placing Principles for Hypostases,[1] which was natural enough to an unenlightened Pagan, it is impossible for language to be more explicit upon the subject of a divine Triad, or more conformable to the language of Christian theologers.
Ταναη εστι μονας η δυο γεννα.
‘Where the paternal monad is, that paternal monad amplifies itself, and generates a duality.’ The word πατρικη, or paternal, here at once discovers to us the two first hypostases, since it “is a relative term, aud plainly indicates a Son. The paternal monad produces a duality, not by an act of creation, but by generation, which is exactly consonant to the language of Christianity. After declaring that the duad, thus generated, καθηται, sits by the monad, and, shining forth with intellectual beams, governs all things, that remarkable and often-cited passage occurs:
Ἡς μονας αρχει.
‘For a triad of Deity shines forth throughout the whole world, of which a monad is the head.’”[2] Thus, after describing the paternal monad, as he calls it, he describes a duality, and it is certainly very remarkable that this duality is not produced by creation or emanation, but by generation; and is said to sit by the side of the monad, and to govern all things. It is impossible after reading this, not to recollect the words of our creed, in which this doctrine is clearly expressed: “Begotten of his Father.” “Begotten not made.” “He sitteth on the right hand of the Father.” “And shall come again, to judge both the quick and the dead.”
Mr. Maurice then adds, “In the very next section of these oracles, remarkable for its singular title of ΠΑΤΗΡ και ΝΟΥΣ, or the Father and the Mind, that Father is expressly said ‘to perfect all things, and deliver them over to Νῳ δευτερῳ,’ the second Mind; which, as I have observed in the early pages of this dissertation, has been considered as allusive to the character of the mediatorial and all-preserving Mithra; but could only originate in theological conceptions of a purer nature, and be descriptive of the office and character of a higher Mediator, even the eternal ΛΟΓΟΣ. The whole of the passage runs thus:
ΔΕΥΤΕΡΩ, ὁν πρωτον κλειζεται παν γενος ανδρων.
‘That second Mind,’ it is added, ‘whom the nations of men commonly take for the first.’ This is, doubtless, very strongly in favour of the two superior persons in the Trinity.”
Mr. Maurice goes on to shew that the term second mind is used, and is allusive to the all-preserving Mithra. He then adds, “The following passage, cited by Proclus from these oracles, is not less indubitably decisive in regard to the third sacred hypostasis, than the preceding passages in regard to the second:
Θερμη, ψυχουσα τα παντα.
That is, ‘In order next to the paternal Mind I Psyche dwell warm, animating all things.’ Thus, after observing in the first section, the Triad or το θειον, the whole Godhead collectively displayed, we here have each distinct hypostasis separately and clearly brought before our view.”
- ↑ This almost alone proves that these were not copies from the Christian doctrines. According to the authors cited both by Kircher and Stanley, these oracles were originally written in the Chaldee language, and were translated into Greek. Maurice, Ind. Ant. Vol. IV. p. 258.
- ↑ Maur. Ind. Ant. Vol. IV. p. 259.
