our hands have handled and our
eyes have seen the word of life. This same purpose, namely, to hold fast
to the historic Jesus, triumphed in the doctrine of the Trinity; Jesus
was not to be resolved into an aeon or into some mysterious _tertium
quid_, neither God nor man, but to be recognized as very God who
redeemed the soul. Through him men were to understand the Father and to
understand themselves as God's children. Thus the doctrine of the
Trinity satisfied at once the philosophic intelligence of scholars and
the religious needs of Christians. Only thus can its adoption and
ultimate acceptance be explained. Its doctrinal form is the philosophic
statement of beliefs held by the common people, who had little interest
in theology, but whose faith centred in Jesus. It marks the
naturalization of Christianity in the Greek world for the common people
who believed in Christ, and for the philosophers who justified the faith
to reason.

The historic and religious values of the doctrine of the Trinity may be
illustrated by way of contrast. The Mah[=a]y[=a]na systems are the union
of Buddha's teaching with the forms of the Brahman philosophy. The
historic Buddha--the man Gautama--is taught as only one of a limitless
series of incarnations or (better) appearances. For his life on earth
with his material body was only an appearance, a seeming, a phenomenon,
and simultaneously with its activities the true Buddha existed unmoved
and eternal. Thus the way was opened for other apparitional Buddhas, and
different sects take different ones as the objects of faith and worship.
Moreover, our true nature is also Buddha. The conscious life of all men
is apparitional and illusive. Salvation is the comprehension of this
fact, and in the apprehension of our essential oneness with the
absolute. Hence the way of salvation is by knowledge. In the
Mah[=a]y[=a]na gnosticism was triumphant, and the historic values of
Gautama's teaching and personality are lost. The Mahayana illustrates in
part what would have followed the triumph of gnosticism in Christianity,
for not only would the historic value of the life and teaching of Jesus
have been lost, but with it the significance of humanity.

It is apparent that such a doctrine as the Trinity is itself susceptible
of many explanations, and minds differently constituted lay emphasis
upon its different elements. Especially is this true as its Greek
terminology was translated into Latin, and from Latin