written "Thou art my Son." The Son was on the right hand of the Father, and wore a similar alb, but had no girdle. He held in his hand a cross, which he clasped to his bosom. On the left hung a scroll with the words "Thou art my Father." On the left of the Father was the Holy Ghost, having also a similar alb, his hands crossed upon his breast, and holding the following sentence-" I am the breath of both." The Son had a crown of thorns; the Holy Ghost a crown of olive. Both were looking towards the Father, who alone, of the three, wore shoes. All three had the same countenance, the same physiognomy, the same form.* With the exception of the crossed stole, which belongs to the Son, and not to the Father,t all the characteristics here given pertain to a monument of the sixteenth century, and not of the twelfth. The crown of thorns, in representations of the Trinity, the cross in the hands of the Son, the closed crown worn by the Father, the cope covering all the three persons at once, and the scroll hanging from it, are none of them earlier than the close of the fifteenth century. We have figures of the Trinity, cotemporary with Abelard, and not one among them agrees with the description

* "Videtur hic observare trium sanctissimæ Trinitatis cui dedicatum ejus loci oratorium est (the Paraclete), personarum extantes figuras ad humanam staturam, ex uno lapide fabrefactas, quas Abailardus ipse fabricari curavit, insolito, ut in omnibus insolitus erat, modo. Pater in medio positus est cum toga talari, stola et collo pendente et ad pectus decussata, atque ad cingulum adstricta: cum corona clausa in capite et globo in sinistra manu; pallio superindutus, quod ad duas hinc inde personas extenditur, cujus a fibula pendet lambus deauratus his verbis adscriptis: Filius meus es tu. Ad patris dexteram stat Filius cum simili toga, sed absque cingulo, habens in manibus crucem pectori appositam, et ad sinistram partem lambum cum his verbis: Pater meus es tu. Ad sinistram extat Spiritus Sanctus consimili toga indutus decussatus super pectus habens manus cum hoc dicto Ego utriusque spiraculam. Filius coronam spineam, Spiritus Sanctus olearem gerit. Uterque respicit Patrem, qui calceatus est, non duæ aliæ personæ. Eadem in tribus vultus, species et forma."—Annales Bened., vol. vi., p. 85, No. 14.

The Son is a priest after the order of Melchisedeck; he is at the same time pontiff and victim. Hence it comes that he is sometimes represented performing the office of the Mass, often in bishop's robes, very frequently wearing above the alb a stole, crossed like that worn by priests under the chasuble. It is not thus with the Father. It is quite possible that Mabillon may have assigned to the Father attributes belonging properly to the Son, since he makes an error of four centuries in the date of the monument of which he is speaking.

given by Mabillon: we possess, and have given, copies of Trinities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the characteristics by which they are distinguished range themselves amongst the number of those attributed to the Trinity of Abelard.

The anthropomorphic representation of the Trinity, appears then to have been in high favour at the Rénaissance, and the

Fig. 142. THE THREE DIVINE FACES WITH TWO EYES AND ONE SINGLE BODY. From a French Miniature of the XVI cent.*

* Manuscript of King Henry II., Bibl. Roy. The Trinity is here represented engaged in the creation of the world, as related in the Gospel of St. John; the Eagle of the Evangelist is placed upon a scroll-panel, on which is written, "In principio creavit cœlum et terram." The Eagle, as the attribute of an Apostle,

conclusion of the Gothic period. The type was greatly multiplied and as a necessary consequence, subjected to numerous modifications. To restrict ourselves to those changes affecting the three Divine heads, borne upon one single body, we may remark, in addition to what has been already said, that these heads, which at first were distinct and isolated, then placed in contact, then adhering, and next intimately united, ended by being confounded in one single skull.

The head then was single, but the three faces were distinct, because it was at least necessary to mark the triplicity of the faces. Still, four eyes at first, then three,* then two only were inserted in the three faces, and an almost absolute Unity was at length attained, even while the appearance of the Trinity was still maintained. Three faces, having two eyes only, one single forehead, and one sole body, give but a very feeble indication of the Trinity.

Ere long, artists fell into the monstrous. Allegorists, it is true, enjoy peculiar license, and they, like poets, are permitted to indulge in daring metaphors; still a metaphor has no more real authority in painting or sculpture, than a simple rhetorical figure. Meanwhile audacity knew no limits, and the more important the subject on which the imagination

has the nimbus; as symbolising an Evangelist, he bears a writing-horn in his beak. The Eagle is sometimes not content to hold a writing-horn merely, one of the material instruments employed to fix our thoughts. In ancient periods he is shown giving direct inspiration; he even dictates the idea, as do the Angel of St. Matthew, the Lion of St. Mark, and the Ox of St. Luke. But the manuscript here quoted belongs to the sixteenth century, and at that period the attributes of the Evangelists had become mere domestic attendants, and ceased to be regarded as the agents of inspiration.

*It appears that at St. Pol-de-Léon, in Brittany, there was a Trinity sculptured on the key of the vaulting, consisting of three faces, having only three eyes between them. It is easily seen that four, or even two, eyes might be placed naturally enough on three faces closely joined together; one of which would be seen in full face, while the other two would be in threequarters only, or in profile; but it is more difficult to distribute three eyes between three faces. To do so it would be necessary, instead of exhibiting those faces vertically, or in their natural elevation, to place them horizontally, or "en plan." This is exactly what has been done at St. Pol-de-Léon. It should be observed that the three eyes, mouths, and noses, sculptured on the trefoil shaped boss which hangs from the vaulting of the Church of St. Pol, do indeed designate a triplicity, but the idea of God perhaps has little part in it. It was probably a mere caprice of the artist's fancy, who wished to unite three objects of any like kind in one single area.

exercised itself, the more serious the consequences which it involved.

St. Christopher carried the infant Saviour on his shoulder across a tempestuous arm of the sea, and it was Christ the second person of the Trinity, and not the Trinity itself, that the saint bore. But a piece of sculpture, executed in the fifteenth century, is still to be seen in the church of Sedgeford, in England, in which a gigantic St. Christopher is bearing the little Jesus, a child of three years of age, upon his shoulders: yet this child is not Jesus only; He is the impersonation of the Trinity, for three heads are seen on that one little body. Thus we have one instance of Christ in his own person comprehending the entire Trinity.*

The same idea has been carried still farther. The second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, descended alone into the bosom of Mary; neither the Father, nor the Holy Ghost, ever became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin. Yet in a certain manuscript of the end of the fourteenth century, there is a prayer addressed to the Virgin, the written character of which appears to belong to the

* I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Thomas Wright, an English antiquarian, who is also a correspondent of the Institute of France, and of the "Comité des Arts et des Monuments," for the communication of a very correct drawing of the St. Christopher above described, bearing on his shoulders the infant Jesus with three heads. One of the heads only has a nimbus; the other two are destitute of that distinctive ornament. It must be added, that these heads, having been covered with whitewash which has recently been removed, are at present somewhat indistinct. M. le Baron Taylor, to whom the drawing was communicated, believes, and with reason, that two of the three heads were probably abortive attempts of the painter. The artist may have made two or three different attempts to place a head on the body of the infant he had just drawn, and was not satisfied until the third attempt; hence the three heads. The above explanation seems plausible, and we willingly adopt it. Still it must be observed, that the definitive head, that wearing the nimbus, is even more indistinct than the others; in them the eyes and mouth, which in the first are not perceptible, are distinctly traced. Besides, the fact thus presented to us in the painting at Sedgeford, although irregular, is not unique, and we have a host of examples proving that Christ has been figured, absorbing in himself the three Divine persons. The most ancient St. Christopher in my recollection, is on a painted window in the south transept of the Cathedral of Strasbourg. It is Byzantine in design, and must date from the eleventh century. However, the little figure of Christ that he bears has but one single head.

fifteenth. In that prayer, which is rather remarkable, the following passage may be found. "Si vous souveigne, doulce dame, de la doulce annunciacion que le Sauveur de tout le monde vous envoya quand il se voulut tant humilier que il voulut en vous descendre et en vos précieulx flans prendre cher humaine pour nous povres pécheurs rachepter. Vuelliés ouvrir les oreilles de vostre très-grant doulceur à escouter les prières de moy povre pécheresse, quant pour les pécheurs se voust en vous herbergier le Père, le Filz et le Seint-Esperit. Pour quoy, doulce dame, à vous appartient estre advocate aux povres pécheurs, et par quoy vous estes la chambre de toute la Trinité." *

Thus then, as early as the close of the fourteenth century, or about the commencement of the fifteenth, the womb of Mary had been called the chamber of the whole Trinity, and the Chancellor Gerson, was unable to restrain his indignation at seeing in the church of the Carmelites, at Paris, a picture, in which the text of Troyes written one hundred years later, was pictorially represented. "On se doit bien garder" cried Gerson, "de paindre faulsement une histoire de la saincte Escripture, tant que bonnement se peut faire. Je le dy partie pour une ymage qui est aux Carmes et semblables, qui ont dedens leur ventre une Trinité, aussi comme toutte la Trinité, eust prins char humaine en la vierge Marie. Et, qui plus merveille est, il y a enfer dedens peint, et ne voy point pour quelle cause on œuvre ainsi; car, en mon jugement, il n'y a baulté ne dévocion en telles paintures; et ce doit estre cause d'erreur et de indignation ou indévocion."+

"So remember, sweet lady, the sweet annunciation that the Saviour of all the world sent you, when he was pleased to humble himself so much as to descend into you, and in your sacred body to take upon himself human flesh, to redeem us poor sinners. Deign to open the ears of your great goodness, to hear the prayers offered by me, a poor sinner, inasmuch as for us sinners, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were pleased to take up their abode in you. Wherefore, sweet Lady, to you it belongs to be the advocate of poor sinners, and for that purpose you became the chamber of the Holy Trinity." This manuscript was communicated to M. Leon Aubineau, " Archiviste" at Tours, and correspondent of the "Comité des Arts," by M. l'Abbé Tridon, Professor of Archæology in the little seminary at Troyes.

"We must guard as honestly as we can," exclaims Gerson, "against depicting falsely any story from the Holy Scriptures. I say this on account of a painting in the Carmelites, and others resembling it, which have within the