“For from this Triad, in the bosoms, are all things governed,” says a Chaldean oracle. The Phos, Pur, and Phlox, of Sanchoniathon, are Light, Fire, and Flame, three manifestations of the Sun who is one. Bel-Saturn, Jupiter-Bel, and Bel or Baal-Chom are the Chaldean trinity; “The Babylonian Bel was regarded in the Triume aspect of Belitan, Zeus-Belus (the mediator) and Baal-Chom who is Apollo Chomaeus. This was the Triune aspect of the ‘Highest God,’ who is, according to Berosus, either El (the Hebrew), Bel, Belitan, Mithra, or Zervana, and has the name [[Pater]], “the Father.” The Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, corresponding to Power, Wisdom, and Justice, which answer in their turn

Page  49

to Spirit, Matter, Time, and the Past, Present, and Future, can be found in the temple of Gharipuri; thousands of dogmatic Brahmans worship these attributes of the Vedic Deity, while the severe monks and nuns of Buddhistic Thibet recognize but the sacred trinity of the three cardinal virtues: Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, professed by the Christians, practiced by the Buddhists and some Hindus alone.

The Persian triplicate Deity also consists of three persons, Ormazd, Mithra, and Ahriman. “That is that principle,” says Porphyry, “which the author of the Chaldaic Summary saith, ‘They conceive there is one principle of all things, and declare that is one and good.‘ ” The Chinese idol Sanpao, consists of three equal in all respects; and the Peruvians “supposed their Tanga-tanga to be one in three, and three in one,” says Faben. The Egyptians have their Emepht, Eicton, and Phta; and the triple god seated on the Lotos can be seen in the St. Petersburg Museum, on a medal of the Northern Tartars.

Among the Church dogmas which have most seriously suffered of late at the hands of the Orientalists, the last in question stands conspicuous. The reputation of each of the three personages of the anthropomorphic godhead as an original revelation to the Christians through Divine will, has been badly compromised by inquiry into its predecessors and origin. Orientalists have published more about the similarity between Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christianity than was strictly agreeable to the Vatican. Draper’s assertion that “Paganism was modified by Christianity, Christianity by Paganism,” is being daily verified. “Olympus was restored but the divinities passed under other names,” he says, treating of the Constantine period. “The more powerful provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored conceptions. Views of the trinity in accordance with the Egyptian traditions were established. Not only was the adoration of Isis under a new name restored, but even her image, standing on the crescent moon, reappeared. The well-known effigy of that goddess with the infant Horus in her arms has descended to our days, in the beautiful artistic creations of the Madonna and child.”

But a still earlier origin than the Egyptian and Chaldean can be assigned to the Virgin “Mother of God,” Queen of Heaven. Though Isis

Page  50

is also by right the Queen of Heaven, and is generally represented carrying in her hand the Crux Ansata composed of the mundane cross, and of the Stauros of the Gnostics, she is a great deal younger than the celestial virgin, Neith. In one of the tombs of the Pharaohs — Rhameses, in the valley of Biban-el-Molouk, in Thebes, Champollion, Junior, discovered a picture, according to his opinion the most ancient ever yet found. It represents the heavens symbolized by the figure of a woman bedecked with stars. The birth of the Sun is figured by the form of a little child, issuing from the bosom of its “Divine Mother.”

In the Book of Hermes, “Pimander” is enunciated in distinct and unequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the Christians. “The light is me,” says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. “I am the nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the germ of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of GOD. Think that what thus sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought, which is God the Father. . . . The celestial ocean, the AETHER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!” “For they are not at all separated and their union is LIFE.”

Pin It on Pinterest