R
LARVA-LIKE DRAGON,
ST. PAUL’S, BEDFORD.epeatedly has the statement been made that the various mythologies are only so many corruptions of the Mosaic system. Manifestly if this could be admitted there would be little interest in enquiring further into their details. But there are three arguments against the statement, any one of which is effective. Although it is perhaps totally unnecessary to contradict that which can be accepted by the unreflective only, it is sufficiently near the purpose of this volume to slightly touch upon the matter, as pointing strong distinctions among ancient worships.

First, there is the simple fact recorded in the Mosaic account itself, that there existed at that time, and had done previously, various religious systems, the rooting out of which was an important function of the liberated Hebrews. The only reply to this is that, by a slight shift of ground, the mythologies were corruptions of the patriarchal religion, not the Mosaic system. Yet paganism surrounded the patriarchs.

The second point is that most of the mythologies had crystallized into taking the sun as the main symbol of worship, and into taking the equinoxes and other points of the constellation path as other symbols and reminders of periodic worship; whereas in the Mosaic system the whole structure of the solar year is ignored, all the calculations being lunar. If it be objected that Numbers ix. 6-13, and II. Chronicles xxx. 2, refer indirectly to an intercalary month, that, if admitted, could only for expediency’s sake, and has no bearing upon the general silence as to the solar periods. This second point is an important testimony to what may be termed Mosaic originality.

The third point is that in most of the mythologies there is the distinct mention of a Trinity; in the Mosaic system, the system of the Old Testament, none. With the question as to whether the New Testament supports the notion of a Trinity, we need not concern ourselves here; it is enough that it has been adopted as an item of the Christian belief.

The mythological Trinities are vague and, of course, difficult or impossible to understand. Most of them appear to be attempts of great minds of archaic times to reconcile the manifest contradictions ever observable in the universe. This is done in various ways. Some omit one consideration, some another; but they generally agree that to have a three-fold character in one deity is necessary in explaining the phenomenon of existence. Some of the Trinities may be recited.

The Egyptians had other Trinities than the above, each chief city having its own form; in these, however, the third personality appears to be supposed to proceed from the other two, which scarcely seems to have been intended in the instances already given. Some of the city Trinities were as follow:—

So that it is no coincidence that both Hercules and Horus are met in Gothic carvings as deliverers from dragons.

Another Egyptian triad, styled “Trimorphous God!” was:—

Bait.Athor. Akori.

Another:—

Telephorus.Esculapius. Salus.

The Platonic and other philosophic Trinities need not detain us; it has been asserted that by their means the doctrine of the pagan Trinity was grafted on to Christianity.

Right down through the ages the number three has always been regarded as of mystic force. Wherever perfection or efficiency was sought its means were tripled; thus Jove’s thunderbolt had three forks of lightning, Neptune’s lance was a trident, and Pluto’s dog had three heads. The Graces, the Fates, and the Furies were each three. The trefoil was held sacred by the Greeks as well as other triad forms. In the East three was almost equally regarded. Three stars are frequently met upon Asiatic seals. The ScarabÆus was esteemed as having thirty joints.MediÆval thought, in accepting the idea of the Christian Trinity, lavishly threw its symbolism everywhere; writers and symbolists, architects and heralds, multiplied ideas of three-fold qualities.

Heraldry is permeated with three-fold repetitions, a proportion of at least one-third of the generality of heraldic coats having a trinity of one sort or another. In all probability the stars and bars of America rose from the coat-armour of an English family in which the stars were three, the bars three.

St. Nicholas had as his attributes three purses, three bulls of gold, three children.

Sacred marks were three dots, sometimes alone, sometimes in a triangle, sometimes in a double triangle; three balls attached, making a trefoil; three bones in a triangle crossing at the corners; a fleur-de-lys in various designs of three conjoined; three lines crossed by three lines; and many other forms.

God, the symbolists said, was symbolized by a hexagon, whose sides were Glory, Power, Majesty, Wisdom, Blessing, and Honor. The three steps to heaven were Oratio, Amor, Imitatio. The three steps to the altar, the three spires of the cathedral, the three lancets of an Early English window, were all supposed to refer to the Trinity.

Having seen that the idea of the Trinity is a part of most of the ancient religious systems, it remains to point to one or two instances where, in common with other ideas from that source, the Trinity has a place among church grotesques.There is a triune head in St. Mary’s Church, Faversham, Kent, which was doubtless executed as indicative of the Trinity. The Beehive of the Romishe Church, in 1579, says: “They in their churches and Masse Bookes doe paint the Trinitie with three faces; for our mother the holie Church did learn that at Rome, where they were wont to paint or carve Janus with two faces.” In the Salisbury Missal of 1534 is a woodcut of the Trinity triangle surmounted by a three-faced head similar to the above. Hone reproduces it in his Ancient Mysteries Described, and asks, “May not the triune head have been originally suggested by the three-headed Saxon deity named “Trigla”?” The Faversham tria, it will be noticed, has the curled and formal beards of the Greek mask.