush, his great skill in sorcery; and the
many preposterous miracles ascribed to him. There
is not a fable, however shallow and improbable,
which these biographers do not receive and digest
without compunction or hesitation. And so be-
sotted were their minds, so credulous and supersti-
tious, that they were not conscious of having defamed
the character of this great man! On the contrary,
they seem to have believed, that all his glory and
fame originated from, and rested on, his learning in
magic and sorcery!
It is said of the Samian philosopher, that to prove
he was the true Hyperborean Apollo, he exhibited
one of his thighs in a full assembly at the Olympic
games, which, being formed of well-burnished gold,
shone with a dazzling splendor, and convinced as
well as amazed the spectators. At the same games
he brought down an eagle from the sky, and
whispered some mysterious words to it--after which
it renewed its flight to the empyrean above.
Alluding* to the sanctity in which he held beans,
(for in the Golden Verses he instructs his pupils to
abstain from touching that vegetable,) they relate,
that one day, as he espied an ox entering a field of
beans, he ran up to it, and after he had pronounced
* Dacier's Life of Pythagoras.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
185
a word in its ear, it turned away and took another
road.
Then, there is the javelin of Abaris—of surpass-
ing virtue, with which he could cross the widest and
most rapid rivers; pass over the most inaccessible
mountains, calm the raging tempest, drive away the
plague, and all other mortal diseases, and mitigate
or destroy every evil incident to mankind. The
possession of this weapon rendered him, in a manner,
omniscient; for it is said, he was at the same time
seen in different towns at a great distance from
each other.
Such is a specimen of the history given of him,
who brought philosophy into Greece; who gave a
new life to morality, and formed it into a system;
who laid the foundation of the best philosophy then
existing; and who was as skilful and profound in
mathematical science, as he is said by Porphyry to
have been in the arts of magic and sorcery.
Though it appears the new Platonism arose before
the Christian era, it flourished most conspicuously,
and had a more extended influence, in the third and
fourth centuries. Its essential principle was in the
selection of what were considered the least objection-
able doctrines from all sources; but especially from
Plato and Aristotle's writings. These were formed
into a heterogeneous system, and called the Eclectic
Philosophy
Another great principle in this system was, to
reconcile the ancient mythology to certain precon-
186
ON THE ORIGIN AND
ceived notions, and to reduce it to harmonize with
their philosophical speculations. This would appear
a hopeless task. But the opus magnum was at-
tempted; and, in the hands of the Platonists, every
idle fable of the poets, concerning the existence and
the generation of the gods, underwent a new inter-
pretation. The story which the common polytheist
believed, or which the sceptical reader ridiculed, was
supposed to have a secret and profound meaning,
only to be perceived by one initiated into the new
system.
This allegorical key was successfully applied to the
writings of Aristotle, Plato, and the Pythagoreans.
It unlocked the treasures of Plato, after a long night
of darkness and ignorance. Those doctrines of
which his own immediate disciples, and even Plato
himself, enjoyed but a faint glimpse, were dis- ,
closed, and elucidated by this light of after-ages!
The great philosopher was believed to have been
skilful in this art of allegory,--so that, according to
them, without applying it to his works, there is no
chance of arriving at the true and occult meaning !
There were many circumstances which tended to
elevate Plato to the distinction which he attained,
among the professors of the eclectic philosophy. It
was not so much the beauty of his style, (for they
had no taste for such a refinement,) nor his elevated
conceptions of the Supreme Being, nor his notions
of moral virtue and beauty, which captivated them,
as a certain obscurity in his doctrines; a mysterious,
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
187
undefined mode of expressing his ideas; and a sort
of jugglery in his logic. The vividness of his imagina-
tion, in many cases injurious to him as a philosopher,
which gave “to airy nothings a local habitation and
a name,” was rather esteemed than condemned by
these disciples. The severe style, and close reason-
ing of Aristotle, had not half the charms of the
creations of Plato's fancy.
These “ Eclectics,” far from looking upon Plato as
one of those superior minds, who esteemed the
vulgar or poetical mythology as a mere mass of
fables, begotten in idle hours, and fostered by trądi-
tion, would have him to confide and believe in every
childish and lascivious story of the gods, invented
by Homer and Hesiod. They so far redeem the
calumny, however, as to argue, that he did not re-
ceive them literally; but such as they were after
they had passed the ordeal of their own allegorical
interpretation.
Suppose the fables to be taken and put in the
alembic, and distilled in accordance with this im-
proved mode, we shall find the vices of the gods to
be transformed into so many virtues--their amours
become exertions of super-essential energy. Hence
Sallust, in his Treatise on the Gods and the World,
acquaints us that the Rape of Proserpine occultly
signified the descent of souls (an excellent inter-
pretation); and that the amorous propensities of
Jupiter were only “ creative energies,” and “divine
fury.”
188
ON THE ORIGIN AND
Plato, in his Republic, and elsewhere, seems
rather to oppose the Platonists; as he speaks
literally, and not allegorically, of the impious fables
related of the gods; and appears to coincide with
the emphatic denunciation of Pythagoras, that the
souls of Homer and Hesiod merited the tortures of
the damned by reason of their impiety.
It is probable that the introduction of the Chris-
tian religion had some influence over the minds of
the later Platonists; and that in the course of time,
when its influence extended, it effected a change in
the eclectic philosophy.
When the new religion sprung into light, and
afterwards penetrated the gardens of Rome and
Alexandria, it must have created a strong sensation
(although it was ostensibly viewed with contempt,)
on account of its pure and sublime morality, its per-
fect simplicity, and the reputed character of its
Divine founder. They might have despised our
Saviour and his disciples as men not of the
“schools ;" they might have scorned his pretensions
to divinity, and the miracles attributed to him; but
they could not long shut their eyes to the intrinsic
excellence of his religion, nor their ears to the daily
whispers of its advancement in the world.
Curiosity thus becoming excited, inquiries would,
in consequence, be made respecting the nature of
this new system, until in the end, some unbelievers
were tempted to peruse it in the sacred writings.
They could not but acknowledge the purity and
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
189
sublimity of its doctrines, and its superiority to their
own vulgar religion. The learned unbelievers of
that period would“ through evil and through good
report,” have willingly crushed Christianity in its
infancy, as a formidable rival to their own philo-
sophy; but all their efforts having failed in fighting
against Heaven itself, they sat down discomfited,
and vented their rage and virulence in their
writings. Yet notwithstanding this hatred of Chris-
tianity, and professed contempt for its Founder, it
effected a wonderful influence over their minds, and
it is manifest that, in the course of time, they even
borrowed from the pages of the Holy Scriptures.
Bryant confirms my opinion in this passage.
It
is to be observed, that when Christianity had intro-
duced a more rational system, as well as a more
refined worship, among mankind, the pagans were
struck with the sublimity of its doctrines, and tried
in their turn to refine. But their misfortune was,
that they were obliged to abide by the theology
which had been transmitted to them, and to make
the history of the Gentile gods the basis of their
procedure. This brought them into immense diffi-
culties and equal absurdities, while they laboured to
solve what was inexplicable, and to remedy what
was past cure."
There is one, however, of whom honorable men-
tion is made, who must be relieved from this charge
5 An. My. vol. iii. p. 104.
190
ON THE ORIGIN AND
relative to the pagan deities. Philo, a learned and
eminent Jew of the first century, was a disciple and
great admirer of Plato. But he could follow Plato
in his philosophy only, for, being a Hebrew, he must
have acquiesced in the religion of his country.
A controversy has been raised relative to the
exact period in which he lived; some contending he
was before Christ, and others that he flourished
after. The opponents of Christianity attempt to
maintain the former, for the purpose of showing that
the doctrines promulgated by Christ were known
previous to his appearance among 'men; but Bryantº,
I think, proves satisfactorily, that he not only lived
during the whole period of Christ's existence on
earth, but that he must have had access to the
Scriptures, or conversed with the Christians on the
subject of their religion. He also imagines that
from his expressive silence he must have thought
very favourably of it.
I cannot doubt, from the language used by Philo
Judæus, (which he could not have from other sources,
for where did they exist ?) concerning the Logos, that
he borrowed it either from the New Testament, or
from some one well acquainted with it. The pecu-
liar words employed to define and express this
person, are so singular, that it is impossible he could
have invented them. He calls him the Divine
Operator by whom all things were disposed. A
6
Bryant's Philo, to which I refer the reader for a more exact
account.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
191
Being superior to the angelic natures and all created
things. Also the image of God, and the same with
God; the Logos, or eternal word of the everlasting
God; the mediator between God and man, the
advocate for all mortals. “The same Word is the
Intercessor for man, who is always tending to cor-
ruption.” This Person is also, according to him, the
Fountain of all wisdom; and that man mày, by
drinking at this sacred spring, obtain, instead of
death, the reward of everlasting life. " We main-
tain, also, that by the High Priest is not meant a
man, but the divine Word.” Philo even styles him
the Shepherd of his flock. We may, after this, say
with Bryant, “ So much was Philo beholden to the
Christians, that we may read in him the opinion of
the apostles and the doctrines of Christ himself,
upon this essential article of our belief.”
It is to be observed of Philo Judæus, that in so
fully and explicitly acknowledging the existence of
the Divine Logos, as he appears to have done, he
must necessarily have misinterpreted the Jewish
prophecies relating to the advent of our Saviour;
for he denies totally and absolutely that this person-
age could ever be manifested in human nature.
This strict abnegation was, as Bryant remarks, the
great stumbling-block to his conversion to Chris-
tianity, for otherwise he was on the very threshold
of our faith. In his descriptions of the Logos, he
is constantly spoken of in his divine or pre-existent
state; and as Philo denies, because he cannot com-
1.92
ON THE ORIGIN AND
prehend, that He could ever appear in the flesh, it
is clear that the prophecies foretelling the Messiah,
in his estimation, could not relate to this eternal
Word of God. So that he whom the Hebrew nation
expected as a king, instead of the lowly “ man of
sorrows and acquainted with griefs,” if entertained
or believed by Philo at all, must have been, in his
opinion, a person distinct from the divine Logos.
It may be observed, also, that this philosopher,
being of the Jewish persuasion, enjoyed great advan-
tages over the pagan Platonists, who made the
ancient mythology “ the basis of their procedure”
in raising their new-fangled polytheism; so that it
ought not to surprise us if he had some knowledge
of the Logos, before simplifying his conceptions by
contact with the Christian theology. Whatever
diversity of opinion might exist on this point,—the
source of his knowledge—it is abundantly manifest
from all we have said, that he could not have de-
duced the existence of the second Person (much less
that singular and peculiar language with which he
variously describes and alludes to him) from the
writings of Plato. If we would but compare his
precise ideas, with the ridiculous and confused
notions of the other Platonists, we shall receive
sufficient confirmation of this assertion. I
regret,
therefore, that I am obliged to disagree from Bryant,
who, in his observations on some passages of Philo's
writings and opinions, concludes that the ancient
philosophers recognised a trinity in the Godhead;
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
193
and he argues that Philo, receiving an obscure
knowledge of the subject from these, was enabled
to refine and render it more accurate by consulting
the Christian religion. He says, “ The Greek phi-
losophers were not, totally ignorant of this truth.
But they refined upon it, and introduced matter as
part of the trias, and as eternal.” The eternity of
matter was a recognised principle among all the
physiologists, as Aristotle acquaints us; but it was
not regarded by all as a deity or a person: Plato
and the best philosophers repudiated this absurd
doctrine. It does not follow that because matter
was believed to be eternal, they should have looked
upon it as an hypostasis of a triad.
Again, Bryant says, “ From the account given by
Diogenes Laërtius of Plato, one would imagine that
he allowed only two first principles : 'Plato declared
that the two principles of all things were God and
matter, which he styles mind and the efficient
cause.
“ But others give a better account
of Plato's opinion, of which Plutarch affords an ex-
ample: • We find that Socrates, as well as Plato,
held three principles, which are styled God, matter,
and idea.'”
This is perfectly conformable to the Pythagorean
doctrine; but why imagine these principles to relate
to a trinity of archical hypostases? It appears that
Bryant was not consistent in his opinions on this
>>>
7 Bryant's Philo, p. 72.
8 Id.
9 Id.
N
194
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
point, for I find him to say in his Ancient Mytho-
logy", “ I am sensible that some very learned per-
sons have thought that they discovered an allusion
to a mysterious truth of another nature, in the triad
of Plato and of his followers. But if we collate
what these writers have said by way of explanation,
we shall, I believe, find that they had no idea of any
such mystery"
10 Vol. iii. p. 109.
195
CHAPTER II.
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.
THERE is a remarkable feature of the Christian
religion in its infancy, on which sceptics might well
ponder,--that the miracles which confirmed its divine
origin, were so well attested as not to be disputed
by the Platonists, the bitterest enemies of the truth,
though, as might be expected from men steeped in
superstition and occult science, they attributed them
to the powers of magic, or theurgy. Hence, instead
of aiming to overthrow their testimony by reason
and argument, they were satisfied with raising up
men to rival Christ, or to surpass him, in performing
wonders and miracles. At first, they conceived
Pythagoras' would answer their purpose well, de-
grading him to a level with their own minds, until
they wisely thought, that the wonders related of him
might be liable to some uncertainty, by reason of
their great antiquity and want of proof; when they
left him, and caught hold of a worthy champion of
the new light, in Apollonius Tyanæus, one of the
greatest impostors of that era.
Marcellinus, in an epistle to Saint Austin, says,
that this rivalry of Apollonius with Christ was one
of the many objections which the pagans made to
the Christian religion”. “ The pagans pretend that
1 Vide Note N.
Inter Epistol. Augus. Ep. 136.
N 2
196
ON THE ORIGIN AND
our Lord did no more than some other men; as
they can produce Apollonius, Apuleius, and other
magicians, who, they contend, performed greater
miracles.”
This “false Christ,” Apollonius, called himself a
Pythagorean, that he might have some authority for
his pretended miracles; so that he tried to persuade
his followers, that he did no more than follow the
example of his great master, being, like him, gifted
with supernatural powers. The very ghost of the
Samian philosopher (deeming it proper to visit and
instruct this worthy favourite) taught him how to
worship and reverence the gods; and it is said that
he was so much loved by these deities, that he
frequently enjoyed their conversation. To such an
extent did he carry the ridiculous delusion!
In the third century there came to light another
great luminary, in the person of Ammonius Saccas.
He did more than any of his predecessors to revive
and propagate the eclectic philosophy; whose very
existence seemed to depend on a rancorous dislike
of the Christian religion.
Ammonius is reputed to have been born of
Christian parents; and, probably, he was educated
in that creed, the knowledge of which enabled him
to incorporate some of its doctrines with his own
disjointed and grotesque system.
essence of the eclectic philosophy consisted in
gleaning the supposed truth from every possible
source, he may have been justified in borrowing from
As the very
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
197
Christianity. Hence Gillies says of him”, “He is,
perhaps, the first apostate who turned the pure
streams of the Gospel into the foul marshes of cor-
rupted Platonism."
Ammonius left this legacy to his pupil, Plotinus,
whose dark, superstitious, and mystical mind, was
well fitted to embellish and improve it. With great
industry he applied himself to comprehend its ab-
struse speculations; and, after some years' study,
he presented the system to the world in his vo-
luminous writings, which were found to be almost
unintelligible, from the obscurity of his language and
the wretched barbarism of his style. These faults,
indeed, were rather admired than condemned by his
numerous disciples, who were delighted far more by
that which was obscure and mystical, than by things
plain and intelligible.
Plotinus appears to have secretly consulted the
writings of the Christians, and imitated his master,
in introducing into his system some peculiar doc-
trines of Christianity, which he changed and per-
verted according to his taste.
“Some* peculiar
doctrines of the Gospel are clothed in such swelling
bombast by the new Platonists, as has shaken the
faith of able and ingenuous men, and led them to
doubt whether the momentous truths of our religion
were not originally derived from Egyptian and Indian
sources, and employed, with pious fraud, by the first
propagators of Christianity.”
• Gillies, Aris. vol. i. p. 194. * Id. vol. i.
P.
195.
198
ON THE ORIGIN AND
It is undoubted that the doctrines of the Christian
religion, at this period, became subjects of specula-
tion and public discussion among both Christians
and pagans. These were, by the former, really em-
ployed to solve some difficult and mystical parts of
Plato's writings; while some, on the other hand, ap-
plied to Plato to clear up some points of their
theology. Gibbon informs us what those subjects
were which agitated the schools at that period. “ Thes
same subtle and profound questions, concerning the
nature, the generation, the distinction, and the equa-
lity of three divine persons of the mysterious Triad
or Trinity, were agitated in the philosophical and in
the Christian schools of Alexandria."
From these discussions probably arose all that
Platonism in which the writings of many of the
Fathers are steeped. They seem to have adopted
the new version of the philosophy of Plato, as a
genuine exposition of his writings, and acquiesced in
the newly-discovered opinion, that the Trinity was
acknowledged by Plato and the ancients. Hence
they never dispute this fact, but reason upon it as if
it had been incontrovertibly proved; and rather
glory in the idea, that a pagan philosopher, of such
great parts as Plato, should be found to concur in
one of the essential truths of the Christian faith.
Some of the Platonists, on the other hand, who bore
an unrelenting hatred to the very name of Christ,
instead of being disarmed or conciliated by this
3 Dec. and Fall, vol. iii. P.
12.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
199
yielding of some learned Christians, turned upon
them, and maintained that they borrowed their
Trinity from Plato. This was the natural conse-
quence of once admitting the doctrine to have been
recognised before Plato's time.
Amelius, who seems to have consulted the New
Testament, pretends to be surprised at finding the
Logos mentioned in the Gospel of St. John the
Evangelist'. “And this was the Logos, or Word,
by whom, existing from eternity, according to Hera-
clitus, all things were made, and whom that barbarian
(St. John) also places in the rank and dignity of a
principle, affirming Him to have been with God, and
to be God, and that all things were made by Him,
and that whatever was made had life and being in
Him.” From this we may perceive how much the
Sacred Writings were read, and how much the
Platonists were indebted to them for their modes of
expression, and for some of their doctrines.
Let us now return to Plotinus. This man was a
dark and superstitious Egyptian, who, finding by
experience that à prophet has little honor in his
own country, went to Rome, where he finally settled,
and delivered public lectures on his new version of
Plato. He founded a school of great celebrity, which
comprised many of the learned pagans in that city.
It flourished under him and his followers, or
successors, until it was abolished, ultimately, by the
o Eus. Pr. Ev. lib. ii. cap. 9.
200
ON THE ORIGIN AND
Emperor Justinian, in the middle of the sixth century.
If a man's writings are to be considered a true
index of his mind, we shall find that Plotinus was
the weakest and most credulous of men; and quite
unfit either to be called a philosopher, or to be re-
garded as capable of expounding or comprehending
Plato's works. We might expect, in one of his
pretensions, to have a person gifted with a pene-
trating sagacity, a simple and contemplative mind,
a clearness of expression, and a proper sense of
gravity and decorum. What is the case ? He has
no regard for truth, nor patience to search after it;
he is addicted to all kinds of absurd fables, which
would even startle the credulity of a child; he is a
philosopher, quack, magician, all in one.
The system which he pawns upon us for the
philosophy of the “divine Plato," is a composition
of obsolete legends, whose beauty and freshness were
blighted and withered by time; of the vulgar
mythology of Greece, which had fallen into con-
tempt; and an abundant sprinkling of theurgy, and
all the wonders of the “black art." He is, with
respect to true philosophy, what a fanatic is with
respect to religion. With all the imbecility of a
visionary, he conjoined the art and cunning of an
impostor. His writings, as I have said, are obscure,
if not utterly unintelligible. It is said of Iamblichus
and Proclus, that their works were as obscure as
might be; but in comparison with those of Plotinus,
they were simple and comprehensive.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
201
The occult sciences seem to have produced the
same influence over the human mind, at that time,
as the idle pursuits of alchemy and astrology did in
the dark ages of modern Europe. They destroyed
the reason, and gave licence to the imagination ; an
imagination not refined by the charms of poetry, nor
elevated by the sweet strains of music; but an
imagination which revelled in the gloom of supersti-
tion, and brooded over the horrors of magic, and the
demoniacal world which it conjured into existence.
These speculations in the end uproot the reason and
judgment, and rapidly lead on their unhappy victim
to insanity.
Plotinus, emerging from his demon associates,
became abstracted from this world, and often
imagined himself to have communion with the
highest, or super-essential divinity. Porphyry, a dis-
ciple of his, says this of him as well as of himself:
“ Plotinus, often trying to exalt his mind to the
highest god, that god sometimes appeared to him, who
possesses neither form nor idea, and who is above
intellect and all intelligible things; to whom I,
Porphyry, affirm myself to have been united in the
sixty-eighth year of my age.”
Some of these visionary Platonists, as if to redeem
themselves from the impurities of magic and theurgy,
affected a perfection not attainable by human na-
ture;—another species of madness brought upon
them by the study of their philosophy. They were,
in consequence, so imbecile as to be ashamed of the
202
ON THE ORIGIN AND
humanity which God had given them. Their skill in
magical arts gained them the love and admiration of
the whole host of demoniacal powers, with whom
they professed to hold a friendly and sociable inter-
course; and as it was a maxim of theirs, that souls,
purified by abstinence and learning, would attain a
place among them, it is probable that Plotinus and
Porphyry hoped for this consummation in themselves.
The latter Platonist was a man capable of great
things, had his mind not been enfeebled by these
abominable pursuits. Of a melancholy temper, and
great enthusiasm in religion, he was urged to take
away his own life, that he might have a constant,
instead of an occasional, intercourse with the highest
god; but, happily for himself, his extreme piety
cooled by reflection, and he allowed his spirit to
become disembodied by a natural death.
Porphyry was a rancorous enemy to the Christian
religion. He has the reputation of having written
thirty books against it, which, as Gibbon expresses
it, have been “committed to the flames by the pru-
dence of orthodox emperors.”
If these writings were to be judged by some now
extant, they could have produced no great impression
on others out of the pale of his system. His Trea-
tise on Abstinence from Animal Food is replete
with silly conceits and defunct fables. For example,
he says, “That the nature of a kindred body is
attractive of soul, experience abundantly taught
these theologists. Hence those who wish to receive
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
203
into themselves the souls of prophetic animals,
swallow the principal parts of them, as the hearts of
crows, or of moles, or of hawks, &c.”
In the same treatise, he gives us a very novel "
prescription for the cure of the gout, which he pos-
sibly practised on himself, if it were possible that so
great an ascetic could fall into such a calamity.
“ Hence some who have been afflicted with gout in
the hands and feet to such a degree as to be infested
with it for eight entire years, have expelled it by
abandoning wealth, and betaking themselves to the
contemplation of divinity!"
Iamblichus was another important link in the
chain of Platonicians. His writings partake of the
same character.
How would Plotinus and Porphyry have rejoiced
at the apostasy of the emperor Julian! He chose
and preferred the loathsome and mutilated carcass
of polytheism, to the fair impersonation of religion,
and virtue, and truth. He abandoned the Spiritual
Being of the Christians, and addressed his prayers
to the material sun !
Julian, like all apostates, bore an implacable
hatred to the religion which he had rejected. He
falsely pretended that it was composed of Asiatic
superstition and Jewish idolatry; blinded perhaps
to the origin of the later Platonic theology, which
in a great measure had its source in the East.
Gibbon informs us, that Julian was initiated into
the theurgic science, and into the Eleusinian mys-
204
ON THE ORIGIN AND
teries, which were revived by the Platonists, along
with the ancient mythology of Greece. The gravity
with which he passed through these imposing cere-
monies, endeared him more and more to his ad-
mirers, and increased his own admiration of a religion
possessing so much pomp and grandeur.
In his Oration to the Sun, and to Cybele, the
mother of the gods, he avows his polytheism, and all
the fanaticism of Plotinus. Did this adopted religion
of his influence his mind as it had done some of his
predecessors ? Let us hear the historian : -“ Not-
withstanding the modest silence of Julian himself,
we may learn from Libanius, the orator, his faithful
friend, that he lived in a perpetual intercourse with
the gods and goddesses: that they descended upon
earth to enjoy the conversation of their favorite
hero; that they gently interrupted his slumbers, by
touching his hands or his hair; that they warned
him of every impending danger, and conducted him,
by their infallible wisdom, in every action of life;
and that he had acquired such an intimate know-
ledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish
the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva; and the
form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules."
The next great link in the chain of these “ divine
men,” as they are called by their admirers, is the
celebrated Proclus, whose voluminous and elaborate
commentaries on the philosophy of Plato, are a proof
of his indefatigable zeal and industry in the cause
which he espoused. He was a man of considerable
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
205
mental powers; but unfortunately, like his prede-
cessors, he fell a prey to the fascinations of a false
philosophy; adopted erroneous principles; was ad-
dicted to the theurgic science, and a belief in
demons; and, in a word, fell into the same mis-
chievous and unpardonable errors as Plotinus and
Porphyry.
He, too, pretended to hold converse with the
gods; and to have demons constantly at his will
and command. Proclus?, one of these teachers of
darkness, professed himself an adept in all myste-
ries; conversed familiarly with Pan and Esculapius;
worshipped with their appropriate rites the gods
of all nations, even of the Arabian nomades; and
undertook by Chaldean oracles, and Orphic hymns,
to avert or cure the numerous infirmities of mind
and body.”
The learned dissertation of Proclus on theurgy,
is, I believe, no longer extant; but from some
remaining passages, we have a lamentable example
of the egregious stuff of which it was composed :-
“ Sometimes an herb or a stone is sufficient for a
divine operation. Thus, a thistle can procure the
sudden appearance of some superior power. The
laurel, raccinum, the land and sea onion, the coral,
the diamond, and the jasper, operate as safeguards.
The heart of a mole is subservient to divination;
sulphur and marine water to purification.'
? Gillies, Arist. vol. i. p. 211.
206
ON THE ORIGIN AND
The system of Proclus is a mixture of Oriental
learning, and the philosophy of Plato, with a copious
dose of the Grecian polytheism, diluted and refined
by the allegorical method. He places great credence
in the Chaldean oracles, and the Orphic hymns,
which he thought had some indefinable relation to
the speculations of Plato. Hence he falls into the
error of confounding the Orphic and Chaldean triads
of persons, with the three principles of the Pytha-
goreans, God, Idea, and Matter. In consequence of
this, he is guilty of many strange absurdities.
I have made these observations on the later
Platonic philosophers, for the purpose of showing
the consistency of their minds and pursuits; that
we may perceive clearly how little they are to be
trusted in their versions and interpretations of Plato's
writings.
As they combined foreign matter with the ancient
philosophy, they are to be distrusted also on this
account; though it is chiefly their unhallowed pur-
suit of occult science, which rendered their minds
incapable of grasping any comprehensive system,
or of calmly and patiently searching after the truth.
To the sober deductions of reason, they preferred
the unhealthy excitement of wonderful legends and
childish fables. Whatever they found mysterious,
they mystified; whatever was doubtful, they involved
in greater obscurity; and by their double meanings,
and allegorical tests, we can discover neither truth
nor certainty in any of their speculations.
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
207
It is to be acknowledged, indeed, that both Plato
and the Pythagoreans, in their numbers, ideas, and
demoniacal world, laid themselves open to a similar
charge; for they were guilty of obscurity and mys-
ticism in treating of these subjects. But the sphere
in which they acted or circumscribed themselves, in
relation to these objects, was narrow, in comparison
with the license taken by the later Platonists.
It is to be remarked, however, that if they erred
on this score, there is no reason to think that they
gave any countenance to the allegorical science,
which deduced a different meaning from Plato than
the literal; and created a new and strange system
out of the ancient mythology. The origin of it was
among the Platonists themselves; and, I think, it
may be traced to the influence of the Christian reli-
gion. It was the offspring of necessity, brought into
use for the purpose of self-defence.
The purity and reasonableness of the new religion,
the piety and moral conduct of its believers, and the
noble characters of its priesthood, came in due time
to be contrasted with the expiring polytheism, the
licentiousness of the pagan world, and the debased
and fraudulent priests of the ancient gods. Besides,
it was advancing with rapid strides among all classes ;
it had ascended to the very court itself, and flourished
among the rich as well as poor.
The sagacious pagans perceived this, and became
sensible that, without a strong and continued opposi-
tion, the old religion would succumb. And could
208
ON THE ORIGIN AND
they silently and meekly allow the religion of Plato,
and of the ancients, hallowed by antiquity, and con-
firmed by tradition, to be laid in the dust, before the
upstart system of a few brief years! They were
sensible, however, that if they revived the mythology,
in its naked form, their labour would be all in vain.
For how could the polluted and livid carcass of a
thousand years, exist in the same atmosphere with
the living and breathing form of Christianity? How
were the fables of Homer, Hesiod, and Ovid, of their
highest divinities, to be expunged from their theo-
logy? For what is written, is written.
They were certain that to attempt to maintain
these and other fables in their literal sense, would
be fatal to their cause; for at that period they would
have been laughed at by the pagans themselves.
The allegorical interpretation was happily suggested,
and eagerly adopted, for the salvation of the dying
polytheism. By means of it, all asperities were
made smooth, discordances harmonized, and every
contradiction, however apparently hopeless, was
easily reconciled.
The obscene legends of the pagan deities, by a
magic touch, were converted into wholesome and
instructive stories of divine energy, and celestial
virtue. “Proclus,” says Bryant, “ tries to subtilize
and refine all the base jargon about Saturn and
Zeus, and would persuade us that the most idle and
obscene legends related to the Divine Mind, to the
Eternal Wisdom, and supremacy of the Deity.”
PROGRESS OF PLATONISM.
209
Pythagoras and Plato were subjected to the same
test; from which emerged the new version of the
later Platonists, bearing no greater resemblance to
the original, than astrology to astronomy, alchemy
to chemistry, or the delusions of occult science to
the pure and legitimate deductions of philosophy.
Plato came to be compared with Christ, and his
morals and theology with those of Christianity. By
the pagans, the latter was looked upon as a sort of
new version of the Oriental or Pythagorean philo-
sophy, which had been translated into the writings
of Plato. This delusion was carried to such an
extent, that Dr. Gillies observes, “ Plato was the
only heathen philosopher, that many Christian
fathers, after lopping off certain redundancies, were
inclined to admit within the pale of the church.”
They saw Plato only in his degenerate offspring.
Augustine is said to have confessed there was a
wonderful resemblance between Christ and Plato.
And Celsus (I believe not the Christian) maintained
that Christ must have read the works of Plato. This
is all pure deception on their part, and the result of
the fraud and design of the pagan Platonists.
The scripture doctrine of the Trinity was con-
strued into an imitation of the doctrine of Plato.
A certain likeness was supposed to be discovered
between the three principles of Pythagoras and the
three persons of the Divine Trinity, all which has
been entirely exploded.
210
CHAPTER III.
No TRUE TRINITY IN THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
THE mantle of Proclus descended on the shoulders
of Taylor; who, in the nineteenth century, attempted
to revive the school abolished by Justinian in the
sixth ! This modern champion of the Platonic
philosophy is a fervent polytheist. He is a bigoted
follower of Proclus and his mystical school: he
adopts all his errors, and eagerly gives credence to
every improbable fable.
Taylor would also try to imitate the style of his
school, as if it were laudable to transfer the bar-
barisms of one language, and infuse them into
another. This is an example of the style so highly
extolled by him in Proclus. 66 How can our con-
ceptions reach the principle of these principles, who is
concealed in the superluminous darkness of occultly
initiating silence !”
This enthusiast rails at the present generation,
who are, according to him, mere pigmies in true
knowledge; and he would persuade us, that the
world was in a very unhappy plight, because for-
sooth it prefers the religion of Jesus Christ to his
version of polytheism ! The modern practice of
acquiring knowledge by experience is held in little
NO TRUE PLATONIC TRINITY.
211
estimation by him, in comparison with the mass of
wisdom and erudition contained in the works of
antiquity. He looks upon the sun being the centre
of our planetary system, as a mere delusion, worthy
of these degenerate times. And he says, with
singular gravity, “At such a period as the present,
when there is such a dire perversion of religion
(paganism), and men of every description are in-
volved in extreme impiety, we cannot wonder if the
spirit of profane innovation should cause a similar
confusion in the system of the world.” This is
beautifully illustrated by a religion so refined and
admirable as this would signify! “ Every planet
has a number of satellites surrounding it, analogous
to the choir of the fixed stars; and every sphere is
full of gods, angels, and demons, subsisting according
to the spheres in which they reside."
Taylor is also painfully ironical upon our astro-
nomers, who make their telescopes the standard of
truth in the affairs of the celestial regions, and who
presumptuously doubt of the existence of that which
cannot be seen through them; for he sagely informs
us, that the divine nature of the stars cannot be per-
ceived through such fallacious instruments.
But after all, the charge against this learned man
may be founded on the grossest ignorance; for to
understand his system, he says, it is necessary to
enjoy that which we have no hope of a deific union,
1 Intro, to the Timæus of Plato.
!
2
212
NO TRUE TRINITY IN
“ with the super-essential and most arcane object of
perception,” even God himself.
In relation to a trinity in Plato, we have seen
that Taylor widely differs from Dr. Cudworth. He
will not allow it to have any resemblance to the
Christian doctrine. But the truth is, that when we
come to make an examination into this trinity, we
shall find it to be devoid of the essential characteristic
of a trinity,—namely, Three Persons in One God;
for above the Platonic triad of being, life, and intel-
lect, the Platonists acknowledge a Monad, or a to év,
of which the former are the progeny; so that here
we have either four persons or things, or a unit
placed above a triad, and distinct from it, having
none of its co-essentiality.
The Platonists, and Taylor among them, in fact,
bring us to the conclusion, that the Highest God, or
Chief Monad, is not a hypostasis of a trinity, since
they deny and refute his consubsistence and co-
essentiality with the other supposed persons of the
Godhead.
This may be proved out of many passages of their
writings. Taylor says, in his general Introduction
to Plato's Works, “ The Highest God, according to
Plato, as we have largely shown from irresistible
evidence, is so far from being a part of a consub-
sistent triad, that he is not to be connumerated
with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all
multitude, that he is even beyond being, and he so
ineffably transcends all relation and habitude, that
.
THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
213
language is in reality subverted about him, and
knowledge refunded into ignorance.”
And Proclus, on the Timæus, says also of the
Monad above the triad, and of the descending triads
from the Highest God, “ Plato everywhere ascends
from multitude to unity, from whence also the order
of the many proceeds; but before Plato, and accord-
ing to the natural order of things, one is before
multitude, and every divine order begins from a
monad. Wherefore the divine numbers proceed in
a trinity; yet, before this trinity there must be a
monad. Let there be three demiurgical hypostases,
nevertheless, before these must there be one, because
none of the divine orders begins from multitude.
We conclude, therefore, that the demiurgical number
does not begin from a trinity, but from a monad,
standing alone by itself from that trinity.”
Iamblichus, refining on this notion, seems
ascend above the monad, and acknowledge another
yet superior to it. “Prior to truly existing beings
(ideas) and total principles, there is one god prior to
the first god, and king immoveable, abiding in the
solitude of his own unity. For neither is the intel-
ligible connected with it, nor anything else; but he
is established as the paradigm of the god who is the
father of himself, is self-begotten, who is father
alone, and is truly the good.” In which we have a
unity above unity; and the Timæan doctrine of
to
2 De Mys. sec. viii. cap. 2. ab initio.
214
NO TRUE TRINITY IN
exemplars carried to an extreme; for here there is
even a paradigm of God himself.
The Platonists had manifold triads descending in
gradations from each other, all communicating by
participation of each other, and of the first monad.
This procession of their gods from the first triad is
enumerated in șix orders, the intelligible, the intel-
ligible and intellectual, and supermundane, the
liberated and the mundane. And according to Pro-
clus, there are mundane Jupiters, Junos, and
Minervas, as well as celestial. Jupiter, Neptune,
and Vulcan, are said to be a triad of fabricative prin-
ciples; Vesta, Minerva, and Mars, defensive; Ceres,
Juno, and Diana, vivific; Mercury, Venus, and
Apollo, elevating and harmonic, and so on. And
all this they would pass off as the genuine philo-
sophy of Plato.
Not only did the Platonists (borrowing a doctrine
which they could not comprehend,) egregiously sub-
vert the very notion of a trinity by introducing a
monad above it; but we find that even in this they
do not all agree among themselves. Amelius, as
Proclus acquaints us, held a trinity in which each
hypostasis was a sort of trinity in itself; there were
three demiurgical creators, three intellects, and three
kings.
Dr. Cudworth, as it were, restrains Plato's sup-
posed intellect, or second person, to be the creator of
all things; but Plotinus, in whom he confides,
asserts that it is not intellect, but soul, which is the
THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
215
creator. Porphyry coincides with this, except that
in place of the mundane soul, (which he had sagacity
to perceive could not be the creator, being a gene-
rated thing itself,) he introduces a supermundane.
“ He calls the supermundane soul the immediate
creator of the world; and the mind or intellect to
which it is converted, not the creator himself, but
the paradigm." This is clearly opposed to the
Timæan doctrine, already discussed in full.
St. Austin, who is addicted to Platonism, points
out a difference between Plotinus and Porphyry.
“ God the Father, and the Son, or Logos, were
acknowledged by the Platonists as well as by the
Christians; but relative to the Holy Ghost, or third
person, there is a discrepancy between Plotinus and
Porphyrius, inasmuch as the former placed Psyche,
or soul, after the paternal intellect, thus making it
the third, while the latter put it between the Father
and the Son, making it hence the second hypostasis.”
Taylor, following Proclus, relative to the triad,
holds that it emanates from the monad, and consists
of being, life, and intellect; in which we have, as
already observed, a quaternity rather than a trinity.
He also says, “ by the demiurgus and father, we
must understand Jupiter, who subsists at the extre-
mity of the intellectual triad, and autotwov, animal-
itself, which is the exemplar of the world, and from
the contemplation of which it was fabricated by
3 Pro. in Tim. p. 93, 94. 4 De Civit. Dei. lib. x. cap. 23.
5 Intro, to the Timæus of Plato.
216
NO TRUE TRINITY IN
Jupiter, is the last of the intelligible triad, and is
the same with Phanes of Orpheus.” In which we
have a strange jumble of the Timæan and the later
Platonic philosophy; and the old error of com-
mingling the Pythagorean principles and the persons
or things alluded to in the hymns of Orpheus.
Here the intellect, or second person, of Dr. Cud-
worth's trinity is placed at the extremity of the
intellectual triad, so that he is put out of the first
triad altogether.
This Phanes, whom Taylor ignorantly confounds
with the exemplar world of Plato, was a person of
the Orphic triad. It was a title of the sun®, the
chief deity of the east, and so it is described in the
hymn to Protogonus :
Hence Phanes, called the glory of the sky,
On waving pinions, through the world you fly.
And Syrianus says,
66 After chaos and ether subsist
the first and occult genera of the gods, among which
the first apparent god is the king and father of the
universe, who because he is the first visible deity is
called Phanes.”
But we have also shown that the other history
related of him alluded to the deluge and the ark,
or mundane egg. Hence Syrianus says likewise,
though he is ignorant of the true purport of his
words, “ the whole of this first and occult genera of
the gods, which is called by the Chaldean theologists
the intelligible triad, was represented by Orpheus
8 Vide Note O.
THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
217
under the symbol of an egg, on the exclusion of
which, by the goddess Night, the god Phanes came
forth, who is called Protogonus,” or the first-born of
mankind, as declared by Orpheus himself.
I cannot help thinking (though I lay no stress on
the conjecture,) that the later Platonists derived
their monad above the triad from that piece of
ancient history of which I have already fully treated
in the former part of this work. It is manifest that
Proclus, and some of his predecessors, borrowed
greatly from what are called above, “ Chaldean theo-
logists.” And, as I have frequently remarked, con-
founding things of a nature perfectly distinct, they
looked upon the Chaldean, Orphic, and Pythagorean
triad as all one, relating to the same persons, or
principles of all things. Now, whatever may have
been the Chaldean and Orphic doctrines, it is certain
that they had no countenance from Plato or any
other Grecian philosopher, of a monad above a
triad, since it is clearly stated in many collated
passages already quoted, that before the universe
came into being, there existed only three things
(sometimes styled principles, though one had no
casualty in it), God, the Creator, the Idea, or para-
digmatical world, containing within all the essences
of things subsequently made, and Matter, out of
which were fabricated all material things. The
Platonists must have had, therefore, their doctrine
from another source.
It is natural to suppose, then, that as Proclus cer-
218
NO TRUE TRINITY IN
tifies his trinity to be of Chaldaic origin, and others
that it was well known to the Egyptians, and intro-
duced into Greece by Orpheus, that the Platonists
really had their triads from the mythology of these
countries. And perceiving in Timæus, that Pytha-
goras and Plato also maintained three principles, they
supposed them to be the same as the former. This
conjecture is greatly confirmed by a passage pre-
viously quoted out of Proclus himself, that Cronus
was the founder of the triad ; and also by the persons
mentioned as hypostases of the Orphic triad, which
are Phanes, Uranus, and Cronus? It may be sup-
posed, then, that the intelligible triad mentioned by
Syrianus above, as being a Chaldaic doctrine, refers
to the three sons of the patriarch; the latter being
styled the founder of the former; and that their
monad above a triad was a refinement upon this
ancient piece of history.
I apprehend that many of the speculations of
these Platonists, relative to the triads, may be
explained by adopting this mode of interpretation.
And that most of the errors and inconsistencies of
which they are guilty arose from an attempt, founded
on ignorance, of reconciling the learning which they
had from the east with the philosophy of Plato. This
singular notion of the trinity being the offspring of
the chief monad, or God, led necessarily to a great
number of subtle distinctions, and to a vast deal of
absurdities.
i Vide Note P.
THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
219
From the language of the Platonists, we might
conclude that this Monad, or to év, of theirs was no
better than one of the shadowy gods of Epicurus.
For it is said of him, that the better to conceal his
own atheism, he invented an order of deities so
entirely devoted to their own ease, so indifferent
about the world which they did not create, and so
careless with respect to the interests of our race,
that it was to man much the same thing as if he
had candidly abnegated deity altogether.
The Platonists are subject to the same charge, or
liable to the same suspicion, in their descriptions of
their Supreme Being. It was, however, more the
warmth of their enthusiasm, than their scepticism,
which led them to these extremes. Plotinus
informs us, that this being, by reason of his unity
and simplicity, is above knowledge and understand-
ing, and does not even so much as understand him-
self. This is probably his reason for so strange a
paradox: “ Intelligence itself does not understand,
but only that which has intelligence.” And Taylor,
dragging in Pythagoras and Plato, as if they really
agreed with his visionary opinions, says, “ By the
one itself, the Pythagoreans and Plato signified the
first cause, which they very properly considered as
perfectly super-essential, ineffable, and unknown."
This word unknown is evidently in Taylor's mind
pregnant with meaning, which we, having no “deific
union,” have no hope of getting a glimpse of.
The unity above trinity, or according to Iambli-
92
220
NO TRUE TRINITY IN
chus, unity above unity, and other such vagaries,
induced the Platonists to describe their first god
with pompous and swelling words, possessing more
sound than sense, which they mistook for eloquence
or sublimity. Hence God is imagined to be mag-
nificently described by “ the thrice-repeated un-
known darkness of the Egyptians,” by calling him
“ the principle of principles, who is concealed in the
superluminous darkness of occultly initiating silence;"
and other such sentences, which were conceived to
express ideas, as well as to be masterpieces of
description.
Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's Second
Epistle, confirms our aspersion of his Chief Being,
and of his not being considered an hypostasis of a
trinity. “ Plato neither connumerates the ineffable
principle of things with the other principles posterior
to him, nor does he coarrange it with the second and
third powers;" on the contrary he is said, to situate
it above and before the triad, as a monad having no
complexity or multiplicity in it. And that he is no
better than an Epicurean god, may be collected from
many other passages.
He is called ineffable, simple,
and all-transcending nature, “ who establishes all
things about him, but does not generate or produce
anything, nor does he presubsist as the end of things
posterior to himself.” In which his casualty is abso-
lutely denied (if I rightly understand the passage),
for if he be not the end (or beginning, rather), of
all things, which have a posterior existence, or the
THE PLATONIC DOCTRINE.
221
first of a chain of inferior causes; but substantially
disjoined from them, they operating without him,
then he can be no Supreme Cause at all. So much
for this refinement of the Platonists, who style him
also the Causeless cause of causes.
To conclude. We may be certain that it is quite
a delusion to attribute a knowledge of a trinity to
Plato, or to any of the ancient philosophers, before
the times of Christianity. Upon the Christian
trinity becoming known to the Platonists, they
fancied it bore some resemblance to the compound
deities of antiquity, and to the Pythagorean prin-
ciples of all things. In consequence they began to
refine upon the old doctrines, but assuming the
Grecian polytheism “as the basis of their proce-
dure,” they fell into manifold absurdities and contra-
dictions. All this has been pointed out, and I have
clearly shown, I apprehend, that both the Chaldean,
Orphic, and other triads, and the principles of Plato,
had a different origin, and related to distinct things,
which the Platonists confounded together, and with
the Christian doctrine.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
NOTE A. p. 21.
I will here present the reader with one or two instances, from
the writings of the Fathers, of their concurrence in the opinion,
that Plato had a knowledge of the Trinity. St. Cyril, in his
book, Contra Julian., lib. viii., says, “That there would have been
nothing at all wanting to the Platonic Trinity, for an absolute
agreement with the Christian; had they only accommodated
the right notion of co-essentiality, or consubstantiality of their
three hypostases ; so that there might have been but one specific
nature or essence of the Godhead, not further distinguishable
by any natural diversity, but numerically only; and so no one
hypostasis any way inferior to another.”—Intell. Syst. vol. iii.
In this passage it is called the Platonic Trinity, and not the
trinity of Plato, as if it referred to the doctrine of the later
Platonists; but the writer, no doubt, alluded to the speculations
of the more ancient philosopher, thus acquiescing in the gene-
rally received notion, that the trinity was an acknowledged
cabala," before the Advent of our Saviour.
I have remarked this incongruity in the conduct of the Arian
party, that what they denied in the Christian, they seemingly
maintained in the Platonic, theology; namely, the eternal
existence, and consequently the uncreated nature of the Second
Person of the Trinity. We discover Eusebius, and others of
his party, agreeing to, and upholding the version of the doc-
224
NOTES.
trine, as ascribed to Plato, while they virtually denied the
co-equal existence of the Son with the Father. This version
admitted the external existence of all the three hypostases.
I find Socrates, the historian (Ec. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 6), makes
this very singular observation on this inconsistency of the Arians.
“ I am surprised how Georgius and Timotheus should persist
in the Arian persuasion, the one having Plato always in his
hands, the other continually breathing Origen; for Plato does
not admit anywhere, that his first and second cause had a
beginning to their existence; and Origen constantly acknow-
ledges the Son to be co-eternal with the Father.”
Eusebius (Pr. Ev. lib. ii. cap. 20), makes use of this lan-
guage, which, though insinuating an inferiority and subordina-
tion in the persons, is totally silent on the point alluded to:-
“ The oracle of the Hebrews places the Holy Ghost after the
Father and the Son, in the third rank, and acknowledges a holy
and blessed Trinity after this manner; so that the third power
should also transcend all created nature ; being the first of those
intellectual substances which proceed from the Son, and the
third from the First Cause : see how Plato enigmatically declares
this doctrine in his Epistle to Dionysius.”
Clemens Alexandrinus, in mentioning this epistle, subscribes
to the conclusion of Eusebius :-“ I understand this to refer to
the Holy Trinity; the third being the Holy Ghost; the Second,
the Son, by whom all things were made, according to the will
of the Father.”
Dr. Cudworth (vol. iii. p. 187,) says, that “ Origen also
affirmeth .the Son of God to have been plainly spoken of by
Plato, in his Epistle to Hermias and Coriscus.” These are the
words: “Celsus, who pretends to know all things, and who
cites so many other passages out of Plato, does purposely (as I
suppose) dissemble and conceal that which he wrote concerning
the Son of God in his Epistle to Hermias and Coriscus.”
The ancient, as well as the modern Christian, may well seek
NOTES.
225
refuge in these Epistles of Plato; because he can find no sup-
port from his more authoritative writings. But let us briefly
examine the point in question, and see how far such an inter-
pretation as this can be borne out.
When we meet with an obscure or ambiguous passage in an
author, we naturally have recourse to the context. Now it
does not appear, from the tenour of the Epistle alluded to, that
Plato intended to convey any peculiar, or mysterious, or esoteric
doctrine. The occasion seems the most unfit for any such pur-
pose. And if he had no such intention, is it probable he would
have been guilty of such an egregious absurdity, as even to
allude to a subject of this kind ? It may be said, indeed, that
those to whom he addressed himself may have previously shared
with him the knowledge of this truth; but the whole tenour of
the Epistle belies any such thought.
What, then, were those objects he referred to in the passage ?
“Swearing by that God who is the leader of all things present
and future; and by the father and lord of this leader and
cause.” It seems to me highly probable that these two causes
were, 1. The Eternal Cause. 2. A secondary and generated
cause; for the ancient philosophers so regarded the beings sub-
servient to their Creator. The latter may have been either the
sun, or the mundane soul of the universe. According to the
Timæan theology, the mundane soul was a generated god; and
so was it held to be by Plato himself: it could not be, there-
fore, an hypostasis of the trinity.
Plutarch, in his Platonic Questions, informs us, that Plato,
in his book De Republica, called the Sun the king and lord of
all the sensible world; as he pronounced the Good to be the
Sovereign of the intelligible world. He says, likewise, that
the sun was by Plato looked upon as the very issue and essence
of God, or the Good; which is certainly a refinement of
Plutarch's, in which he implies rather a kind of metaphysical,
than a material creation of the sun.
Ad
226
NOTES.
The devotion of the early Fathers to the Platonic philosophy,
begot a very objectionable habit of Platonizing, with which their
theological writings are strongly tinctured.
Origen, in his IIepi Apxwv, so far subscribes to a particular
tenet of the ancient philosophy, that he discovers an analogy
between the human and the mundane body; the latter of which
he calls one great animal, possessing or being bounded by a
soul—the virtue and the reason of God; just as our body,
having many members, is contained by one soul*. Herein he
recognises the doctrine of the “Soul of the World.”
Others seem to have exceeded this language, and to have
conceived this mundane soul not to be the virtute Dei ac ratione,
in a general sense; but the Holy Spirit itself, as the third
hypostasis, which is the very doctrine ascribed to Plato. There
is this incongruity, however,--an insurmountable obstacle—that
Plato's mundane soul of the world was a created, and not an
eternal nature. And it was, probably, upon this ground—of
its being a thing generated in time—that Plotinus and others
founded so low an estimate of the soul of the world, as to call
it a species of the human; the relationship being fancifully
expressed by styling the former the elder sister of the latter.
The Stoics went to the other extreme, and looked upon the
human soul as part of the Godhead: “Why should you not
believe," says Seneca, “ that there is something divine in him
who is part of the Godhead ? That whole in which we are
contained is one, and the one is God, we being his companions
and members."Ep. 92.
* Sicut corpus nostrum unum ex multis membris aptatum est, et ab
una anima continetur; ita est universum mundum, velut animal quod-
dam immane, opinandum puto; quod quasi ab una anima, virtute Dei
ac ratione teneatur.
NOTES.
227
NOTE B. p. 38.
و
Since this was written, I find myself to receive some support
from Bryant, who, when alluding to these primary principles,
- makes this observation : “ When it was said in the early his-
tories, which Thales and other Grecians copied, that all things
were derived from water, I do not believe that the ancient
mythologists referred to that element as the ürn, or material
principle; but to the deluge, as an epocha, when time, and
nature, and mankind were renewed.
6 Plutarch mentions it as an Egyptian notion, that all things
were derived from water ; but at the same time tells us, Oolpiv
keavov, that Osiris was Oceanus.”—An. My. vol. iii. p. 99.
In consequence of this, the ocean was by some ancient
mythologists personified, and called, metaphorically, the origin
and father of all things. And Osiris was called Oceanus, for a
similar reason that he was also called the sun: both being symbols
of Osiris. By Homer the ocean is styled “the generation of
the gods." And Orpheus, in his mystic hymn to this deity,
says, that from him sprung both gods and mortals, which can
only be explained by holding Osiris and Oceanus to be the
same deified person.
NOTE C. p. 39.
THE perplexity of the ancients, originating in the error of
imputing a distinct personality to the various titles of the chief
deity, the sun, is abundantly conspicuous in their own writings.
Some seem to have tried to analyze their theology, and to class
the deities according to their respective ranks; but the task
P2
228
NOTES.
was so hopeless, that they abandoned it with disgust, and com-
promised the matter, like Macrobius, who believed all the gods
to be either titles of the sun, or exponents of his power and
benignant influence.
It is probable, if not certain, that these unhappy mythologists
adopted the Orphic hymns as a chief guide in their researches;
for they seem to have been considered a great authority, on
account of the antiquity imputed to them. But what light
could they derive from these records, to cheer their dark and
labyrinthian path? Only this, that in these hymns, the same
attributes are awarded to deities supposed, in the common
Greek mythology, to be perfectly and individually distinct,
which, with other circumstances, imply them to be only names
of one god. So that to set out with the hope or expectation of
assigning to this deity his locality,—to that his province, his
rank, or his government, would terminate in disappointment
and defeat.
For one example, let us choose the god who is called,
“ father of gods and of men;" a character not to be with
reason assigned to more than one deity. In the Orphic hymns
we find it given to a variety of apparently distinct deities. In
the Hymn to Night, it is said,
Night, parent goddess, source of sweet repose,
From whom at first both gods and men arose.
Heaven is called “father of all.” To Protogonus, the first begot-
ten, is assigned the honor of the birth of gods and mortals; so
to Saturn, to Jupiter, to Oceanus, &c.
Diodorus Siculus informs us, that some thought Osiris to be
Serapis; others, Dionusus; other Pluto; whilst some believed
him to be the same as Zeus, or Jupiter; and not a few took him
for Pan. To suppose Jupiter, Pluto, Pan, Osiris, and Serapis,
to be all the same god, is, indeed, contrary to the commonly
NOTES.
229
received notions; but such is the truth, and so much is implied
in the words of Diodorus.
Porphyry, a rank pagan, seems to have disregarded so im-
portant a feature, in the Grecian theogony, as the genders of
the deities; for according to Bryant, he acknowledged that
Vesta, Rhea, Ceres, Themis, Priapus, Proserpina, Bacchus,
Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the satyrs, were all one and the
Nobody had examined the theology of the ancients
more deeply than Porphyry."-An. My. vol. i. p. 395. .
same.
NOTE D. p. 45.
A GREAT authority has this passage :-“ In the barbarous ages
of Greece, their only gods were those natural divinities, the
heavenly luminaries. But on their first commerce with Egypt,
for the arts of policy, they found there a new species of idolatry,
the worship of dead men, which civilized Egypt had invented ;
and which, as they improved in policy, had almost worked out
their first natural deities; the same with those of all other
uncivilized nations. This new species the Greeks eagerly
embraced, &c."-Div. Leg. vol. iii. lib. iv. sect. 5.
I cannot see what reason Dr. Warbuton had for this conjec-
ture. As the Greeks acknowledged they were indebted to
Egypt for their religion, why might it not be supposed also, that
they brought the worship of deified men along with their other
idolatry? Is there no grounds for supposing that this supersti-
tion took root long before Greece was the second time colonized ?
The author of the Divine Legation seems, in the above pas-
sage, to have followed an observation in the Cratylus of Plato;
that it was the philosopher's opinion, that the first inhabitants
of Greece considered these only to be gods, which were so
230
NOTES.
regarded by many of the barbarians--the sun, the moon, the
earth, the stars, and the heavens.
This would be quite true, had he only admitted the other
branch of idolatry--the worship of dead men, which was preva-
lent long before Greece was inhabited; and which the Greeks
brought, most probably, out of Egypt.
NOTE E.
p. 63.
و
BRYANT observes, with respect to the practice of the Greeks,
of demeaning their deities, “ Vulcan the blacksmith, who was
the master of the Cyclops, and forged iron in Mount Etna, was
a character familiar to the Greeks and Romans. But this
deity, among the Egyptians and Babylonians had nothing
similar to this description. They esteemed Vulcan as the chief
of the gods; the same as the sun; and his name is a sacred
title, compounded of Baal-Cahen, Belus sanctus vel princeps;
equivalent to Orus or Osiris."-Vol. i. p. 169.
Again, “Polytheism, originally vile and unwarrantable, was
rendered ten times more base by coming through the hands of
the Greeks. To instance in one particular: Among all the
demon herd, what one is there of a form and character so
odious and contemptible as Priapus? an obscure, ill-formed
deity, who was ridiculed and dishonored by his very votaries.
His hideous figure was made use of only as a bugbear to frighten
children, and to drive the birds from fruit-trees, with whose
filth he was generally besmeared. Yet this contemptible god-
this scarecrow in a garden-was held in high repute at Lamp-
sacus, and esteemed the same as Dionusus. He was, likewise,
by the Egyptians reverenced as the principal god; no other
than the Chaldaic Aur; the same as Orus and Apis, whose rites
NOTES.
231
were particularly solemn. The author of the Orphic
Hymns styles him, πρωτογονον–γενεσιν μακαρων, θνητων
t'avOpwtwv, the first-born of the world; from whom all the
immortals and mortals were descended."-Vol. i. p. 178.
Note F. p. 71.
In the mysteries of the ancients, there is no feature more curious
and interesting than those expressions of grief and lamientation
which formed so important a part of the religious ceremony.
Every country seems more or less to have been addicted to this
singular superstition; and it was, probably, practised long after
the event, which it commemorated, had been forgotten; or at
least, in ignorance of that to which it had a particular reference.
Plutarch, in his Isis and Osiris, has remarked a religious
observance among the Egyptians of this nature, where he de-
scribes it as a custom of the people, at a particular season, to
proceed to the sea-shore, where they rent the air with lamenta-
tions for some one lost; and then after a time, supposing the
person (namely, Osiris,) to be found, they as suddenly burst
forth into exclamations of great joy and delight.
M. Ouvaroff, in a note to Section Third of his Essay on the
Eleusinian Mysteries, makes these observations on this ancient
custom. “The most ancient religious ceremonies have been
expressive of grief and lamentation. Adonis was the subject
of mourning in Phænicia, as Osiris was in Egypt. Adonis and
Osiris are proved to have been the same personage (Selden, De
Diis Syr.); their festivals, exactly alike, were divided into three
parts; the loss or disappearance, àpavlow0s,—the search,
EntNOUS,--and the finding, évpeois: we shall, perhaps, then
discover in these myths and usages, the traces of one of those
232
NOTES.
great religious traditions, which have diffused themselves every-
where.”
His conjecture is consonant with truth; but he assigns the
origin of the religious tradition to an anterior period of time, and to
different objects, than I am inclined to believe is the truth; for
in the text he cursorily hints, that the ceremony alluded to the fall
of man; when it is more probable that it was instituted in com-
memoration of the destruction of mankind, and the salvation of
Noah and his family from the deluge. That this conjecture is
nearer the truth, may be collected from the abundant mémorials
of this event in antiquity; and from the peculiar characteristics
of the ceremony itself; as well as from the histories of the
person concerned.
Bryant affords us this curious extract from Stephanus, which
corroborates what I have said above. “ The tradition is, that
there was formerly a king named Annacus (i. e., Noah), the
extent of whose life was above three hundred years. The
people who were of his neighbourhood and acquaintance, had
inquired of an oracle how long he was to live. And there was
an answer given, that when Annacus died, all mankind would
be destroyed. The Phrygians, upon this account, made great
lamentations : from whence arose the proverb, the lamentation
for Annacus, made use of for people or circumstances highly
calamitous.
6. When the flood of Deucalion* came, all mankind was de-
stroyed, according as the oracle had foretold. Afterwards, ,
when the surface of the earth began to be again dry, Zeus
ordered Prometheus and Minerva to make images of clay in the
form of men; and when they were finished he called the winds,
and made them breathe into each and render them vital.”.
An. My. vol. iii. p. 14.
Bryant says that Suidas also “has preserved, from some
* Much must be allowed for the corruption of traditionary know-
ledge.
NOTES.
233
ancient author, a curious memorial of this wonderful personage
(Noah), whom he affects to distinguish from Deucalion, and
styles Nannacus. “Nannacus was a person of great antiquity,
prior to the time of Deucalion. He is said to have been a king,
who, foreseeing the approaching deluge, collected everybody
together, and led them to a temple, where he offered up
his
prayers for them, accompanied with many tears, &c.'”
The same learned writer gives another curious passage from
the Orphic Argonautica, which I will give, as it bears on the
subject in question. “After the earth had been tendered to
the Mustæ, we commemorated the sad necessity, by which the
earth was reduced to its chaotic state. We then celebrated
Cronus, (another title of the patriarch,) through whom the
world, after a term of darkness, enjoyed again a pure serene
sky; through whom was produced also Eros, (or the rainbow),
that two-fold, conspicuous, and beautiful being."-An. My.
vol. iii. p. 175.
The prophet Ezekiel gives some very interesting facts re-
specting the idolatry of the ancients, in which I discover the
three distinct species pointed out in what I have said on this
subject; namely, the adoration of the sun, the deification of men,
and the worship of creeping things, practised in Egypt.
Cap. viii. v. 16.-There were about five and twenty men with
their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces to-
ward the east; AND THEY WORSHIPPED THE SUN TOWARD THE
EAST.
V. 14.-Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the
Lord's house, which was toward the north; and behold, there
sat women WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ.
V. 7.-And he brought me to the door of the court, and when
I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son
of man, dig now in the wall; and when I had digged in the
wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold
the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and
234
NOTES.
saw; and behold EVERY FORM OF CREEPING THINGS, AND
ABOMINABLE BEASTS, and all the idols of the house of Israel,
portrayed upon the wall round about.
The weeping for Tammuz, mentioned by the Prophet, is, no
doubt, the same superstition as the lamentations for the loss of
Adonis and Osiris. “The chief deity of the Canaanites," says
Bryant," was the sun, whom they worshipped with the Baalim,
under the titles of Ourchol, Adonis, Thammuz."
NOTE G.
p. 77.
This interesting Sibylline Oracle affords us a very accurate
account of the destruction of the Tower of Babel.
It is a good
paraphrase of the Mosaic history of that event.
But when the judgments of the Almighty God
Were ripe for execution ; when the tower
Rose to the skies upon Assyria's plain,
And all mankind one language only knew,
A dread commission from on high was given
To the fell whirlwinds, which, with dire alarms,
Beat on the tower, and to its lowest base
Shook it convulsed. And now all intercourse,
By some occult and overruling power,
Ceased among men : by utterance they strove,
Perplexed and anxious, to disclose their mind;
But their lip failed them; and in lieu of words,
Produced a painful babbling sound: the place
Was thence called Babel; by the apostate crew
Named from the event. Then severed far away,
They sped uncertain into realms unknown:
Thus kingdoms rose; and the glad world was filled.
An. Frag. p. 51.
Eupolemus says, on the same subject, “The city of Babylon
owes its foundation to those who were saved from the cata-
strophe of the deluge: they were the giants of the tribe of
NOTES.
235
Ham), and they built the tower which is noticed in history.
But the tower being overthrown by the interposition of God,
the Giants (or Titans) were scattered over all the earth.”.
Idem, p. 57.
NOTE H. p. 78.
“ In short,” says Macrobius, “that to the power of the sun is to
be referred the control and supremacy of all things, is indicated
by the theologists, who make it evident in the mysteries by the
following short invocation: 'Oh, all-ruling sun, spirit of the
world, power of the world, light of the world.""--Sat. lib. i. c. 23.
NOTE I. p. 80.
DIODORUS SICULUS, one of the most veracious and least preju-
diced of the Greek writers, gives us some insight into the double
idolatry, in this explicit account of the Egyptian divinities:-
“ The Egyptians," says he, (lib. i. cap. 1,) "held, that besides
their heavenly or immortal gods, (the celestial host,) there were
other inferior ones, begotten of these gods, who were originally
mortal men.
On account of their wisdom and benevolence, they
obtained immortality, and were deified. These were kings who
reigned in Egypt. Some of them retain their own names; but
others were called after the heavenly gods. Sol (or Helius),
Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter (surnamed Ammon), Juno, Vulcan, Vesta,
&c., reigned in Egypt. Sol was the first king, and was so
denominated after the planet of that name.
Some differed from
this, and represented Vulcan to have been the first king.” This
is superfluous, because Sol, Saturn, Jupiter, and Vulcan, were
236
NOTES.
all one; being titles of the chief deity,—the sun. That part
which relates to the earthly gods explains itself.
The same excellent writer informs us also, that the Ethiopians
held the same opinions, and made the same distinction, as the
Egyptians, respecting their heavenly gods, and the deified mor-
tals. The first, were the sun, moon, &c.; the second, mortal
men, who, on account of their virtues and their benefits to man-
kind, purchased immortal honor. These were Isis, Pan, Her-
cules, and Jupiter, whom they regarded as great benefactors.---
Lib. iii. cap. 1.
“ The mystagogue taught them that Jupiter, Mercury,
Bacchus, Venus, Mars, and the whole rabble of licentious
deities, were only dead mortals--subject in life to the same
passions and infirmities with themselves; but having been, on
other accounts, benefactors to mankind, grateful posterity had
deified them; and with their virtues had indiscreetly canonized
their vices." -Div. Leg. vol. i. p. 208.
This canonization of their vices was, no doubt, a corruption
superinduced on the ancient religion: the contradiction in their
character proves this.
The epistle will be well known to the reader which Alexander
the Great is said to have written to his mother; wherein he
declares, he had extorted from one Leo, a chief priest of the
Egyptian mysteries, that not only the lower popular divinities,
worshipped by them and adopted by the Greeks, had been
originally mortal men; but that the very Dii majorum gentium,
Jupiter, Saturn, &c., were of the same earthly origin. This is
only true in their secondary character.
NOTES.
237
NOTE K. p. 87.
I HAVE observed elsewhere, that when ancestorial worship was
introduced, men gave the titles of their heavenly gods to these
new deities: Helius or the Sun was a name given to Noah, and
also to some of his descendants, especially to Ham.
As an instance of this custom, we have the following incrip-
tion, taken from the obelisk of Heliopolis, the ancient Temple
of the Sun, in Egypt, preserved by Marcellinus :
VERSE THE FIRST.
“The Sun to King Rhamestes. I have bestowed upon you
to rule graciously over all the world. He whom the Sun loves
is Horus the brave, the lover of truth, the son of Heron, born
of God, the restorer of the world. He whom the Sun has
chosen is King Rhamestes, valiant in battle; to whom all the
earth is subject, by his might and bravery. Rhamestes the
king, the immortal offspring of the Sun.”
DIODORUS informs us, that on one of the altars, in a temple of
Memphis, there was a sacred pillar with an inscription which
terminated in this manner: “I am the eldest son of Cronus,
sprung from the genuine and respectable race of Sous, and I am
related to the fountain of day.”
NOTE L.
p.
88.
The Cabiritic mysteries were probably instituted for the same
purpose as that which we have supposed of the other mysteries;
namely, the commemoration of the deliverance of mankind at
the deluge.
238
NOTES.
The Cabiri were looked upon as priests as well as deities.
They were in number three,--having a king to rule over them.
So says Dr. Warburton of the mysteries of Eleusis also. “A
magistrate, entitled BAXIJETE, or King, presided in the
Eleusinian mysteries . This title, given to the president
of the mysteries, was doubtless in memory of the first founder.”
-Div. Leg. vol. i. p.
265.
Who these mysterious characters were may be gathered from
this. “Corybus (for the Cabiri and Corybantes were the same),
the father and head of the band, was the same as Helius; and,
in the Orphic hymns, is further described with the attribute of
Dionusus.” “The Corybantes," says Strabo,
were a kind of
demons, the offspring of Helius and Athena. Under the deno-
mination of Cabiri, and the like, were included not only a set
of persons who administered to the gods, but the divinities
whom they worshipped."-An. My. vol. iii. p. 352.
From the worship of these three arose the ancient triad, called
sometimes the Royal, the Fierce (as Bryant thinks from a
mistake), and the Sweet Triad. They were Ham, Shem, and
Japheth; Noah being regarded as the king, the ruler, and
founder of the order.
66
Note M. p. 90.
So Bryant conceives the true signification to be. He supposes
auecheKTOS, fierce, to be a Grecian word, formed from the
ancient terms, Malech and Malechat, to which it had no re-
lation. It ought to be, then, that Cronus or Noah was the
founder of the Royal Triad, which will exactly correspond
with the three royal personages of Orpheus, and the three
kings of other mythologists.
Proclus says distinctly that Nous is Cronus, the same also as
NOTES.
239
Zeus : Νους μεν εστιν ο Κρονος παντελως: Νους δε και
Neylotos Zeus. He calls this person truly intelligible; the
very language employed by the Platonists to express their
second hypostasis. “Proclus says that Cronus had the title of
Kopovovous; which, we may be assured, was originally
Koipavos Novs. By this is signified the great Ruler, the
head of all; in other words, the Patriarch Noah."-An. My.
vol. iii. p. 100 to 108.
Note N. p. 195.
I was not aware, before I found the fact mentioned by Bishop
Warburton, that the god Esculapius was set up by the pagans
as a rival of Christ. I will quote here the observations of this
learned writer. “We may observe, that Esculapius was one of
the ancient heroes who were employed, by the defenders of
paganism, to oppose to Jesus; and the circumstances of Escula-
pius's story made him the fittest of any, in fabulous antiquity,
for that purpose. Ovid, who lived before these times of danger
to the pagan gods, and, indeed, before the coming of that
Deliverer who gave occasion to so many impious comparisons,
hath yet made Ochirröe, in contemplation of his future actions,
prophesy of him in such strains, as presented to his excellent
translator the image of the true physician of mankind; and
thereby enabled him to give a sublimity to his version, which is
not borrowed from his original.
Ergo ubi vaticinos concepit mente furores,
Incaluitque Deo, quem clausam pectore habebat;
Aspicit infantem, totique salutifer orbi
Cresce puer, dixit: tibi se mortalia sæpe
Corpora debebunt: animas tibi reddere ademptas
Fas erit. Idque semel, dîs indignantibus, ausus,
Posse dare hoc iterum flamma prohibebere avitâ :
Eque deo corpus fies exsangue; deusque,
Qui modò corpus eras, et bis tua fata novabis.- Ovid.
240
NOTES.
:
Once as the sacred infant she surveyed,
The God was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter'd her prophetic tale :
“ Hail, great physician of the world, all hail ;
Hail, mighty infant, who, in years to come,
Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb;
Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs unconfined;
Make kingdoms thicker, to increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head :
Then shalt thou die. But from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.”—ADDISON.
The Platonists of the first ages of the church forged many
stories of Pythagoras and others, for the purpose of those im-
pious comparisons referred to by Dr. Warburton.
“ Iamblichus, in his life of Pythagoras, seemingly aware of
the birth of Christ, presumes to say, that when the mother of
the Samian philosopher was with child of him, her husband,
being ignorant of her pregnancy, brought her to the Oracle at
Delphi, and there the prophetess told him the first news of his
wife having conceived, and also, that the child she then went
with, should prove the greatest blessing to mankind, &c.”
Again: “The Platonists, namely Porphyry and lamblichus,
said, in comparing Christ with Pythagoras --because Christ
walked on the sea, Pythagoras rode through the skies; because
Christ had been forty days fasting in the wilderness, Pythagoras
was forty days without food in the temple of the Muses, at
Metapontum; because Christ descended into Hades, and rose
again from the dead, and appeared upon earth, Pythagoras
descended to the shades below, remained there a complete year,
saw Homer, Hesiod, and other departed spirits; returned upon
earth, wan and emaciated, and reported what he had seen in
full assembly of his disciples; whilst his mother, by his special
direction, before his descent, registered, upon tablets, all that
passed, and noted the times of his temporary death and resur-
rection: to carry on the competition, he was made to allay winds,
NOTES.
241
1
1
tempests, and earthquakes; to cure diseases, whether of mind
or body; and to foretell to certain fishermen, whom he found at
work, how many fish they should inclose in their net, &c.".
Cumberland.
NOTE O.
p.
216.
JULIAN in his Oration to the Sun, quoted by Dr. Cudworth, and
commented on by him, says, “This god, whether he ought to
be called that which is above mind and understanding, or the
idea of all things, or the one (since unity seems to be the oldest
of all things), or else, as Plato called him, the good; I say, this
uniform cause of all things, the original of all pulchritude and
perfection, unity and power, produced from himself a certain
intelligible sun, every way like himself, of which the sensible
sun is but an image.” “For thus," says Cudworth, “Dionysius
Petavius rightly declares the sense of* Julian in this Oration:
Vanissimæ hujus et loquacissimæ disputationis mysterium est;
a principe ac primario Deo, vontov, quondam et archetypum
solem editum fuisse; qui eandem prorsus oxeolv et Taçiv in
genere των νοητων habeat, quam in αισθητοις ille, quem
videmus, solaris globus obtinet. Tria itaque discernenda sunt,
princeps ille Deus, qui τάγαθον a Platone dicitur, ο νοητος
Acos, o pavouevos diokos ..."_Vol. ii. cap. 4. p. 34.
Upon this Cudworth takes the opportunity to put forward his
own views of the theology of Plato, and says, “ We may take
notice how near this Pagan philosopher and emperor Julian
approached to Christianity;" namely as regards the doctrine of
the Trinity. But was not Julian at one time a Christian him-
self? so that he could not be ignorant of the Christian doctrine.
This is, however, en passant; and has no effect on my judgment
on the above passage. Let us briefly examine it.
Q
242
NOTES.
1. The language of Julian would lead us to suppose, that it
was all one whether we call his god the idea, the one, or the
good; but if he meant this to be an exposition of Plato's
opinions (which seems to be the case), we must, consistently
with truth, and in justice to the divine philosopher himself,
dissent from this confusion and commingling of ideas perfectly
distinct. There can be no question, that Plato, as well as
Timæus, clearly distinguished God from the Idea. Nor am I
aware that Plato ever said that God produced an intelligible
idea from himself, as Julian represents it. The ideas were
supposed to be eternal.
2. The Idea, namely, the intelligible world, being something
sui generis distinct from God, according to Plato; if they are
viewed as one and the same, it is clear the idea could not then
be that archetypal world, maintained by the Platonists,
3. The creation, or rather the generation, of the sensible sun
after the image of the intelligible, is the genuine philosophy;
but how could either Cudworth or Petavius fall into the error
of believing the latter to be the divine intellect, since it can only
be, by the premises, a part of the archetypal world, and not the
whole? The intelligible sun cannot contain more than itself;
nor can the sensible contain more than the images of the forms
or ideas in the intelligible. What become, then, of all other
objects in the universe ? They are represented, by this reason-
ing, to be external to the divine intellect, deduced from Julian's
intelligible sun.
If this argument of Cudworth's be admitted, it is manifest
that we must come to the conclusion of the later Platonists, so
strongly reprobated by him, for holding that the genuine philo-
sophy made every intelligible idea to be a god: according to the
two writers above, each idea becomes a divine intellect.
Let us be just to Julian. This error is not his, but that of
Petavius and Cudworth.
NOTES.
243
NOTE P. p. 218.
Dr. CUDWORTH, with the desire of making everything subser-
vient to his hypothesis of an ancient trinity, is surely guilty of
unnecessary refinement, when he takes those titles, Saturn,
Cronus, Jupiter, &c., and tries to reconcile and reduce what he
conceives to be so many co-equal deities, to one universal
Numen. He did not perceive them to be mere titles of the
chief deity,--the sun. Probably he followed in the wake of
Plato, who, in his Cratylus, was so far culpable of the Greek
custom, that while he acknowledges, in one sentence, the words
whose etymology he is attempting to discover, to be of foreign
extraction, in another he forgets this truth, and, in spite of his
own confession, tries to deduce the original meaning of certain
foreign words, by supposing them to be compounds of Grecian
Who can place any confidence in such a mode of pro-
cedure? Yet the whole of this, from Cudworth, rests on the
same fallacy. “Plato, who propounds this difficulty (of making
one Numen out of Jupiter, Satur, &c.) in his Cratylus, solves
it thus: that by Jupiter, here is to be understood the soul of
the world, which, according to his theology, was derived from a
perfect and cternal mind, or intellect (which Cronus is inter-
preted to be) as Cronus also depended upon Uranus, or Colus,
the supreme heavenly God, or first original Deity. So that
Plato here finds his Trinity of Divine hypostases, archical and
universal, T'ayalov, Novs, and Yuxn, in Uranus, Cronus,
and Zeus; or Colus, Saturn, and Jupiter ..."-Vol. ii. p. 461.
ones.
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