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highest overshadowing Mary , according to the expression in the first of those two spurious chapters prefixed to Luke ' s gospel , ( i . 35 ) ; rtot only that her conception was miraculous , and that the child in her arms 4 dkl not ,
according to the strange language of our liturgy , 4 abhor the virgin ' s
womb ; ' but , moreover , that there was a unity of one substance , power and eternity in the Godhead , comprehending the three persons of Father , Son and Virgin , in one common vinculum
perichoresis ^ or emperichoresis ; which were the words used by the fathers to denote the bond of
union between the three persons of the trinity . In one of the four compartments of Dr . Clarke ' s next plate ( facing page 26 ) the same trinity seems to be again represented in what he calls an ' Idol picture as seen at Novogorod . ' In this picture there are two very aged figures , with beards down to their feet , as nearly alike as possible , except that one of them seems to stoop a mere trifle more than the other , iii token of some submission , aiid to have the palm of his right hand turned outwards , as if in the act of renouncing something which the other figure , by his hand laid upon his breast , with the palm turned inwards , seems to claim as
peculiar to himself . These two figures are evidently intended to represent c the Ancient of Days , ' in the two consubstantial and coc ternal persons of the Father and
the ?> on , standing each upon a separate hillock ( or , it may be , cloud , 4 before the mountains vvcre brought forth , or ever the earfh was formed . ' Psal . xc . 2 . and see Dan . vii . 13 . ) : and the
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thing Winch the figure intended for the Soil , is in the act of renouncing , may probably be , self , existence , or independence ; an attribute which none of the earlier orthodox fathers , not even Athanasius himself * , nor any of his
contemporaries , nor his successors for a long period , would ever allow to be possessed by the Son , whom they all strenuously denied to be God of himself ( avrvo § s $$ )
undeiived and independent , constantly maintaining that he was no more , as they themselves expressed it in their creed , than God of God , ( 3- £ 0 £ sx &e& }) though they held him to be of one substance and eternity with the Father . On each of these hillocks , or clouds , there are three footsteps imprinted ; and the two hillocks are united by a third , over which , at the top of the picture , there is a head , plainly intended for that of a female . At a small distance from the head , on each side of it , there is some drapery , which seems to be a veil , or curtain , drawn back from before the face . The hair is loose and
flowing ; which the late Lord Orford , in his Anecdotes of Painting ( vol . i . pp . 54 and 58 , edit . Svo . 1782 , ) tells us , was a mark used by painters to denote virginity . And this is confirmed by Dr . " Clarke himself , who sajs that c the hair of unmarried women in the mclst parts of Russia ,
f It has been said of that opus pd m marium of absurdity , the Athanasian Creed , that though it was not written fcy the hero whose name it bears > it expresses his sentiinents . But no man
can read the works of Athanasius without seeing : that the doctrine ( if absurdi ty can be called doctrine ) of the creed is no more his than the * com position . -Athanasius , and all his contemporaries , held the son to be infciior to the Father .
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400 On Pictures of the Trinity , in Dr . Clarke ' s Travels .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1811, page 400, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2418/page/16/
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