15. Each of these persons in scripture is called God; and taken together they are God, or constitute the grand Presidency of heaven and earth, and as such are one, as well as in attributes. (See note 5, end of section).
16. The spirit of the Son had an existence with the Father before he was born in the flesh; [81] and indeed it was by him, and through him--under the direction of the Father--that the worlds were made; [82] "and without him was not anything made that was made." [83]
17. Such is the simple doctrine of the Godhead taught to the primitive Saints by the apostles. It was implicitly believed as God's revelation to them upon the subject, and they were { 166} content to allow the revelation to excite their reverence without arousing their curiosity to the point where men of finite minds attempt to grasp the infinite, or circumscribe God in their understandings. In a short time, however, a change came, and men sought to explain the revelation that God had given of himself by the vain babblings of pagan science; and that led not only to much contention within the church, but to the adoption in the Christian creed of erroneous ideas in respect of Deity.
18. Gnostic and "New Platonic" Philosophy.--In order to give a clear explanation of this matter, it will be necessary to invite the attention of the student to Gnosticism and the Eclectic or "New Platonic" philosophy which arose in the early Christian centuries. First, then, as to Gnosticism. The Gnostics taught there existed from eternity a Being that embodied within himself all the virtues; a Being who is the purest light and is diffused throughout boundless space, which they called Pleroma. This Being, after dwelling alone and in absolute repose for an infinite period, by an operation purely mental, or by acting upon himself, produced two spirits[84] of different sexes. By the marriage of these two spirits others of similar nature were produced, who, in their turn, produced others. Thus a celestial family was formed in the pleroma. These emanations from Deity, whether directly or from those spirits first begotten by Deity acting upon himself, were called Aeons, a term which was doubtless employed to signify their eternal duration, and perhaps the mode of their production.