lpetrich

I've seen the theory that it was invented as a way of tying up various New Testament theological loose ends.

In particular, I've seen the theory that "Holy Spirit" or "Holy Ghost" had been Matthew's euphemism for "Spirit of God", in parallel to him using "Kingdom of Heaven" instead of the other Gospel writers' "Kingdom of God". Matthew's euphemism is something like the way that Jews often write "G-d".

Biff the unclean

The Father, Son and Holy Ghost. That trinity was the bases of the Dionysian religion. Zeus, Dionysos and the ghost of Dionysos mother, the blessed virgin Semele. Dionysos descended into Hades and redeemed her ghost, brought her to Heaven where she became a Goddess.
The Jewish religion has nothing to do with trinities. It is monotheism.
Problems happen when you try to superimpose a saviour motif on monotheism, because you need more than one God. You need a new God to explain why the old God didn't save you at the very begining. Then you wind up with polytheism, like it or not.
Also with monotheism you don't have a seperate God to play the bad guy, for you to be saved from.
In Christianity the worshipers themselves get portrayed as the villian-they are FALLEN. Pure masochism, Xians think that they aren't worthy, that they must be humble at all costs. Very sad and neurotic stuff. Even the invention of the Devil wasn't enough to take away the self hate.
Dionysos was the God who turned water into wine. The Romans called him Bacchus. Far from hateing themselves his followers partyed as a form of worship. I'll drink to that.

Amos

</strong>

Relax Biff because the trinity that the Dionysian religion is based on is a reality. The ghost of Dionysos' mother is Mary in Catholicism who is the seat of wisdom, dispenser of all graces and therefore the queen of angels. Mary is equal to the Holy Spirit for as long as we are not born again (Dionysos or Jesus), and at rebirth we are invited to the banquet to meet her as the head waitress there. The wine that Jesus made makes reference to the second half of life when Mary becomes our bride (we are the lamb of God) in our heaven. In Catholicism we have the Assention and Coronation speak for this.

The descent of the HS means that Mary takes charge of our life and leads us through our purgation period and on towards the cross. Masaccio's "The Crucifixion with Mary and St.John" (Sistine Chapel) clearly shows the victorious Mary beneath the cross. </strong>

That is because for them the Son has not come as of yet and without the Son there can be no HS.
The reality here is that Jews become Christians after their rebirth. I should add here that my idea of a Christian may be different than yours because the condition of being Christian is the end of religion (no churches in the new Jerusalem). Spinoza was a good example of this. Spinoza reached the end of Judaism and cannot be a Catholic because Catholicism is parallel with Judaism and is not a Christian becaue he was not a Catholic. Same is true for Einstein. I think it is said that some can return to the Church while others just linger (or party) in the Elysian fields of tranquility.
Your problem is that you look at Christianity as a religion and are confusing protestant and Catholic theology. We have the Church Triumphant for those who have reached the end of relgion and returned to the Church for the benefit of the faithful (alchemy, arts and elders).

Butters

I'll have two of whatever Amos is having!

crocodile deathroll

Did anyone consider the Hindu trinity of Brahma Vishnu and Shiva.
Where did they originate, and to they have any connection to the Xtian trinity?

CX

It seems to me that the doctrine of trinity was officially sanctioned at the Council of Nicaea. I believe it arose out of the need to explain the nature of Jesus (Man? God? Man/God?) in the face of competing theologies (notably Arianism which denied Jesus' divinity). I doubt very much that it derives from pagan sources or from AMt's use of the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" which more than likely derives from just the sort of Jewish considerations you mention.

CX

Regarding the "Holy Spirit" the official inclusion of this aspect of the godhead in the trinity occured at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

Amos

Same place. They originate in reality and do not have to be connected other than in reality. There is a an ancient Buddhist poem called "A River Merchant's Wife: A letter" wherein this river merchant's wife will meet the river merchant in the narrows of the river Kiang. In this poem each one of us is a river merchant who leaves the innocents of our youth with pride and determination (on "bamboo stilts" is the image of our ego).

The river merchant's wife waits for his return (with deflated ego or on rubber crutches) and wrote that she will meet him at Cho-fo-sa [but only] if he came through the narrows of the river Kiang. These narrows are the gates of purgatory in our mythology and the river merchants wife is Mary.


<a href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/70.html" target="_blank">http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/70.html[/URL]</a>

Biff the unclean

It seems to me that the doctrine of trinity was officially sanctioned at the Council of Nicaea. I believe it arose out of the need to explain the nature of Jesus (Man? God? Man/God?) in the face of competing theologies (notably Arianism which denied Jesus' divinity). I doubt very much that it derives from pagan sources ...

I believe you are mistaken. Not about Nicaea, but about the need to explain the nature of Jesus giving rise to the Trinity.
Christianity is constructed almost entirely of bits and pieces of other religions of the day. The greater part of it is straight Mithraism but a healthy chunk comes from Dionysos.
The Dionysian legends occur throughout the NT. Everything from the God announcing his entrance on the field of play by turning water into wine to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Water into wine comes from the island of Andros and was celebrated on January 5 (the Epiphany) since about 2000BCE (Carl Kerényi in Dionysos Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life puts it exactly at 1996 BCE). Paul's conversion is a straight retelling of Pentheus' conversion. In fact since Jesus recites the same lines in Acts that Dionysos has in the stage play The Bacchae we know that Luke took the story from Euripides version and not just the general myth.

Amos (I hate to say it) is correct that the Virgin Mary is the same as the Holy Ghost in the Dionysian trinity, the Virgin Mother Semele. Not that they are the same person, rather they are the same mythological archetype. Somehow in Christianity she got moved to the side and the Holy Ghost became just a spirit. This presents a problem to modern Christians who want to portray the entire Trinity as spirits, which they were not originally. Well; it would present a problem if they ever gave it a moments thought, which they don't.

Regarding the "Holy Spirit" the official inclusion of this aspect of the godhead in the trinity occured at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Exactly right. It was at this point, almost four hundred years into the game, that it was decided officially to exclude Mary from the Trinity. This didn't keep the old girl down though. The vast majority of prayers throughout the Middle Ages were directed to Mary asking her intercession. She was so popular in fact that every cathedral that was built during the Middle Ages was dedicated to her.

The idea that the Trinity is an original idea of the Ecumenical Council or that it originated with Christian history requires that you ignore the fact that the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was a long established tenet of Hellenism before Christianity even existed.

Walter_Mitty

At the Second Council of Lyons (1274) the church makes an official decree that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father AND the Son. I believe that's the final ruling on the Trinity. Evidently this dogma mus not have been too clear, otherwise the church would not have ruled on the matter.

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