are _abstract_ words; “person,” “substance,” “being:” and the numerical
words “One” and “Three,” are all names for very simple ideas; not indeed
(except the two last) having the precision of quantitative and
mathematical terms; but having none of that complexity which would allow
them to _lose any meaning, and yet keep any_; to _change their sense
without forfeiting their identity_. The ideas which we have of these
words are as much within ourselves, and as capable of comparison by our
own consciousness, as the ideas belonging to the words _angle_ and
_triangle_; and when, on hearing the assertion that there are three
persons in one mind or being, I proceed to compare them, I find the word
“person” so far synonymous with the word “mind” or “being,” that the
self-contradiction would not be greater, were it affirmed that there are
three angles in one γωνία—the mere form of speech being varied to hide
the absurdity from eye and ear. To say that our ideas of the words are
wrong, is vain; for the words were invented on purpose to denote these
ideas: and if they are used to denote other ideas, which _we have not_,
they are vacant sounds. To assert that higher beings perceive this
proposition to be true, really amounts to this; that higher beings speak
English, (or at all events not Hebrew, or Hellenistic Greek,) but have
recast the meaning of these terms; and to say that we shall hereafter
find them to be true, is to say that our vocabulary will undergo a
revolution; and words used now to express one set of ideas, will
hereafter express some other. Meanwhile, to our present minds all these
future notions are nonentities; and using the words in question in the
only sense they have, they declare a plain logical contradiction. Hence,
every attempt to give consistency to the statement of the Trinity, has
broken out into a heresy; and the Indwelling and the Swedenborgian
schemes, the model Trinity of Wallis and Whately, the tritheistic
doctrine of Dr. W. Sherlock, are so many results of the rash propensity
to seek for clear ideas in a form of unintelligible or contradictory
speech. Σαφὴς ἔλεγχος ἀπιστίας τὸ πῶς περὶ Θεοῦ λέγειν.
---------------------
B.
_On the Hebrew Plural Elohim._
The perseverance with which this argument from the Hebrew plural is
repeated, only proves the extent to which learning may be degraded into
the service of a system. The use of a noun, plural in form, but singular
in sense, and the subject of a singular verb, to denote the dignity of
the person named by the noun, is known to be an idiom common to all the
Semitic languages. Every one who can read a Hebrew Bible is aware that
this peculiarity is not confined to the name of God; and that it occurs
in many passages, which render absurd the inference deduced from it. For
instance, from Ezek. xxix. 3, it would follow that there is a plurality
of natures or “distinctions” in the crocodile, the name of which is
there found in the plural, with a singular adjective and singular
verb;—התנים הגדול הרבץ בתוך יאריו, “The great crocodile that lieth in
the midst of his rivers.” So in Gen. xxiv. 51, the plural form אדונים,
Lord, so constantly used of a human individual, is applied to Abraham:
ותחי אשה לבו אדוניך, “And she shall be a wife to the son of thy
_masters_,” _i.e._, thy _master_ Abraham. It is unnecessary to multiply
instances, which any Hebrew Concordance will supply in abundance. I
subjoin one or two additional authorities from eminent Hebraists, whose
theological impartiality is above suspicion.
Schroeder says, “Hebræi sermonis proprietas, quâ Pluralis, tam
masculinus, quam femininus, usurpari potest de _unâ re_, quæ in suo
genere magna est et quodammodo excellens; ut ימים, _maria_, pro _mari
magno_; תנים, _dracones_, pro _dracone prægrandi_; אדונים, _domini_, pro
_domino magno et potente_; אלהים, _numina_, pro _numine admodum
colendo_; קדשׁים, _sancti_, pro _deo sanctissimo_; בהמות, _bestiæ_, pro
_bestiâ grandi_, qualis est _elephas_; מכות _plagæ_, pro _plagâ gravi_;
נהרותּ, _flumina_, pro _flumine magno_.” N. G. Schroederi Institutiones
ad fundamm. ling. Hebr. Reg. 100. not. i.
Simonis. “Plur. adhibetur de Deo vero; ad insinuandam, ut multis visum
est, personarum divinarum pluralitatem; quod etiam alii, maxime Judæi
rectè negant: quoniam vel ibi in plurali ponitur, ubi ex mente
Theologorum de unâ modo triadis sacræ personâ sermo est, velut Ps. xlv.
7, adeoque gentium unus aliquis deus pluraliter אלהים dicitur, ut
Astarte 1 Reg. xi. 33; Baal muscarum et quidem is, qui Ekronæ colebatur
2, Reg. i. 2, 3. Denique sanctam triadem si אלהים significasset, multo
notior usuque adeo linguæ quotidiano tritior sub prisco fœdere hæc
doctrina fuisset, quam sub novo. Ex nostrâ sententiâ hic plur. indicio
est, linguam Hebræam sub Polytheismo adolevisse; eo vero profligato
plur. hic in sensum abiit majestatis et dignitatis.” Eichhorn’s Joh.
Simonis’ Lexicon Hebr. in verb. אלה, p. 120.
Buxtorf. אלהים, plurale pro singulari: Lex Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et
Rabbinicum; in verb.
Gesenius. אלהים _pluralis excellentiæ_: Gott, von der Einheit; wie
בעלים, אדנים. Hebr. und Chald. Handwörterbuch: in verb.
Even Lewis Capel, in his defence of this verbal indication of the
Trinity, admits the absurdity of using the argument with
Anti-trinitarians: “Siquis ergo vellet adversus Judæos, Samosatenianos,
aliosque sanctissimæ Trinitatis præfractos hostes, urgere hoc
argumentum, eoque uno et nudo uti, frustra omnino esset: ni prius
demonstraret falsam esse quam illi causantur phraseos istius rationem,
evinceretque eam in voce istâ אלהים locum habere non posse: _quod forte
non usque adeo facile demonstrari posset_. Atque eatenus tantùm jure
possunt suggillari Theologi, si argumento illo nudo, et solo, non aliâ
ratione fulto, utantur ad Judæos et Samosatenianos coarguendos et
convincendos; non vero si eo utantur ad piorum fidem jam ante aliunde
stabilitam, porro augendam atque fovendam.” Lud. Cappelli Critica Sacra.
De nom. אלהים Diatriba. c. vii. Ed. 1650, p. 676.
May we ask of our learned opponents, _how long_ the mysterious contents
of this plural have been ascertained? Who was the discoverer, forgotten
now by the ingratitude of Learning, but doubtless living still in the
more faithful memory of Orthodoxy? And why those of the Christian
Fathers, who devoted themselves to Hebrew literature, were not permitted
to discern the Trinitarianism of the Israelitish syntax? They had not
usually so dull an eye for verbal wonders.
The celebrated Brahmin, Rammohun Roy, whose knowledge of oriental
languages can be as little disputed, I presume, as the singular
greatness and simplicity of his mind, says: “It could scarcely be
believed, if the fact were not too notorious, that such eminent scholars
... could be liable to such a mistake, as to rely on this verse (Gen. i.
26. And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness,) as
a ground of argument in support of the Trinity. It shows how easily
prejudice, in favour of an already acquired opinion, gets the better of
learning.” And he proceeds to argue on “the idiom of the Hebrew, Arabic,
and of almost all Asiatic languages, in which the plural number is often
used for the singular to express the respect due to the person denoted
by the noun.” Rammohun Roy was, I believe, the first to call attention
to the fact, obvious to any one who will read a few pages of the Koran,
that Mohammed, whose belief in the strict personal Unity of the Divine
Nature gave the leading feature to his religion, constantly represents
God as speaking in these plural forms. I extract a few instances from
Sale’s Koran. Lond. 1734:
“God said; when _we_ said unto the angels, worship Adam,” &c.
“God said; and _we_ said, O Adam, dwell thou,” &c.—Ch. ii. p. 31.
“_We_ formerly created man of a finer sort of clay; ... and _we_ have
created over you seven heavens; and _we_ are not negligent of what _we_
have created: and _we_ send down rain from heaven by measure; and _we_
cause it to remain on the earth,” &c. “And _we_ revealed _our_ orders
unto him, saying; ... speak not unto _me_ in behalf of those who have
been unjust.” “God will say, did ye think that _we_ had created you in
sport,” &c.—Ch. xxiv. pp. 281, 282, 287.
In the very passages in which Mohammed condemns the doctrine of the
Trinity, the same form abounds: “_We_ have prepared for such of them as
are unbelievers a painful punishment.” “_We_ have revealed our will unto
thee.” “_We_ have given thee the Koran, as _we_ gave the psalms to
David.” “O ye who have received the Scriptures, exceed not the just
bounds in your religion; neither say of God any other than the truth.
Verily Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his
Word, which he conveyed into Mary, and a spirit proceeding from him.
Believe therefore in God and his apostles, and say not, There are three
Gods: forbear this; it will be better for you. God is but one God. Far
be it from him that he should have a Son! Unto him belongeth whatsoever
is in heaven and on earth.”—Ch. iv. pp. 80, 81.
---------------------
C.
_On the Prophecy of an “Immanuel.”_
For the Interpretation which identifies “the Virgin” with the city of
Jerusalem, I am indebted to Rammohun Roy, who has justified it by
reasons which appear to me satisfactory. See his Second Appeal to the
Christian Public. Appendix II. Calcutta, 1821, p. 128 seqq. The use of
the definite article with the word (העלמה) points out _the_ Virgin as
some _known object_, who would be recognized by King Ahaz, without
further description. It will hardly be maintained that this prince was
so familiar with evangelical futurities, as to understand the phrase of
Mary of Nazareth. Nor does it seem at all likely that either the
prophet’s wife, or any other person not previously the subject of
discourse, should be thus obscurely and abruptly described. But if “the
Virgin” was a well-understood mode of speaking of Jerusalem, Ahaz would
be at no loss to interpret the allusion. And that this metaphor was one
of the common-places of Hebrew speech, in the time of the prophets,
might be shown from every part of their writings. “Thou shalt be built,
_O virgin of Israel_; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and
shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.”[264] “Then shall
_the_ _Virgin_ rejoice in the dance.”[265] “The Lord hath trodden the
Virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press.”[266] And Isaiah
himself uses this expression respecting a foreign city: “Thou shalt no
more rejoice, O thou oppressed Virgin, daughter of Sidon.”[267] And
expressing to the invader Sennacherib, the contempt which God authorized
Jerusalem to entertain for his threats, he says, “_The Virgin_, the
daughter of Zion, hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn.”[268]
It should he remembered, however, that the establishment of this
interpretation is by no means necessary to the proof of invalidity in
the Trinitarian application of the prophecy. The reasons which I have
adduced, together with the use in a neighbouring passage, of the phrase
“over the breadth of _thy land_, O Immanuel,”[269] appear to me to point
out some _prince_ as the Virgin’s Son. But many eminent interpreters
consider him as only one of the Prophet’s own children, “whom the Lord
had given him, for signs and for wonders in Israel.”[270] And the first
four verses of the next chapter certainly speak of Isaiah’s son in a
manner so strikingly similar, as to give a strong support to this
interpretation. But whatever obscurity there may be in the passage, the
one clear certainty in it is this: that it does _not_ refer to any
person to be born seven or eight hundred years after the delivery of the
prediction. And it is surely unworthy of any educated Theologian,
possessing a full knowledge of the embarrassments attending the
Trinitarian appeal to such texts, still to reiterate that appeal,
without any specification of the mode in which he proposes to sustain
it. Is it maintained that Jesus of Nazareth was the primary object of
the prophecy? Or will any one be found deliberately to defend the
hypothesis of a double sense? Or must we fear, that a lax and
unscrupulous use is often made of allusions which sound well in the
popular ear, without any distinct estimate of their real argumentative
value?
It is no doubt convenient to cut the knot of every difficulty by the
appeal to inspiration; to say, _e.g._, that Matthew applies the word
Emmanuel to Christ, and with a correctness which his infallibility
forbids us to impeach. But are our opponents prepared to abide by this
rule, to prove its truth, to apply it, without qualification, to the New
Testament citations from the Hebrew Scriptures? Will they, for instance,
find and expound, for the benefit of the church, the prophecy stated by
Matthew to have been fulfilled in Jesus, “He shall be called a
Nazarene?”[271] The words are declared to have been “spoken by the
prophets.” But they are not discoverable in any of the canonical
prophecies: so that _either_ the Evangelist took them from some inspired
work now lost,—in which case the canon is imperfect, and Christianity is
deprived of the benefit of certain predictions intended for its support;
_or_, he has cited them so incorrectly from our existing Scriptures,
that the quotation cannot be identified. I cannot refrain from
expressing my amazement, that those, whose constant duty it is to
expound the New Testament writings should be conscious of no danger to
their authority, when it is strained so far as to include an infallible
interpretation of the Older Scriptures.
---------------------
D.
_On Isaiah_ ix. 6.
The translation of this passage is not unattended with difficulties: and
many of the versions which learned men have proposed leave nothing on
which the Trinitarian argument can rest. It is clear that divines ought
to establish the meaning of the verse, before they reason from its
theology. I subjoin a few of the most remarkable translations.
The Septuagint; “And his name shall be called ‘Messenger of a great
counsel;’ for I will bring peace upon the rulers, and health to him.”
The Targum of Jonathan; “And by the Wonderful in counsel, by the Mighty
God who endureth for ever, his name shall be called the Messiah (the
anointed), in whose days peace shall be multiplied upon us.” The
following allusion to the titles in this passage from Talmud Sanhedrim,
11 ch., will show to whom they were applied by Jewish commentators: “God
said, let Hezekiah, who has five names, take vengeance on the king of
Assyria, who has taken on himself five names also.”
Grotius; “Wonderful; Counsellor of the Mighty God; Father of the future
age; Prince of Peace.”
Editor of Calmet; “Admirable, Counsellor, Divine Interpreter, Mighty,
Father of Future time, Prince of Peace.”
Bishop Lowth; “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of the
everlasting age, the Prince of Peace.”
Many other translations might be added: and even if the prophecy were
not obviously spoken of Hezekiah, we might reasonably ask, what
doctrinal certainty can be found in so uncertain an announcement? And
how is the fact accounted for that, important as it was to the apostles’
success to make the largest possible use of their ancient scriptures,
not one of them ever alludes to this prediction?
---------------------
E.
_On the Proem of John._
The objection which is most commonly entertained to the foregoing
interpretation of the Proem of St. John’s Gospel, arises from the
_strength and vividness_ of the personification of the Logos. A _real
personality_, it is said, must be assumed, in order to satisfy the terms
of the description, which could never have been applied by the apostle
to a mere mental creation.
I am by no means insensible to the force of this objection: though I
think it of less weight than the difficulties which beset every other
explanation. And it appears to be greatly relieved by two
considerations; first, that a considerable part of the difficulty arises
from a want of correspondence between the Greek and the English usage of
language; secondly, that this personification did not originate with the
apostle, but had become, by slow and definable gradations, an
established formula of speech.
1. The first of these considerations I will introduce to my readers in
the words of Archbishop Whately: “Our language possesses one remarkable
advantage, with a view to this kind of Energy, in the constitution of
its _genders_. All nouns in English, which express objects that are
really neuter, are considered as strictly of the neuter gender; the
Greek and Latin, though possessing the advantage (which is wanting in
the languages derived from them) of having a neuter gender, yet lose the
benefit of it, by fixing the masculine or feminine genders upon many
nouns denoting things inanimate; whereas in English, when we speak of
any such object in the masculine or feminine gender, that form of
expression at once confers _personality_ upon it. When ‘Virtue,’ _e.g._
or our ‘Country’ are spoken of as females, or ‘Ocean’ as a male, &c.,
they are, by that very circumstance, _personified_; and a stimulus is
thus given to the imagination, from the very circumstance that in calm
discussion or description, all of these would be neuter; whereas in
Greek or Latin, as in French or Italian, no such distinction could be
made. The employment of ‘_Virtus_,’ and Ἀρετὴ in the feminine gender,
can contribute, accordingly, no animation to the style, when they could
not, without a solecism, be employed otherwise.”[272]
Now let any one read the English Proem of John, and ask himself, _how
much_ of the appearance of personality is due to the occurrence, again
and again, of the pronouns “he,” “him,” “his,” applied to the Logos; let
him remember that _this much_ is a mere imposition practised unavoidably
upon him by the idiom of our language, and “_gives no animation to the
style_” in the original; and I am persuaded that the violence of the
personification will be tamed down to the apprehension of a very
moderate imagination. It is true that the Logos does not, by this
allowance, become impersonal; other parts of the personal conception
remain, in the _acts_ of creation and of illumination, attributed to
this Divine Power: and hence the substitution of the neuter pronouns
“it” and “its;” for the masculines “he,” “him,” “his,” though useful,
provisionally, for shaking off the English illusion to which I have
referred, cannot be allowed to represent the sentiment of the passage
faithfully.
There appears to be another peculiarity of our language and modes of
thought, as contrasted with the Greek, which exaggerates, in the Common
Translation, the force of the personification. The English language
leaves to an author a free choice of either gender for his
personifications: and the practical effect of this has been, that the
_feminine_ prosopopeia has been selected as most appropriate to abstract
qualities and attributes of the mind; and although instances are not
wanting of masculine representations of several of the human passions,
the figure is felt, in such cases, to be much more vehement and more
entirely beyond the limits of prose, than the employment of the other
gender. What imagination would naturally think of Pity, of Fear, of Joy,
of Genius, of Hope, as _male beings_? It may be doubted whether our most
imaginative prose writers present any example of a male personification
of an _attribute_: I can call to mind instances in the writings of
Milton and Jeremy Taylor, of this figure so applied to certain _material
objects_, as the Sun, the Ocean, but not to _abstract qualities or
modes_, unless when a conception is borrowed (as of “Old Time”) from the
ancient mythology. And accordingly, to an English reader, such a style
of representation must always appear forced and strange. But a writer in
a language like the Greek cannot choose the sex of his personifications;
it is decided for him, by the gender already assigned to the
abstraction, about which he is occupied; and both he and his readers
must accommodate their conceptions to this idiomatic necessity. In the
German, the _Moon_ is masculine; the _Sun_ feminine; and every reader of
that language knows the strange incongruities which, to English
perceptions, this peculiarity introduces into its poetical imagery. For
example, there is a German translation of Mrs. Barbauld’s Hymns in
prose; a passage of which, rendered literally into English would read
thus: “I will show you what is glorious. The Sun is glorious. When She
shineth in the clear sky, when She sitteth on the bright throne in the
heavens, and looketh abroad over all the earth, She is the most
excellent and glorious creature the eye can behold. The Sun is glorious;
but He that made the Sun is more glorious than She.” Again; “There is
the Moon, bending His bright horns, like a silver bow, and shedding His
mild light, like liquid silver, over the blue firmament.” In the Greek
literature, accordingly, the masculine personification of abstractions
is as easy and common as the feminine; and the former occurs in many
instances in which an English author, having free choice, would prefer
the latter: thus in Homer, Fear is a son of Mars:
Οἷος δὲ βροτολοιγὸς Ἄρης πόλεμόνδε μέτεισι,
Τῷ δὲ Φόβος, φίλος υἱὸς, ἅμα κρατερὸς καὶ ἀταρβὴς,
Ἕσπετο.[273]
But in Collins, a nymph:
“O Fear! ...
Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
Where wilt thou rest, mad nymph! at last?”[274]
And so in Coleridge:
“Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout
Diminish’d shrunk from the more withering scene.”[275]
Pindar must make Envy a masculine power:
“Μὴ βαλέτω με λίθῳ τραχεῖ φθόνος.”[276]
Coleridge thus describes the same feeling, giving itself speech:
“... Shall Slander squatting near,
Spit her cold venom in a dead man’s ear?”[277]
And common as it is for English writers to give a feminine
personification to Wisdom and Genius, Philo expressly says they are of
the masculine gender (τῆς ἄῤῥενος γενεᾶς νοῦς καὶ λογισμὸς);[278] and
the husband of the other faculties of the soul.
The divine attributes are, I think, uniformly represented by the pronoun
_she_, in imaginative religious writers, like Bishop Taylor; mercy,
justice, goodness, thus assume, in the works of that great man, the same
form as Wisdom in the book of Proverbs; and it may be doubted whether,
if the apostle John had written in the English language and with English
feelings, the personification in his proem might not have presented
itself in the same shape. Any one who will read over the passage, with
this idea, will find, I think, that the figure, thus modified, appears
by no means inconceivable. Have we not, in the peculiarity of our
language to which I have alluded, one reason why English theologians
appear to have felt more difficulty than foreign divines in seizing the
true idea of the Logos; and why the disposition to consider it as an
objective and absolute Person has been much more prevalent among all
parties here, than on the Continent?