again, that "God said, Let us make man in our own image." Now, it is a remark made by learned commentators, that the word Elohim, employed to signify the Creator, is a noun having a plural termination, yet annexed to a verb in the singular, as if denoting the plurality of persons combined in the unity of the Godhead. That this is not an idiom but an intentional mode of speech is certain, because Moses does not constantly adhere to it. In the passage, "They sacrificed to devils, and not to the Lord," the noun occurs in the singular number, being not Elohim but Eloah. In other texts likewise a remarkable anxiety is displayed to establish this plurality of persons, and yet to guard against the danger of Polytheism. "Remember the Lord thy Gods."-" He is the holy GODS."" Remember thy CREATORS in the days of thy youth." Such is the literal interpretation of these passages: and we may add, that the description of the divine wisdom, in the Book of Proverbs, represents it as a person existing with God from all eternity.

As a corroboration of these testimonies, we may observe that a Triune Deity was not wholly unknown to learned expounders of Scripture among the ancient Jews. This appears from the Targums or Commentaries on the Penta

* Deut. xxxii. 17.

teuch and prophets, written by Jonathan and Onkelos, somewhere about half a century prior to the Christian æra; and likewise from two other books, the Mishna, or Repetition; and Gamara, or Completion; published about 800 years after Christ, together constituting the Talmud, the oral law supposed to have been delivered by God to Moses for the elucidation of the written code. The Hebrew text, "In the beginning God created," &c. (Genesis, i.) is rendered by the first or Jerusalem Targum, "By his wisdom God created the heavens and the earth," &c. Onkelos, in translating the phrase, employs the verb Amar, whence is derived the word Mira, which in the Chaldæan answers to λoyos. His term is not merely Dabar, which would signify the speech of God, but Amar, whereby the Aoyos is personified.

Why Onkelos has not translated the word Bereschit by Kadmita, which imports the beginning of time, but by Bekadmin, denoting the ancient of the first, several Hebrew commentators are cited by Allix to explain. By this latter term the Jewish doctors understand the Wisdom, or Cochma, that second number in the Divine Essence which, emanating from the first, formed all that has being by his own more immediate agency. To the Holy Spirit, the third number, they apply distinctively the denomination Binah, or understanding. This doctri

nal nomenclature is in strict and singular accordance with two phrases occurring in the Proverbs, and the apocryphal Book of Wisdom: "Jehovah by Wisdom (Cochma) hath founded the earth; by Understanding (Binah) hath he established the heavens." Prov. ii. 19. "Give me Wisdom (Cochma) that sitteth by thy throne." These personages are styled by the Rabbins the two hands of God: and to the former, Mimra, or Shechinah, the Word or Glory of God, they ascribe all the wonders performed for the deliverance of their nation. Wherever, according to Allix, Jehovah and Elohim are joined in the Hebrew, Onkelos renders that compound term the "Word of God," and others the Shechinah.. Nor can this word be at all considered in any other light than as a distinct person, since he is invested with many active and distinctive attributes-commanding, giving laws, and receiving prayers.

In Exodus (ch. iii. ver. 4, et seq.) the ANGEL of the Lord is the person represented as having addressed Moses from the burning bush: "And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God." He moreover took off his shoes; a custom still prevalent in the East, not in relation to an angel, but on entering the temple of GOD. Jonathan affirms that it was the Aoyos who communicated with Moses; that self-same Aoyos who spake, and the world was made. Now, the whole Jewish nation agree that God

revealed himself to Moses face to face, which could not be averred if the word "Angel" were to be understood literally, as signifying a ministering spirit.

With respect to the next divine appearance, namely, at Sinai, the Jewish commentators are all confident that it was the Λογος.

Philo, the Jew, styles the Aoyos, Os; and in one remarkable passage even Δευτερος Θεος*. Philo further asserts the personality of the Ruah Haddokesh, whom he denominates Θειον Πνεύμα, the Divine Spirit; and in the words of the Septuagint Πνεύμα Θε8 and Θειος Προφητης. Το this Spirit he ascribes the work of creation.

Among the Egyptians, the triangle was symbolical of the Numen τρίμορφον : and in like manner the three branches of the Hebrew letter, schin, are asserted in a book written before the Talmud, the Zohar, as cited by Allix (Jewish Ch. p. 170), to be a just emblem of the three persons constituting the divine Essence. On the phylacteries of the ancient Jews this mystical letter was inscribed; and to its three significant branches they applied the several names of the lights, the powers, and the spirits: Avapes and Sephiroth. See," says the author of the Zohar, "the mystery of the word Elohim, three distinct degrees, and yet all one and inseparable." Indeed, this

Philon Jud. apud Euseb. p. 190.

word Elohim, with the Jod for Jehovah added to it, was declared by the Rabbi Ibba to involve a latent mystery, which should not be revealed until the advent of the Messiah*.

Philo, speaking of the in, the eternal Ens (Dissertat. de Cherub. p. 86), maintains, that comprehended in the one true God are two supreme Auvauss, Goodness and Authority, and between them a mediatorial Aoyost.

The triple benediction delivered in the sixth chapter of Numbers, ver. 24, "The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, the Lord give thee peace," was pronounced, as Poole and Patrick, citing Rabbi Menachem, inform us, each clause with a different accent, while the priest who pronounced it raising his hand, "sic digitos composuit, ut Triada exprimerent ‡."

But lest these introductory remarks should be strained by the Arian into an accordance with his peculiar views of the Aoyos, let us hasten to the New Testament, where the truth is more clearly brought to light, and where the three Persons of the Trinity are exhibited as plainly coeternal and coequal.

It is unnecessary here to notice the attempts made by cavillers to disprove the authenticity

* Univers. Hist. vol. iii. p. 12. See Patrick on Deut. vi. 4; on the three Midoth, or properties.

† See also De Sacrificiis Abel et Cain, p. 108.

See Maurice's Oriental Trinities.