THE TRINITY.
All fruitful study of the Divine Existence must start from the
affirmation that it is One. All the Sages have thus proclaimed It; every
religion has thus affirmed It; every philosophy thus posits It--"One
only without a second."[255] "Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses, "The Lord
our God is one Lord."[256] "To us there is but one God,"[257] declares
S. Paul. "There is no God but God," affirms the founder of Islam, and
makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence unbounded, known
in Its fulness only to Itself--the word It seems more reverent and
inclusive than He, and is therefore used. That is the Eternal Darkness,
out of which is born the Light.
But as the Manifested God, the One appears as Three. A Trinity of Divine
Beings, One as God, Three as manifested Powers. This also has ever been
declared, and the truth is so vital in its relation to man and his
evolution that it is one which ever forms an essential part of the
Lesser Mysteries.
Among the Hebrews, in consequence of their anthropomorphising
tendencies, the doctrine was kept secret, but the Rabbis studied and
worshipped the Ancient of Days, from whom came forth the Wisdom, from
whom the Understanding--Kether, Chochmah, Binah, these formed the
Supreme Trinity, the shining forth in time of the One beyond time. The
Book of the Wisdom of Solomon refers to this teaching, making Wisdom a
Being. "According to Maurice, 'The first Sephira, who is denominated
Kether the Crown, Kadmon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,[258]
is the omnipotent Father of the universe.... The second is the
Chochmah, whom we have sufficiently proved, both from sacred and
Rabbinical writings, to be the creative Wisdom. The third is the Binah,
or heavenly Intelligence, whence the Egyptians had their Cneph, and
Plato his _Nous Demiurgos_. He is the Holy Spirit who ... pervades,
animates, and governs this boundless universe.'"[259]
The bearing of this doctrine on Christian teaching is indicated by Dean
Milman in his _History of Christianity_. He says: "This Being [the Word
or the Wisdom] was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to
the more popular or more philosophic, the more material or the more
abstract, notions of the age or people. This was the doctrine from the
Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the
fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy;
it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the
Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be
quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first self-existing
Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when
they declared 'that no man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with
this principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures,
instead of direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity,
had interposed either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of
communication. According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S.
Stephen, the law was delivered 'by the disposition of angels'; according
to another this office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called
the Angel of the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others the Metatron. But the
more ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind
of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme."[260]
As above said by the learned Dean, the idea of the Word, the Logos, was
universal, and it formed part of the idea of a Trinity. Among the
Hindus, the philosophers speak of the manifested Brahman as
Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence, Intelligence, and Bliss. Popularly, the
Manifested God is a Trinity; Shiva, the Beginning and the End; Vishnu,
the Preserver; Brahma, the Creator of the Universe. The Zoroastrian
faith presents a similar Trinity; Ahuramazdao, the Great One, the First;
then "the twins," the dual Second Person--for the Second Person in a
Trinity is ever dual, deteriorated in modern days into an opposing God
and Devil--and the Universal Wisdom, Armaiti. In Northern Buddhism we
find Amitabha, the boundless Light; Avalokiteshvara, the source of
incarnations, and the Universal Mind, Mandjusri. In Southern Buddhism
the idea of God has faded away, but with significant tenacity the
triplicity re-appears as that in which the Southern Buddhist takes his
refuge--the Buddha, the Dharma (the Doctrine), the Sangha (the Order).
But the Buddha Himself is sometimes worshipped as a Trinity; on a stone
in Buddha Gaya is inscribed a salutation to Him as an incarnation of the
Eternal One, and it is said: "Om! Thou art Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesha
(Shiva) ... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names and
under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy."[261]
In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription
in the British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth
century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
in Unity already formed part of their religion."[262] This is true of a
far earlier date. Ra, Osiris, and Horus formed one widely worshipped
Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at Abydos; other names
are given in different cities, and the triangle is the frequently used
symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these Trinities,
however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First
God, then the Word, and with Them the Spirit."[263]
In Chaldaea, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China
Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice
every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese
saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty
philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures:
'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and
Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems
to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"[264]
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity we find a complete agreement
with other faiths as to the functions of the three Divine Persons, the
word Person coming from _persona_, a mask, that which covers something,
the mask of the One Existence, Its Self-revelation under a form. The
Father is the Origin and End of all; the Son is dual in His nature, and
is the Word, or the Wisdom; the Holy Spirit is the creative
Intelligence, that brooding over the chaos of primeval matter organises
it into the materials out of which forms can be constructed.
It is this identity of functions under so many varying names which shows
that we have here not a mere outer likeness, but an expression of an
inner truth. There is something of which this triplicity is a
manifestation, something that can be traced in nature and in evolution,
and which, being recognised, will render intelligible the growth of man,
the stages of his evolving life. Further, we find that in the universal
language of symbolism the Persons are distinguished by certain emblems,
and may be recognised by these under diversity of forms and names.
But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave the
exoteric statement of the Trinity--that in connection with all these
Trinities there is a fourth fundamental manifestation, the Power of the
God, and this has always a feminine form. In Hinduism each Person in the
Trinity has His manifested Power, the One and these six aspects making
up the sacred Seven. With many of the Trinities one feminine form
appears, then ever specially connected with the Second Person, and then
there is the sacred Quaternary.
Let us now see the inner truth.
The One becomes manifest as the First Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the
Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best to
express this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to
manifest there can be no manifestation, and until there is Will
manifested, impulse is lacking for further unfoldment. The universe may
be said to be rooted in the divine Will. Then follows the second aspect
of the One--Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is
written that "without Him was not anything made that is made;"[265]
Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen. When the
aspects of Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to
make them effective--Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. A
Jewish prophet writes: "He hath made the earth by His Power, He hath
established the world by His Wisdom; and hath stretched out the heaven
by His Understanding,"[266] the reference to the three functions being
very clear.[267] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects
of One. Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of
clearness, but cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each
is present in each. In the First Being, Will, Power, is seen as
predominant, as characteristic, but Wisdom and Creative Action are also
present; in the Second Being, Wisdom is seen as predominant, but Power
and Creative Action are none the less inherent in Him; in the Third
Being, Creative Action is seen as predominant, but Power and Wisdom are
ever also to be seen. And though the words First, Second, Third are
used, because the Beings are thus manifested in Time, in the order of
Self-unfolding, yet in Eternity they are known as interdependent and
co-equal, "None is greater or less than Another."[268]
This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
He that "was and is and is to come,"[269] and He is the root of the
fundamental triplicity in life, in consciousness.
But we saw that there was a Fourth Person, or in some religions a second
Trinity, feminine, the Mother. This is That which makes manifestation
possible, That which eternally in the One is the root of limitation and
division, and which, when manifested, is called Matter. This is the
divine Not-Self, the divine Matter, the manifested Nature. Regarded as
One, She is the Fourth, making possible the activity of the Three, the
Field of Their operations by virtue of Her infinite divisibility, at
once the "Handmaid of the Lord,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of
Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His
power.[271] Regarded carefully She is seen to be triple also, existing
in three inseparable aspects, without which She could not be. These are
Stability--Inertia or Resistance--Motion, and Rhythm; the fundamental or
essential qualities of Matter, these are called. They alone render
Spirit effective, and have therefore been regarded as the manifested
Powers of the Trinity. Stability or Inertia affords a basis, the fulcrum
for the lever; Motion is then rendered manifest, but could make only
chaos, then Rhythm is imposed, and there is Matter in vibration, capable
of being shaped and moulded. When the three qualities are in
equilibrium, there is the One, the Virgin Matter, unproductive. When the
power of the Highest overshadows Her, and the breath of the Spirit comes
upon Her, the qualities are thrown out of equilibrium, and She becomes
the divine Mother of the worlds.
The first interaction is between Her and the Third Person of the
Trinity; by His action She becomes capable of giving birth to form. Then
is revealed the Second Person, who clothes Himself in the material thus
provided, and thus become the Mediator, linking in His own Person Spirit
and Matter, the Archetype of all forms. Only through Him does the First
Person become revealed, as the Father of all Spirits.
It is now possible to see why the Second Person of the Trinity of Spirit
is ever dual; He is the One who clothes Himself in Matter, in whom the
twin-halves of Deity appear in union, not as one. Hence also is He
Wisdom; for Wisdom on the side of Spirit is the Pure Reason that knows
itself as the One Self and knows all things in that Self, and on the
side of Matter it is Love, drawing the infinite diversity of forms
together, and making each form a unit, not a mere heap of particles--the
principle of attraction which holds the worlds and all in them in a
perfect order and balance. This is the Wisdom which is spoken of as
"mightily and sweetly ordering all things,"[272] which sustains and
preserves the universe.
In the world-symbols, found in every religion, the Point--that which has
position only--has been taken as a symbol of the First Person in the
Trinity. On this symbol St. Clement of Alexandria remarks that we
abstract from a body its properties, then depth, then breadth, then
length; "the point which remains is a unit, so to speak, having
position; from which if we abstract position, there is the conception of
unity."[273] He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a
Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in whom all
exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the
Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power.
This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by
Jeremiah.[274] Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere,
represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is
represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete
vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction
within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also
His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit--a unity in the First
Person--are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is
represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each
other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the
upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.[275]
When the Trinity is represented as a Unity, the Triangle is used,
either inscribed within a circle, or free. The universe is symbolised
by two triangles interlaced, the Trinity of Spirit with the apex of the
triangle upward, the Trinity of Matter with the apex of the triangle
downward, and if colours are used, the first is white, yellow, golden or
flame-coloured, and the second black, or some dark shade.
The kosmic process can now be readily followed. The One has become Two,
and the Two Three, and the Trinity is revealed. The Matter of the
universe is marked out and awaits the action of Spirit. This is the "in
the beginning" of Genesis, when "God created the heaven and the
earth,"[276] a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that
He "laid the foundations of the earth;"[277] we have here the marking
out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."[278]
On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
who "moved upon the face of the waters,"[279] the vast ocean of matter.
Thus His was the first activity, though He was the Third Person--a point
of great importance.
In the Mysteries this work was shown in its detail as the preparation of
the matter of the universe, the formation of atoms, the drawing of these
together into aggregates, and the grouping of these together into
elements, and of these again into gaseous, liquid, and solid compounds.
This work includes not only the kind of matter called physical, but also
all the subtle states of matter in the invisible worlds. He further as
the "Spirit of Understanding" conceived the forms into which the
prepared matter should be shaped, not building the forms, but by the
action of the Creative Intelligence producing the Ideas of them, the
heavenly prototypes, as they are often called. This is the work referred
to when it is written, He "stretched out the heaven by His
Understanding."[280]
The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
His Wisdom "established the world,"[281] building all globes and all
things upon them, "all things were made by Him."[282] He is the
organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[283]
The life of the Son thus manifested in the matter prepared by the Holy
Spirit--again the great "Myth" of the Incarnation--is the life that
builds up, preserves, and maintains all forms, for He is the Love, the
attracting power, that gives cohesion to forms, enabling them to grow
without falling apart, the Preserver, the Supporter, the Saviour. That
is why all must be subject to the Son,[284] all must be gathered up in
Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[285]
For the work of the First Person follows that of the Second, as that of
the Second follows that of the Third. He is spoken of as "the Father of
Spirits,"[286] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"[287] and His is
the gift of the divine Spirit, the true Self in man. The human Spirit
is the outpoured divine Life of the Father, poured into the vessel
prepared by the Son, out of the materials vivified by the Spirit. And
this Spirit in man, being from the Father--from whom came forth the Son
and the Holy Spirit--is a Unity like Himself, with the three aspects in
One, and man is thus truly made "in our image, after our likeness,"[288]
and is able to become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect."[289]
Such is the kosmic process, and in human evolution it is repeated; "as
above, so below."
The Trinity of the Spirit in man, being in the divine likeness, must
show out the divine characteristics, and thus we find in him Power,
which, whether in its higher form of Will or its lower form of Desire,
gives the impulse to his evolution. We find also in him Wisdom, the Pure
Reason, which has Love as its expression in the world of forms, and
lastly Intelligence, or Mind, the active shaping energy. And in man
also we find that the manifestation of these in his evolution is from
the third to the second, and from the second to the first. The mass of
humanity is unfolding the mind, evolving the intelligence, and we can
see its separative action everywhere, isolating, as it were, the human
atoms and developing each severally, so that they may be fit materials
for building up a divine Humanity. To this point only has the race
arrived, and here it is still working.
As we study a small minority of our race, we see that the second aspect
of the divine Spirit in man is appearing, and we speak of it in
Christendom as the Christ in man. Its evolution lies, as we have seen,
beyond the first of the Great Initiations, and Wisdom and Love are the
marks of the Initiate, shining out more and more as he develops this
aspect of the Spirit. Here again is it true that "no man cometh to the
Father but by Me," for only when the life of the Son is touching on
completion can He pray: "Now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own
Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."[290]
Then the Son ascends to the Father and becomes one with Him in the
divine glory; He manifests self-existence, the existence inherent in his
divine nature, unfolded from seed to flower, for "as the Father hath
life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself."[291] He becomes a living self-conscious Centre in the Life of
God, a Centre able to exist as such, no longer bound by the limitations
of his earlier life, expanding to divine consciousness, while keeping
the identity of his life unshaken, a living, fiery Centre in the divine
Flame.
In this evolution now lies the possibility of divine Incarnations in the
future, as this evolution in the past has rendered possible divine
Incarnations in our own world. These living Centres do not lose Their
identity, nor the memory of Their past, of aught that They have
experienced in the long climb upwards; and such a Self-conscious Being
can come forth from the Bosom of the Father, and reveal Himself for the
helping of the world. He has maintained the union in Himself of Spirit
and Matter, the duality of the Second Person--all divine Incarnations in
all religions are therefore connected with the Second Person in the
Trinity--and hence can readily re-clothe Himself for physical
manifestation, and again become Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial
Trinities, "God with us"[292] He has ever been called.
Such a Being, the glorious fruit of a past universe, can come into the
present world with all the perfection of His divine Wisdom and Love,
with all the memory of His past, able by virtue of that memory to be the
perfect Helper of every living Being, knowing every stage because He has
lived it, able to help at every point because He has experienced all.
"In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour
them that are tempted."[293]
It is in the humanity behind Him that lies this possibility of divine
Incarnation; He comes down, having climbed up, in order to help others
to climb the ladder. And as we understand these truths, and something of
the meaning of the Trinity, above and below, what was once a mere hard
unintelligible dogma becomes a living and vivifying truth. Only by the
existence of the Trinity in man is human evolution intelligible, and we
see how man evolves the life of the intellect, and then the life of the
Christ. On that fact mysticism is based, and our sure hope that we shall
know God. Thus have the Sages taught, and as we tread the Path they
show, we find that their testimony is true.