It is said that all over Africa, belief in a trinity of gods is found, the same to-day as has prevailed at least for forty centuries, and perhaps for very much longer. Chaldæa, Assyria, and the temple of Erektheus, on the Acropolis of Athens, honoured and sacrificed to Zeus (the Sun, Hercules, or Phallic idea) the Serpent and Ocean; and Africa still does so to the Tree-Stem or Pole, the Serpent, and the Sea or Water; and this Trinity is one god, and yet serves to divide all gods into three classes, of which these are types.
Important and interesting notices relative to the nature of the deities worshipped by the ancients are to be found in the treatise of Julius Firmicus Maternus, “De Errore Profanarum Religionum ad Constantium, et Constantem Angg.” Firmicus attributes to the Persians a belief in the androgynous nature of the deity [naturam ejus (jovis) ad utriusque sexus transferentes]. No doubt this doctrine has always been recognised, by many writers, as being held by the philosophers of India and Egypt, and that it constituted a part of the creed of Orpheus, but its connection with Persia has not been so generally acknowledged.
Firmicus, after speaking of the two-fold powers of Jupiter (that is, the deity being both male and female) adds, “when they choose to give a visible representation of him, they sculpture him as a female.” Again, they represent him as a female with three heads. It was a figure adorned with serpents of a monstrous size. It was venerated under the symbol of fire. It was called Mithra. It was worshipped in secret caverns. The rites of Mithra were familiar to the Romans, but they worshipped them in a manner different from the Persian ceremonies. Firmicus had seen Mithra sculptured in two different ways: in one piece of sculpture he was represented as a female with three faces, and infolded with serpents; and in another piece of sculpture he was represented as seizing a bull.
Classic writers abound with references, not simply to a plurality of gods among the heathen, but to a trinity in unity and unity in trinity, sometimes approaching in the similarity of their broad outlines the doctrine as held by orthodox religionists. Herodotus calls the deity of the Pelasgians, Gods, and it is admitted that the passage evidently implies that the expression was used by the priests of Dodona. The Pelasgians worshipped the Cabiri, and the Cabiri were originally three in number, hence it is inferred that these Cabiri were the Pelasgian Trinity, and that having in ancient times no name which would have implied a diversity of gods, they worshipped a trinity in unity. The worship of the Cabiri by the Pelasgians is evident, for Herodotus says, in his second book, “that the Samothracians learnt the Cabiric mysteries from the Pelasgians, who once inhabited that island, and afterwards settled in Greece, near Attica.” Cicero testifies that the Cabiri were originally three in number, and he carefully distinguishes them from the Dioscuri. A passage in Pausanias states that at Tritia, a city of Achaia, there is a temple erected to the Dii Magni (or Cabiri); their images are a representation of a god made of clay. “We need not be surprised,” said a writer once, “that Pausanias should be puzzled how to express the fact that, though it was the temple of the three Cabiri, yet there was only one image in it. Is not this the doctrine of a trinity in unity?”
Potter informs us that those who desired to have children were usually very liberal to the gods, who were thought to preside over generation. The same writer also says:—“Who these were, or what was the origination of their name, is not easy to determine: Orpheus, as cited by Phanodemus in Suidas, makes their proper names to be Amaclides, Protocles, and Protocleon, and will have them to preside over the winds; Demo makes them to be the winds themselves.” Another author tells us their names were “Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, and that they were the sons of heaven and of earth: Philocrus likewise makes earth their mother, but instead of heaven, substitutes the sun, or Apollo, for their father, where he seems to account, as well for their being accounted the superintendents of generation, as for the name of τριτοπατερες; for being immediately descended from two immortal gods, themselves,” saith he, “were thought the third fathers, and therefore might well be esteemed the common parents of mankind, and from that opinion derive those honours, which the Athenians paid them as the authors and presidents of human generation.”
Again, the Tritopatoreia was a solemnity in which it was usual to pray for children to the gods of generation, who were sometimes called tritopateres. The names of the Cabiri, as Cicero says, are Tritopatreus, Eubuleus, and Dionysius: this fact is supposed to give us a little insight into the origin of the word tritopateres, or tritopatreis. Philocrus, as we have seen, makes them the sons of Apollo and of the earth: this fact will help us to develop the truth: the two last hypostases emanated from the Creator: thus in the Egyptian Trinity of Osiris, of Isis, and of Horus, Isis is not only the consort, but the daughter of Osiris, and Horus was the fruit of their embrace, thus in the Scandinavian Trinity of Adin, of Trea, and of Thor, Trea is not only the wife, but the daughter of Odin, and Thor was the fruit of their embrace, as Maillet observes in his Northern Antiquities (vol. ii.), there is the Roman Trinity of Jupiter, of Juno, and of Minerva, Juno is the sister and the wife of Jupiter, and Minerva is the daughter of Jupiter: now, it is a singular fact, that in the Pelasgic Trinity of the Cabirim, two of them are said to have been the sons of Vulcan, or the Sun, as we read in Potter (vol. i.) Hence we see, it has been contended, the mistake of Philocrus: there were not three emanations from the Sun, as he supposes, but only two: their name tritopateres, which alludes to the doctrine of the trinity, puzzled Philocrus, who knew nothing of the doctrine, and he is credited with coining the story, to account for this appellation: the Cabiri were, as is known from Cicero, called Tritopatreus, Dionysius, and Eubuleus. Dionysius is Osiris, and Eubuleus and Tritopatreus are the two hypostases, which emanated from him: the name of the third hypostasis is generally compounded of some word which signifies the third: hence Minerva derived her name of Tritonis, or Tritonia Virgo: hence Minerva is called by Hesiod (referred to in Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary), Tritogenia: hence came the Tritia, of which Pausanias speaks: hence came the Tritopatreus of Cicero: hence came the Thridi of the Scandinavians. We read in the Edda these remarkable words: “He afterwards beheld three thrones raised one above another, and on each throne sat a man; upon his asking which of these was their king, his guide answered, ‘he who sits upon the lowest throne is the king, and his name is Hor, or the Lofty One: the second is Jaenhar, that is Equal to the Lofty One; but he who sits upon the highest throne is called Thridi, or the Third.’”
Pausanias has a number of passages which bear upon this subject, and seem to prove conclusively that the Greeks recognised the doctrine of a trinity in unity and worshipped the same. In his second book he says: “Beyond the tomb of Pelasgus is a small structure of brass, which supports the images of Diana, of Jupiter, and of Minerva, a work of some antiquity: Lyceas has in some verses recorded the fact that this is the representation of Jupiter Machinator.” Again, in Book I., when describing the Areopagite district of Athens, he says:—“Here are the images of Pluto, of Mercury, and of Tellus, to whom all such persons, whether citizens or strangers, as have vindicated their innocence in the Court Areopagus, are required sacrifice.” “In a temple of Ceres, at the entrance of Athens, there are images of the goddess herself, of her daughter, and of Bacchus, with a torch in his hand.”
That the grouping of the three deities was not accidental is evident from the frequency with which they are so mentioned, and other passages show that they were the three deities who were worshipped in the Eleusinian mysteries. Thus in Book VIII., Ch. 25:—“The river Lado then continues its course to the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, which is situated in territories of the Thelpusians: the three statues in it are each seven feet high, and all of marble: they represent Ceres, Proserpine, and Bacchus.” In another passage (Book II., Ch. 2) he says:—“By a temple dedicated to all the gods, there were placed three statues of Jupiter in the open air, of which one had no title, a second was styled the Terrestrial, and the third was styled the highest.”
The learned say, of course, it is clear that the missing title should have been the God of the Sea, as the others were the God of Heaven, and the God of the Earth. Another passage in Pausanias confirms this:—“In a temple of Minerva was placed a wooden image of Jupiter with three eyes; two of them were placed in the natural position, and the other was placed on the forehead.... One may naturally suppose that Jupiter is represented with three eyes as the God of the Heaven, as the God of the Earth, and as the God of the Sea.”
It has been remarked that Pausanias records the tradition that this story of the three-eyed Jupiter comes from Troy, and it is known that the Trojans acknowledged a trinity in the divine nature, and that the Dii Penates, or the Cabiri of the Romans, came from Troy. Quotations from the translation of the Atlas Chinesis of Montanus, by Ogilby, show that the three-eyed Jupiter was an oriental emblem of the trinity:—“The modern learned, or followers of this first sect, who are overwhelmed in idolatry, divide generally their idols, or false gods, into three orders, viz., celestial, terrestrial, and infernal: in the celestial they acknowledge a trinity of one godhead, which they worship and serve by the name of a goddess called Pussa; which, with the Greeks, we might call Cybele, and with Egyptians, Isis and Mother of the Gods. This Pussa (according to the Chinese saying) is the governess of nature, or, to speak properly, the Chinese Isis, or Cybele, by whose power they believe that all things are preserved and made fruitful, as the three inserted figures relate.”