thunder day. The common oaths of these people mark the same origin. They swear by donder and blexen, thunder and lightning. Friday took its name from Frea, Frea’s-dag; as Wednesday did from Woden, Woden’s-dag. Tuis was the name which the old Saxons gave to the son of the Supreme, whence Tuesday. Thor, being the firstborn, was called the eldest of the sons: he is made a middle divinity, a mediator between God and man. Such, too, was the Persians’ God: for Thor was venerated also as the intelligence that animated the sun and fire. The Persians declared that the most illustrious of all the intelligences was that which they worshiped under the symbol of fire. They called him Mithras, or the mediator God. The Scythians called him Goeto-Syrus, the Good Star. All the Celtic nations were accustomed to worship the sun, either as distinguished from Thor, or as his symbol. It was their custom to celebrate a feast at the winter solstice, when that great luminary began to return again to this part of the Heavens. They called it Yuule, from Heoul, Helios, the sun, which to this day signifies the sun in the language of Bretagne and Cornwall: whence the French word Noel.
“How great a resemblance may be seen between the expressions which have been stated above, relative to these ancient Trinities, and those of some Christian worshipers, who imagine that the Father begat the Son—according to some in time, according to others from eternity—and that from these two sprang or proceeded the Holy Ghost!”[1]
According to Israel Worsley,[2] “It was Justin Martyr, a Christian convert from the Platonic school, who, about the middle of the second century, first promulgated the opinion, that the Son of God was the second principle in the Deity, and the creator of all material things. He is the earliest writer to whom this opinion can be traced. He ascribes his knowledge of it, not to the Scriptures, but to the special favour of God.” But Justin is the very earliest admitted genuine Christian writer whom we have, not supposed to be inspired, and it seems that he did not attribute the knowledge of his doctrine to the gospel histories. The reason of this will be explained hereafter.
Mr. Worsley then proceeds to state that “Modern theologians have defined the three Hypostases in the Godhead with great precision, though in very different words: but the fathers of the Trinitarian Church were neither so positive nor so free from doubt and uncertainty, nor were they agreed in their opinions upon it. The very councils were agitated; nor is that which is now declared essential to salvation, the ancient Trinity. They who thought the Word an attribute of the Father, which assumed a personality at the beginning of the creation, called this the generation of the Son; regarding him still as inferior to the Father, whom they called the God by way of eminence, while, after the example of the old Heathens, they called the Son God. This notion of descent implied inferiority, and on that ground was objected to, and the Nicene Council, in 325, issued a corrected and improved symbol; and Christ, instead of only Son, was styled God of God, and very God of very God. But even here the equality of the Son was not established, the Father by whom he was begotten being regarded as the great fountain of life. The investment of wisdom with a personality still implied a time when he was begotten, and consequently a time when he was not. From this dilemma an escape was in process of time provided by the hypothesis of an eternal generation; a notion which is self-contradictory. The Nicene Fathers, however, did not venture on the term Trinity; for they had no intention of raising their pre-existent Christ to an equality with the Father: and as to the Holy Spirit, this was considered as of subordinate rank, and the clauses respecting its procession and being worshiped together with the Father and the Son, were not added till the year 381, at the Council of Constantinople.”[3] I give no opinion on the statement of Mr. Worsley, as it is not my inten-
