Was the idea of the Trinity - that One God exists in Three Persons and One Substance - influenced by pre-Christian traditions? It is well known that the New Testament offers no such doctrine, and there is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as a member of the Trinity. The doctrine was developed during the first four Christian centuries, culminating in the Council of Constantinople in AC 381.
The world of the early Christian centuries in which the Trinity was developed as a tenet of belief included several religious and philosophical systems with similar beliefs. Triads and Trinity examines three possible areas of impact: Judaism, the religion of Egypt, and various Greek traditions. Whereas a pluralistic concept of God was inherited by Judaism, it eventually accepted a firm monotheism. In Egypt the concept of trinity was of ancient origin, but it flourished especially in the second century AD and afterwards, when the mystery cult of Isis reached its acme of popularity in a Graeco-Egyptian framework which found adherents in many countries of the Roman empire. This Graeco-Egyptian religious amalgam exercised a potent influence on early Christian thinkers, particularly in Alexandria.
Using the methods of comparative religion, the distinguished Classicist and Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths has examined the origins of the doctrine of the Trinity and has based his conclusions on a thorough analysis of the original sources in Greek, Latin, Egyptian, Coptic and Hebrew.
'In this book he extends the same generosity to the early Church, looking for analogies to its doctrine of the Trinity in all the ancient European and Asiatic cultures, and concluding that it not only can but must have been derived from an Egyptian prototype. Such theories have been advanced before, but have seldom been supported by such learning or examined with such detachment as in the first hundred pages of this volume.' (Journal of Theological Studies)
' . . . well written and contains a goodly amount of factual information on some of the pagan religious systems.' (Bibliotheca Orientalis)
' . . . to be commended for its clear exposition of all the intellectual material, which allows the real nub of the problem to be addressed.' (Studies in World Christianity)
' . . . prose which combines formidable scholarship with all the oratory of the Welsh chapels. A most interesting book.' (Expository Times)
' . . . This intriguing and competent study will be partiuclarly interesting to Christian theologians.' (Religious Studies Review)
John Gwyn Griffiths, BA, DD (Wales), MA (Liverpool), D.Phil., D.Litt. (Oxon), is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Egyptology at the University of Wales, Swansea. In 1965-6 he was Guest Professor of these subjects at the University of Cairo and in 1976-7 a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He has also been a Budge Research Lecturer at University College, Oxford. Later he spent a semester at the University of Bonn as a Guest Research Lecturer, and at the University of Tübingen as a Professional Research Fellow. He has twice received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, is Honorary Fellow of University of Wales, Cardiff, and is a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin.