PAGAN ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRINITY.
THE Roman Catholic writers themselves confess that the Pagans believed
in Trinity; also the most of the self-called Protestant Orthodox
historians and authors. The neutral authors are unanimous on this point.
The following facts and proofs we shall impartially extract from those
three classes of writers:
The Egyptians believed in Trinity; the Greek inscription of the great
Obelisk of the major circus, at Rome, reads thus: Megas Theos, the great
god, Theogentos, the begotten of god; and Pamphegges, the all-bright,
(Apollo, the Spirit.) Heraclide, of Pont, and Porphyre relate a famous
oracle of Serapis: Prota Theos, metepeita logos, kai pneuma soun autois.
Sumphuta de tria panta, kai eis en eonta. [Translation:] All is God in
the beginning; then the word and the spirit; three Gods coengendered
together and united in one.
The Chaldeans had a sort of Trinity in their Metris, Oromasis, and
Araminis, or Mithra, Oromase and Aramine. The Chinese had also, and
still have, a mysterious Trinity. The first god generates the second
one, and both generate the third one. The Chinese say that the great
term, or great unity, contains three, one is three, and three are one.
In India Trinity was immemorially known. The Father Jesuit Calmet
writes: "What I have seen mostly surprising is a text extracted from
Lamaastambam, one of the books of the Indians.... It begins thus: The
Lord, the good, the great God, in his mouth is the word. (The term which
they use personifies the word.) Then it speaks of the Holy Spirit in
these words: Ventus seu spiritus perfectus; [translation] breath or
perfect spirit,--and it ends by the creation, ascribing it to God
alone."
The Jesuit Calmet says, writing about the Thibetans: "I learned the
following about their religion. They call God Konciosa, and they seem to
have some idea of the adorable Trinity; for they call God sometimes
Konsikosick, God-one, and at other times Kocioksum, God-three. They use
a kind of bead on which they pronounce these words: _om_, _ha_, _hum_.
When they are asked the explanation, they answer that _om_ signifies the
intelligence, or arm, namely power; that _ha_ is the word; that _hum_ is
the heart or love, and that these three words signify God."
The Father Bouchet, a Roman Catholic missionary in India, wrote the
following to the bishop of Avranches: "I commence by the confused idea
which the Indians preserve about the adorable Trinity. My Lord, I have
spoken to you of the three principal deities of the Indians, Bruma,
Wishnou, and Routren. The greater portion of the people say, it is true,
that they are three different gods, and really separate. But several
Nianigneuls, or spiritual men, assure that these three gods, apparently
distinct, compose in reality but one god: that this god is called Bruma,
when he creates and exercises his all-power; that he is called Wishnou,
when he preserves the created beings, and does them good; and that,
finally, he takes the name of Routren, when he destroys the cities,
chastises the wicked, and makes men feel his just anger."
English missionaries have found at Otaïti some traces of the Trinity
among the religious dogmas of the natives.
Plato refers to this doctrine in several passages of his works. "Not
only," says Dacier in his translation, "it is believed that he knew
about the Word, eternal Son of God; but also that he knew about the Holy
Spirit, for he thus writes to the young Denis:
"'I must declare to Archedemus what is much more precious and more
divine, and which you so eagerly desire to know; for you sent him to me
for this express purpose. According to what he told me, you think that I
have not sufficiently explained to you my opinion about the first
Principle, therefore I shall write it to you, enigmatically, however, in
order that, if my epistle is intercepted at sea or on land, he who will
read it will be unable to understand it. All things are around their
king; they exist through him, and he is the only cause of good things,
second for the second things, and third for the third things.'
"In the Epinomis," continues Dacier, "Plato establishes as Principle,
the first good, the Word, or intelligence and the soul. The first good
is God;... the Word, or intelligence, is the son of this first good, who
begets him similar to himself; and the soul, which is the term between
the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit."
Plato had borrowed this doctrine about Trinity from Timee of Locre, who
held it from the Italian philosophical school. Marsile Ficin, in one of
his remarks on Plato, shows from the testimonies of Jamblic, Porphyre,
Plato and Maxim of Tyr, that the Pythagoricians knew also the excellence
of the Ternary; Pythagoras himself indicated it in this symbol: Protima
to Schema, kai Bema, kai Triobolon. The Jesuit Kirker, dissenting about
the unity and trinity of the first Principle, traces vestiges of the
doctrine of Trinity up to Pythagoras, and to the Egyptians.
St. Augustine himself, though the staunchest defender of the dogma of
Trinity, confessed that, among all the nations of the world, a Trinity,
nearly similar to the one he believed in, had been held. He added that
the Pythagoricians, the Platonicians, and that a great number of
Atlantes, Lybian, Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, Scythian, Gallenses, and
Hibernian philosophers, held several dogmas about the unity of the God,
Light, and Good, in common with the Church of Rome.
Macrobe gives us a summary of ancient or Platonician theology, which
contains a true Trinity, of which that of the Papists and of the
self-called Protestant Orthodox is but a copy. According to this
summary, the world has been formed by the universal soul: this soul is
the same as their spiritus, or spirit. They also call the Holy Spirit
Creator: "Veni Creator spiritus," etc., [translation,] Come Spirit
Creator, etc., (Catholic hymn.) Macrobe adds, that from this spirit or
soul the intelligence, which he calls _men's_ proceeds. Is this not the
Father, the Son, or wisdom, and the Spirit that creates and vivifies
all? Even is not the expression _to proceed_ common to the ancient and
to the Papist and Protestant Orthodox Churches in the filiation of the
first three beings?
Macrobe goes farther. He recalls the three Principles to a primitive
unit, who is the sovereign God. After resting his theory on this Trinity
he adds: "You see how this unit, or original monade of the first cause,
is preserved entire and indivisible up to the soul, or spirit, which
animates the world." This testimony of Macrobe has so much more bearing,
that he wrote in the beginning of the fifth century; that he was the
first Chamberlain of the emperor Theodose, and was the most learned
antiquarian of that age.
Another most important fact we shall record. It is beyond any doubt
that before the coming of Jesus Christ the Jews did not hold the dogma
of Trinity, nor do they now. Their Rabbins, and all the Roman Catholic
theologians, agree on this point.
During the first three centuries of the Christian era the dogma of
Trinity was not generally believed. The Simonians, the Nicholaïtes, the
Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Carpocratians, the Ophites, the
Sethians, all the Gnostics, and many other Christian sects rejected it.
It was only in the fourth century, that Arius and the above sects were
condemned in the council of Nice, because they denied the divinity of
Jesus Christ. This council was assembled by the order of the emperor
Constantine I., who was urged to it by the Bishop of Rome, (or Pope,)
whose Church held the dogma of Trinity. As a matter of course the
bishops of the council had to decide according to the will of those two
leaders; for Constantine threatened them with deposition and exile: in
fact he banished Arius, and deposed seventeen bishops, who did not
subscribe to the decision of the council.
The doctrine that Jesus Christ was not God himself was so generally
spread, and so deeply rooted in the minds, that several successors of
Constantine I. embraced Arianism; and it was only after centuries that
Arianism, which was spread nearly all over the East, was crushed by the
papal and the imperial power.
Now let us draw our conclusions. Since the Jews had no knowledge of the
dogma of Trinity, the Church of Rome could not borrow it from them;
since the generality of the Christian sects during the first three
centuries did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Church of
Rome did not find the dogma of Trinity in the Gospel; (besides, the
Catholic theologians never pretended that the Scriptures teach it--they
simply pretended, and still pretend, that it was a tradition.) Since the
dogma of Trinity was believed by many Pagan sects, then the Roman Church
borrowed it from them.
In turns, the self-called Orthodox Protestant Churches borrowed this
doctrine from the Church of Rome, in the sixteenth century.
_Therefore the doctrine of Trinity is of Pagan origin._