The Triune idea is to be found in the system of almost every nation. All
have their Trinity in Unity, three in one, which can be distinctly
recognised in the cross. The Triad is the male or triple, the
constitution of the three persons of most sacred Trinity forming the
Triune system. In the analysis of the subject by Rawlinson, we find the
Trinity consisted of Asshur or Asher, associated with Anu and Hea or
Hoa. Asshur, the supreme god of the Assyrians, represents the Phallus or
central organ or the Linga, the _membrum virile_. The cognomen Anu was
given to the right testis, while that of Hea designated the left.
It was only natural that Asshur being deified, his appendages should be
deified also. “Beltus,” says Inman, “was the goddess associated with
them, the four together made up Arba or Arba-il, the four great gods,”
the Trinity in Unity. The idea thus broached receives great confirmation
when we examine the particular stress laid in ancient times respecting
the right and left side of the body in connection with the Triad names
given to offspring mentioned in the scriptures with the titles given to
Anu and Hea. The male or active principle was typified by the idea of
“solidity” and “firmness,” and the females or passive by the principles
of “water,” “softness,” and other feminine principles. Thus the goddess
Hea was associated with water, and according to Forlong, the Serpent,
the ruler of the Abyss, was sometimes represented to be the great Hea,
without whom there was no creation or life, and whose godhead embraced
also the female element water.
Rawlinson also gives a similar conclusion, and states as far as he could
determine the third divinity or left side was named Hea, and he
considered this deity to correspond to Neptune. Neptune was the
presiding deity of the deep, ruler of the abyss, and king of the rivers.
As Darwin and his coadjutors teach, mankind, in common with all animal
life, originally sprung from the sea; so physiology teaches that each
individual had origin in a pond of water. The fruit of man is both solid
and fluid. It was natural to imagine that the two male appendages had a
distinct duty, that one formed the infant, the other water in which it
lived, that one generated the male, the other the female offspring; and
the inference was then drawn that water must be feminine, the emblem of
all possible powers of creation.
It will be seen that the names and signification of the gods and their
attributes had no ideal meaning. Thus in Genesis xxx. 13, we find Asher
given as a personality, which signifies “to be straight,” “upright,”
“fortunate,” “happy.” Asher was the supreme god of the Assyrians, the
Vedic Mahadeva, the emblem of the human male structure and creative
energy. The same idea of the creator is still to be seen in India,
Egypt, Phœnicia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Denmark, depicted on
stone relics.
To a rude and ignorant people, enslaved with such a religion, it was an
easy step from the crude to the more refined sign, from the offensive to
a more pictured and less obnoxious symbol, from the plain and
self-evident to the mixed, disguised, and mystified, from the unclothed
privy member to the cross.