This inclination to the poetic aberration of polytheism and a deification of nature, so universally prevalent in the heathen antiquity of the West, renders it easily conceivable why, in the first and Jewish portion of written revelation, such great stress is laid pre-eminently and primarily on the oneness of the living God. All other expressions--such as that of the eternal creative Word, of the life-giving Spirit of God--are, as it were, but allusions full of hidden meaning for the more clear-sighted and profounder inquirers. How numerous, nevertheless, such indications are; how frequent the reference to three powers or persons--the time, energy, and property of the one Supreme Being--an allusion to which is contained even in the different Hebrew names of the Godhead, is known and acknowledged, even by those who would, if they could, deny it, both to themselves and others. The tradition of the Jews, which, lying without the strictly-defined body of Scripture, yet proceeds concurrently with it, while it possesses of itself no authority, is, nevertheless, a very useful though too much neglected source of illustration for the sacred volume. Now, in the Talmud the doctrine and notion of the divine trinity is expressed quite fully and distinctly, and without reserve; although in the mode and manner of conceiving it there is much that is both false and objectionable. In that second portion of revelation with which our present era commences, together with the fulfilling and perfection of the object of faith, this supreme science is brought prominently and clearly forward. No doubt a certain caution and degree of reserve on this doctrine of the Trinity are distinctly visible in the earliest teaching and statements, so long as the preaching of the new faith was confined within the Jewish nation, on whose mind the idea of the oneness of God was still deeply imprinted, even though, like every other principle of their religion, it was ill understood and had long ceased to be embraced with a living energy, being taken merely in the dead letter. But ere long this thin veil was also removed from the All-holy One, and the great mystery of faith set forth as the introduction to the fourth and last Gospel. From the latter I have accordingly borrowed that designation of this great mystery which is even the most appropriate to science; of the supreme life which is itself omnipotence, of the eternal word which is ominisence, and of the uncreated light which is the All-holy.