lpetrich

To add to my previous comments, I don't think that there is a really strong case to be made for the idea that the Xian Trinity was a pagan borrowing. To me, it does not seem as strong as the case for pagan origins of other things, like Jesus Christ as a dying and rising savior god, the Virgin Mary as a mother-goddess figure, or the divine-impregnation Virgin Birth.

Ted Hoffman

Sojourner and Fiach, keep up the good work. I loved reading this thread.

Amos, I like your gnostic sophistry. Just keep them guessing. I am sure if Tercel tries hard enough, he will begin to understand. If Bill the Uncleam almost struck the same wavelength with you, well, we just need to try harder folks.

Lpetrich, what kind of evidence do you require for you to be satisfied that the Trinity idea was borrowed from Pagan religions?

SLD

I'm curious about this conversion story, Biff, and have not heard it before. Can you elaborate and get us some direct quotes, or give me other references to this copycat conversion story on the web or otherwise?

TIA
SLD

Amos

Paul's conversion story is just a classic description of a conversion story and this means that each one of us are tax collectors in the same way (or it would not be classic). Paul was a profit taker, such as we are when we try to get the most out of life. When we do this we pay little tribute to others or religion and the high horse we ride is our ego. The name Damascus must mean something like 'end of the world' (or whatever) and the high horse indicates that he had 'all hands on deck' to get what he wanted. That means he was full of 'real life' experience and was near the end of his carreer as gatherer of worldly richess when he unconsciously abandonned this ego driven lifestyle.

The fall from his high horse was equal to dean Jocelin's jump from the "Spire" and the Intergral builders jump off the Integral in "WE." It was also equal to Jonah being swallowed by the whale, and Jacob breaking his hip -- which is the major stronghold of humans.

How about "Adam More" in "A Strange Manuscript" who was an "Adam who wanted more" and became "Atam Or" after his conversion.

Ted Hoffman

First, I would like to refute two arguments:
a) That the Trinity was coined in the Council of Nicea in 325 AD (Nicene Creed) - though I beleive Fiach has done this already.
b) The corollary of a) above is that Jackalope's argument that "The Athanasian Creed is the one that covers the Trinity." is also refuted since the Athanasian creed came after the Nicene one. "Covers" (as used above) is a vague word of course but I have taken it to mean "officially creates".

I feel that the question of Pagan influence is a separate that should be tackled separately - however, I have tackled it here. In addition, perhaps LPetrich should consider dividing "The Trinity" to The first, the second and perharps the third trinity - if possible. Because the concept of trinity - within chriatianity has evolved over time. And then perhaps state which trinity is of interest to him.

Now to my contribution:

First of all, the Trinity could not have been invented in the third century if the Ante-Nicene fathers (those that served b4 the council of Nicea took place) like Tertullian (160-222 A.D.) and Theophilus of Antioch (circa A.D. 180), Justin Martyr (c.100-165 AD), Irenaeus (120-203 AD), Ignatius 117 AD etc were already talking about the trinity (albeit in a different combination in some cases).

And they werent just talking about it - they were defending or explaining it and at other times talking about it in a manner that suggests they expected the audience to know what Trinity meant.
Tertulian's Trinity (in Against Praxeas?) was God being made up of the Word, Reason and Power. Check <a href="http://www.piney.com/HsTertTrinity.html" target="_blank">Tertullian - Trinity - The Apology </a> for more on that.
When Polycarp was being burnt at the stake (c. 155 AD) he prayed to God:
(Lightfoot, p.208; Rev 5:13). from <a href="http://www.dtl.org/trinity/article/post-apostolic/pt-1.htm" target="_blank">The Father, the Son, and the Spirit - In the Post-Apostolic Church</a>

This clearly indicates Polycarp subscribed to the idea of trinity.
There are numerous other examples in that link above.
Iraneus (c. 10 AD) said concerning the trinity:
The Didache written in the first century AD says the following in CHAPTER 7:
This is the Trinity as we know of it today. Check THE DIDACHE, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Translated by Charles H. Hoole for a full copy of the Teaching of the Twelve apostles.

Anyone who subscribes to the idea that the Trinity is a Nicean creation might argue that it has no Pagan influence.

But from the argument I have put above, at the early stages of the church when the central doctrines hadn't been settled, pagan influences were the only other frames of references available for use in trying to unravel and explain the godhead of the new faith.

Tritheism (three gods eg from Brahminism - BRAHMA, VISHNU, SIVA) was present in pagan religions. Xstianity simply borrowed this idea and made it three gods in one - but retained the original idea that their God was supreme above all other Gods (which, btw, wasnt even original since the ancient Babylonians also beleived in one infinite and Almighty Creator, supreme over all - and it is from this that Jehovah came).

Sojourner did state:
I am not very sure about what Sojourner said above.

From which pagan religions we get the HS? since we know Osiris, Isis, Horus combination creates a trinity (Isis being the Virgin Mary).

Ancient Assyrians beleived in the trinity of the father son and Holy spirit (represented by a dove as the picture below indicates):



(The circle around the head of the "dove" represented the "seed")

Indian trinity was in the form of one god in three forms similar to the Siberian one below:



It is this trinity that inspired the worship of Mary, later to be replaced by the HS (the Dove).

The Babylonians "Mother" was worshipped by the in the form of a Dove carrying an olive branch (remember Noahs' flood?).
As below:



This Dove came down when Jesus was being Baptised by JBap. And this is one clear example of pagan influence on the Trinity and HS concept.

4r the early xstians, it was a matter of bumping off the mother and replacing it with the HS. We all know many early xstians worshipped Mary - the trinity was always there - it simply evolved, then later got established all over christendom.

Lpetrich, please check out <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7740/pagtrin.htm" target="_blank">The Pagan Influence Upon the Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity</a> for a detailed exposition of this.

I have extracted the images above and others from the link above.

Amos

QUOTE]Originally posted by Intensity:
<strong>
When Polycarp was being burnt at the stake (c. 155 AD) he prayed to God:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal and heavenly High-Priest, JESUS CHRIST, They beloved Son, through whom WITH HIM AND THE HOLY SPIRIT BE GLORY both now and ever and for the ages to come. Amen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/quote]</strong>

Hi Intensity, I'll defend the Church for doing away with Polycarp who was a Jesus worshipper because if the dove would have descended upon him he would not have prayed the prayer he did (and they knew that, obviously). The descent of the HS resolves the trinity and crowns Mary queen of heaven and earth. In the absence of Mary (who is not a fallen angel) the HS must suffice to allow satan to guide us between good and evil with the HS as stand-by in case things go wrong.

Here Polycarp's problem. Jesus Christ is not an "eternal high priest" because we must take the place of Jesus and place ourselves on the cross to be raised with him and reign with the father in heaven. Polycarp spoke like the second beast in Revelation 13, which came from the earth and therefore worshipped the first beast that came from the sea. The fact is that we must be reborn from the [celestial] sea, do our 42 months in purgatory where we write our own Gospel, and rise to become one of God's holy people. The olive branch and flood thing is symbolized in Catholicism with the advent wreath. I've said earlier that we are all ark builders as well as tomb hewers, and if we are ark builders we will need the dove to return with an olive branch to indicate that there is dry land on the other side of our melancholy. The dove we send is when we light the white candle in our advent wreath on the third week of our flood period. The candle represents the glimmer of hope we have in our baptism and is lit to call upon the sacramental power of baptism which is needed during the darkest part of our flood period symbolized by midwinter 6, midnight 6, midlife 6 which is the depth of disappear on which Christ is born. The birth of Christ is symbolized by the return of the dove with an olive branch.

The descent of the dove does not happen until after our Epiphany and so unless the dove descents on the believer the HS remains the divine light for the believer until such time as the believer sends out his or her dove and returns with 'the' olive branch.

Our baptism candle (on the advent wreath) that we light at this time must become the star of Bethlehem (house of bread). This means that this light must be incipient from God and therefore preceded by John the Baptist who is born in the netherworld of our subconscious mind to serve as evidence that it was the will of God that this candle be lit (cf Jn.21:18b and Rev.13:10).

Without John the dove could/would not descent and at best maybe leave some droppings behind.

leonarde

Partial post by Amos: But it wasn't any CHURCH which did away with Polycarp (he is considered a martyr)but an anti-
Christian government. At least if you are talking
about Polycarp of Smyrna. See, among other sites,
<a href="http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/108.html" target="_blank">http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/108.html</a>
Cheers!

Jackalope

Then you've definitely misread me, and the posts before it. We weren't arguing that either creed coined the Trinity, rather that the two creeds nailed down the dogma relating to two different issues (the Nicean Creed deals with the monophyte/diophyte dispute, the Athansian with the nature of the Trinity). Both ideas existed before the councils were called. The fact that there were differing interpretations is indeed the whole reason that the councils were formed.

--Lee
[edited to fix a tag error, I forgot that II doesn't have "underline" as a valid tag]

[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Jackalope ]</p>

Sojourner553

BTW: Hislop devotes the first 128 pages of his book The Two Babylons to proving that the Christian Trinity is directly descended from the ancient Babylonian trinity

See this and more at:

<a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect22.htm" target="_blank">http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect22.htm</a>

Also, Check this site out on Trinity origins


<a href="http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/The%20Origin%20of%20the%20Trinity.htm" target="_blank">http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/The%20Origin%20of%20the%20Trinity.htm</a>


Excerpts:

and

...

and


There's more here too, Ipetrich. I'd recommend reading this whole paper to answer your question.
{Don't be mislead by the "is this positive evidence?" at the beginning. In the end the author demonstrates how COLLECTIVELY, this does constitute positive evidence that the Xian concept of a Trinity was borrowed from the pagans.

Let me know if you disagree with the authors...

Sojourner

[ November 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Amos

Good point. What I wrote still holds true with regard to the prayer of Polycarp. As a Bishop he may have prefered the religious interpretation, either that, or he didn't know the true meaning of the text.