Note 24 — III.
Reading edition
Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew word ברא which is translated created, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressions בן רוח אב Son, Spirit, Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the word אבן stone, are to be divided into אב בן Father, Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words, νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designate the Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifies the Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designates fiery breath, is the Holy Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrew י״ה״ש״ו״ה the πενταγράμματον yields the name יהוה Jehovah; and the ש which in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of the Λόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or the Logos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.24