"Many of the heathens are said to have had a notion of a Trinity," wrote a contributor to an encyclopaedia, some eighty years ago. Now that altogether fails to reach the truth, for heathen nations are known to scholars to have had very definite ideas indeed about a sacred Triad; in fact, as another writer has said, there is nothing in all theology more deeply grounded, or more generally allowed by them, than the mystery of the Trinity. The Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, both in their writings and their oracles, acknowledged that the Supreme Being had begotten another Being from all eternity, whom they sometimes called the Son of God, sometimes the Word, sometimes the Mind, and sometimes the Wisdom of God, and asserted to be the Creator of all things. Among the sayings of the Magi, the descendants of Zoroaster, was one as follows:--"The Father finished all things, and delivered them to the Second Mind." We learn from Dr. Cudworth that, besides the inferior gods generally received by all the Pagans (viz.: animated stars, demons, and heroes), the more refined of them, who accounted not the world the Supreme Deity, acknowledged a Trinity of divine hypostases superior to them all. This doctrine, according to Plotinus, is very ancient, and obscurely asserted even by Parmenides. Some have referred its origin to Pythagoreans, and others to Orpheus, who adopted three principles, called Phanes, Uranus, and Cronus. Dr. Cudworth apprehends that Pythagoras and Orpheus derived this doctrine from the theology of the Egyptian Hermes; and, as it is not probable that it should have been first discovered by human reason, he concurs with Proclus in affirming that it was at first a theology of divine tradition, or revelation, imparted first to the Hebrews, and from them communicated to the Egyptians and other nations; among whom it was depraved and adulterated. Plato, also, and his followers, speak of the Trinity in such terms, that the primitive fathers have actually been accused of borrowing the doctrine from the Platonic school. In Indian theology there is no more prominent doctrine than that of a Divine Triad governing all things, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. By Brahma, they mean God, the Creator; by Vishnu (according to the Sanscrit), a preserver, a comforter, a cherisher; and by Siva, a destroyer and avenger. To these three personages, different functions are assigned, in the Hindoo system of mythologic superstition, corresponding to the different significations of their names. They are distinguished, likewise, besides these general titles, in the various sastras and puranas, by an infinite variety of appellations descriptive of their office.