Mr. Sharpe, in his Egyptian Inscriptions, mentions the fact that there is in the British Museum a hieroglyphical inscription as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian Era, showing that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion, and stating that in each of the two groups, Isis, Nephthis and Osiris, and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the three gods made only one person. Also that the sculptured figures on the lid of the sarcophagus of Rameses III., now at Cambridge, show us the King, not only as one of a group of three gods, but also as a Trinity in Unity in his own person. “He stands between the goddesses, Isis and Nepthys, who embrace him as if he were the lost Osiris, whom they have now found again. We further know him to be in the character of Osiris by the two sceptres which he holds; but at the same time the horns upon his head are those of the goddess Athor, and the ball and feathers above are the ornaments of the god Ra.”
Nearly all writers describe the Egyptian Trinity as consisting of the generative, the destructive, and the preserving powers. Isis answers to Siva. Iswara, or Lord, is the epithet of Siva. Osiris, or Ysiris, as Hellanicus wrote the Egyptian name, was the God at whose birth a voice was heard to declare, “that the Lord of all nature sprang forth to light.”
A peculiar feature in the ancient trinities is the way in which the worship of the first person is lost or absorbed in the second, few or no temples being found dedicated to Brahma. Something very much like this often occurs among Christians; we are surrounded by churches dedicated to the second and third persons in the trinity, and to saints, and to the Mother of Christ, but none to the Father.
It has been noticed that while we find inscribed upon the monuments of Egypt a vast multitude of gods, as in India, the number diminishes as we ascend. Amun Ra alone is found dedicated upon the oldest monuments, in three distinct forms, into one or other of whose characters all the other divinities may be resolved. Amun was the chief god, the sacred name, corresponding with the Aum of the Indians, also, probably, the Egyptian On. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the Egyptians held Kneph, Neph, Nef, or Chnoubus, “as the idea of the Spirit of God which moved upon the face of the waters.” He was the Spirit, animating and perpetuating the world, and penetrating all its parts; the same with the Agathodæmon of the Phœnicians, and like him, was symbolized by the snake, an emblem of the Spirit which pervades the universe. He was commonly represented with a Ram’s head; and though the colour of the Egyptian divinities is perhaps more commonly green than any other, he is as frequently depicted blue. He was the god of the Nile, which is indirectly confirmed by Pindar; and by Ptolemy, who says that the Egyptians gave the name of Agathodæmon to the western, or Heracleotic branch. From his mouth proceeded the Mundane egg, from which sprung Phtah, the creative power. Mr. Wilkinson proceeds:—“Having separated the Spirit from the Creator, and purposing to act apart and defy each attribute, which presented itself to their imagination, they found it necessary to form another deity from the creative power, whom they call Phtah, proceeding from the former, and thence deemed the son of Kneph. Some difference was observed between the power, which created the world, and that which caused and ruled over the generation of man, and continued to promote the continuation of the human species. This latter attribute of the divinity was deified under the appellation Khem. Thus was the supreme deity known by the three distinct names of,
Kneph, Phthah, Khem:
to these were joined the goddesses Sate, Neith, and Buto; and the number of the eight deities was completed by the addition of Ra, or Amun-Ra,” this last, however, was not a distinct god, but a name common to each person of the triad: and, indeed, to all the three names above the name of Amun was constantly prefixed.[9]
Phthah corresponds with the Indian Brahma, and the Orphic Phanes, and appears in several other forms. In one form he is represented as an infant—often as an infant Priapæan figure, and deformed.
The deity called Khem by Mr. Wilkinson, and Mendes by Champollion, is common on the monuments of Egypt, and is recognised as corresponding with the Pan of the Greeks. His chief attribute is heat, which aids the continuation of the various species, and he is generally coloured red, though sometimes blue, with his right arm extended upwards. His principal emblems are a triple-thonged Flagellum and a Phallus. He corresponds with Siva of the Indians, his attributes being similar, viz., Destroying and Regenerating. He is the god of generation, and, like Siva, has his Phallic emblem of reproduction; the triple-thonged flagellum is regarded by some as a variation of the trident, or of the axe of Siva. He has for a vahan the Bull Mneuis, as Sivi has the Bull Nandi. The Goat Mendes was also consecrated to him as an emblem of heat and generation; and it is well known that this animal is constantly placed in the hands of Siva. “In short,” says Mr. Cory, “there is scarcely a shade of distinction between Khem and Siva: the Egyptians venerated the same deity as the Indians, in his generative character as Khem, when they suspended the flagellum, the instrument of vengeance, over his right hand; but in his destroying character, as the ruler of the dead, as Osiris, when they placed the flagellum in his hands as the trident is in that character placed in the hand of Siva.”
In the Chaldean oracles, so far as they have been preserved, the doctrine of a triad is found everywhere. Allowing for the existence of much that is forged amongst these oracles, as suggested by Mr. Cory and others, we may reasonably conclude that there still remains a deal that is ancient and authentic. They teach as a fundamental tenet that a triad shines throughout the whole world, over which a Monad rules. This triad is Father, Power, and Intellect, having probably once been Air, Fire, and Sun.
Amongst the Laplanders the Supreme God was worshipped as Jumala, and three gods were recognised as subordinate to him. The first was Thor of the Edda; the second Storjunkare, his vicegerent, the common household god; and the third Beywe, the Sun.