Over a decade ago I found a passage written by James Burgh (in "Crito") wherein he gives an account of his Arianism. Burgh was an English Whig writer who influenced America's founders. Among other things, he arguably served as the intellectual intermediary between Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson regarding the term "separation of church and state." Jefferson got it from Burgh; Burgh got it from Williams.
I found of interest Burgh's use of the term "quaternity." As he wrote:
... The papists have thought proper to put the Virgin Mary into the Tr---ty, and call her the complement, or completing of it. That is, the F----r, the S-n, the H--y Gh--t, and the Virgin Mary, the undivided mystical four, or three, which is the same (for in a mystery, three is the same as four, and four the same as one; finite the same as infinite; human the same as divine) the mystical four, I say, are the tr---ty, or rather quaternity, that is, four different beings, some infinite, some finite, some mortal, some immortal, are only three beings, and these three-four beings, are the One, indivisible, simple, unoriginated Spirit, the first cause and fountain of being.No Protestant holds the Virgin Mary, who has these many ages been dead and rotten, to be any part of the immortal God. This is out of the question. But I would imagine, that to a person who denies the Athanasian doctrine, it should not appear a whit more absurd to put the Virgin Mary into the Tr---ty, or Godhead, than any other being whatever. All beings are equally different from and inferior to the Supreme; the S-n as much as the virgin; the virgin as much as a worm. ...
This old school, Enlightenment era, unitarian logic argues Roman Catholic doctrine is responsible for the error of Trinitarianism and sees a connection between Marianism and Trinitarianism. It argues the Trinity is as logically sound as the Quaternity. With Mary of course as the 4th Person in the Godhead. A short time later John Adams would write:
The Trinity was carried in a general council by one vote against a quaternity; the Virgin Mary lost an equality with the Father, Son, and Spirit only by a single suffrage.-- John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812.
I would bet Adams got this sentiment from Burgh.
8 comments:
Any idea what general council Adams could have been referring to?
I can't tell how serious Adams was being. He clearly and bitterly rejected the Trinity; but I'm not sure if he actually meant to convey the existence of such a council. But if he did, it was Nicaea in 325AD. And again, if he did, he was simply mistaken about what Nicaea was all about.
In context it seemed to me like it meant it pretty literally, as he was talking about other things decided by a single vote, not about the Trinity
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5807
You may be right. Adams may have mistakenly thought the Catholics who ran Nicaea tried to vote the Virgin Mary into the Godhead but lost by a single suffrage. I would think Adams would have to be referring to Nicaea because that's the event where the doctrine of the Trinity was "carried" or I would say meant to be firmly established by council vote.
It was much harder to do good history in 1812 than today.
Elsewhere I've seen Adams under the misimpression that a corrupt Pope burned the original Hebrew of the biblical canon in the sense that it was then gone and hence unavailable. There really was a Pope who burned some Hebrew writings but not in the sense that Adams thought he did.
Why Adams on religion is worthless. It was not for nothing that he and Jefferson kept their dilettantish musings on theology secret--they were both quite out of their league.
I think the correspondence was published at the end of their lives, or perhaps right after death. That's a footnote I need to brush up on.
I know that Jefferson's letters were published by the end of Ashbel Green's life where Green went nuts because of what Jefferson said about him (accusing him of religious baiting George Washington).
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2009/05/george-washingtonashbel-green-affair.html
Why the Jefferson-Adams post-presidential correspondence is worthless or nearly so. More probative is that they needed to hide these theological mumblings and bumblings [if not fabrications] from the American people.
Historians study these because they exist, not for their probative value--sort of like looking for your keys over where the light's better. ;-)
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