that, that also came from India. By the word אלהים Aleim, the το Θειος, or whole Deity, or Christian Trinity, is meant. By the word ראשיח rasit, the first Emanation or Æon, Wisdom or the Logos is meant, and by the word רוח ruh, the Spirit of God, the second mind, the second emanation, the third person in the Trinity is meant—forming altogether the whole Godhead, three persons and one God.
5. Macrobius, in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, (a work of Cicero’s,) which he explains by the great principles of the philosophy of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, has given in the clearest manner, in his account of the Trinity of the Gentiles, a description of the Triad or Trinity of the orthodox,—the triple distinction of God the Father, of his Logos, and of the Spiritus, with a filiation similar to that which exists in the theology of the Christians, and an idea of their unity inseparable from that of the Creator. It seems, in reading it, as if we were listening to a Christian Doctor, who was teaching us how the Spiritus proceeds, and the Son is engendered from the Father, and how they both remain eternally attached to the Paternal unity, notwithstanding their action on the intellectual and visible world. The following is in substance what Macrobius says.[1] This learned theologian distinguishes first, after Plato, the God Supreme, the first God, whom he calls with the Greek philosophers τ᾽ Αγαθον, the Good, par excellence, the First Cause. He places afterward his Logos, his intelligence, which he calls Mens in Latin, and Νους in Greek,[2] which contains the original ideas of things, or the ideas—intelligence born and produced from the Supreme God. He adds, that they are above the human reason, and cannot be comprehended but by images and similitudes. Thus, above the corporeal being or matter, either celestial or terrestrial, he establishes the divinity, of which he distinguishes three degrees, Deus, Mens, and Spiritus. God, says he, has engendered from himself by the superabundant fecundity of his Majesty, Mens or Mind, with the Greeks Νους or Λογος. Macrobius then describes an immense graduated chain of beings, commencing with the First Cause, to be born or produced from itself. He says that the three first links of this immense chain are the Father, his Logos, Νους, Mens, and Anima or Spiritus Mundi; or, in the Christian phraseology, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the principles of all things, and placed above all created beings. After this he goes on to explain, in exact Christian style of language, the manner in which the Spirit proceeds, and in which the Son is begotten—engendered by the Father. If a trifling difference can be discovered between the doctrine of the Pagan Macrobius and that of the orthodox Christian, it is not so great as that which may be met with between the doctrines or opinions of different sects of even orthodox Christians upon this subject. Surely a greater resemblance need not be desired between the Platonic and Christian Trinities.
Upon the Trinity of Plato, M. Dupuis observes, that all these abstract ideas, and these subdivisions of the first Unity, are not new; that Plato is not the author of them; that Parmenides before him had described them; that they existed long anterior to Plato; that this philosopher had learned them in Egypt and the schools of the East, as they might be seen in the writings of Mercury Trismegistus and Jamblicus, which contain a summary of the theology of the Egyptians, and a similar theory of abstractions. Marsilius Ficinus has well observed, that the system of three principles of the theology of Zoroaster and the Platonicians, had the greatest similarity with those of the Christians, and that the latter philosophy was founded upon the former. He might have said, that it was not only similar, but in reality the same. The curious reader will do well to consult the beautiful and luminous essay of M. Dupuis, Sur tous les Cultes, on this subject; he will find himself amply repaid for his trouble.
