That the Old Testament, as well as the New, is almost wholly allegorical of the sun, the year, and the seasons, is further proved in that apparently heart-felt complaint of St. Paul, 2 Corinthians iii., 15, "But even until this day, _when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart_." The moral principles allegorised in the Christian trinity, under the names of Father, the Word, and the Spirit, were metaphorical of human _knowledge, reason_ and the _spirit of truth_. Similar to these are the interpretations lately given of the moral principles of the ancient trinity, by a philosopher of deep research;* and as they make out a reasonable meaning for the Christian trinity, which is otherwise a jumble of irrational mummeries, they are so far satisfactory. The ancient trinity of physical principles, of which the Sun was second to, and the most eximious representative of, the great All-in-All, was probably of Indian origin: and found its way west into Persia, Chaldea and Greece, where it was remodelled and spiritualised by Plato; but on its being pressed into the service of the Christian fathers, the sublime knowledge which it conveyed under emblems or symbols, was soon lost in ignorance, or abused and set aside by priestcraft; for even the apostolic fathers seemed to have had little or no knowledge of it, with the exception perhaps of St. Hermas, who most likely alluded to the share he had in falsifying those allegories (by adopting the literal in place of the occult meaning), when he declares that he "never spoke a true word in his life, but always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie for truth to all men; and no man contradicted him, but all gave credit to his words" ("Pastor," Book iii., mandat. 3rd). The Pagan priesthood were too wise to apply the word _revelation_ to anything else than the development of the secret meaning of the mysteries, which they made to the initiated; but that only true revelation has been entirely lost to all the successors of St. Hermas in the church called Christian for the last seventeen centuries. * The modern Diagoras, who has done more towards establishing; free discussion than any other man that ever lived. One word more respecting this ancient trinity, the gross and ludicrous perversion of which now forms so prominent a dogma in our superstition.* Those fathers who adopted and interwove it into the Christian system, did either ignorantly or wilfully distort the sense of the allegory (whether astronomical or moral) by turning it into three distinct personages, with human qualities, parts, and passions; but having gone thus far, they found themselves in a dilemma; inasmuch that, though their new polytheism was in a great measure intended as a salvo to reconcile the Pagans, yet it was inconsistent with the Mosaic unity of God, which they were desirous of preserving also; so they bundled up their three distinct personages into one identical person.