Chapter Three – Ancient Roots of the Trinity

You have probably heard it said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. To really unlearn all that is entailed regarding the trinity, one must examine how it developed—its history. This chapter covers the origin of the teaching over many thousands of years, even preceding the time of Christ.

Some sections are written with attention to greater historic detail. This is because a full background is essential to the subject. It will be seen that theologians generally rely on humanly-devised reasoning, because they completely dismiss the crucial facts of history! This book is loaded with these facts, bringing quote after quote from reliable and respected historians.

This detail is presented so that the reader will be unable to miss the big picture here—one that you will see to be truly fascinating. Many of these introductory quotes bring important background about other things happening in the New Testament Church. These are essential to understand first, before examining the period in which the trinity gained acceptance. Put together, you will soon see that they make for absolutely compelling reading.

It is vital that you carefully examine these many sources for the message they contain. The trinity will be seen to have its roots almost entirely in philosophy and abstract metaphysics, based on nothing more than human reasoning. Remember the point made in Chapter One, that elements of this book will be difficult or impossible to understand—and that this may be good. You may find yourself wondering, after just this single chapter, how anyone could possibly believe that the doctrine of the trinity is scriptural!

Long before the Christian era, numerous variations of the three-fold god existed, and they were found in a host of pagan religions and mythologies. As with so many other pre-Christian traditional customs and practices, the revival of this doctrine in the Christian era was predictable. It was essential that followers be able to see Christianity—their “new” religion—in familiar terms.

Triad deities (the worship of a three-in-one god) first appeared in ancient Egypt about three centuries after the Great Flood of Noah’s time. These Egyptian deities came to be worshiped as Osiris, Isis and Horus.

Some facts of very early history: After the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Nimrod and his mother-wife Semiramis, the first rulers of Babylon, fled to Egypt. There, Nimrod (known as Ninus or Athothis, among numerous other names) shared rulership with his father Cush (Menes) in the first dynasty. After Nimrod’s death, Semiramis claimed his son Horus to have been Nimrod reincarnated. These three—Osiris (Nimrod), Isis (Semiramis) and Horus (the son)—came to be exalted as a triad of deities (Exploring Ancient History—The First 2500 Years,Schulz, ch. 11, 24).

In Babylon, these same three were known as Ninas, Ishtar and Tammuz. With the passage of time, this triad became well-known in many nations. Even in ancient Rome, a triad of deities was worshipped—Jupiter, Fortuna and Mercury—bearing similarities with the above-mentioned triads.

Virtually all ancient religions possessed deity “triads.” Notice this astonishing acknowledgement: “Though it is usual to speak of the Semitic tribes as monotheistic; yet it is an undoubted fact that more or less all over the world the deities are in triads. This rule applies to eastern and western hemispheres, to north and south. Further, it is observed that, in some mystical way, the triad of three persons is one…applied to the trinities of all heathen religions” (Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, James Bonwick, p. 396, emphasis ours throughout).

A fascinating example of this can be found in the ancient roots of Hinduism. After the 6th century B.C., Hinduism featured the three-in-one god (or triad) that became known as the Trimutri. Brahman consisted of (1) Brahma, the creator (2) Vishnu, the preserver and (3) Shiva, the destroyer (What the Great Religions Believe, Joseph Gaer, p. 25).

Orthodox Christianity vs. Apostolic Christianity

But how did the trinity develop within mainstream Christianity? Why were most professing believers receptive to the same schools of philosophy that had been rejected by the faithful Christians of the first century?

Historian Edward Gibbon

After the original apostles had died, contradictions in doctrine began to appear en masse, and Church history became lost. Historian Edward Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, candidly acknowledged, “…the scanty material of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the cloud that hangs over the first age of the church.”

For nearly a century after the events recorded in the book of Acts, we find church history to be virtually blank. In The Story of the Christian Church, Jesse Lyman Hurlbut calls this period the “Age of Shadows.” He writes, “…of all the periods in the church’s history, it is the one about which we know the least…For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul.”

From the New Testament, we find ample evidence of an apostasy having occurred, pulling believers away from the truth. Notice the many warnings about false apostles and a false movement that already existed in the first century and was threatening the Church:

II Thessalonians 2:7: “For the mystery of iniquity does already work…”

II Corinthians 11:13-15: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

I John 4:1: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

Jude 3: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

At the very end of his life, the apostle John returned from exile and had to confront this growing apostasy (falling away from truth) in the 90s A.D. At that time, false leaders had gained control over congregations of the true Church in Asia Minor. The New Testament preserved the account of one such controversy:

“I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loves to have the pre-eminence among them, received us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he did, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither does he himself receive the brethren, and forbids them that would, and casts them out of the church” (III John 9-10).

Such occurrences must have been repeated many times in many congregations late in John’s life. And they continued during the entire ministry of Polycarp, John’s successor.