This conclusion however, that the Pagan doctrine of triads originated in a primitive revelation, though to our minds irresistably strong, is very far from being admitted by our opponents. There was a time when the policy pursued was to deny the existence of any other than an imaginary resemblance between the Pagan and Christian triads. "Thus have I given," says Dr. Priestly, "the best view that I have been able to collect of every thing that can be supposed to constitute the Trinity of Plato, from his own writings: without finding in them any resemblance to the Christian Trinity, or indeed to any proper personification of the Divine Logos, which has been made the second person in it."*

The discovery however, has now been made, that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was first introduced into the Christian system by certain of the early fathers, who, by their too great fondness for the philosophical learning of Gentilism, corrupted Christianity, in respect to the tenets of Christ's godhead and the Trinity, Justin Martyr being commonly set down as the ringleader of the innovators. The other Fathers chiefly implicated in this serious charge, are Ireneus, Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. The opportunity being thus afforded for imputing to the doctrine of the Trinity a Pagan origin and character, the heathen triads were benceforward acknowledged to be, not only essentially analogous to, but the very sources and origin of the Christian doctrine.

Such is the hypothesis. Is there then, we would ask, any foundation for this assertion in the writings of these Fathers? If indebted for such important truth to the Gentile philosophers, to whose works they had been devotedly attached, we may expect to hear them speak of them with gratitude and praise.. If, however, on the contrary, we find them in the face of all the shame, reproach and persecution to which their belief of this doctrine subjected them; if we find them treating these

*Hist. of Early Opin. Book i., ch. 6: Works. vol. 6, p. 164. "A similar statement occurs also, in Dr. Priestley's Letters to Bishop Horsley. As to the Trinity of Plato, (says he,) it was certainly a thing very unlike your Athanasian doctrine. For, it was never imagined that the three component members of that Trinity were, either equal to each other, or (strictly speaking) one."

philosophers with contempt, and tracing up their views to the Hebrew Scriptures, as the only pure foundations of primitive revelation, then we may feel assured that this hypothesis is gratuitous; unwarranted by the facts, and framed only as a subterfuge from the overwhelming power of the universal belief of this doctrine by the Fathers, as a proof of the primitive revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Let us, then, hear what Justin Martyr says, "You will adduce," says he to the Greeks, "the wise men and the philosophers: for to these, as to a strong hold, you are wont to make your escape, whenever concerning the Gods, any twits you with the opinion of the poets. Wherefore, since it is fitting to begin with the first and the most ancient, commencing with them I will shew: that the speculation of each philosopher is still more ridiculous than even the theology of the poets.* He then proceeds in regular succession, through the several opinions of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagorus, Archelaus, Pythagorus, Epicurus, Empedocles, Plato and Aristotle, for the purpose of convicting them all of manifest and indisputable folly. With respect to Plato in particular, nothing can be more contemptuous than Justin's sneer at him. "Plato forsooth, is as sure that the Supreme Deity exists in a fiery substance, as if he had come down from above, and had accurately learned and seen all the things that are in Heaven."+

"Since," continues he to the Greeks, "it is impossible to learn from your teachers anything true respecting piety towards God, inasmuch as their very difference of opinion is a plain proof of their ignorance; I deem it an obvious consequence, that we should return to our own forefathers, who are of much higher antiquity than any of your teachers, who have taught us nothing from their own mere phantasy; who among themselves have no discrepancies, and who attempt not mutually to overturn the opinion of each other, but who, without wrangling and disputation, communicate to us that knowledge which they have received from God. For, neither by nature,

* Justin ad Græc. Cohort, Oper. p. 3. + Ibid. p. 4.

nor by human intellect, is it possible for men to attain the knowledge of such great and divine matters, but only by the gift which descends from above, upon holy men who needed not the arts of eloquence, or the faculty of subtle disputation, but who judged it solely necessary to preserve themselves pure by the efficacious energy of the Divine Spirit."*

Equally vituperative is the language of Tertullian. "For the authors of our Theology," says he, "we have the apostles of the Lord; who, not even themselves, arbitrarily chose what they would introduce, but who faithfully delivered to the nations that discipline which they received from Christ. Finally, heresies themselves, are suborned from philosophy. Thence spring those fables and endless genealogies, and unfruitful questions and discourses, creeping like gangrene, from which the Apostle would rein us back by charging us, even in so many words, to beware of philosophy. What then is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem, between the Academy and the Church, between Heretics and Christians? Our institution is from the porch of Solomon, who, himself, has admonished us to seek the Lord in simplicity of heart. Let those persons see to it, who have brought forward a stoical, or a Platonic, or a dialectic Christianity."+ "From the Prophets and from Christ, we are instructed in regard to God; not from the Philosophers nor Epicurus. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise. Through this simplicity of the truth, directly contrary to subtiloquence and philosophy, we can savour nothing perverse."+

* Justin Cohort, Oper. p. 67.

Tertull. Adv. Marcion, Lib. ii., § 13, Oper. p. 181.

Tertull. Adv. Marcion, Lib. v., § 40, Oper. p. 328. Stillingfleet, in his work on the Trinity, replies to this objection as follows: (p. 213-215.) "But our Unitarians have an answer ready for these men, viz., that they came out of Plato's school with the tincture of his three principles; and they sadly complain, that Platonism had very early corrupted the Christian faith as to these matters. In answer to which exception, I have only one postulatum to make, which is, that these were honest men, and knew their own minds best, and I shall make it appear, that none can more positively declare, than they do, that they did not take up these notions from Plato, but from the Holy Scriptures; Justin Martyr saith he took the foundation of his faith from thence, and that he could find no certain

It is thus apparent that the very witnesses produced by the Unitarians to prove the Pagan origin of the doctrine of the Trinity, reject such imputation with scorn for its foolishness, and actually give their testimony in favour of its origin in a primitive Divine revelation. But this is not all. These witnesses go further and charge home upon those who had endeavoured to suborn and pervert their testimony, the introduction of their errors from that very Pagan philosophy to which they would daringly and blasphemously ascribe the origin of the Christian Trinity.

To this purpose speaks the venerable Irenæus, who yet, by Dr. Priestly, has been accused in conjunction with Justin and sundry others, his contemporaries, of introducing the doctrine of the Logos from the schools of the philosophers into the system of Christianity. "Heretics (says Irenæus,) are not only convicted of stealty as to God and religion anywhere else; that he thinks Plato took his three principles from Moses; and in his dialogue with Trypho, he at large, proves the eternity of the Son of God from the Scriptures, and said he would use no other arguments, for he pretended to no skill but in the Scriptures, which God had enabled him to understand.

Athenagoras declares, that where the philosophers agreed with them, their faith did not depend on them, but on the testimony of the Prophets, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost. To the same purpose speaks Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, who asserts the co-eternity of the Son with the Father, from the beginning of St. John's Gospel, and saith their faith is built on the Scriptures..

Clemens, of Alexandria, owns, not only the essential attributes of God to belong to the Son, but that there is one Father of all, and one Word over all, and one Holy Ghost, who is everywhere, and he thinks Plato borrowed his three principles from Moses; that his second was the Son, and his third the Holy Spirit. Even Origen himself, highly commends Moses above Plato, in his most undoubted writings, and saith, that Numenius went beyond Plato, and that he borrowed out of the Scriptures; and so he saith, Plato did in other places; but he adds, that doctrines were better delivered in Scripture, than in his artificial dialogues. Can any one that hath the least reverence for writers of such authority and zeal for the Christian doctrine, imagine that they wilfully corrupted it in one of the chief articles of it, and brought in new speculations against the sense of those books, which at the same time, they professed to be the only rule of their faith Even where they speak most favourably of the Platonic trinity, they suppose it to be borrowed from Moses. And therefore Numenius said, that Moses and Plato did not differ about the first principles; and Theodoret mentions Numenius as one of those who said, Plato understood the Hebrew doctrine in Egypt; and during his thirteen years stay there, it is hardly possible to suppose, he should be ignorant of the Hebrew doctrine, about the first principles, which he was so inquisitive after, especially among nations who pretended to antiquity.”

VOL. IX.-No. 1.

ing from the comic writers, but they likewise collect together the sayings of all those who are ignorant of God, and who are called philosophers. Out of these numerous, vile, borrowed rags, they industriously patch up a sort of cento; and thus through the introduction of a new doctrine, they prepare themselves with subtle eloquence, a system superficially plausible."*

Exactly similar also, are the repeated declarations of Tertullian. "Turning from the Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Portico, Hermogenes has thence borrowed from the Stoics the phantasy of conjoining matter with the Deity. For, matter, he contends, always existed; being neither born, nor made, nor having either beginning or end: and out of this God afterwards created all things."+

"In good truth, (adds Tertullian,) I grieve to say that Plato has become the universal seasoner of heretics. Since then, those matters, which heretics borrow, are insinuated by Plato, I shall sufficiently confute heretics, if I demolish the argument of Plato. Philosophers are the patriarchs of heretics." "Finally, (adds he,) heresies themselves are suborned from philosophy."§

Cyril of Alexandria, makes similar remarks. "Porphyry, expounding the sentiment of Plato, sayeth, that the essence of God proceeds even to three hypostases, but that the Supreme God is "the Supreme Good," and that after him, the second is, the prime Opificer or Creator; moreover, that the third is, the mundane soul, (or universal spirit.) For, the Divinity extended itself to the soul of the universe. This Platonic trinity Cyril refutes, as that which is the spawn and seed to Arianism.”

Athanasius also charged upon the Arians two things as Gnostic and Valentinian, which undoubtedly, are so:** one was their bringing in, will, (1) between the Father and his word; another was their creature Creator. (2) Philastrius (3) farther charges them with having borrowed another principle from the infamous Apelles, (of the

*Iren. Adv. Hær. Lib. ii., c. 19, sec. 2, p. 117. Tertull. Adv. Hermog. sec. 1, Oper. p. 335. Oper. p. 659. || Ibid. p. 339. See Dr. Waterland's Second 608. (2) Athan Orat. ii., p. 489.

Tertull. Adv. Hær. sec. 2, Oper. p. 97. Defence, vol. iii., p. 289. (1) Athan, p. (3) Philastrius Hæres, cap. 47.