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logy and mythology of the ancients, added to the Travels of Cyrus, we are not to understand two perfons of the Christian Trinity, but a world of intelligent and corporeal substances, which is the effect whereof unity is the caufe.* When the reader, however, fhall have duly reflected on ALL that has been previously submitted to his confideration in the former part of this volume, to the doctrine of which this Pythagorean fentiment is fo perfectly confentaneous, he will probably be induced to think, that, by fo remarkable an expreffion, Pythagoras intended to allude to the emanation of beings of an order far fuperior to those referred to in the page of that writer. Befides, as Dr. Cudworth has judiciously observed concerning the opinions of Pythagoras, fince he is generally acknowledged to have followed the principles of the Orphic theology, whose Trinity we have seen, and, as is allowed by the Chevalier Ramfay himself, was ows, Buλŋ, Zon; or LIGHT, COUNSEL, and LIFE; it cannot reasonably be doubted that he adopted this among the other doctrines of Orpheus.†

The three hypoftafes that form the Trinity of Plato it is well known are To Ayalov, N85, often

• See les Voyages de Cyrus, tom. ii. p. 193, edit Rouen. + Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. i. p. 374.

κοσμο.

often denominated by him Aoyos and Yux When Plato, in various parts of his writings, calls his firft hypoftafis, as he frequently does, ὁ πρῶτος Θεος and ὀ μεγιςος Θεων, and uses terms, with respect to the other two hypoftafes, which mark a kind of fubordination in this his Trinity, it is fcarcely poffible to miftake an allusion fo plain to the higher TRIAD for which we contend. The countries through which he travelled and the people with whom he converfed immediately point out the fource of a doctrine fo fingular, flowing from the pen of an unenlightened Pagan. It is very probable, that, from his acquaintance with Egyptian, Phoenician, and other oriental, languages, intimately connected with the facred dialect, this philofopher derived the term Aoy, which is the fecond in his Trinity; for Aoy, as has been frequently before remarked in these pages, is the literal translation of the Chaldaic Mimra, the facred appellative by which the ancient paraphrafts invariably understand the Meffiah. The notion is entirely Hebraic. The Meffiah was called the Mimra, or Word, because, in the Mofaic ac- ̧ ́ count of the creation, that expreffion fo frequently occurs, et DIXIT Deus, and therefore it was a very unjuft accufation (although, from

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from his ignorance of the real fact, a very pardonable one) which Amelius, the Platonist, brought against St. John, when having read the firft verfe of that evangelift, where the term Aoy occurs no less than three times, he complained that John had transferred into his gofpel the mysterious expreffion of his master, exclaiming, "By Jupiter, this barbarian agrees in fentiment with our Plato, and, like him, conftitutes the Aoy of God in the rank of a first principle.”* fact is that St. John made use of an ancient and appropriate term, by which the Meffiah was known to the Hebrew race, whereas Plato made use of it, because the expreffion frequently occurred in the exotic theology, which he had borrowed, without knowing either the original meaning or fecondary allufion of the

term.

The

It is ftill more probable, that the active divine agent, which, in the Mofaic writings, is called Пveuμa E, is the fame with that primæval principle, which, in reviewing the trifmegistic theology of Hermes, we obferved was denominated by a word fimilar to MIND, or INTELLIGENCE. This primitive principle is in the Orphic doctrines ftyled Egws, Divine

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• Amelius citatus in Drufii Annotat. in John i. 1.

Love,

Love, generating all things; and, in the Platonic writings, with ftill more marked allufion to that fupreme demiurgic fpirit, whofe powerful breath infufed into nature the first principles of life, is called Yuxn xooμs, or the

SOUL OF THE WORLD.

Parmenides, according to Stanley's authorities, was of Elea, a city of Magna Grecia, that gave its name to the Eleatic fect, to which Parmenides belonged. He flourished in the 89th Olympiad. Involved in nearly equal obfcurity with the incidents of his life are the doctrines which he taught: they were written. in verfe, and the fubftance of them is given in Plato's Parmenides, the leaft intelligible of that philofopher's productions. Stanley has not illumined that abftruse treatise by the epitome which he has given of its contents.* To Simplicius and Plotinus pofterity is indebted for the best explication of the precepts of his philofophy, in which, however, amidst furrounding darkness, the veftigia of this doctrine are to be discerned. Of that philosophical theology the great and fundamental maxim was that the Deity is ἐν και πολλα, or ONE and MANY; which words, if they do not allude to the unity of the divine effence and the plurality

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Stanley's Lives of the Philofophers, p. 448.

of

1

of perfons in that effence, it is difficult to decide to what they do allude. If the reader fhould conceive that, by this fingular mode of expreffing himself, Parmenides meant a phyfical and not a divine principle, Simplicius, cited by Cudworth, as an author well acquainted with that philofopher's real opinions, will inform him otherwife, and that he wrote & περί τε φυσικά στοιχεία, άλλα περι τε αυτε ὄντος ; not concerning a physical element, but concerning the true ENS;* and I fhall add to Cudworth's remarks on this subject, that the true ENs was no other than the Jehovah of the Hebrews, a word which Buxtorf (cited by me in a former page) afferts to mean ENS, EXISTENS, and whence, it is more than probable, the Greek word, defcriptive of the divine entity, was derived. Plotinus, commenting on Plato's Parmenides, reprefents him as acknowledging THREE divine unities fubordinate: To WOWTOV EV, κυριωτερον ἐν, και δευτερον ἐν πολλα λέγων· και τριτον, ἐν και πολλα: “ the firft unity being that which is most perfectly and properly ONE ; the second, that which is called by him ONEMANY; and the third, that which is by him expreffed ONE-AND-MANY." Plotinus then adds : και συμφωνος έτος και αυτος ἐςι ταις τρισιν, "fo

,

EV

• Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. i. p. 384.

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