The Origin Of Trinity

This article covers the origin of Trinity.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY IS NOT FOUND IN THE BIBLE

The Illustrated Bible Dictionary records: “The word Trinity is not found in the Bible. . . It did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century.”

The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits that the Trinity “is not. . . directly and immediately the word of God.”

The Encyclopedia of Religion And Ethics records: At first the Christian Faith was not Trinitarian. . . It was not so in the apostolic and sub-apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and other early Christian writings.”

L. L. Paine, professor of Ecclesiastical History acknowledged: “The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic. God is a single personal being. The idea that a trinity is to be found there . . . is utterly without foundation.”

The Encyclopedia of Religion admits: “Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity.”
The New Catholic Encyclopedia also admits: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the Old Testament.”

Jesuit Edmund Fortman wrote in his book, The Triune God: “. . . There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a Trinity within the Godhead. . . Even to see in the Old Testament suggestions or foreshadowings or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”

The Encyclopedia of Religion says: “Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity.”
The New Encyclopedia Britannica reports: “Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament.”

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology confirms: “The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity.”

Jesuit Fortman similarly states: “The New Testament writers. . . give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. . . Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.”

Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins affirms in the Origin and Evolution of Religion: “To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; . . .they say nothing about it.”

Historian Arthur Weigall records in The Paganism in Our Christianity: “Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word ‘Trinity’ appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord.”

CHRISTIANS OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES HAD NO EXPLICIT TRINITARIAN DOCTRINE

The New Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

“The formulation ‘one god in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. . . Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology states: “Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds.”

The Encyclopedia Americana plainly reports: “Fourth Century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching.”

The Ethnic Trinities by L. L. Paine, page 219, states that the development of the trinity was an evolutionary process. “The Christian dogma did not start from a polytheistic or pantheistic ground, but from Jewish monotheism; but the development from one God to a trinity was just as completely a historical evolution as any other.”

THE TRINITY IDEA WAS INFUSED INTO CHRISTIANITY
THROUGH PAGAN GREEK PLATONIC THOUGHT

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge plainly documents the historical influence that Greek Philosophy had on the development of the Trinity:

“The doctrine of the Logos and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who. . . were much influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy . . . That errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source can not be denied.”
The book entitled, The Church of the Fist Three Centuries acknowledges: “The doctrine of the Trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation: . . . it had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; . . . it grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers.”

The Platonizing Fathers were the Greek Philosophers that became Christian but continued to follow the teachings of Plato. These Philosophers mixed Christians Ideas with Pagan Greek Philosophy to formulate the concept of a three person Godhead. The apostle Paul warned the Greek Colossian city,

“Beware lest any man cheat you through philosophy and vain deceit. . .(Colossians 2:8)”

What kind of philosophy was Paul warning about? Since Paul was addressing a Greek city, he must have been warning about the entrance of Greek Philosophical Thought. The Platonic Fathers also known as Greek Apologists were the first to introduce Pagan Trinitarian Thought into Christianity.
Church Historian Adolf Harnack states that the Church Fathers which developed the Nicene Creed were Platonists who appealed to Plato in support of the Trinity. Volume 4. Page 88: “Science concluded on alliance with the Nicene Creed; that was a condition of the triumph of orthodoxy. . . These men took their stand on the general theory of the universe which was accepted by the science of the time; they were Platonists, and they once more naively appealed to Plato in support even of their doctrine of the Trinity.”

Church Historian Jaroslav Pelikan states in his book – The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition – that Greek Platonic elements were unmistakably present in the Trinitarian definition of One God in “three persons.”

“The doctrine of the Trinity. . .must be interpreted in a manner that would be consistent with this a priori definition of the deity of God (One essence, three persons). Neoplatonic elements were unmistakably present in this definition. . .”

The New Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 10, page 335 admits: “From the middle of the 4th century onward, however, Christian thought was strongly influenced by Neo-platonic philosophy and mysticism.”

Adolf Harnack states in Outlines of the History of Dogma, that church doctrine became “firmly rooted in the soil of Hellenism [pagan Greek thought]. Thereby it became a mystery to the great majority of Christians.”

Andrew Norton declares in the book “A Statement of Reasons” that the Trinity originated not from the Bible, but from Platonic Philosophy: “We can trace the history of this doctrine, and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in the Platonic philosophy . . . The Trinity is not a doctrine of Christ and his Apostles, but a fiction of the school of the later Platonists.”

THE TRINITY IDEA WAS BORROWED FROM HEATHEN RELIGIONS

A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge records that many historians believe that the Trinity “is a corruption borrowed from the heathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith.”

Edward Gibbons’s History of Christianity notes: “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.”

Historian Will Durant observed: “Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. . . From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity.”

Siegfried Morenz, in the book ‘Egyptian Religion’ notes: “The trinity was a major preoccupation of Egyptian theologians . . . These 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.”

James Hastings wrote in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: “In Indian religion, e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma, Siva, and Visnu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. . . Nor is it only in historical religions that we find God viewed as a Trinity. One recalls in particular the Neo-Platonic views of the Supreme or Ultimate Reality. which is triadically represented.”

The French New Universal Dictionary reveals both Plato’s Greek Philosophical Influence upon Christianity and that of ancient pagan religions: “The Platonic Trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian Churches. . . Thus Greek philosophers conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all the ancient pagan religions.”

L. L. Paine records that the Trinity idea stems from Pagan Roots: “. . . among the more highly civilized Chaldaeans, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, triads of gods were a common and notable feature of their theogonies.”

H. P. Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled (pages 45,46), reveals that the Trinity Dogma originated from Babylon:

“We find it northeast of the Indus; and tracing it to Asia Minor and Europe, recognize it among every people who had anything like an established religion. It was taught in the oldest Chaldaean, Egyptian, and Mithraitic schools. The Chaldaean Sun-god, Mithra, was called ‘Triple,’ and the trinitarian idea of the Chaldaeans was a doctrine of the Akkadians, who themselves belonged to a race which was the first to conceive a metaphysical trinity. According to Rawlinson, the Chaldaeans are a tribe of the Akkadians, who lived in Babylonia from the earliest of times.”

GOD GIVES AMPLE WARNING TO BEWARE OF PAGAN IDEAS COMING FROM BABYLON

In Revelation 17:1-5, the Bible gives ample warning to beware of the Apostasy which would emanate from Babylon:

“. . . I will show you the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with fold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

The Pagan idea of a Trinity of three personal gods clearly originated in ancient Babylon. It was from ancient Babylon that all Pagan Religions had their original source. When God dispersed the ancients at the tower of Babel, they settled throughout the world with their concept of a metaphysical trinity firmly entrenched. It was from this source that Christianity has been infiltrated. Babylon is the Mother of all false religion.

“And here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.” Revelation 17:9

It is no coincidence that the city of Rome has been known from ancient times as “the city of seven hills.” Ancient Roman coins plainly record inscriptions referring to the Roman Capital as “THE CITY OF SEVEN HILLS.” What more convincing proof do we need? Since the Vatican sits on the seven hills of the ancient city of Rome she must be the whore spoken of in the Biblical Book of Revelation.

God plainly calls the Roman Catholic Church who sits on the seven hills of Rome, “Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots.”

Why would God call the Catholic Church “Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots? She is called “Babylon The Great,” because the historical evidence proves that the Roman Catholic Church has promulgated ancient pagan teachings which had their original roots stemming from ancient Babylon. She is called “The Mother Of Harlots because this pseudo-Christian Religion has birthed many Protestant Daughters who continue to practice the central teaching of their Mother. The central teaching of the Harlot Church is clearly the false doctrine of the Trinity and a false Christian Baptism into the Trinity rather than in the Biblical way, “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

The false bride is represented in the Bible as a whore because she has been contaminated with ancient Pagan ideas emanating from the Devil. Just as there is physical adultery so there can be spiritual adultery when we enter into idolatry.

Satan has continued to use the Catholic Institution known in the Bible as “the great whore” to deceive people into believing that she is the true bride of Christ. Yet the true virgin bride of Jesus Christ will not be contaminated with idolatrous teachings stemming from ancient Babylon.

Beloved, the true bride of Jesus Christ will always know who her husband really is; and she is not ashamed to take on His name in water baptism. It is a false and treacherous bride that refuses to take to herself the name of her true husband in water baptism. And it is a false and treacherous bride that will join in ecumenical fellowship with any church or organization promoting the false teaching of the Trinity and the whores’ corrupt form of Trinitarian baptism..

The Bible repeatedly declares that the true bride of Jesus Christ will remain pure from the sin of committing spiritual adultery. The Hebrews of the Old Covenant had repeatedly sinned against Jehovah God by going after false gods. Jehovah repeatedly called His people to repent over blending idolatrous ideas with scriptural knowledge. God always spoke of the sins of idolatry as FORNICATION or ADULTERY against Him. Do we really think that God will except the blending of pagan ideas with true worship? Has God changed His warning, “I AM THE LORD, I CHANGE NOT.”

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.” Revelation 18:4

By Steve Ritchie

---

For any comments or questions

contact Pillar of Truth Church at truegospelofyeshua@yahoo.com

Pillar Of Truth FULL GOSPEL CHURCH OF THE APOSTOLIC FAITH