Several critics imagine that byעץ חדר, rendered “goodly trees,” Lev. xxiii, 40, the citron tree is intended.עץ-עבת, rendered “thick trees” in the same verse, and in Neh. viii, 15; Ezek. xx, 28, is the myrtle, according to the rabbins, the Chaldee paraphrase, Syriac version, and Deodatus. The wordאשל, translated “grove” in Gen. xxi, 33, has been variously translated. Parkhurst renders it an oak, and says, that from this word may be derived the name of the famous asylum, opened by Romulus between two groves of oak at Rome. On the other hand, Celsius, Michaēlis, and Dr. Geddes render it the tamarisk, which is a lofty and beautiful tree, and grows abundantly in Egypt and Arabia. The same word in 1 Sam. xxii, 6; xxxi, 13, is rendered “a tree.” It must be noted too, that in the first of these places, the common version is equally obscure and contradictory, by makingramaha proper name: it signifies hillock or bank. Of the trees that produced precious balsams there was one in particular that long flourished in Judea, having been supposed to have been an object of great attention to Solomon, which was afterward transplanted to Matarea, in Egypt, where it continued till about two hundred and fifty years ago, according to Maillet, who gives a description of it, drawn, it is supposed, from the Arabian authors, in which he says, “This shrub had two very differently coloured barks, the one red, the other perfectly green; that they tasted strongly like incense and turpentine, and when bruised between the fingers they smelt very nearly like cardamoms. This balsam, which was extremely precious and celebrated, and was used by the Coptic church in their chrism, was produced by a very low shrub; and it is said, that all those shrubs that produced balsams are every where low, and do not exceed two or three cubits in height.”
Descriptions of the principal trees and shrubs mentioned in Holy Writ the reader will find noticed in distinct articles under their several denominations.
TRIBE. Jacob having twelve sons, who were the heads of so many great families, which altogether formed a great nation; every one of these families was called a tribe. But Jacob on his death bed adopted Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, and would have them also to constitute two tribes of Israel, Gen. xlviii, 5. Instead of twelve tribes, there were now thirteen, that of Joseph being divided into two. However, in the distribution of lands to each which Joshua made by the order of God, they counted but twelve tribes, and made but twelve lots. For the tribe of Levi, which was appointed to the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, had no share in the distribution of the land, but only some cities in which to dwell, and the first fruits, tithes, and oblations of the people, which was all their subsistence. The twelve tribes continued united under one head, making but one state, one people, and one monarchy, till after the death of Solomon. Then ten of the tribes of Israel revolted from the house of David, and received for their king Jeroboam, the son of Nebat; and only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin continued under the government of Rehoboam. This separation may be looked upon as the chief cause of those great misfortunes that afterward happened to those two kingdoms, and to the whole Hebrew nation. For, first, it was the cause of the alteration and change of the old religion, and of the ancient worship of their forefathers. Jeroboam the son of Nebat substituted the worship of golden calves for the worship of the true God; which was the occasion of the ten tribes forsaking the temple of the Lord. Secondly, this schism caused an irreconcilable hatred between the ten tribes, and those of Judah and Benjamin, and created numerous wars and disputes between them. The Lord, being provoked, delivered them up to their enemies. Tiglath-Pileser first took away captive the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Naphtali, and the half tribe of Manasseh, which were beyond Jordan, and carried them beyond the Euphrates, 2 Kings xv, 29; 1 Chron. v, 26; A. M. 3264. Some years after, Shalmaneserking of Assyria took the city of Samaria, destroyed it, took away the rest of the inhabitants of Israel, carried them beyond the Euphrates, and sent other inhabitants into the country to cultivate and possess it, 2 Kings xvii, 6; xviii, 10, 11. Thus ended the kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel, A. M. 3283. As to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who remained under the government of the kings of the family of David, they continued a much longer time in their own country. But at last, after they had filled up the measure of their iniquity, God delivered them all into the hands of their enemies. Nebuchadnezzar took the city of Jerusalem, entirely ruined it, and took away all the inhabitants of Judah and Benjamin to Babylon, and the other provinces of his empire, A. M. 3416. The return from this captivity is stated in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. SeeJews.
TRIBUTE. The Hebrews acknowledged none for sovereign over them but God alone; whence Josephus calls their government a theocracy, or divine government. They acknowledged the sovereign dominion of God by a tribute, or capitation tax, of half a shekel a head, which every Israelite paid yearly, Exod. xxx, 13. Our Saviour, in the Gospel, thus reasons with St. Peter: “What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?” Matt. xvii, 25, meaning, that as he was the Son of God, he ought to be exempt from this capitation tax. We do not find that either the kings or the judges of the Hebrews, when they were themselves Jews, demanded any tribute of them. Solomon, at the beginning of his reign, 1 Kings xi, 22, 33; 2 Chron. viii, 9, compelled the Canaanites, who were left in the country, to pay him tribute, and to perform the drudgery of the public works he had undertaken. As to the children of Israel, he would not suffer one of them to be employed upon them, but made them his soldiers, ministers, and chief officers, to command his armies, his chariots, and his horsemen. Yet, afterward, toward the end of his reign, he imposed a tribute upon them, and made them work at the public buildings, 1 Kings v, 13, 14; ix, 15; xi, 27; which much alienated their minds from him, and sowed the seeds of that discontent which afterward appeared in an open revolt, by the rebellion of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat; who was at first indeed obliged to take shelter in Egypt. But afterward the defection became general, by the total revolt of the ten tribes. Hence it was, that the Israelites said to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, “Thy father made our yoke grievous; now therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and the heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee,” 1 Kings xii, 4. It is needless to observe, that the Israelites were frequently subdued by foreign princes, who laid great taxes and tribute upon them, to which fear and necessity compelled them to submit. Yet in the latter times, that is, after Archelaus had been banished to Vienne in France, in the sixth year of the vulgar era, and after Judea was reduced to a province, Augustus sent Quirinius into this country to take a new poll of the people, and to make a new estimate of their substance, that he might thereby regulate the tribute that every one was to pay to the Romans. Then Judas, surnamed the Galilean, formed a sedition, and made an insurrection, to oppose the levying of this tribute. See in St. Matthew xxii, 16, 17, &c, the answer that Jesus Christ returned to the Pharisee, who came with an insidious design of tempting him, and asked him, whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar? and in John viii, 33, where the Jews boast of having never been slaves to any body, of being a free nation, that acknowledged God only for master and sovereign.
TRINITY. That nearly all the Pagan nations of antiquity, says Bishop Tomline, in their various theological systems, acknowledged a kind of Trinity, has been fully evinced by those learned men who have made the Heathen mythology the subject of their elaborate inquiries. The almost universal prevalence of this doctrine in the Gentile kingdoms must be considered as a strong argument in favour of its truth. The doctrine itself bears such striking internal marks of a divine original, and is so very unlikely to have been the invention of mere human reason, that there is no way of accounting for the general adoption of so singular a belief, but by supposing that it was revealed by God to the early patriarchs, and that it was transmitted by them to their posterity. In its progress, indeed, to remote countries, and to distant generations, this belief became depraved and corrupted in the highest degree; and he alone who brought “life and immortality to light,” could restore it to its original simplicity and purity. The discovery of the existence of this doctrine in the early ages, among the nations whose records have been the best preserved, has been of great service to the cause of Christianity, and completely refutes the assertion of infidels and skeptics, that the sublime and mysterious doctrine of the Trinity owes its origin to the philosophers of Greece. “If we extend,” says Mr. Maurice, “our eye through the remote region of antiquity, we shall find this very doctrine, which the primitive Christians are said to have borrowed from the Platonic school, universally and immemorially flourishing in all those countries where history and tradition have united to fix those virtuous ancestors of the human race, who, for their distinguished attainments in piety, were admitted to a familiar intercourse with Jehovah and the angels, the divine heralds of his commands.” The same learned author justly considers the first two verses of the Old Testament as containing very strong, if not decisive, evidence in support of the truth of this doctrine: Elohim, a noun substantive of the plural number, by which the Creator is expressed, appears as evidently to point toward a plurality of persons in the divine nature, as the verb in the singular, with which it is joined, does to the unity of that nature:“In the beginning God created;” with strict attention to grammatical propriety, the passage should be rendered, “In the beginning Gods created,” but our belief in the unity of God forbids us thus to translate the word Elohim. Since, therefore, Elohim is plural, and no plural can consist of less than two in number, and since creation can alone be the work of Deity, we are to understand by this term so particularly used in this place, God the Father, and the eternal Logos, or Word of God; that Logos whom St. John, supplying us with an excellent comment upon this passage, says, was in the beginning with God, and who also was God. As the Father and the Son are expressly pointed out in the first verse of this chapter, so is the Third Person in the blessed Trinity not less decisively revealed to us in Gen. i, 2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters:” “brooded upon” the water,incubavit, as a hen broods over her eggs. Thus we see the Spirit exerted upon this occasion an active effectual energy, by that energy agitating the vast abyss, and infusing into it a powerful vital principle.
Elohim seems to be the general appellation by which the Triune Godhead is collectively distinguished in Scripture; and in the concise history of the creation only, the expression,bara Elohim, “the Gods created,” is used above thirty times. The combining this plural noun with a verb in the singular would not appear so remarkable, if Moses had uniformly adhered to that mode of expression; for then it would be evident that he adopted the mode used by the Gentiles in speaking of their false gods in the plural number, but by joining with it a singular verb or adjective, rectified a phrase that might appear to give a direct sanction to the error of polytheism. But, in reality, the reverse is the fact; for in Deut. xxxii, 15, 17, and other places, he uses the singular number of this very noun to express the Deity, though not employed in the august work of creation: “He forsook God,”Eloah; “they sacrificed to devils not to God,”Eloah. But farther, Moses himself uses this very word Elohim with verbs and adjectives in the plural. Of this usage Dr. Allix enumerates many other striking instances that might be brought from the Pentateuch; and other inspired writers use it in the same manner in various parts of the Old Testament, Job xxxv, 10; Joshua xxiv, 19; Psalm cix, 1; Ecclesiastes xii, 3; 2 Samuel vii, 23. It must appear, therefore, to every reader of reflection, exceedingly singular, that when Moses was endeavouring to establish a theological system, of which the unity of the Godhead was the leading principle, and in which it differed from all other systems, he should make use of terms directly implicative of a plurality in it; yet so deeply was the awful truth under consideration impressed upon the mind of the Hebrew legislator, that this is constantly done by him; and, indeed, as Allix has observed, there is scarcely any method of speaking from which a plurality in Deity may be inferred, that is not used either by himself in the Pentateuch, or by the other inspired writers in various parts of the Old Testament. A plural is joined with a verb singular, as in the passage cited before from Genesis i, 1; a plural is joined with a verb plural, as in Gen. xxxv, 7, “And Jacob called the name of the place El-beth-el, because the Gods there appeared to him;” a plural is joined with an adjective plural, Joshua xxiv, 19, “You cannot serve the Lord; for he is the holy Gods.” To these passages, if we add that remarkable one from Ecclesiastes, “Remember thy Creators in the days of thy youth,” and the predominant use of the terms, Jehovah Elohim, or, the “Lord thy Gods,” which occur a hundred times in the law, (the word Jehovah implying the unity of the essence, and Elohim a plurality in that unity,) we must allow that nothing can be more plainly marked than this doctrine in the ancient Scriptures.
Though the august name of Jehovah in a more peculiar manner belongs to God the Father, yet is that name, in various parts of Scripture, applied to each person in the holy Trinity. The Hebrews considered that name in so sacred a light, that they never pronounced it, and used the word Adonai instead of it. It was, indeed, a name that ranked first among their profoundest cabala; a mystery, sublime, ineffable, incommunicable. It was called tetragrammaton, or the name of four letters, and these letters arejod,he,vau,he, the proper pronunciation of which, from long disuse, is said to be no longer known to the Jews themselves. This awful name was first revealed by God to Moses from the centre of the burning bush; and Josephus, who, as well as Scripture, relates this circumstance, evinces his veneration for it, by calling it the name which his religion did not permit him to mention. From this word the Pagan title of Iao and Jove is, with the greatest probability, supposed to have been originally formed; and in the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, there is an oath still extant to this purpose, “By Him who has the four letters.” As the name Jehovah, however, in some instances applied to the Son and the Holy Spirit, was the proper name of God the Father, so is Logos in as peculiar a manner the appropriated name of God the Son. The Chaldee Paraphrasts translate the original Hebrew text byMimra da Jehovah, literally, “the Word of Jehovah,” a term totally different, as Bishop Kidder has incontestably proved, in its signification, and in its general application among the Jews, from the Hebrewdabar, which simply means a discourse or decree, and is properly rendered bypithgam. In the Septuagint translation of the Bible, a work supposed by the Jews to have been undertaken by men immediately inspired from above, the former term is universally rendered Λόγος, and it is so rendered and so understood by Philo and all the more ancient rabbins. The name of the third person in the ever blessed Trinity has descended unaltered from the days of Moses to our own time; for, as well in the sacred writings as by the Targumists, and by the modern doctors of the Jewish church, he is styled Ruach Hakhodesh, the Holy Spirit.He is sometimes, however, in the rabbinical books, denominated by Shechinah, or glory of Jehovah; in some places he is called Sephirah, or Wisdom; and in others the Binah, or Understanding. From the enumeration of these circumstances, it must be sufficiently evident to the mind which unites piety and reflection, that so far from being silent upon the subject, the ancient Scriptures commence with an avowal of this doctrine, and that, in fact, the creation was the result of the joint operations of the Trinity.
If the argument above offered should still appear inconclusive, the twenty-sixth verse of the first chapter of Genesis contains so pointed an attestation to the truth of it, that, when duly considered, it must stagger the most hardened skeptic; for in that text not only the plurality is unequivocally expressed, but the act which is the peculiar prerogative of Deity is mentioned together with that plurality, the one circumstance illustrating the other, and both being highly elucidatory of this doctrine: “And God (Elohim) said, Letusmake man in our image, after our likeness.” Why the Deity should speak of himself in the plural number, unless that Deity consisted of more than one person, it is difficult to conceive; for the answer given by the modern Jews, that this is only a figurative mode of expression, implying the high dignity of the speaker, and that it is usual for earthly sovereigns to use this language by way of distinction, is futile, for two reasons. In the first place it is highly degrading to the Supreme Majesty to suppose he would take his model of speaking and thinking from man, though it is highly consistent with the vanity of man to arrogate to himself, as doubtless was the case in the licentiousness of succeeding ages, the style and imagined conceptions of Deity; and it will be remembered, that these solemn words were spoken before the creation of any of those mortals, whose false notions of greatness and sublimity the Almighty is thus impiously supposed to adopt. In truth, there does not seem to be any real dignity in an expression, which, when used by a human sovereign in relation to himself, approaches very near to absurdity. The genuine fact, however, appears to be this. When the tyrants of the east first began to assume divine honours, they assumed likewise the majestic language appropriated to, and highly becoming, the Deity, but totally inapplicable to man. The error was propagated from age to age through a long succession of despots, and at length Judaic apostasy arrived at such a pitch of profane absurdity, as to affirm that very phraseology to be borrowed from man which was the original and peculiar language of the Divinity. It was, indeed, remarkably pertinent when applied to Deity; for, in a succeeding chapter, we have more decisive authority for what is thus asserted, where the Lord God himself says, “Behold, the man is become as one of us;” a very singular expression, which some Jewish commentators, with equal effrontery, contend was spoken by the Deity to the council of angels, that, according to their assertions, attended him at the creation. From the name of the Lord God being used in so emphatical a manner, it evidently appears to be addressed to those sacred persons to whom it was before said, “Let us make man;” for would indeed the omnipotent Jehovah, presiding in a less dignified council, use words that have such an evident tendency to place the Deity on a level with created beings?
The first passage to be adduced from the New Testament in proof of this important doctrine of the Trinity, is, the charge and commission which our Saviour gave to his apostles, to “go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” Matt. xxviii, 19. The Gospel is every where in Scripture represented as a covenant or conditional offer of eternal salvation from God to man; and baptism was the appointed ordinance by which men were to be admitted into that covenant, by which that offer was made and accepted. This covenant being to be made with God himself, the ordinance must of course be performed in his name; but Christ directed that it should be performed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and therefore we conclude that God is the same as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Since baptism is to be performed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, they must be all three persons; and since no superiority or difference whatever is mentioned in this solemn form of baptism, we conclude that these three persons are all of one substance, power, and eternity. Are we to be baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and is it possible that the Father should be self-existent, eternal, the Lord God Omnipotent; and that the Son, in whose name we are equally baptized, should be a mere man, born of a woman, and subject to all the frailties and imperfections of human nature? or, is it possible that the Holy Ghost, in whose name also we are equally baptized, should be a bare energy or operation, a quality or power, without even personal existence? Our feelings, as well as our reason, revolt from the idea of such disparity.
This argument will derive great strength from the practice of the early ages, and from the observations which we meet with in several of the ancient fathers relative to it. We learn from Ambrose, that persons at the time of their baptism, declared their belief in the three persons of the Holy Trinity, and that they were dipped in the water three times. In his Treatise upon the Sacraments he says, “Thou wast asked at thy baptism, Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty? and thou didst reply, I believe, and thou wast dipped; and a second time thou wast asked, Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ the Lord? thou didst answer again, I believe, and thou wast dipped; a third time the question was repeated, Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost? and the answer was, I believe, then thou wast dipped a third time.” It is to be noticed, that the belief, here expressed separately, in the three persons of the Trinity, is precisely the same in all. Tertullian,Basil, and Jerom, all mention this practice of trine immersion as ancient; and Jerom says, “We are thrice dipped in the water, that the mystery of the Trinity may appear to be but one. We are not baptized in the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but in one name, which is God’s; and, therefore, though we be thrice put under water to represent the mystery of the Trinity, yet it is reputed but one baptism.” Thus the mysterious union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as one God, was, in the opinion of the purer ages of the Christian church, clearly expressed in this form of baptism. By it the primitive Christians understood the Father’s gracious acceptance of the atonement offered by the Messiah; the peculiar protection of the Son, our great High Priest and Intercessor; and the readiness of the Holy Ghost to sanctify, to assist, and to comfort all the obedient followers of Christ, confirmed by the visible gift of tongues, of prophecy, and divers other gifts to the first disciples. And as their great Master’s instructions evidently distinguished these persons from each other, without any difference in their authority or power, all standing forth as equally dispensing the benefits of Christianity, as equally the objects of the faith required in converts upon admission into the church, they clearly understood that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were likewise equally the objects of their grateful worship: this fully appears from their prayers, doxologies, hymns, and creeds, which are still extant.
The second passage to be produced in support of the doctrine now under consideration, is, the doxology at the conclusion of St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you.” The manner in which Christ and the Holy Ghost are here mentioned, implies that they are persons, for none but persons can confer grace or fellowship; and these three great blessings of grace, love, and fellowship, being respectively prayed for by the inspired apostle from Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, without any intimation of disparity, we conclude that these three persons are equal and Divine. This solemn benediction may therefore be considered as another proof of the Trinity, since it acknowledges the divinity of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost. The third passage is the following salutation or benediction in the beginning of the Revelation of St. John: “Grace and peace from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ.” Here the Father is described by a periphrasis taken from his attribute of eternity; and “the seven spirits” is a mystical expression for the Holy Ghost, used upon this occasion either because the salutation is addressed to seven churches, every one of which had partaken of the Spirit, or because seven was a sacred number among the Jews, denoting both variety and perfection, and in this case alluding to the various gifts, administrations, and operations of the Holy Ghost. Since grace and peace are prayed for from these three persons jointly and without discrimination, we infer an equality in their power to dispense those blessings; and we farther conclude that these three persons together constitute the Supreme Being, who is alone the object of prayer, and is alone the Giver of every good and of every perfect gift. It might be right to remark, that the seven spirits cannot mean angels, since prayers are never in Scripture addressed to angels, nor are blessings ever pronounced in their name. It is unnecessary to quote any of the numerous passages in which the Father is singly called God, as some of them must be recollected by every one, and the divinity of the Father is not called in question by any sect of Christians; and those passages which prove the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost separately, will be more properly considered under those heads. In the mean time we may observe, that if it shall appear from Scripture, that Christ is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, it will follow, since we are assured that there is but one God, that the three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by a mysterious union, constitute the one God, or, as it is expressed in the first article of the church of England: “There is a Trinity in Unity; and in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
The word Trinity does not occur in Scripture, nor do we find it in any of the early confessions of faith; but this is no argument against thedoctrinedoctrineitself, since we learn from the fathers of the first three centuries, that the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost was, from the days of the Apostles, acknowledged by the catholic church, and that those who maintained a contrary opinion were considered as heretics; and as every one knows that neither the divinity of the Father, nor the unity of the Godhead, was ever called in question at any period, it follows that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity has been in substance, in all its constituent parts, always known among Christians. In the fourth century it became the subject of eager and general controversy; and it was not till then that this doctrine was particularly discussed. While there was no denial or dispute, proof and defence were unnecessary:Nunquid enim perfecté de Trinitate tractatum est, antequam oblatrarent Ariani?But this doctrine is positively mentioned as being admitted among catholic Christians, by writers who lived long before that age of controversy. Justin Martyr, in refuting the charge of atheism urged against Christians, because they did not believe in the gods of the Heathen, expressly says, “We worship and adore the Father, and the Son who came from him and taught us these things, and the prophetic Spirit;” and soon after, in the same apology, he undertakes to show the reasonableness of the honour paid by Christians to the Father in the first place, to the Son in the second, and to the Holy Ghost in the third; and says, thattheir assigning the second place to a crucified man, was, by unbelievers, denominated madness, because they were ignorant of the mystery, which he then proceeds to explain. Athenagoras, in replying to the same charge of atheism urged against Christians, because they refused to worship the false gods of the Heathen, says, “Who would not wonder, when he knows that we, who call upon God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, showing their power in the unity, and their distinction in order, should be called atheists?” Clement of Alexandria not only mentions three divine persons, but invokes them as one only God. Praxeas, Sabellius, and other Unitarians, accused the orthodox Christians of tritheism, which is of itself a clear proof that the orthodox worshipped the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and though in reality they considered these three persons as constituting the one true God, it is obvious that their enemies might easily represent that worship as an acknowledgment of three Gods. Tertullian, in writing against Praxeas, maintains, that a Trinity rationally conceived is consistent with truth, and that unity irrationally conceived forms heresy. He had before said, in speaking of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that “there are three of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, because there is one God:” and he afterward adds, “The connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Comforter, makes three united together, the one with the other; which three are one thing, not one person; as it is said, I and the Father are one thing, with regard to the unity of substance, not to the singularity of number:” and he also expressly says, “The Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God;” and again, “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, believed to be three, constitute one God.” And in another part of his works he says, “There is a Trinity of one Divinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” And Tertullian not only maintains these doctrines, but asserts that they were prior to any heresy, and had, indeed, been the faith of Christians from the first promulgation of the Gospel. To these writers of the second century, we may add Origen and Cyprian in the third; the former of whom mentions baptism (alluding to its appointed form) as “the source and fountain of graces to him who dedicates himself to the divinity of the adorable Trinity.” And the latter, after reciting the same form of baptism, says that “by it Christ delivered the doctrine of the Trinity, unto which mystery or sacrament the nations were to be baptized.” It would be easy to multiply quotations upon this subject; but these are amply sufficient to show the opinions of the early fathers, and to refute the assertion that the doctrine of the Trinity was an invention of the fourth century. To these positive testimonies may be subjoined a negative argument: those who acknowledged the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, are never called heretics by any writer of the first three centuries; and this circumstance is surely a strong proof that the doctrine of the Trinity was the doctrine of the primitive church; more especially, since the names of those who first denied the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, are transmitted to us as of persons who dissented from the common faith of Christians.
But while we contend that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is founded in Scripture, and supported by the authority of the early Christians, we must acknowledge that it is not given to man to understand in what manner the three persons are united, or how, separately and jointly, they are God. It would, perhaps, have been well, if divines, in treating this awful and mysterious subject, had confined themselves to the expressions of Scripture; for the moment we begin to explain it beyond the written word of God, we plunge ourselves into inextricable difficulties. And how can it be otherwise? Is it to be expected that our finite understandings should be competent to the full comprehension of the nature and properties of an infinite Being? “Can we find out the Almighty to perfection,” Job xi, 7; or penetrate into the essence of the Most High? “God is a Spirit,” John iv, 24, and our gross conceptions are but ill-adapted to the contemplation of a pure and spiritual Being. We know not the essence of our own mind, nor the precise distinction of its several faculties; and why then should we hope to comprehend the personal characters which exist in the Godhead? “If I tell you earthly things, and you understand them not, how shall ye understand if I tell you heavenly things?” When we attempt to investigate the nature of the Deity, whose existence is commensurate with eternity, by whose power the universe was created, and by whose wisdom it is governed; whose presence fills all space, and whose knowledge extends to the thoughts of every man in every age, and to the events of all places, past, present, and to come, the mind is quickly lost in the vastness of these ideas, and, unable to find any sure guide to direct its progress, it becomes, at every step, more bewildered and entangled in the endless mazes of metaphysical abstraction. “God is a God that hideth himself.” “We cannot by searching find out God.” “Behold, God is great, and we know him not,” Job xxiii, 9; xi, 7; xxxvi, 26. “Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for us; it is high; we cannot attain unto it,” Psalm cxxxix, 6. It is for us, simply and in that docile spirit which becomes us, to receive the testimony of God as to himself, and to fix ourselves upon that firmest of all foundations, and most rational of all evidence, “Thus saith the Lord.”
TRIUMPHS, Military.The Hebrews, under the direction of inspired prophets, celebrated their victories by triumphal processions, the women and children dancing, and playing upon musical instruments, and singing hymns and songs of triumph to the living and true God. The song of Moses at the Red Sea, which was sung by Miriam and the women of Israel to the dulcet beat of the timbrel, is a majestic example of the triumphal hymns ofthe ancient Hebrews. The song of Deborah and Barak, after the decisive battle in which Sisera lost his life, and Jabin his dominion over the tribes of Israel, is a production of the same sort, in which the spirit of genuine heroism and of true religion are admirably combined. But the song which the women of Israel chanted when they went out to meet Saul and his victorious army, after the death of Goliath, and the discomfiture of the Philistines, possesses somewhat of a different character, turning chiefly on the valorous exploits of Saul and the youthful champion of Israel: “And it came to pass, as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music: and the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” 1 Sam. xviii, 6, 7. But the most remarkable festivity, perhaps, on the records of history, was celebrated by Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, in a succeeding age. When that religious prince led forth his army to battle against a powerful confederacy of his neighbours, he appointed a band of sacred music to march in front, praising the beauty of holiness as they went before the army, “and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever.” After the discomfiture of their enemies, he assembled his army in the valley of Beracha, near the scene of victory, where they resumed the anthem of religious praise: “Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the fore front of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets, unto the house of the Lord,” 2 Chron. xx, 21, 27. Instead of celebrating his own heroism, or the valour of his troops, on this memorable occasion, that excellent prince sung with his whole army the praises of the Lord of hosts, who disposes of the victory according to his pleasure. This conduct was becoming the descendant and successor of David, the man according to God’s own heart, and a religious people, the peculiar inheritance of Jehovah.
The Roman conquerors used to carry branches of palm in their hands when they went in triumph to the capitol; and sometimes wore thetoga palmata, a garment with the figures of palm trees upon it, which were interwoven in the fabric. In the same triumphant attitude, the Apostle John beheld in vision those who had overcome by the blood of the lamb, standing “before the throne, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands,” Rev. vii, 9. The highest military honour which could be obtained in the Roman state, was a triumph, or solemn procession, in which a victorious general and his army advanced through the city to the capitol. He set out from the Campus Martius, and proceeded along the Via Triumphalis, and from thence through the most public places of the city. The streets were strewed with flowers, and the altars smoked with incense. First went a numerous band of music, singing and playing triumphal songs; next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, having their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fillets and garlands; then, in carriages, were brought the spoils taken from the enemy; also golden crowns sent by the allied and tributary states. The titles of the vanquished nations were inscribed on wooden frames; and images or representations of the conquered countries and cities were exhibited. The captive leaders followed in chains, with their children and attendants; after the captives came the lictors, having their faces wreathed with laurel, followed by a great company of musicians and dancers, dressed like satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold; in the midst of whom was a pantomime, clothed in a female garb, whose business it was, with his looks and gestures, to insult the vanquished; a long train of persons followed, carrying perfumes; after them came the general, dressed in purple, embroidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch of laurel in his right hand, and in his left an ivory sceptre, with an eagle on the top, his face painted with vermilion, and a golden ball hanging from his neck on his breast; he stood upright in a gilded chariot, adorned with ivory, and drawn by four white horses, attended by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens, all in white. His children rode in the chariot along with him; his lieutenants and military tribunes, commonly by his side. After the general followed the consuls and senators, on foot; and the whole procession was closed by the victorious army drawn up in order, crowned with laurel, and decorated with the gifts which they had received for their valour, singing their own and their general’s praises. The triumphal procession was not confined to the Romans; the Greeks had a similar custom; for the conquerors used to make a procession through the middle of their city, crowned with garlands, repeating hymns and songs, and brandishing their spears; the captives followed in chains, and all their spoils were exposed to public view.
The great Apostle of the Gentiles alludes to these splendid triumphal scenes in his Epistle to the Ephesians, where he mentions the glorious ascension of his Redeemer into heaven: “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men,” Eph. iv, 8. These words are a quotation from the sixty-eighth Psalm, where David in spirit describes the ascension of Messiah in very glowing colours: “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive,” or an immense number of captives; “thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also; that the Lord God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with his benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah,” Psalm lxviii, 17–19. Knowing the deep impression which such an allusion is calculated to make on themind of a people familiarly acquainted with triumphal scenes, the Apostle returns to it in his Epistle to the Colossians, which was written about the same time: “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,” Col. ii, 15. After obtaining a complete victory over all his enemies, he ascended in splendour and triumph into his Father’s presence on the clouds of heaven, the chariots of the Most High, thousands of holy angels attending in his train; he led the devil and all his angels, together with sin, the world, and death, as his spoils of war, and captives in chains, and exposed them to open contempt and shame, in the view of all his angelic attendants, triumphing like a glorious conqueror over them, in virtue of his cross, upon which he made complete satisfaction for sin, and by his own strength, without the assistance of any creature, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. And as mighty princes were accustomed to scatter largesses among the people, and reward their companions in arms with a liberal hand, when, laden with the spoils of vanquished nations, they returned in triumph to their capital; so the Conqueror of death and hell, when he ascended far above all heavens, and sat down in the midst of the throne, shed forth blessings of his grace and Holy Spirit, upon people of every tongue and of every nation.
The officers and soldiers, also, were rewarded according to their merit. Among the Romans, the noblest reward which a soldier could receive, was the crown, made of leaves. Alluding to this high distinction, the Apostle says to his son Timothy, “I have fought a good fight; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing,” 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8. And lest any one should imagine that the Christian’s crown is perishable in its nature, and soon fades away, like a crown of oak leaves, the Apostle Peter assures the faithful soldier of Christ that his crown is infinitely more valuable and lasting: “Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away,” 1 Peter v, 4. And this account is confirmed by St. James: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him,” James i, 12. The military crowns were conferred by the general in presence of his army; and such as received them, after a public eulogium on their valour, were placed next his person. The Christian also receives his unmerited reward from the hand of the Captain of his salvation: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” Rev. ii, 10. And, like the brave veteran of ancient times, he is promoted to a place near his Lord: “To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne,” Rev. iii, 21.
TROAS, a city of Phrygia, or of Mysia, upon the Hellespont, having the old city of Troy to the north, and that of Assos to the south. Sometimes the name of Troas is put for the province, wherein the city of Troy stood. St. Paul was at Troas, when he had the vision of the Macedonian inviting him to come and preach in that kingdom, Acts xvi, 8. Beside this, the Apostle was several times at Troas; but we know nothing particular of his transactions there, Acts xx, 5, 6; 2 Cor. ii, 14; 2 Tim. iv, 13.
TROPHIMUS, a disciple of St. Paul, and an Ephesian by birth. He came from Ephesus to Corinth with the Apostle, and kept him company in his whole journey from Corinth to Jerusalem, A. D. 58, Acts xx, 4. When St. Paul was in the temple there, the Jews laid hold of him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help; this is the man that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place; and farther, brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place,” Acts xxi, 28, 29. And this they said, because certain Jews of Ephesus having seen Trophimus with St. Paul in the city, whom they looked upon as a Gentile, imagined that St. Paul had introduced him into the temple. The whole city was immediately in an uproar, and St. Paul was secured. Trophimus afterward accompanied St. Paul; for that Apostle writes to Timothy, that he had left Trophimus sick at Miletus, 2 Tim. iv, 20.
TRUMPET. The Lord commanded Moses to make two trumpets of beaten silver, to be employed in calling the people together when they were to decamp, Num. x, 2, 3, &c. They also chiefly made use of these trumpets, to proclaim the beginning of the civil year, the beginning of the Sabbatical year, and the beginning of the jubilee, Lev. xxv, 9, 10. Josephus says, that these trumpets were near a cubit long; and had a tube, or pipe, of the thickness of a common flute. Their mouths were only wide enough to be blown into, and their ends were like those of a modern trumpet. At first there were but two in the camp, but afterward a greater number were made. Even in the time of Joshua there were seven of them, Joshua vi, 4. At the dedication of the temple of Solomon six-score priests sounded as many trumpets, 2 Chron. v, 12. Beside the sacred trumpets of the temple, the use of which was restrained to the priests only, in war there were others, which the generals sometimes employed for gathering their troops together. For example, Ehud sounded the trumpet, to assemble the Israelites against the Moabites, who oppressed them, and whose king Eglon he had lately slain, Judg. vi, 27. Gideon took a trumpet in his hand, and gave every one of his people one, when he assaulted the Midianites, Judges vii, 2, 16. Joab sounded the trumpet, to give the signal of retreat to his soldiers, in the battle against those of Abner’s party, and in that against Absalom; and lastly, in the pursuit of Sheba the son of Bichri, 2 Sam. ii, 28; xviii, 16; xx, 22. The feast of trumpets was kept on the first day of the seventh month of the sacred year, the first of the civil year. SeeMusic.
TRUTH is used, 1. In opposition to falsehood, lies, or deceit, Prov. xii, 17, &c. 2. It signifies fidelity, sincerity, and punctuality in keeping promises; and to truth taken in this sense is generally joined mercy or kindness, as in Gen. xxiv, 27, and other places of Scripture. 3. Truth is put for the true doctrine of the Gospel, Galatians iii, 1. 4. Truth is put for the substance of the types and ceremonies of the law, John i, 17.
TUBAL, the fifth son of Japheth. The Scripture commonly joins together Tubal and Meshech, which makes it thought that they peopled countries bordering upon each other. The Chaldee interpreters, by Tubal and Meshech understand Italy and Asia, or rather Ausonia. Josephus accounts them to be Iberia and Cappadocia. St. Jerom affirms that Tubal represents the Spaniards, heretofore called Iberians. Bochart is very copious in proving, that by Meshech and Tubal are intended the Muscovites and the Tibarenians.
TUBAL-CAIN, or THUBAL-CAIN, son of Lamech the bigamous, and of Zillah, Gen. ix, 29. The Scriptures tell us, that he was the father and inventor, or master, of the art of forging and managing iron, and of making all kinds of iron-work. There is great reason to believe that this was the Vulcan of the Heathens.
TURTLE,תזו, τρυγὼν, Gen. xv, 9; Lev. i, 14; v, 7, 11; xii, 6, 8; xiv, 22, 30; xv, 14, 29; Num. vi, 10; Psalm lxxiv, 19; Cant. ii, 12; Jer. viii, 7; τρυγὼν, Luke ii, 24. We have the authority of the Septuagint, the Targum, and of all the ancient interpreters, for understanding this of the turtle. Indeed, it is one of those evident instances in which the name of the bird is byonomatopœiaformed from its note or cry. The turtle is mentioned among migratory birds by Jeremiah viii, 7, and in this sense differs from the rest of its family, which are all stationary. The fact to which the prophet alludes is attested by Aristotle in these words: “The pigeon and the dove are always present, but the turtle only in summer: that bird is not seen in winter.” And in another part of his work, he asserts that the dove remains, while the turtle migrates. Varro, and other ancient writers, make the like statement. Thus Solomon, Cant. ii, 12, mentions the return of this bird as one of the indications of spring: “The voice of the turtle is heard in the land.” SeeDove.
TYCHICUS, a disciple of St. Paul, whom the Apostle often employed to carry his letters to the several churches. He was of the province of Asia, and accompanied St. Paul, when, in A. D. 58, he made his journey from Corinth to Jerusalem, Acts xx, 4. It was he that carried the epistle to the Colossians, that to the Ephesians, and the first to Timothy. St. Paul did not send him merely to carry his letters, but also to learn the state of the churches, and to bring him an account of them. Wherefore he calls him his dear brother, a faithful minister of the Lord, and his companion in the service of God, Eph. vi, 21, 22; Col. iv, 7, 8. He had thoughts also of sending him into Crete, to preside over that church in the absence of Titus, iii, 12.
TYPE. This word is not frequently used in Scripture; but what it signifies is supposed to be very frequently implied. We usually consider a type as an example, pattern, or general similitude to a person, event, or thing which is to come: and in this it differs from a representation, memorial, or commemoration of an event, &c, which is past. The Spirit of God has adopted a variety of means to indicate his perfect foreknowledge of all events, and his power to control them. This is sometimes declared by express verbal prophecy; sometimes by specific actions performed by divine command; and sometimes by those peculiar events, in the lives of individuals, and the history or religious observances of the Israelites, which were caused to bear a designed reference to some parts of the Gospel history. The main point, says Chevallier, in an inquiry into these historical types, is to establish the fact of a preconcerted connection between the two series of events. No similarity, in itself, is sufficient to prove such a correspondence. Even those recorded in Scripture are recorded under very different circumstances. If the first event be declared to be typical, at the time when it occurs, and the second correspond with the prediction so delivered, there can be no doubt that the correspondence was designed. If, before the occurrence of the second event, there be delivered a distinct prophecy, that it will happen, and will correspond with some previous event; the fulfilment of the prophecy furnishes an intrinsic proof, that the person who gave it spake by divine inspiration. It may not, from this fact, follow, that the two events were connected by a design formed before either of them occurred: but it certainly does follow, that the second event, in some measure, had respect to the first; and that whatever degree of connection was, by such a prophet, assumed to exist, did really exist. If, again, no specific declaration be made, respecting the typical character of any event or person, until after the second event has occurred, which is then declared to have been prefigured; the fact of preconcerted connection will rest solely upon the authority of the person who advances the assertion. But, if we know, from other sources, that his words are the words of truth, our only inquiry will be, if he either distinctly asserts, or plainly infers, the existence of a designed correspondence. The fact, then, of a preconcerted connection between two series of events, is capable of being established in three ways: and the historical types may be accordingly arranged in three principal divisions. Some of them afford intrinsic evidence, that the Scriptures, which record them, are given by inspiration of God; the others can be proved to exist only by assuming that fact: but all, when once established, display the astonishing power and wisdom of God; and the importance of that scheme of redemption, which was ushered into the world with such magnificent preparations. In contemplating this wonderful system, we discern onegreat intention interwoven, not only into the verbal prophecies and extraordinary events of the history of the Israelites, but into the ordinary transactions of the lives of selected individuals, even from the creation of the world. Adam was “the figure of him that was to come,” Romans v, 14. Melchisedec was “made like unto the Son of God,” Heb. vii, 3. Abraham, in the course of events in which he was engaged by the especial command of Heaven, was enabled to see Christ’s day, John viii, 56; and Isaac was received from the dead “in a figure,” Heb. xi, 19. At a later period, the paschal lamb was ordained to be sacrificed, not only as a memorial of the immediate deliverance, which it was instituted to procure and to commemorate, but also as a continued memorial of that which was to be “fulfilled in the kingdom of God,” Luke xxii, 16. Moses was raised up to deliver the people of Israel; to be to them a lawgiver, a prophet, a priest; and to possess the regal authority, if not the title of king. But, during the early period of his life, he was himself taught, that one great prophet should be raised up like unto him: before his death he delivered the same prophecy to the people: and, after that event, the Israelites continually looked for that faithful prophet, who should return answer to their inquiries, 1 Macc. iv, 46; xiv, 41. Their prophets all pointed to some greater lawgiver, who should introduce a new law into their hearts, and inscribe them upon their minds, Jer. xxxi, 33. The whole people of Israel were also made, in some instances, designedly representative of Christ: and the events, which occurred in their national history, distinctly referred to him. During their wanderings in the wilderness, God left not himself without witness, which should bear reference to the great scheme of the Gospel. They ate spiritual meat. It was an emblem of the true bread of life, which came down from heaven, John vi, 32. “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ,” 1 Cor. x, 4. They were destroyed of serpents; and a brazen serpent was lifted up on a pole, that whosoever looked might live. It was a sensible figure of the Son of man, who was, in like manner to be lifted up; “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life,” John iii, 15. Beside, their religious ordinances were only “a figure for the time then present,” Heb. ix, 9. Their tabernacle was made after the pattern of heavenly things, Heb. viii, 5; Exod. xxv, 9, 40; and was intended to prefigure the “greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,” Heb. ix, 11. The high priest was a living representative of the great “High Priest of our profession,” Heb. iii, 1: and the Levitical sacrifices plainly had respect to the one great sacrifice for sins. Joshua the son of Nun represented Jesus in name: and by his earthly conquests in some measure prefigured the heavenly triumphs of his Lord. In a subsequent period, David was no indistinct type of “the Messiah the Prince,” Dan. ix, 25, for a long time humbled, and at length triumphant over his enemies. And the peaceable dominion of Solomon prefigured that eternal rest and peace, which remaineth to the people of God. In a still later age, the miraculous preservation of the Prophet Jonah displayed a sign, which was fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. And when the temple was rebuilt, Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, and his fellows, were set forth as “men of sign,” representatives of the Branch, which should, in the fulness of time, be raised up to the stem of Jesse, Zech. iii, 8; Isa. xi, 1. The illustration, then, to be derived from the historical types of the Old Testament, is found diffused over the whole period, which extends from the creation of the world, to the time when vision and prophecy were sealed. And all the light, which emanates from so many various points, is concentrated in the person of Christ.
TYRANNUS. It is said in Acts xix, 9, that St. Paul being at Ephesus, and seeing that the Jews to whom he preached, instead of being converted, were rather more hardened and obstinate, he withdrew from their society, nor went to preach in their synagogue, but taught every day in the school of one Tyrannus. It is inquired, Who was this Tyrannus? Some think him to have been a prince or great lord, who accommodated the Apostle with his house, in which to receive and instruct his disciples. But the generality conclude, that Tyrannus was a converted Gentile, a friend of St. Paul, to whom he withdrew.
TYRE, orTyrus, was a famous city of Phenicia. Its Hebrew name isצורorצר, which signifies a rock. The city of Tyre was allotted to the tribe of Asher, Joshua xix, 29, with the other maritime cities of the same coast; but it does not appear that the Asherites ever drove out the Canaanites. Isaiah, xxiii, 12, calls Tyre the daughter of Sidon, that is, a colony from it. Homer never speaks of Tyre, but only of Sidon. Josephus says, that Tyre was built not above two hundred and forty years before the temple of Solomon; which would be in A. M. 2760, two hundred years after Joshua. Tyre was twofold, insular and continental. Insular Tyre was certainly the most ancient; for this it was which was noticed by Joshua: the continental city, however, as being more commodiously situated, first grew into consideration, and assumed the name of Palætyrus, or Old Tyre. Want of sufficient attention to this distinction, has embarrassed both the Tyrian chronology and geography. Insular Tyre was confined to a small rocky island, eight hundred paces long, and four hundred broad, and could never exceed two miles in circumference. But Tyre, on the opposite coast, about half a mile from the sea, was a city of vast extent, since many centuries after its demolition by Nebuchadnezzar, the scattered rains measured nineteen miles round, as we learn from Pliny and Strabo. Of these, the most curious and surprising are, the cisterns of Roselayne, designed to supply the city with water; of which there are three still entire; about one or two furlongs from the sea, so well described by Maundrell, for theircurious construction and solid masonry. Old Tyre withstood the mighty Assyrian power, having been besieged in vain, by Shalmaneser, for five years; although he cut off their supplies of water from the cisterns; which they remedied by digging wells within the city. It afterward held out thirteen years against Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and was at length taken; but not until the Tyrians had removed their effects to the insular town, and left nothing but the bare walls to the victor, which he demolished. What completed the destruction of the city was, that Alexander afterward made use of these materials to build a prodigious causeway, or isthmus, above half a mile long, to the insular city, which revived, as the phœnix, from the ashes of the old, and grew to great power and opulence, as a maritime state; and which he stormed after a most obstinate siege of five months. Pococke observes, that “there are no signs of the ancient city; and as it is a sandy shore, the face of every thing is altered, and the great aqueduct is in many parts almost buried in the sand.” Thus has been fulfilled the prophecy of Ezekiel: “Thou shalt be built no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again,” Ezek. xxvi, 21. The fate of insular Tyre has been no less remarkable. When Alexander stormed the city, he set fire to it. This circumstance was foretold. “Tyre did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea, and she shall be devoured with fire,” Zech. ix, 3, 4. After this terrible calamity, Tyre again retrieved her losses. Only eighteen years after, she had recovered such a share of her ancient commerce and opulence, as enabled her to stand a siege of fourteen months against Antigonus, before he could reduce the city; but after this, Tyre fell alternately under the dominion of the kings of Syria and Egypt, and then of the Romans, until it was taken by the Saracens, about A. D. 639, retaken by the Crusaders, A. D. 1124; and at length sacked and razed by the Mamelukes of Egypt, with Sidon, and other strong towns, that they might no longer harbour the Christians, A. D. 1289.
The final desolation of Tyre was thus foretold: “I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock: it shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.” “I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon: thou shalt be built no more; for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God.” Nothing can be more literally and astonishingly executed than this sentence. Huetius relates of one Hadrianus Parvillerius, that “when he approached the ruins of Tyre, and beheld the rocks stretched forth to the sea, and the great stones scattered up and down on the shore, made clean and smooth by the sun and waves and wind, and useful only for the drying of fishermen’s nets, many of which happened at that time to be spread thereon, it brought to his memory the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Tyre, that such should be its fate.” Maundrell, who visited the Holy Land, A. D. 1697, describes it thus: “This city, standing in the sea upon a peninsula, promises at a distance, something very magnificent; but when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory for which it was so renowned in ancient times, and which the Prophet Ezekiel describes, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle; beside which, you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c; there being not so much as one entire house left! Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly by fishing: who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, namely, that it should be as the top of a rock; a place for fishers to dry their nets upon, Ezek. xxvi, 14.” Hasselquist, who saw it since, in A. D. 1751, observes as follows: “None of those cities which were formerly famous are so totally ruined as Tyre, now called Zur; except Troy. Zur now scarcely can be called a miserable village, though it was formerly Tyre, the queen of the sea. Here are about ten inhabitants, Turks and Christians, who live by fishing.” Bruce, who visited this country about eighty years after Maundrell, says, that “passing by Tyre from curiosity, I came to be a mournful witness of the truth of that prophecy, that Tyre, the queen of nations, should be a rock for fishers to dry their nets on.” Mr. Buckingham, who visited it in 1816, represents it as containing about eight hundred substantial stone-built houses, and from five to eight thousand inhabitants. But Mr. Jowett, on the authority of the Greek archbishop, reduces this number to less than four thousand; namely, one thousand two hundred Greek Catholics, one hundred Maronites, one hundred Greeks, one thousand Montonalis, and one hundred Turks. Mr. Jowett observed numerous and beautiful columns stretched along the beach, or standing in fragments half buried in the sand, that has been accumulating for ages: “the broken aqueduct, and the ruins which appear in its neighbourhood, exist as an affecting monument of the fragile and transitory nature of earthly grandeur.” Mr. Joliffe states, that there now exist scarcely any traces of this once powerful city. “Some miserable cabins, ranged in irregular lines, dignified with the name of streets, and a few buildings of a rather better description, occupied by the officers of government, compose nearly the whole of the town. It still makes, indeed, some languishing efforts at commerce, and contrives to export annually to Alexandria cargoes of silk and tobacco; but the amount merits no consideration. The noble dust of Alexander, traced by the imagination till found stopping a beer barrel, would scarcely afford a stronger contrast of grandeur and debasement, than Tyre, at the period of being besieged by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour erected on its ashes.”
As commercial cities, says Mansford, ancient Alexandria and London may be considered as approaching the nearest to Tyre. But Alexandria, during the whole of her prosperous days, was subject to foreign rule; and London, great as are her commerce and her wealth, and possessing as she does almost a monopoly of what has in all ages been the most enviable and most lucrative branch of trade, that with the east, does not centre in herself, as Tyre did, without a rival and without competition, the trade of all nations, and hold an absolute monopoly, not of one, but of every branch of commerce. For the long period of a thousand years, not a single production of the east passed to the west, or of the west to the east, but by the merchants of Tyre. Nor for many ages were any ships found but those of Tyre daring enough to pass the straits of the Red Sea on one side, or of the Mediterranean on the other. While the vessels of other countries were groping along their coasts, clinging to their landmarks, and frightened at a breeze, the ships of Tyre were found from Spain, if not from Britain, on the west, to the coast of Malabar and Sofala on the east and south. No wonder that her merchants were princes, and that they lived in a style of magnificence unknown in any other country in the same age; or that she should be considered a desirable prey by the conquerors of the times. But enterprise and wealth did not alone complete the character of the Tyrians; they had an undoubted claim to valour of no common order. Their city, which possessed scarcely any territory beyond their own walls, maintained a siege of thirteen years (the longest in history except that of Ashdod) against the whole power of Babylon; and another of seven months against Alexander, whose successes had afforded no instance of similar delay. And in neither case had the captors much to boast of, as the Tyrians had shipped off their most valuable property to Carthage; and in the former particularly, as has been already related, they so effectually secured or sacrificed the whole, that the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar found nothing to reward them for their length of labour, during which, by excessive toil and heat, “their heads were made bald, and their very shoulders peeled,” but vacant streets, and houses already sacked. Carthage, Utica, and Cadiz, are celebrated monuments of the power of Tyre on the Mediterranean, and in the west. She extended her navigation even into the ocean, and carried her commerce beyond England to the north, and the Canaries to the south. Her connections with the east, though less known, were not less considerable; the islands of Tyrus and Aradus, (the modern Barhain,) in the Persian Gulf. The cities of Faran and Phœnicum Oppidum, on the Red Sea, in ruins even in the time of the Greeks, prove that the Tyrians had long frequented the coast of Arabia and the Indian Sea. But, through the vicissitudes of time, Tyre, reduced to a miserable village, has no other trade than the exportation of a few sacks of corn and raw cotton, nor any merchant, says Volney, but a single Greek factor in the service of the French Saide, (Sidon,) who scarcely makes sufficient profit to maintain his family. In allusion to Tyre in her better days, Forbes observes, when speaking of Surat, “The bazars, filled with costly merchandise; picturesque and interesting groups of natives on elephants, camels, horses, and mules; strangers from all parts of the globe, in their respective costume; vessels building on the stocks, others navigating the river; together with Turks, Persians, and Armenians, on Arabian chargers; European ladies in splendid carriages, the Asiatic females in hackeries drawn by oxen; and the motley appearance of the English and nabob’s troops on the fortifications, remind us of the following description of Tyre, “O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles,” &c, Ezek. xxvii, 3. This is a true picture of oriental commerce in ancient times; and a very exact description of the port and the bazars of Surat, at the present day.”
Dr. Vincent has given the following able illustration of the trade of Tyre as described in Ezek. xxvii, which must be considered as one of the most ample and early accounts extant. The learned author has rendered the Hebrew names into others better known in the geography of more recent times:--Tyre produced from Hermon, and the mountains near it, fir for planking; and from Libanus, cedars for masts. From Bashan, east of the sea of Galilee, oaks for oars. From Greece, or the Grecian isles, ivory to adorn the benches or the waists of the galleys. From Egypt, linen, ornamented with different colours, for sails, or flags, or ensigns. From Peloponnesus, blue and purple cloths for awnings. From Sidon and Aradus, mariners; but Tyre itself furnished pilots and commanders. From Gebal, or Biblos, on the coast between Tripolis and Berytus, caulkers. From Persia and Africa, mercenary troops. From Aradus, the troops that garrisoned Tyre with the Gamadim. From Tarshish, or by distant voyages toward the west, and toward the east, great wealth, iron, tin, lead, and silver. Tin implies Britain or Spain, or at least a voyage beyond the Straits of Hercules. From Greece, and the countries bordering on Pontus, slaves, and brass ware. From Armenia, horses, horsemen, and mules. From the Gulf of Persia, and the isles within that gulf, horns (tusks) of ivory, and ebony. The export to these isles was the manufacture of Tyre. From Syria, emeralds, purple, broidered work, fine linen, coral, and agate. The exports to Syria were the manufactures of Tyre in great quantities. From Judah and Israel, the finest wheat, honey, oil, and balsam. From Damascus, wine of Chalybon, (the country bordering on the modern Aleppo,) and wool in the fleece. The exports to Damascus were costly and various manufactures. From the tribe of Dan, situated nearest to the Philistines, the produce of Arabia, bright or wrought iron, cassia or cinnamon, and the calamus aramaticus. In conducting thetransport of these articles, Dan went to and fro, that is, formed or conducted the caravans. By one interpretation, they are said to come from Uzal; and Uzal is said to be Sana, the capital of Yemen, or Arabia Felix. From the Gulf of Persia, rich cloth for the decoration of chariots or horsemen. From Arabia Petræa and Hedjaz, lambs, and rams, and goats. From Sabea and Oman, the best of spices. From India, gold, and precious stones. From Mesopotamia, from Carrhæ, and Babylonia, the Assyrians brought all sorts of exquisite things; that is, fine manufacture, blue cloth, and broidered work, or fabric of various colours, in chests of cedar bound with cords, containing rich apparel. If these articles were obtained farther from the east, may they not be the fabrics of India, first brought to Assyria by the Gulf of Persia, or by caravans from Karmania and the Indus, and then conveyed by the Assyrians, in other caravans, to Tyre and Syria? In this view, the care of package, the chests of cedar, and the cording of the chests, are all correspondent to the nature of such a transport. From Tarshish the ships came that rejoiced in the markets of Tyre: they replenished the city, and made it glorious in the midst of the sea, Ezek. xxvii, 5–25. Dr. Vincent observes, that from the Tarshish last mentioned the ships returned to the ports in the Red Sea; as from the nineteenth to the twenty-fourth verse every particular relates to the east, while that referred to in the twelfth implies the west--Spain, or beyond. We have here some light thrown on the obscurity which surrounds the situation of this distant and unknown place. There is, indeed, a clear reference to two distinct places, or parts of the world, denominated Tarshish; perhaps from those very circumstances, their distance, and the little that was known respecting them. That one was situated westward, and reached by a passage across the Mediterranean, is certain from other parts of Scripture; that the other was eastward, or southward, on the coast of Arabia, India, or Africa, is equally certain. SeeTarshish, andOphir.
UNBELIEF or INFIDELITY is a want of credence in the word of God; or it may be defined, a calling in question the divine veracity, in what God hath either testified, promised, or threatened; and thus it is the opposite of faith, which consists in crediting what God hath said, John iii, 18, 33. It is said that the Jews could not enter into the promised land, “because of their unbelief,” Heb. iii, 18, 19. And the Apostle, teaching the believing Hebrews what instruction they should deduce from that portion of the history of their forefathers, says, as the words literally translated would run, “We are evangelized as well as they were; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it,” Heb. iv, 2. The meaning is, We Christians are favoured with the good news of the heavenly rest, as well as Israel in the wilderness were with the good news of the earthly rest in Canaan; but the word which they heard concerning that rest did not profit them, because they did not believe it. Hence it appears that faith and unbelief are not confined to the spiritual truths and promises of the Gospel of Christ, but respect any truth which God may reveal, or any promise which he may make even concerning temporal things. It is a crediting or discrediting God in what he says, whatever be the subject. Christ could not do many mighty works in his own country, because of their unbelief, Matt. vi, 5, 6; their mean opinion of him, and contempt of his miracles, rendered them unfit objects to have miracles wrought upon or among them. The Apostles’ distrust of Christ’s promises, of enabling them to cast out devils, rendered them incapable of casting one out, Mark xvii, 16; and St. Peter’s distrust of his Master’s power occasioned his sinking in the water, Matt. xiv, 30, 31. The unbelief for which the Jews were broken off from their being a church was their denial of Christ’s Messiahship, their contempt and refusal of him, and their violent persecution of his cause and members, Rom. xi, 20.
Adverting to the infidelity which prevailed among the educated class of Heathens when Christianity first appeared in the world, Dr. Neander observes:--It was Christianity which first presented religion under the form of objective truth, as a system of doctrines perfectly independent of all individual conceptions of man’s imagination, and calculated to meet the moral and religious wants of man’s nature, and in that nature every where to find some point on which it might attach itself. The religions of antiquity, on the contrary, consist of many elements of various kinds, which, either by the skill of the first promulgator, or, in the length of years, by the impress of national peculiarities, were moulded together into one whole. By the transmission of tales, half mythical, and half historical, by forms and statutes bearing the impress of religious feelings or ideas, mingled with multifarious poems, which showed a powerful imaginative spirit, rugged indeed, or, if animated by the spirit of beauty, at least devoid of that of holiness,--all these varied materials were interwoven so completely into all the characters, customs, and relations of social life, that the religious matter could no longer be separated from the mixed mass, nor be disentangled from the individual nature of the life and political character of each people with which it was interwoven. There was no religion generally adapted to human nature, only religions fitted to each people. The Divinity appeared here, not as free and elevated above nature; not as that which, overruling nature, might form and illuminate the nature of man; but was lowered to the level of nature, and made subservient to it. Through this principle of deifying the powers of nature, by which every exertion of bare power, even though immoral, might be received among the objects of religious veneration, the idea of holiness which beams forth from man’s conscience must continually have been thrown into the back ground and overshadowed. The old lawgivers were well aware how closely themaintenance of an individual state religion depends on the maintenance of the individual character of the people, and their civil and domestic virtues. They were well aware that when once this union is dissolved no power can restore it again. Therefore we find, especially in Rome, where politics were the ruling passion, a watchfulness after the most punctilious observance of traditional religious ceremonies, and a jealous aversion to any innovations in religion. The belief of a divine origin of all existence is a first principle in man’s nature, and he is irresistibly impelled to ascend from many to One. This very feeling showed itself even in the polytheism of national religions, under the idea of a highest God, or a father of the gods. Among those who gave themselves up to the consideration of divine things, and to reflection upon them, this idea of an original unity must have been more clearly recognized, and must have formed the centre point of all their inward religious life and thought. The imagination of the people was to be engaged with the numerous powers and energies flowing forth from that one highest Being, while to the contemplation of that unity, only a small number of exalted spirits, the initiated leaders of the multitude, could elevate themselves. The one God was the God of philosophers alone. The ruling opinion of all the thinking men of antiquity, from which all religious legislation proceeded, was, that pure religious truth could not be proposed to the multitude, but only such a mixture of fiction, poetry, and truth, as would serve to represent religious notions in such a manner that they might make an impression on men, whose only guide was their senses. The principle of a so calledfraus pia[pious fraud] was prevalent in all the legislation of antiquity. But how miserable would be the case of mankind, if the higher bond, connecting human affairs with heaven, could only be united by means of lies; if lies were necessary in order to restrain the greater portion of mankind from evil! And what could their religion in such a case effect? It could not impart holy dispositions to the inward heart of man; it could only restrain the open outbreaking of evil that existed in the heart, by the power of fear. Falsehood, which cannot be arbitrarily imposed on human nature, would never have been able to obtain this influence, had not a truth, which is sure to make itself felt by human nature, been working through it,--had not the belief in an unseen God, on whom man universally feels himself dependent, and to whom he feels himself attracted,--had not the impulse toward an invisible world, which is implanted in the human heart,--been able to work also through this covering of superstition. The geographer Strabo thinks that, in the same manner that mythical tales and fables are needful for children, so also they are necessary for the uneducated and uninformed, who are in some sort children, and also for those who are half educated; for even with them reason is not sufficiently powerful, and they are not able to free themselves from the habits they have acquired as children. This is, indeed, a sad condition of humanity, when the seed of holiness, which can develope itself only in the whole course of a life, cannot be strewn in the heart of the child, and when mature reason must destroy that which was planted in the early years of infancy! when holy truth cannot form the foundation of the future developement of life from the earliest dawn of childish consciousness! The thinking Roman statesmen also of the time at which Christianity appeared, as Varro, for instance, distinguish between thetheologia philosophica[philosophical theology] and thetheologia civilis, [civil theology,] which contradicts the principles of the former, as Cotta in Cicero distinguished between the belief of Cotta, and the belief of the Pontifex. The philosopher required in religion a persuasion grounded on reasoning; the citizen, the statesman, followed the tradition of his ancestors without inquiry. Suppose now thistheologia civilis, and thistheologia philosophicato proceed together, without a man’s wishing to set the opposition between the two in a very clear light to himself; that the citizen and the statesman, the philosopher and the man, could be united in the same individual with contradictory sentiments, (a division which in the same man is very unnatural,) and then he would perhaps say, “Philosophical reason conducts to a different result from that which is established by the state religion; but the latter has in its favour the good fortune which the state has enjoyed in the exercise of religion handed down from our ancestors. Let us follow experience even where we do not thoroughly understand.” Thus speaks Cotta, and thus also many Romans of education in his time, either more or less explicitly. Or perhaps we may suppose, that men openly expressed this contradiction, and did not scruple to assign the pure truth to thetheologia philosophica, and to declare thetheologia civilisonly a matter of politics. In the east, which is less subject to commotions, where tranquil habits of life were more common, and where a mystical spirit of contemplation, accompanying and spiritualizing the symbolical religion of the people, was more prevalent than an intellectual cultivation opposed to it, and developing itself independently, it was possible that this kind of esoteric and exoteric religion should proceed hand in hand without change for many centuries. But it was otherwise with the more stirring spirits and habits of the west. Here this independently proceeding developement of the intellect must have been at open war with the religion of the people; and as intellectual culture spread itself more widely, so also must a disbelief of the popular religion have been more extensively diffused; and, in consequence of the intercourse between the people and the educated classes, this disbelief must also have found its way at last among the people themselves; more especially since, as this perception of the nothingness of the popular religion spread itself more widely, there would naturally be many who would not, with the precaution of the men of old, hide their new illuminationfrom the multitude, but would think themselves bound to procure for it new adherents, without any regard to the injury of which they might be laying the foundations, without inquiring of themselves, whether they had any thing to offer to the people in the room of that of which they robbed them; in the room of their then source of tranquillity under the storms of life; instead of that which taught them moderation under affliction; and, lastly, in the place of their then counterpoise against the power of wild desires and passions. Men saw, in the religious systems of different nations which then came into contact with each other in the enormous empire of Rome, nothing but utter contradiction and opposition. The philosophical systems also exhibited nothing but opposition of sentiments, and left those who could see in the moral consciousness no criterion of truth to doubt whether there were any such thing or not. In this sense, as representing the opinions of many eminent and cultivated Romans, with a sneer at all desire for truth, Pilate made the sarcastic inquiry, “What is truth?” Many contented themselves with a shallow lifeless deism, which usually takes its rise where the thirst after a living union with heaven is wanting; a system which, although it denies not the existence of a God, yet drives it as far into the back ground as possible; a listless God! who suffers every thing to take its own course, so that all belief in any inward connection between this Divinity and man, any communication of this Divinity to man, would seem to this system fancy and enthusiasm! The world and human nature remain at least free from God. This belief in God, if we can call it a belief, remains dead and fruitless, exercising no influence over the life of man. The belief in God here produced neither the desire after that ideal perfection of holiness, the contemplation of which shows at the same time to man the corruption of his own nature, so opposite to that holiness; nor that consciousness of guilt by which man, contemplating the holiness of God within him, feels himself estranged from God; nor does this belief impart any lively power of sanctification. Man is not struck by the inquiry, “How shall I, unclean as I am, approach the holy God, and stand before him, when he judges me according to the holy law which he has himself engraven on my conscience? What shall I do to become free from the guilt which oppresses me, and again to attain to communion with him?” To make inquiries such as these, this spirit of deism considers as fanaticism; and it casts away from itself all notions of God’s anger, judgments, or punishments, as representations arising only from the limited nature of the human understanding. More lively and penetrating spirits, who felt in the world an infinite Spirit which animated all things, fell into an error of quite an opposite nature to this deism, which removed God too far from the world; namely into a pantheism, which confused God and the world, which was just as little calculated to bestow tranquillity and consolation. They conceived God only as the infinite Being elevated above frail man, and not as being connected with him, attracting him to himself, and lowering himself down to him. It was only the greatness, not the holiness nor the love, of God which filled their souls. Yet the history of all ages proves that man cannot for any length of time disown the desire for religion implanted in his nature. Whenever man, entirely devoted to the world, has for a long time wholly overwhelmed the perception of the Divinity which exists in his nature, and has long entirely estranged himself from divine things, these at last prevail over humanity with greater force. Man feels that something is wanting to his heart, which can be replaced to him by nothing else; he feels a hollowness within him which can never be satisfied by earthly things, and can find satisfaction and blessing suited to his condition in the Divinity alone, and an irresistible desire impels him to seek again his lost connection with Heaven. The times of the dominion of superstition also, as history teaches us, are always times of earthly calamity; for the moral corruption which accompanies superstition necessarily, also, destroys all the foundations of earthly prosperity. Thus the times in which superstition extended itself among the Romans were those of the downfall of civil freedom, and of public suffering under cruel despots. But, however, the consequences of these evils conducted man, also to their remedy; for by distress from without man is brought to the consciousness of his own weakness, and his dependence on a higher than earthly power; and when he is forsaken by human help, he is compelled to seek it here. Man becomes induced to look upon his misfortunes as the punishments of a higher Being, and to seek for means by which he may secure again for himself the favour of that Being. The need of a connection with Heaven, from which man felt himself estranged, and dissatisfaction with the cold and joyless present, obtained a more ready belief for the picture which mythology presented, of a golden age, when gods and men lived together in intimate union; and warm imaginations looked back on such a state with longing and desire. This belief and this desire, it must be owned, were founded on a great truth which man could rightly apprehend only through Christianity; and this desire was a kind of intimation which pointed to Christianity. From the nature of the case, however, it is clear that a fanatical zeal, where the heat of passion concealed from man the hollowness and falsehood of his faith, might be created for a religion, to which man only betook himself as a refuge in his misery, and in his dread of the abyss of unbelief; a religion which no longer served for the developement of man’s nature, and into which, nevertheless, he felt himself driven back from the want of any other; and that men must use every kind of power and art to uphold that which was in danger of falling from its own internal weakness, and to defend that which was unable to defend itself by its own power. Fanaticism was therefore obliged to avail itself of every kind of power in the struggle with Christianity,in order to uphold Heathenism, which was fast sinking by its own weakness. Although the Romans had from the oldest times been noted for their repugnance to all foreign sorts of religious worship, yet this trait of the old Roman character had with many altogether disappeared. Because the old national temples of the Romans had lost their respect, in many dispositions man was inclined to bring in to their assistance foreign modes of worship. Those which obtained the readiest admission were such as consisted of mysterious, symbolical customs, and striking, sounding forms. As is always the case, men looked for some special and higher power in what is dark and mysterious. The very simplicity of Christianity became therefore a ground of hatred to it.