CX

Well you can believe whatever you'd like but I would suggest studying the history of Xian origins a bit more carefully first.


First off the "Trinity" as a church doctrine evolved over time. It was not created out of whole cloth by any particular ecumencial council. The beginnings of that evolution occur at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. under the auspices of the Constantine. Now what was the occaision for the convening of that council? The heresy promulgated by Bishop Arianus who taught that Jesus was simply a man conferred with the spirit of god. Due to this rather heated controversy the church fathers needed to determine what the official church doctrine with respect to Jesus' essential nature should be. In the end they concluded that Jesus was "of one substance" with god. This was not motivated by paganism or any other outside influence, but rather resulted from the fact that the NT isn't all that clear on Jesus' essential nature.

Now then we have god in two persons namely the father and the son. Again because of the ambiguity of the NT texts there was tremendous confusion over the nature of the "Holy Spirit". Thus in 381 at another ecumenical council in Constantinople the church fathers established that the "Holy Spirit" proceeded from the father and the son in order to quell the controversy.

From this I would conclude that the doctrine of trinity evolved over time due to ongoing controversies steming from ambiguity in the NT. It does not appear that the authors of the NT had a firm trinitarian concept in mind initially.

Now a word about Mithraism. Too often people equate the Roman cult of Sol Invictus (the inconquerable sun) directly with Mithraism and perceive that to be equivalent to the ancient perso-Iranian religion of Zoroaster. This is not accurate. Mithras was a actually a minor deity the Perso-Iranian mystery cult which was eventually codified by Zoroaster to lead to what we know today as Zoroastrianism which worshipped Ahura-Mazda. There is significant evidence of a heavy influence on early Judaism coming from Zoroastrianism (most notably it's argued that Zoroaster's monotheism was adopted by previously polytheistic Jews). We actually know very little about early "Roman Mithraism" because, as a mystery cult, much of it's doctrine and theology were kept secret except to the highest level initiates. There are perhaps some parallels between Mithraism and Early Xianity, but that in and of itself does not prove a direct relationship.

Now about Sol Invictus, it was a Roman cult that enjoyed widespread popularity in the Roman Legions and is actually a syncretistic blend of Mithraism/Zoroastrianism and Roman sun worship (among other things). There is considerable modern controversy as to what the relationship between the Roman cult and Zoroastrianism might be. Eventually it syncretized Xian ideas as well and was ultimately subsumed entirely by Xianity and its original essential doctrines and myths were abandoned. This religion post-dates Xianity suggesting that it is unlikely that the original authors of the NT and early Xians were influenced by it. Again there are parallels, but very often too much is made of what are in all likelihood simply common archetypes being expressed in human religious practices.

Basically there are similar themes in nearly every religion, further there was a mixing of cultures and beliefs in the Levant in antiquity which cross-pollinated various faith systems one with another and as such systems like Zoroastrianism did have a heavy influence on Judaism. Xianity was essentially invented in the 1st century by coopting Jewish themes and theology and the gradual accretion of other religious doctrines over time. The concept of trinity derives almost entirely from confusion and ambiguity within the NT texts themselves and the desire of the early church to define and maintain orthodoxy in the face of strong competition from varying theological perspectives.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Amos

No need to be bashful Biff because Amos is right.

The Virgin Mary is the same as the Virgin mother Semele and from this mother image the HS is bestowed upon believers for as long as they are believers and not Christians. We become Christians when we have been invited to the royal banquet to meet her there in person and will no longer need the HS because we have become one with the source as in "the father and I are one." If we are one with the source the HS can descent because who needs the HS if "all has been made clear" at the royal banquet?

So the trinity is an inspired description to portray the workings of reality and is first resolved in purgatory with the at-onement of the father and the son (right and left brain) which is followed by the descent of the dove to signify that the final ousia (parousia or epiphany) has made the HS redundant for eternity.

So to be exact, the HS is not Mary but flows from Mary to the faithful and it is impossible to keep the old girl down as long as we invoke either Her or the HS to appear in beatific visions to the faithful throughout Christendom. When she does we built a cathedral in her name and call her the patron saint of our profession. And why not? if she is the seat of wisdom in our own tree of life from where all good things flow upon our own tree of knowledge. I love it and every (?) European town and village has their own statue of Mary with a story to tell about the local appearance of the BVM.

Amos

I should clarify this line The Virgin Mary is the same as the Virgin mother Semele and from this mother image the HS is bestowed upon believers for as long as they are believers and not Christians.

It really should read that the HS can be bestowed upon believers as well as upon non-believers because both believers and non-believers have blessing, inspirations, love, benevolence and all other things believers attribute to God ("it rains on the just as well as on the unjust" was it?). The difference is that believers can be oriented towards a destiny while non-believers are [not always] not directed towards a destiny. The problem with religion is that some of them send believers in the wrong direction. In fact, some of them are galloping in the wrong direction.

MortalWombat

Technically they established that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the father. The "and the son" part was a later addition in the Western Church, which was one of the big sticking points, besides the role of the pope, that led to the breakup between eastern and western Christianity

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: MortalWombat ]</p>

Biff the unclean

I think CX that it is a mistake to assume that the Roman Catholic Church formed in a vacuum, insolated from the religions around it.
It is also a mistake to attribute Jewish themes to it. They are few and far between and crow barred to fit into the story.
The concept of trinity derives almost entirely from confusion and ambiguity within the NT texts themselves and the desire of the early church to define and maintain orthodoxy in the face of strong competition from varying theological perspectives.
When you consider that not only the concept of a Trinity but a Trinity specifically consisting of a Father, a Son, and, of all bizarre things, a Holy Ghost existed while the Xian concept was forming. Not only existed but was an extremely popular religion that had been around for over two thousand years (The Metropolitan Museum of Art had a wonderful show of Dionysian artifacts from the fourth to early fifth centuries Constantinople. Did you get a chance to catch it?)

You might be able to make a case that a Trinity consisting of a basic family unit was independent and simply based on the human condition. But both of these had Holy Ghosts as the third member of the Trinity. The second Holy Ghost being made a member of the second Trinity of Gods by a group of men who were abundantly aware of the existence of the first Trinity, with them drawing zero reference from it is very had to believe.

Tercel

As MortalWombat has pointed out, the Father AND the Son thing (aka the 'Filioque' controversy) is a sticking point between Eastern (ie Orthodox) and Western Christianity (ie Roman Catholic, and later Protestants). (Though contrary to what MortalWombat wrote, it is my understanding that the Filioque was not part of the reason for the schism and was discovered later)

What happened was that the Nicene Creed (written by the Councils of Nicene and Constantinople) says that the holy spirit 'proceeds from the Father' but for some reason the words "and the son" ('Filioque' in the latin) got added in Spain and eventually across all western Christiandom. Of course the Eastern Christians weren't happy about such an important creed being modified without their consultation, so they got a bit miffed about it.
The Council of Lyons which you mentioned is a declaration by the Western Christians that they are right!

Just last week I came across a very interesting essay on the subject which I highly recommend:
<a href="http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/history/creed.filioque.txt" target="_blank">http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/history/creed.filioque.txt</a>

Tercel

CX,
The idea of the Trinity is defended by Tertullian (197-220) (see <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian17.html" target="_blank">Against Praxeas</a> for example), and taught by Origen (203-250) and it appears that Celsus (c 178) may have said that "belief in a Trinity of gods" was "a central Christian doctrine". (from Hoffman's attempted reconstruction of Celsus' "On True Doctrine" based on Origen's "Contra Celsum").

These guys are rather a long time before the Councils of the 4th century, which were clearly mainly concerned with dealing to Arianism by declaring Jesus "God from God, light from light, very God from very God" as opposed to looking specifically at the doctrine of the Trinity, which seems to be implied in the Nicene creed but is not stated explicitly.

Amos

I always thought so too but I am not really interested in searching for the evidence. Do you perhaps know what the "iota" argument was all about? All I remember was that Tertullian was right!

Amos

In my opinion the filioque is denied by the Eastern Church because he is nothing but trouble in the church. The filioque was very much the reason for the Reformation and today is still the cause of division in most churches including the Catholic Church. The filioque gives birth to the charismatic Jesus worshippers who really are perceiving things in the wrong light.

Sojourner553

Biff--Enjoyed your discussion on Dionysus!

Here are some other appearances of a Trinity in other religions:

The concept of a trinity of gods was very common among many of their pagan neighbors. For example, the concept of a Trinity appears in the mystery religions that surrounded the Egyptian deities of Serapis, Isis, and Horus. "Thus from one god I became three gods", says Osiris in describing
his creation in a papyrus that has been dated twelve years after the date of Alexander the Great. (Budge, "Payrus of Nesi-A,si." p 442)

The Babylonians had a powerful Trinity comprised of a father, mother and messiah child. In Brahmaism, the highest God Brahm is conceived of as a Trinity consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma was considered the creator of man. He produced the soul first, taking it out of his same being. Then he clothed it with a body. (This is in reverse order from the Hebrew account, where God forms the body first, and then secondly
breathes the breath of life into the body, creating a living soul.) In Buddhism, there is reference to the three jewels representing the
Buddha himself, the good law, and last the Buddhist brotherhood or Church.

Gnostics perceived God in the form of a Trinity. As gnostics began to convert into Christianity, their earliest views of a Trinity consisted of a father, mother, and child. The gospel of the Egyptians found at Nag Hammadi
speaks of a Trinity composed of a Father, Mother, and Son. One reference prays to both a divine Father and Mother couple: "From Thee, Father, and
through Thee, Mother, the two immortal names, Parents of the divine being, and thou, dweller in heaven, humanity, of the mighty name." (Elaine Pagels, GNOSTIC GOSPELS, p 59)

The Gnostic leader Valentinius, taught that while the image of God was indescribable-- that it could be imagined as the Primal Father (symbolized as the Ineffable, the Depth), at the same time as the "Mother of the All"
(symbolized as Grace, Silence, and the Womb). (Ibid) The mother member of the Trinity was referred to under various names by gnostic groups--including the names of Sophia, Pneuma, and Logos. Members prayed to her as the "mystical, eternal Silence." (Ibid).

One gnostic writing, the GREAT ANNOUNCEMENT, (as quoted by Hippolytus in his REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES), describes the universe in dual male/
female terms. From the depths of silence appeared:

"a great power, the Mind of the Universe, which manages all things,
and is a male...the other...a great Intelligence...is a female which
produces all things." (Ibid, p 60.)

In early version of the GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS, Christ spoke of the Holy Ghost as his Mother. Both Origen and Jerome have quoted the
famous passage that reads: "Just now my mother the Holy spirit took me by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mountain Tabor." The same text also takes an especially puzzling gospel saying of Jesus -- "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot be my disciple". The same passage goes on to declare that Jesus meant by this that it is "my (earthly)
mother [who gave me death], but [my] true [Mother who] gave me life."

(Some scholars have suggested that the language of the writers may have influenced the gender of the Holy Spirit.--As the word for spirit or
"ruach" in the Semitic languages is feminine--whereas in Latin the word "spiritus" is masculine, and in Greek, "pneuma" is neuter.)

Gnostic teachers seemed split over the exact sexual metaphors describing God. Some viewed God as embodying both male AND female characteristics.
These authors speculated who God was referring to when he said in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness". They noted that
the next verse states that humanity was created "male and female". Other gnostics claimed that God was neither male nor female.--Instead God was described using such imagery to aid the believer in comprehending sacred
concepts.

During the early development of the Christian church, the concept of a mother God member of the Trinity was rejected. The term Logos was identified with the son member of the Trinity, and the term Pneuma or Holy Spirit was retained for the third person (usually held to be of "neutral" sex).

The Eastern version of Christianity appears to have retained the concept of the Trinity as a divine unity of Father, Mother, and Christ-child longer than the Western Christians (centered in Rome). The Koran which referred to the concepts of Christianity taught in the East, represents the Christian Trinity as one comprised of God, Christ, and Mary. This Gnostic tradition
proved strong enough to add the devotion of the Mother Mary within the Roman Catholic Church, almost on an equal footing with the worship of the Trinity itself. In the minds of some adherents, the power of Mary's personage
replaced the Holy Ghost element itself as the third member.

Belief in the Holy Spirit as a distinct and equal member of a three-personage God was NOT declared an article of Christian faith until the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E.. It was at this council that the following words
were added to the Nicene Creed:

"... I believe in he Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, Who with the
Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified. Who spake by the
prophets."

This orthodox view, looked to John 5:7-8 for its official definition of
the Trinity:

"For there are three that bear record (in heaven, the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost: and the water and the blood; and these three agree
in one".

Interestingly, this verse is missing in the earliest Greek mass, and most biblical scholars believe that this verse is an interpolation. For this reason, these verses are omitted in the Revised Version of the Bible.

None of the synoptic gospels even mention the "Trinity" with one exception: Matthew 28:19, quotes Jesus as saying:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

Many scholars believe the difference in tone and style of this passage makes this also to be a possible interpolation by a later Christian editor. According to Acts 2:38, the early Christian baptismal formula was "in the
name of Jesus the Messiah". Also, when Eusebius (third century C.E.), quoted this verse by Matthew, he wrote "make disciples of all nations in my name."

It was during the Enlightenment, as individuals began applying the scientific method towards the gospels, that the doctrine of the Trinity
began to become seriously questioned. Interestingly, the famous scientist and mathematician Isaac Newton also dabbled in the history of Christianity. During the 1670's, after studying the theological history of the doctrine of the Trinity, Newton (who was a deist) declared that he was convinced that Athanasius and his colleagues had forged the gospel verses on the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation during the fourth century C.E.. Newton believed
that Arius' doctrine which held that Jesus had been born a man instead of a God, was the correct one.


Sojourner

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>