Trinus, which means “threefold” in Latin, is the name given to the Christian theology of the Trinity, which holds that there is only one God but three everlasting and consubstantial individuals (aspects): the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the force that unites the Father, the Son, and the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The Father is the God of Israel, the creator God of Genesis. The term ‘trinity’ does not appear in the Bible; it was finally agreed upon at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE following years of discussion. It was an attempt to explain how Christianity’s claims about Jesus and its experiences with the spirit connected to the oneness of God.
There have been many stories as to where the original story of the Trinity came from, but one common story is the one that Trinity came from Egypt. Across the ancient world, dating back to Babylonia, it was customary to worship pagan deities in groups of three, or triads. In the years preceding, encompassing, and succeeding Christ, Egypt, Greece, and Rome were likewise heavily impacted by this influence. Additionally, these heathen doctrines started to infiltrate Christianity following the apostles’ deaths.
Historian Will Durant observed:
“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. . From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity.” And in the book Egyptian Religion, Siegfried Morenz notes: “The trinity was a major preoccupation of Egyptian theologians . Three gods are combined and treated as a single being, addressed in the singular. In this way the spiritual force of Egyptian religion shows a direct link with Christian theology.”
Thus, in Alexandria, Egypt, churchmen of the late third and early fourth centuries, such as Athanasius, reflected this influence as they formulated ideas that led to the Trinity. Their own influence spread, so that Morenz considers “Alexandrian theology as the intermediary between the Egyptian religious heritage and Christianity.”
In the preface to Edward Gibbon’s History of Christianity, we read: “If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief.”
A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge notes that many say that the Trinity “is a corruption borrowed from the heathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith.” And The Paganism in Our Christianity declares: “The origin of the [Trinity] is entirely pagan.”
What else have you heard about the origin of the holy trinity?
