This supplementary document discusses the history of Trinity theories. Although early Christian theologians speculated in many ways on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, no one clearly and fully asserted the doctrine of the Trinity as explained at the top of the main entry until around the end of the so-called Arian Controversy. (See 3.2 below and section 3.1 of the supplementary document on unitarianism.) Nonetheless, proponents of such theories always claim them to be in some sense founded on, or at least illustrated by, biblical texts.
Sometimes popular anti-trinitarian literature paints “the” doctrine as strongly influenced by, or even illicitly poached from some non-Christian religious or philosophical tradition. Divine threesomes abound in the religious writings and art of ancient Europe, Egypt, the near east, and Asia. These include various threesomes of male deities, of female deities, of Father-Mother-Son groups, or of one body with three heads, or three faces on one head (Griffiths 1996). However, similarity alone doesn’t prove Christian copying or even indirect influence, and many of these examples are, because of their time and place, unlikely to have influenced the development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
A direct influence on second century Christian theology is the Jewish philosopher and theologian Philo of Alexandria (a.k.a. Philo Judaeus) (ca. 20 BCE — ca. 50 CE), the product of Alexandrian Middle Platonism (with elements of Stoicism and Pythagoreanism). Inspired by the Timaeus of Plato, Philo read the Jewish Bible as teaching that God created the cosmos by his Word (logos), the first-born son of God. Alternately, or via further emanation from this Word, God creates by means of his creative power and his royal power, conceived of both as his powers, and yet as agents distinct from him, giving him, as it were, metaphysical distance from the material world (Philo Works; Dillon 1996, 139-83; Morgan 1853, 63-148; Norton 1859, 332-74; Wolfson 1973, 60-97).
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Author: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dale Tuggy)
Keywords: Logos, Word made flesh, Jesus is the Word, trinitarianism, Tri-unity, Pre-existent word, Pre-existence, Pre-existent, Jesus is God, God the Son, hypostasis, Jesus existed before Abraham, Christ existed before Abraham, Greater than Abraham, Existed before Abraham, Before Abraham, Trinity, Trinitarian, Preexistence, Jesus preexisted, Jesus pre-existed, Jesus preexisted before he was born, Jesus' preexistence, Jesus' pre-existence, Christ preexisted, Christ pre-existed, Christ's preexistence, Christ's pre-existence, Jesus's preexistence, Jesus existed before he was born, Deity of Christ, Deity of Jesus, Triunity, Arianism, Arian, Three in one, Three gods, Three gods one person, Three persons, Johannine comma, Johanine comma, Johanine coma, Johannine coma, Comma, False doctrine, False teaching, Arius, Arias, Nicene Creed, Nicaea, Nicea, Athanasian Creed, Athanasius, Tertullian, Gregory of Nyssa, Father son holy spirit, Father son holy ghost, Triune, Three persons in one God, eternal sonship, god manifest in the flesh, God incarnate, incarnation, incarnate, God made flesh, God manifestation, eternal son, eternal son of God, Christology, Christologies, Binitarian, Binitarianism, Jesus is divine, Christ is divine, God in three persons, divinity of Jesus, divinity of Christ, Homoiousian, Homoousian, Homoousion, Adoptionism, adoptionist
Bible reference(s): Matthew 28:19, Mark 12:29, John 1:1-3, John 1:14, John 1:18, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 John 5:7-8
Source: Dale Tuggy, “History of Trinitarian Doctrines,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016.
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