"I have found first, as I have already suggested, that Moses, who was a monotheist, and a bitter enemy of all polytheistic ideas, constantly uses the plural number of a Hebrew noun to name the one God in whom he believed. According to the prophetic portions of the Jewish scriptures, I find that the Son of God was to be born of a virgin, and the trilogy was to be manifested to man by the incarnation of this son. Now, in the sacred books of the Christians, the four called Gospels, Christ is always called the Son of God, and Jesus is called Christ. Uniformly that which stands in the same relation to God that was attributed to the earthly manifestation of the divine nature by all original faiths is the Christ; that which in the Christian system occupies the same relation to the divine nature which was borne by the feminine side of the dual God of all the original faiths is called the Holy Ghost. This expression (Holy Ghost) occurs two hundred and twelve times in the New Testament, and in every instance the words are in the Greek neuter gender, which expresses nothing as to sex. The common declaration concerning Christ is that he was 'begotten' of God: a man is begotten of his father; he was 'conceived' of the Holy Ghost: a man is conceived of his mother. My interpretation, therefore, must be that these scriptures teach us that the one God is a divine dualism, a double spiritual Being, the Father-Ghost, and that the Christian trilogy is completed by the generation of a son of this Father-Ghost which is one double God; and that as far as sex-hood can be predicated of a spiritual nature, Christ, the Son, is a spirit begotten and conceived of God his Father-Mother, by whom the worlds were made, and who was afterward manifested in the flesh by assuming human nature. This is what thy scriptures teach me: I know not whether it be true; but it is a glorious statement of that which was the original faith of all primitive peoples before mankind lapsed into idolatry; for every high-priest in Egypt assuredly knoweth that polytheism was not the first faith of men."
"But," said Arius, "is not the Holy Ghost called 'he' in the paragraph from John which readeth--'And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that HE may abide with you forever; the Spirit of truth; whom the world can not receive, because it seeth HIM not, neither knoweth HIM: but ye know HIM, for HE dwelleth with you and shall be in you'; and in that passage which readeth as follows: 'But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, HE shall teach you all things': and do not these readings conflict with your idea that the name of the third person in the Christian triad expresses nothing as to sex?"
"I think not so," answered the ancient, "because it is evident that in these places the only thing that can be meant by the 'Holy Ghost' and the 'Spirit of truth' is the Paraclete, the Comforter; and while the Greek word for comforter is a noun of the masculine gender, the words 'Holy Ghost' and 'Spirit of truth' still retain their neuter form, although put in apposition with it; and the pronouns 'he' and 'him' take their masculine form from the word comforter, and not from the words Holy Ghost and Spirit, which are always neuter, and express nothing as to sex. Besides this, I do not find anywhere in the scriptures any characteristics which are essentially masculine ascribed to the Holy Ghost, and I do find many which are essentially feminine."
"Wilt thou state any other argument, if there be any, that maintaineth this grand idea of a dual God that becometh a triad by the generation of a son?"
"There is another," said the ancient, "which is conclusive to my mind that the doctrine of thy scriptures is as I have stated it. In Genesis it is written that God said, 'Let us make man in our own image'; and, also, it is written, 'Male and female created he them.' It seemeth to me that this 'image' and 'likeness' hath a deeper signification than the mere similitude of man's character to that of God can convey. God is a spirit, according to these scriptures, and no resemblance can be imagined between human beings and him in regard to physical constitution. So far as the characters constituted the 'image and likeness,' the books show that it would include only the first man on one side, and God the Father on the other. But the words are generic: 'us' and 'our' the triad, on one side, and 'man' (that is 'male and female,' the human race) on the other, and I suppose the 'image and likeness' spoken of is one found in the essential nature of man, in his constitution and relations. For as in heaven, so in earth; in both, the trilogy includes Father, Mother, Son: trinity is family; and the essential point of the image and likeness between the human and the divine subsists in the fact that human nature necessarily exists as a triad--father, mother, son; just as the divine nature must do. This seemeth to me to be the only ground from which it is possible to predicate divinity of Jesus Christ without involving the whole Christian system in the mazes of polytheism; for if he be divine otherwise than in this fact of generation, there must be more than one God. In strict accordance with this view, I have observed that in those nations which are ignorant of this feminine aspect of the dual god, wives are degraded--are mere chattels, mere slaves; in others, that (like Egypt) recognize the divine feminine nature, but hold that she is inferior to the masculine element of this dualism, wives are tolerated, are not shut up in seclusion, are not mere slaves and chattels; while among the Christians alone who hold the absolute equality of Father and Spirit, womanhood is glorified and made honorable; and Jesus himself elevated marriage almost, if not altogether, into a religious sacrament."
"The views you present seem very like the truth," said the boy, musingly, "and they are certainly grand enough to be true. But they are entirely new to me, and I shall not fail to give them such study and meditation as my sense of the magnitude of the subject involved may demand. I have never heard any discussion upon the nature of the relation of the three persons of our Christian trilogy."
"I think," said the ancient, "thou wilt find that it is a mere mistake to suppose that there are three, for the sacred books teach me that there are only two, the Father-Ghost, or double God, but one only; and the Son of this one God. The perfectest flowers in nature are hermaphrodites."
"But wilt thou inform me whether any perfect, self-producing creature, possessed of animal life, hath ever been discovered?"
"Never," answered the ancient. "The partial realization of such a condition, the rare approximations thereto, which have been curiously noted by Egyptian priests for centuries and myriads of years, have been universally regarded as a deformity, and not as a perfection. Yet the priesthood say that the fact was perfectly realized, according to Moses, in the case of the first man; for the first woman was not created as the man was, but proceeded out of him; and the account given by Moses afterward means just that. I could say many things upon this matter indeed, but for the fact that the oath of secrecy, taken at every step of his progress in the sacerdotal life by every Egyptian priest, was vast and solemn; intended to cover his whole future life, and secure his silence under every possible mutation of his own fortune. The sphinxes, with wide-open eyes and sealed lips, and faces that are inscrutable and calm, revealing nothing that might show a trace of any passion, emotion, thought, or purpose, and yet full of intelligence and power, are the perfect symbol of the Egyptian priesthood; and I know not just how far these obligations are binding upon me."
"I will not question thee," said Arius, "but will endeavor to profit by whatever thou mayst be at liberty to declare."