How Did Paganism Prepare The Ground For Belief in the Trinity?
Throughout the course of history, pagans have always regarded three idols as superior to all the others. They regarded the greatest of these as the Father, the second as the Mother and the third as the Son. Some examples are as follows:
- The concept of a trinity appears in Indian paganism in the form of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
- The Koran also refers to the idea of a trinity in Arab paganism: "Have you really considered al-Lat and al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other one?"(Koran, 53:19-20)
- Belief in a tripartite god was widespread in pre-Christian Syria and the surrounding area.
- Osiris (Father), Isis (Mother) and Horus (Son) also represented a tripartite deity in ancient Egyptian paganism.
- Mithraism was also a superstition involving three deities in Persian paganism. This was widespread in ancient Anatolia and Europe, including the Roman Empire.
- Trinitarian belief was also present in Roman and Greek paganism. Zeus, Hera and Apollo were the three predominant gods of ancient Greece. The idea of the trinity is known to have entered Christianity from Greek and Roman paganism.
- There are many father and son gods in Greek mythology. Plato even formulated this trinity and suggested that the gods have a son called "logos" (the word) and a daughter called "sophos" (knowledge). One of the words used to refer to Jesus in Christianity is "logos."
- The American professor of theology Dr. Paul R. Eddy noted this and made the following comments on the subject in a paper "Was Early Christianity Corrupted by Hellenism?":The ancient world, as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common. That influence was also prevalent in Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the centuries before, during, and after Christ. After the death of the apostles, such pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. . . . While [Plato] did not teach the Trinity in its present form, his philosophies paved the way for it. (Dr. Paul R. Eddy, "Was Early Christianity Corrupted by 'Hellenism’?", http://www.xmark.com/focus/Pages/hellenism.html)The general belief in paganism, especially in Greek and Roman paganism, was that the greatest of the three gods married a mortal woman and that she gave birth to a male child, who was also a god or quite often, a demigod.
- Belief in a child god born to a mortal woman bears a very close similarity to the present day Christian belief in the Trinity.
Ancient Greek philosophers fabricated the idea of god through logical deductions from the physical world. However, they were unable to fathom how a god they regarded as unchanging and eternal could create finite and changing entities. For that reason, they attempted to explain the formation of the universe through a material entity.Accordingly they maintained that, as a child is born to a mother and a father, so there must have been intermediaries between the gods and the entities for the universe to come into being; in other words, hierarchical divine entities. The senior god in this hierarchy was responsible for authority and creation, while the others were responsible for matters involving the world of space and time, and secondary deities covered sundry matters such as punishment and reward.These supposed gods and godlike entities were generally defined as a "three-in-one entity," beginning with the most important. Therefore, belief in a trinity or a tripartite deity is a widespread idea that emerged in pagan times.William Varner says that the perspective of the Gentiles [a term used in the Gospel to refer to non-Jews; it is also used for the Romans in the time of Jesus] who heard the preaching of Jesus was shaped in the light of these ideas. He goes on to say:Their idea of a son of God was rooted deeply in polytheistic thought and was, therefore, difficult to transform into the monotheistic message of Jesus and His apostles. (William C. Varner, "Jesus the Son of God," http://www.foigm.org/IMG/sonofgod.htm)
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