Nontrinitarianism - Purported Pagan Origins

Purported Pagan Origins

Many nontrinitarians contend that the doctrine of the Trinity is a prime example of Christianity borrowing from Indo-European and Egyptian pagan sources. According to them, after the death of the Apostles their simpler idea of God was lost and the doctrine of the Trinity took its place due to the Church's accommodation of pagan ideas.

Those who argue for a pagan basis note that as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common, and that this influence was also prevalent among the Celts, as well as in Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In ancient India, the concept of the trio—Brahma the creator, Shiva the destroyer, and Vishnu the preserver dates back to millennia before Christ. At the very least, they suggest that Greek philosophy brought a late influence into the creation of the doctrine.

Some nontrinitarians also find a link between the doctrine of the Trinity and the Egyptian Christian theologians of Alexandria, suggesting that Alexandrian theology, with its strong emphasis on the deity of Jesus, served to infuse Egypt's pagan religious heritage into Christianity. They charge the Church with adopting these Egyptian tenets after adapting them to Christian thinking by means of Greek philosophy. As evidence of this, they point to the widely acknowledged synthesis of Christianity with Platonic philosophy evident in Trinitarian formulas appearing by the end of the 3rd century. Hence, beginning with the Constantinian period, they allege, these pagan ideas were forcibly imposed on the churches as Catholic doctrine rooted firmly in the soil of Hellenism. Most groups subscribing to the theory of a Great Apostasy generally concur in this thesis.

The early apologists, including Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Irenaeus, frequently discussed the parallels and contrasts between Christianity, Paganism and other syncretic religions, and answered charges of borrowing from paganism in their apologetical writings.