The Pagan Influence Upon the Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity

Throughout this study we endeavour to prove beyond doubt that the belief in  One God comprised of three, separate and distinct persons, has pagan connections.

We will quote from scientific sources in the field of archaeology and surveys of pagan religions to reveal the origin of a supposedly "Christian" doctrine.  This information has been acquired from the book, The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop.  You will see that this doctrine of the Trinity is actually an element of heathenism perverted into Christian terminology.

The historic roots of the Trinity should be enough to convince a person that the doctrine is extra-biblical.  Scholars admit that it was a developed doctrine which took centuries to formulate.  And it was not until the 8th century that it was fully completed.

(See the study called the Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity, also written by myself).

This study shows us what pagans in prechristian times believed in comparison  with the Trinity as preached by most Christian churches today.  While God's people, the Hebrews, believed in absolutely one God, it was pagans who believed in a Trinity identical to modern-day teachings of the Trinity. Who was more correct? God's people, the Hebrews, or the pagans who were outside of God's commonwealth and aliens, enemies and strangers to Him (Eph.  2:12; 4:18; Col.  1:21)?

Some "Christians" have contended with me personally that these pagans were sincerely searching for truth, and received truth from God due to their earnest desire for truth.  This is impossible, since God would only deal with those who were under Mosaic Law during the times since the inception of Law.  Those who were outside of that group were without God and without hope.

Not until New Testament times, when Christ removed the partition between Jews and gentiles could Gentiles receive of God.  And it was also impossible for people to get unveiled revelations before Christ's death, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

Just as in ancient Egypt, Brahminism restricted the teaching of monotheism to the highest initiates alone.  Jacolliot emphasizes this in his writing:

"The worship of the one God or Zeus unrevealed, reserved to the priests, was forbidden to the lower classes, but THREE TEMPLES DEDICATED TO THE THREE PERSONS OF THE TRIMOURTI, BRAHMA, VISHNU, SIVA, opened their doors to the adoration of the people, all of whom were allowed to select one of the THREE PERSONAGES OF THE TRINITY they would prefer to worship."

So you can see how at the first the people realized there was only One God.  In early humanity, people recognized Him as the True God Jehovah, but soon some apostatized and called this One God by other names.  They then began changing His attributes and holiness.  They stopped worshipping the One God in truth, but still continued to believe in One God.  It then became corrupted all the more when they began a creed requiring devotion to a "trinity" of the One God.  Soon millions of gods crept into their religions and man was far removed from the original Monotheistic faith.  This was amongst pagans.

Wilkinson writes:

"In the early ages of mankind the existence of a sole and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have been the universal belief; and tradition taught men the same notions on this subject, which, in later times, have been adopted by all civilized nations.

"The Gothic religion taught the being of a Supreme God, Master of the Universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient." (Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 176)

"the Author of everything that existeth, the eternal, the living, and the awful Being; the searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth." (Mallett, Northern Antiquities, vol. I. pp. 78.79).

There is evidence of the same thing in the ancient Hindostan.  Though the modern Hinduism recognizes millions of gods, the sacred Indian books reveal that originally it was far from this.  They believed in one, sole god.

Not only did the Hindus recognize a God of natural perfections but also his gracious character was praised.  They spoke of their God's dealings with a lost and guilty world.  The name Brahm - which is a derivation of the Hebrew Rahm, the "merciful or compassionate One" (Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, sub voce, No.  V)- was this one God's name.

The Turks have a term "Er-Rahman" for their most high God; the "all-merciful one." The Hindus once knew their "most holy, most high God" as "The God of Mercy" or "a just God and a Saviour" also.  Their religious knowledge of creation was closely the same as it is in Genesis.

Isaiah 45:21 says, "Tell ye, and bring them, near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me."

Psalm 37:26 "He is ever merciful, and lendeth: and his seed is blessed."

So we see the earliest forms of various pagan religions were really derivations of the One God, Jehovah.  Their doctrines concerning the One God were obviously lacking specific truths as they has departed somewhat from true faith.  The more that people crept away from faith in God the more elaborate the concoctions became regarding their view of God, until a "trinity" of three persons was invented.

One of the Vedhas, speaking of Brahma, stated that

"all beings are created from his mouth" (Asiatic Researches, vol.  vii.  p.  294, London, 1807).

Here we have the connection in the pagan belief with He, who, ever since man's fall, has been revealed to man as the "merciful and Gracious One," (Exodus 34:6), the Almighty One, who in the beginning "spake and it was done," "commanded and all things stood fast," who made all things by the "word of his power." The title of the true God was the first thing to be perverted.

Babylonians idolatrously recognized the Divine Unity, and God spoke of it in Isaiah 66:17.  Note that in the King James Version the word "tree" is in italics; showing that it was not in the Hebrew.  So you read it as,

"purify themselves in the garden behind one in the midst..."

In that unity of the Babylonian god there were three persons, and to symbolize that pagan trinity they employed the equilateral triangle, just as Roman Catholicism does today.  The Egyptians were also notorious for using the triangle to denote the unity of a god consisted of three persons.

Raamah, the son of Cush, (Gen 10:7), conquered many peoples following the Noahic deluge.  "The Mysteries" of the Deluge were at that time introduced to many lands.  "The Mysteries" were an occultic embodiment of spiritual thinking that became widespread throughout the world.  All pagan religions arose from this single source of grave error.  Adherents were "initiated" into the religion through religious rites that were kept secret, thus inspiring curiosity and awe.  This religion of "Mysteries" was later divided into sects.  Brahminism was one sect which believed in the deity Brahma, Vishnu and Siva.  The "Trimourti", as they became know as - or Trinity of God - comprised this divine council.

Now keep in mind that a "trinity" existed in the pagan Brahman religion long before Jesus Christ ever walked the earth in the flesh and ages before a Christian church existed.

A so-called holy book entitled The Vedhas, published by the priests, established the dogma of the trimourti; trinity of God which soon developed into polytheism after time.  And a host of the most monstrous superstitions resulted.  This was supposedly 12,000 years before our time, under what was called the Brahmatma Vasichta-Richi.

In the Monastery of the Trinitarians of Madrid, the Roman Catholics pictured the pagan trinity as three heads on one body.  This type of imagery derived originally came from ancient Babylon.  The Dublin Catholic Layman, a very Protestant paper, described a Popish picture of the trinity:

"At the top of the picture is a representation of the Holy Trinity.  We beg to speak of it with due reverence.   God the Father and God the Son are represented as a Man with two heads, one body, and two arms.  One of the heads is like the ordinary pictures of our Saviour.  The other is the head of an old man, surmounted by a triangle.  Out of the middle of this figure is proceeding the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove.   We think it must be painful to any christian mind, and repugnant to Christian feeling, to look at this figure." July 17, 1856

It seems these people felt the references to the descriptions of the Cherubim in the Bible gave them license to picture God as one body with three heads, for the Cherubims were of one body with the four faces of an Ox, Lion, Eagle and Man.  Yet these creatures were not theophanies of God, nor ever referred to as God in the Bible.  (See Ezekiel 10).

In ancient Assyria there has been found a certain figure representing the ancient pagan trinity.  It portrays a head and body of an old man with a "zero" or circle surrounding his body.  This circle represents the "seed" in pagan symbolism.  And lastly you see the wings and tail of the bird or dove extending from the old man.  This is unity of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; the pagan trinity.

Pagan Siberia portrayed a trinity also.  It showed one body with three heads on it, as seen on a medal that sits in the Imperial Cabinet of old St. Petersburg.

India portrayed a similar Trinity under the name of "Eko Deva Trimurtti," or "One God, three forms".  (Col.  Vans Kennedy, Hindoo Mythology, p.  211). In Japan the Buddhists worship Buddha, with three heads, in exactly the same form, under the name of "San Pao Fuh".  (Gillespie, Sinim).

The trinity was recognized in all nations of the world proving that the Trinity of today came from the paganism of the ancient world.

It seems that pagans, who once knew Jehovah, and His three manifestations that would be revealed (not three persons), twisted this One God into a thrice divided god.  (Pagans made gods from everything.)

After the first 200 years of the Church, in order to appeal to the pagans, the compromising element of the church concocted a masterplan.  In realizing God manifested in three ways they felt they could lure pagans, with their polytheistic beliefs, into Christianity and thus increase Christian popularity.  The pagans jumped at such a similar dogma as their own, since they were not told to accept only one God in One person.  They already had three person in their ancient creeds, so they readily adhered to a "christianized" version of what they always believed.

Regardless of the proposals of the Trinitarian Christians, the Jews profusely reject such a notion being found in the Old Testament writings as a trinity of three person in One God.  In fact, one of the great barriers that keeps them from considering popular Christianity to this day is the doctrine of the Trinity.  And the Jew looks upon such erroneous Christianity as just another of the modernized pagan philosophies of polytheism.

MOTHER AND CHILD FROM BABYLON

"Heart of Jesus I adore thee; Heart of Mary, I implore thee; Heart of Joseph, pure and just; In these three hearts I put my trust." (What Every Christian Must Know and Do, Rev.  J.  Furniss, published by James Duffy, Dublin).

A similar Trinity is found in Ireland.  A card entitled "Paschal Duty, St.  Mary's Church, Bishopwearmouth, 1859" held the following quote headed by "Dear Christians."

"Blessed be Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart, my life and my soul. Jesus Mary and Joseph, assist me always; and in my last agony, Jesus Mary and Joseph, receive my last breath.  Amen."

"In the morning before you get up make the sign of the cross, and say, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and soul. (Each time you say this prayer, you get an indulgence of 100 days, which you can give to the souls in purgatory)" (Furniss, What Every Christian Must Know and Do, Rule of Life, p.  30).

The pagan mother of the child was characterized by gentleness and mercy as centered in her.  Death, ending her career, caused her to become deified and changed into a pigeon to express the celestial gentleness of her nature.  She became known as "D'Iune" or "the Dove" (Fasti, lib.  ii.  461-464, vol. iii.  p 113).

Note the close proximity to the gentle character of the Holy Ghost in the Bible, that ascended upon Jesus in the bodily shape of a dove.

This Mother was worshipped by the Babylonians in the form of a Dove.  And this dove was commonly symbolized with an olive branch in her mouth, as she is in her human form also seen bearing an olive branch in her hand.  She had the name given to her as "Z'emir-amit" which means "The Branch-Bearer." (Layard, Ninevah and Babylon, p.  25).  Therefore, there can be no doubt that the story of the Flood must have had an influence upon these pagans.  Noah's dove returned with an olive branch.  But there is more a reason for this.

MOTHER WORSHIPPED AS A DOVE FROM ANCIENT BABYLON

"A Branch" was the symbol of the deified Son in paganism.  So we see how Roman Catholicism came to worship Mary as a person of their trinity instead of the Holy Spirit.

Once paganism crept into Christian circles in form of a trinity of persons, the trend toward further pagan beliefs began.  The leaven of error and heathenism spread.  It grew so much as to pull the adherents towards other pagan traditions with alternative Christian characters playing the roles of pagan players.

The Assyrian goddess Juno or "the Virgin Venus" was identified with the Air.  Why would "air" be identified with her? Well, the symbol for the pagan goddess of this trinity was the dove.  In Chaldee, the same word which is translated "air" is also translated "Holy Ghost".  "Juno imparts the generation of soul" (Proclus, lib. vi. cap. 22, vol. ii. p. 76).  And where does man's soul come from?  It comes from the Spirit of God, or, in paganism, the third person of the pagan trinity.

Now connect this with an Orphic Hymn:

"O royal Juno, of majestic mien, Aerial formed, divine, Jove's blessed queen, Throned in the bosom of Caerulean air, The race of mortals is thy constant care; The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires, Which nourish life, which every life desires, Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone Producing all things, mortal life is known; All natures show thy temperament divine, And universal sway alone is thine, With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee." (Taylor, Orphic Hymns, p.  50).

A Goddess in India is called Sacti which means "The Tabernacle".  (Kennedy, Hindoo Mythology, pp.  246, 256).  In Babylon she was called Sacca and was the dwelling place of God (Chesney, Euphrates Expedition. vol. I. p. 381).

MOTHER AND CHILD FROM INDIA

According to the Greeks and Romans, Cybele, the mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of love, are in general very distinct.  Many have found it most difficult to identify the two.  But keep in mind the fundamental principle of the Mysteries and you have no trouble.

At first the Mysteries only had Adad as the "One God" (Macrobii Saturnalia lib. I. cap. 23. p. 73).  Adad, being triune, allowed three different forms of divinity when the Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity formed further.  The Babylonians used an equilateral triangle to display this concept, just as Trinitarians do today!! (Layard, Babylon and Ninevah, p.605).  The Egyptians did the same (Maurice, Indian Antiquities, vol. iv. p. 445. London, 1794).  These forms became the Father, Mother and Son.  Apuleius tells us that when he was initiated, the goddess Isis revealed herself to him as:

"The first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the gods and goddesses...  WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth venerated, and under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety of appellations;"

Originally the Mysteries set out with the doctrine of the Unity of the godhead.  Wilkinson writes:

"I have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form of different deities, which, though it appears at first sight to represent some difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we consider that each one of those figures or emblems that were adopted, was only an emanation, or deified attribute of the Same Great Being to whom they ascribe various characters, according to the several offices he was supposed to perform."

The Spirit of God was represented as the Mother in the form of a dove.  This was supposedly based upon the reference to the Spirit that "fluttered" at the creation.  This is the exact meaning of the term in Gen.  1:2.  "The Spirit fluttered on the face of the waters".  Therefore this goddess was called Ops, "the Flutterer", or Juno, "The Dove", or Kubele, "The Binder with Cords".  This last title had a reference to the "bands of love, the cords of man", referred to in Hosea 11:4 as "Khubeli Adam".  God supposedly draws man unto himself with such cords, and also bound Adam to God through the Spirit's indwelling while the covenant of Eden was unbroken.

The Romans joined the two terms Juno and Kubele - or as it was commonly pronounced, Cybele - together.  And on certain occasions they invoked their supreme goddess by the name of Juno Covella, "the Dove that binds with cords".   In "STATIUS", the name of the great goddess is Cybele:

"Italo gemitus Almone Cybele Ponit, et Idaeos jam non reminiscitur manes."

It was only natural that once the "Christian" trinity was introduced this pagan trend would lead further until Mary-worship became an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church.  Just as Paganism birthed departures from the true God and this One God became three persons, so did paganism's traits appear within Christian circles, and there resulted a Trinitarian doctrine.  And as the pagan trinity spawned into mother worship, by linking motherhood with birthing of the Spirit, so, too, did the Roman Catholic Church (which allowed Trinity creeds within) begin to worship Mary the mother of Jesus.

Mariolatry (Mary worship) was only a natural byproduct of the Trinitarian doctrine of three person being Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  If you consider the Holy Spirit as a separate person whose only characteristics are "birthing" all into being, and "gentleness", then such a "person" is easily connected to motherhood.  But keep the Oneness of the Godhead in mind and you do not separate each manifestation as a person.  And you do not thereby assign a personality of a divine member of some trinity who is in question. Therefore Mary worship could only result from a Trinitarian view of the Godhead.  And this is precisely how paganism also developed over the ancient centuries into various forms.  It changes.  Christianity supposedly changed in the first four centuries into a Trinitarian-oriented concept of God. But truth does not change! When one looks at the things of God from that basis of concept, one will never accept any dogmatic assertion that is not explicitly taught in Scripture.  Therefore, Trinity-type doctrines are cast away by people, even today, who realize that it was a "developed doctrine", as admitted by Trinitarian scholars.

This alone sheds great insight into the pagan nature of a Trinity doctrine. It shows the potential spreading of leaven that can only come from that which has leaven already in it.

So where did the idea for these titles come from? How did man ever come to conceive such terms?

In Babylon, "the man whose name was Branch" was a counterfeit of the biblical messiah.  He was named "El-Bar" or "God the Son".  He is introduced by this name as the second in the list of Babylonian kings by Berosus (Berosus, in Bunsen's Egypt, vol.  i.  p.  710, Note 5).  He has been found under this name in the sculptures of Ninevah.  The name "Bar", the "Son", was prefixed by "El" or "God" (Layard, Babylon and Ninevah, p.  629).  He was worshipped in Egypt by the name of "Bar" in the earliest times.  (Bunsen, vol.i. p. 426).  In pagan Rome he was called the "Eternal Boy".

To understand the title of "Eternal Boy", you must consider the most sacred oath which the ancient pagans used.  That oath was "Per Jovem Lapidem" or "By Jupiter the Stone." (Aulus Gellius, I.  21, p.192).   This phrase sounds silly, but when you translate Lapidem into Chaldee you have "By Jove the Son". "Ben" in Hebrew is "Son".  In Chaldee there is a word "Eben".  "Eben" signifies a stone, as seen in Ebenezer, "the stone of help".

The Roman Jovis (nominative form of Jove) is just a form of the Hebrew "Jehovah".  So we see the "the Son of Jehovah" being perverted by the pagans into a second person - "God the Son" instead of the biblical "Son of God."

It is directly from the Roman perversion of "By Jupiter the stone" that you get "Jehovah the Son", or "God the Son".  This is plainly pagan! The pagan Romans had a "God the Son", but never in the scriptures can you find this.  The only source for such a so-called "Christian" version can only be roman paganism.  Is it any wonder the "Roman" Catholic Church promoted the trinity doctrine?

A religion called Mazdeism, or Zoroastrianism, the teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra), a reformer, who supposedly lived 7,000 years before Christ, teaches a form of Trinitarianism.  It seems Zoroaster was actually the Nimrod of the Bible who attempted to found Babel.  It also is likely that "Bacchus" and "Tammuz" were the same man.  His sacred book is the Zend Avesta from Persia.

"Zoroaster taught that there are two gods contrary to each other in their operations, the one the author of all the Good the other of all the Evil in Nature.  The Good principle he calls Oromazes (Ahura-Mazda) and the other the Daemon Arimanius (Agra-Mainyus).  He says the one resembles Light and Truth, the other Darkness and Ignorance.  There is likewise a middle God between these two named Mythras, whom the Persians call the Intercessor or Mediator.  Mythras is that Yazata (spirit) of light and guardian of justice and truth."

While there was originally a universal concept of One God in One Person this faith was soon corrupted as men swerved away from purity of true religion.  First the name, and thus attributes, of God were changed.  Then God was subdivided into three major Beings.  These became three gods in the pagan religions.  Pagans were noted to take a divine attribute and make a god out of it.  Trinitarianism is a subtle form of this same trend.

We have seen how one form of paganism pronounced the second person of their pagan trinity as "God the Son".  This was evident in Roman heathenism. Zoroastrianism added to this thought the idea that the second person was a "Mediator".   Thus the model for the Trinitarian view of the Sonship of God as a distinct person was in existence long before any Christians even existed - among pagans! Trinitarianism is the pagan soil in which the roots of the Mother-worship of Mary are firmly planted.

Without doubt may the issue be forever settled in our hearts, and may it be decreed that the Trinitarian portrayal of three distinct persons, comprising one God, is irrefutably the product of pagan inspiration.

Satan's scheme through the ages of time has always been to rob God of due glory.  Instead of people worshipping God the enemy has veered men's praise to be directed towards God's attributes rather than God.  Making His attributes out to be distinct persons the enemy has led folks to unknowingly honour an act of God rather than God.  This has brought about the robbing of true praise from the Lord Himself, and has left many in a mild form of idolatry.

God used the brazen serpent to heal the snake bites of His followers in the wilderness under Moses.  It was later discovered that the brazen serpent was in the temple years later.  The people had worshipped the means God used to touch them rather than God Himself.  The people committed idolatry.  It was a blessing to go through the means of the instrument of brass, but surely God was much higher than brazen images and is to be truly praised.

Jesus Christ, Himself, told of the greater praise to be directed toward God the Father when he told the rich young ruler, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." (Matt.  19:17)

Within the Christ was the Almighty God the Father.  Attention to the fleshly robe was always turned away by God that men might correctly worship He who was in Christ Jesus - The Father.

With these truths let us truly worship the One True God, and not be swerved away into a lesser honouring of God through the worship of His attributes rather than His Single Person, Himself, with one Name.

It is interesting to note that Greek philosophy which led up to the concept of one God in three persons (see my other study entitled "The Origin of the Doctrine of the Trinity") came from the same country, Greece, that was heavily entrenched into pagan doctrines.  As any historian studying ancient religions knows, these doctrines and myths are derivations of the original ancient Babylonian and Egyptian versions of various divinities with different names applied to them.

While modern Trinitarians propose that the works of Plato and Socrates, which were made before Christ, were the results of God having endowed upon the Greek seekers of truth such concepts of God, particularly when thinking of the LOGOS dogma, we find that such Greek philosophers who entered the church in the second century were obviously biased in a multi-god concept. It was only natural for a Trinity-type concept to enter Christianity by Greeks.  And Trinitarianism is the only manner in which one can conceive God as being more than one being, while at the same time maintaining that there is One God.  There seemed to have been an incredible urge for people to force a polytheistic view into Christianity.

Oneness doctrine, on the other hand, maintains an absolute Oneness of God as evident in Old Testament Scripture.  It is the closest one can get to believing in One God -- in fact, one could not be more of a "one God" than a Oneness adherent -- while maintaining that Jesus Christ is God Almighty, since it is the proposal that God is absolutely and indivisibly one.