"
These various stages in the evolution of scholastic theology were
also embodied in sacred art, and especially in cathedral sculpture,
in glass-staining, in mosaic working, and in missal painting.
The creative Being is thus represented sometimes as the third
person of the Trinity, in the form of a dove brooding over chaos;
sometimes as the second person, and therefore a youth; sometimes as
the first person, and therefore fatherly and venerable; sometimes
as the first and second persons, one being venerable and the other
youthful; and sometimes as three persons, one venerable and one
youthful, both wearing papal crowns, and each holding in his lips
a tip of the wing of the dove, which thus seems to proceed from
both and to be suspended between them.
Nor was this the most complete development of the medieval idea.
The Creator was sometimes represented with a single body, but with
three faces, thus showing that Christian belief had in some pious
minds gone through substantially the same cycle which an earlier
form of belief had made ages before in India, when the Supreme
Being was represented with one body but with the three faces of
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
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