OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Plato was used by the orthodox/ and abusedby the heretics/ as the common support of,truth and error: the authority of his skilfulcommentators, and the science of dialectics wereemployed to justify the remote consequences ofhis opinions, and to supply the discreet silenceof the inspired writers. The same subtle andprofound questions, concerning the nature, thegeneration, the distinction, and the equality ofthe three divine persons of the mysteriousTriad, or Trinity / were agitated in the philo-sophical, and in the Christian schools, of Alex-andria. An eager spirit of curiosity urged themto explore the secrets of the abyss; and thepride of the professors, and of their disciples,was satisfied with the science of words. Butthe most sagacious of the Christian theologians,the great Athanasius himself, has candidly con-fessed/ that when he forced his understanding

f Some proofs of the respect which the Christians entertained for theperson and doctrine of Plato , may be found in De la Motile le Vayer,tom. v, p. 135, &c. edit. 1757; and Basnage, Hist, des Juifs , tom. iv,p. 29, 79, &e.

6 Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium haereticorum eondimentariumfactum. Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius (Dogm . Theoiog. tom.iii, proleg. 2), shews that this was a general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i, 1. iii, c. 9, 1(1), has deduced the Gnostic errors from platonicprinciples ; and as, in the school of Alexandria, those principles wereblended with the Oriental philosophy (Brucker, tom. i, p. 1350), thesentiments of Beausobre may be reconciled w ith the opinion of Mosheim(General History of the Church, vol. i, p. 37).

h If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (see Dnpin, Bibliotheque , Eccle-siastique, tom. i, p. 00), was the first who employed the word Triad,Trinity , that abstract term, which was already familiar to the schoolsof philosophy, must have been introduced into the theology of theChristians after the middle of the second century.

* Athanasius , tom. i, p. 808. His expressions have an uncommonenergy; and as he was writing to monks, there could not be any oc-casion for him to affect a rational language.

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XXI.