The system of Plato may be thus stated: God first produce(l the ideal worhl, i. e. his infinite miderstanding conceived of the existence of the world, and formed tlie plan of creation. The ?v«/ world was then formed after this ideal world as its model ; and this was done by luiit- ing the soul of the world with matter, by which the world became an animated, sensitive, rational creature — guided, pervaded, and held together by this rational soul. The three principles of Plato were («) the Su-
preme God, whom he calls Uarijp ; (b) the divine un- derstanding, which he calls yoiJc, XoyoQ, rrwrrip, <TO(fiia ; and ((■) the soul of the world. These views are devel- oped in his 'TiiniEus, etc. The Neo-Platonists eagerly embraced these ideas of Plato, and during the 2d and 3d centuries seemed to labor to outdo one another in explaining, defending, and more fully developing them. They not only widely differ from Plato, but often dis- agree among themselves in their mode of thinking and in their phraseology.
While the .Jews who resided in Palestine were satis- fied with their Pharisao-Kabbinic theology, and looked for their Messiah as a religious reformer, this was not the case with those residing elsewhere, who had been educated under the influence of the Grecian philosojihy. These abandoned the expectation of a future INIessiah, or regarded his kingdom as entirely of a moral nature. Among them the theory of the \uyoQ is found as early as the 1st century. Tiie \oyoQ they regarded as ex- isting before the Creation, and as the instnmient through whom God made all things. See Knapp, Christ. Theol. p. 145 sq. ; Lenormant, Chald. Magic, ch. ix ; Smith, Chald. A ccount of Genesis ; Tholuck, Die specidutice Trinitdlslehre der neuern Orientalen (Berlin, 1826, 8vo).
Trinity, Fraternity of the, a religious society instituted at Home by Philip Neri in 1548. They had charge of the pilgrims who were constantly coming to Rome from all parts of the world. Pope Paul IV gave them the Church of St. Benedict, near which they built a large hospital, and in which there was also a college of twelve priests for the instruction of pilgrims. — Eadie, Eccles. Cychip. s. v.
Trinity Sunday, the octave day of the feast of Pentecost. The introduction of this daj' into the cal- endar is of comparatively recent date, it being estab- lished by pope Benedict XI, A.I). 1305. It is probable that the zeal of many Christians against the use of images in the 8th and 9th centuries may have been the first cause of the appointment of a distinct day for medi- tating upon the nature of the Holy Trinity in unity, or the one true God, as distinguished from all idols. The reason for its late introduction is that in the creed of the Church, and in its psalms, hymns, and doxologies, great prominence was given to this doctrine, and it was thought that there was no need to set apart a jjariicular da\' for that which was done every day.
Triphysites (from rpuQ^three^and (pvatiQ, natures), those divines who, at the fourteenth and fifteenth coun- cils of Toledo, A.D. 084, 688, carried their opposition to the Monophysites and INIonothelites to such an extreme that the\' declared a belief not only in Christ's distinct divine and human natures, but also in a third nature re- sidting from the union of the two, —Blunt, Diet, of Sects, s. V.
Triplet, a window of three lights. iMany such occur in the First Pointed style, the centre light be- ing usually' longer or more elevated than the two side
lights.
Trip'olis (// Tp'nroXiQ), the Greek name of a city of great commercial importance, which served at one time as a point of federal iniion for Aradns, Sidon, and Tyre (hence the name the threefold city), which each had here its special (piartcr. What its Phfcnician name was is unknown ; but it seems not impossible that it was Kadytis, and that this was really the place cap- tured by Necho, of w-hich Herodotus speaks (ii, 159; iii, 5). Kadytis is the Greek form of the Syrian Kedutha, "the holy." a name of which a relic still seems to sur- vive in the Xahr- Katlisli, a river that runs through Taralxdus, the modern representative of Tripolis. All ancient federations had for their place of meeting some spot consecrated to a common deity, and just to the south of Tripolis was a promontory which went by the name of Qeoi' 7rpuau)Tzov.
TRIPOLIS
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TRISAGION
Coins iif Tripiilis.
Triptych, a picture with two folding -doors, set over altars. The centre panel usually contains the