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koy , or Circask , the capital of the Don Cossacks , represents the * Virgi ? i with a bleeding cheek . ' c Below the figure of the Virgin , a hand appears painted of the natural size , as it cut off , and fastened to the picture : a knife also is placed by the hand : and they relate that a priest struck at a
picture of the Virgin , and wound , cd her in the cjaeek , which evei continued to blee ^; but
immediately the blow was made , the hand of the priest came off , and , with the knife , remained afterwards "adhering to the picture ' ( Travels , p . 278 . ) This fiction was propagated , I have no doubt , in order to terrify
and restrain the fury of the Eiconoclcibts , in the 8 th century : the bleeding cheek having originated in the mistake of some painter , or narrator , of the story , who confounded the words u , rj \ oc cheeks ,
and jj . bXtj limbs . It is to be recollected , that in the Doric dialect , which was that of the vulgar , of the rustics , and of the borderers , in all parts of the Greek empire , both the e and the tj were written and pronounced a , and that in the eighth century , writing , and reading , and spelling were not s <> common as they are now . Jf they had been so , the Christian world would never have ( profited shall I say ? or ) suffered so much from the benefit of clergii . Indeed
in more enlightened times similar mistakes have given birth to , and will-often serve to explain much of the mythology both of the heathen , and the Christian priesthood . If I am right , as I have no doubt that I am , in supposing that these two pictures given us by Dr . Clarke were intended to
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represent not the last new fashion but one of the earlier fashions of the Trinity , the Trinity of Father Son and Virgin , they are certainl y very curious remains of ecclesiastical antiquity . To those Chris , tians who do not wish to worship more Gods than Jesus , and the
apostles worshipped , and who , at the same time , are not sufficiently apprised of the great fertility of ecclesiastical invention , nor suffi . ciently aware of the wide difference between v believing in the
church , and believing in the gospel , these pictures are something better than mere curiosities : they are very instructive , and may
assist jn settling their doubts upon a question which would never have held the minds of honest inquirers so long in suspense , if they had not suffered themselves to be
drawn out of light into darkness ; if they , and their forefathers , had not forsaken the declarations of the Lord their God , in whom there is no darkness at all , ( i John i . 5 . ) but who says of himself , in the clearest and plainest terras , u I am the Lord , and therein none else , there is no God besides me / ' ( Isa . xlv . 5 . See also , Exod . xx . 2 , 3 . Deut . iv . 35 . 39 . xxxii . 39 . 1 Kings viiu 60 . Isa . xliii . , 11 . xlv . 6 , 14 , 18 , , 22 . xlvi . 9 . Joel ii . 27 . Zech . xiv . 9 . ) and of whom Jesus also says , in terms equally clear and plain , that he is the u Father , " and " the only true God , " and as much his God and Lord , as he is the God and Lord of any other man . ( John xvii . 1 , 3 , xx . 17 . ) They could never have halted so long between two opinions , one of which is , sense , and the other nonsense , if they had not * forsaken the fountain of living waters , an < J
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402 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 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2418/page/18/
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