How Did People Come To Believe In The Trinity?
The first person in the Bible to mention the Holy Spirit is David.
"Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your holy spirit from me" (Psalms 51:11).
This is also the first time the Holy Spirit is mentioned as being the presence of God. This Psalm occurs after David repents of having committed adultery with Bath Sheba.
Moses received the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:11).
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon indicated that Daniel had the spirit of the holy gods in him (Daniel 4:8). Then (as now) the Holy Spirit and its association with God are misunderstood.
The book of Daniel shows the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man functioning separately from each other, totally independent of each other. Obviously this would tend to refute the inductive idea of the trinity (3-in-1).
Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1). Was he filled with another person inside his body? No. He was filled with the presence of God.
"...he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he, which baptizes with the Holy Spirit" (John 1:33).
So here we see a change. People are now given the opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit at baptism. This will automatically mean more people (not just prophets and patriarchs) would receive the Holy Spirit.
"In the last day, that great [day] of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this he spoke of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:37). Notice that the word "given" is not in the original Greek. John the Baptist, for example, already had the Holy Spirit. However Christ was referring to the future time (day of Pentecost) when the Holy Spirit would be poured out and received by large numbers of people.
The twelve disciples (Matthias replacing Judas) were the first to have the Holy Spirit poured out upon them.
"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). Peter told the people at Jerusalem about Jesus being crucified and they responded by asking what they should do.
"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
Was Peter telling them they could receive a person into their body? No.
At that time 3000 people were baptized (Acts 2:41). People were now, in essence, able to request the indwelling of the Holy Spirit by repenting and being baptized. This outpouring of the Spirit was prophesied by Joel (Acts 2:16-17 and Joel 2:28). It is a pre-type. The other fulfillment of the prophecy will take place in the last days before the great and notable day of the Lord (Acts 2:18-20 and Joel 2:29-31).
So after the day of Pentecost (which is the same day as the Feast of First Fruits) people were able to repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Spirit. No longer was this the domain of only a few as in the Old Testament. However those being called were still relatively few compared to the world population.
There is no mention of the trinity in the entire Bible.
The original Apostles do not make mention of a trinity. The Book of Revelation does not make mention of a trinity.
Where did this notion of a trinity begin?
Did the understudies of the Apostles mention the trinity?
Polycarp, Clement, and Ignatius were the students of the original apostles. They lived at the turn of the century, before and after 100 AD. Did they mention a trinity or give a description of a trinity in all their writings? No. Did they mention the Holy Spirit being a ground of consciousness distinct from the Father or Son? No. Did they mention the Holy Spirit being a person? No.
What about the next generation of writers, the Apologists? The Apologists wanted to demonstrate the Christian's faith as being supposedly compatible with Greek philosophy, ignoring the warnings of Paul (Colossians 2:8). In this era which included the later part of the 100's AD was Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Tatian, and Athenagoras. Totally missing from their writings was any mention of a trinity. There was one bishop however, Irenaeus, of the same period of time, who mentioned "His Wisdom" as being a divine entity. He did this in reaction to gnosticism.
It was not until the 200's AD that even the primitive idea of a trinity began to take shape.
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, known as Tertullian, in the early 200's AD was the first to mention the primitive form of a trinity. He is the first person to use the word "trinity" and he was the first person to formulate the idea of one substance having three persons. He had the idea of the Spirit being a persona, not in the sense of a person but in the sense of a mask, which ancient actors would wear in a live play. Tertullian considered the Holy Spirit to be the "deputy" of the Son.
The idea of individual subsistence, hypostasis (from the Greek), was first introduced by Origen. Origen considered the Son to be derivative of the Father and the Spirit not to be co-equal to the Father or the Son. This idea (of the Son being derivative of the Father) would be latched onto by Arius in the 300's AD to eventually cause a major crisis leading to the Counsel of Nicea.
In the 300's AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine "converted" to Christianity. He made Christianity (the large group of what was called Christianity at that time) the official religion of Rome. By this time the religion (Christianity) had no resemblance to the church in which the Apostles were involved.
Arius in the 300's AD gained many followers as he taught that Christ was a created being, created by the Father. This was the birth of the idea of the unity (the idea of one God (the Father) denying the divinity of Christ). Arius made such an impact he created a crisis that led the Roman Emperor Constantine, at the behest of Pope Dionysius, to call together the Counsel of Nicea.
Up to that point in time, Monarchianism with monotheistic imperatives was pitted against those who believed the God head to be composed of more than one. There was the binity (God is a Kingdom consisting of 2 beings, Father and Son). There was the divine trias, which was the predecessor to the belief in the trinity. And most of all, there were the Arians (the followers of Arius).
So the Counsel of Nicea was called together in 325 AD. About 300 Catholic Bishops were brought together to resolve the dispute. The conclusion was the repudiation of Arianism. They adopted a creed which included the common belief system of the day but added (concerning Christ) at the end:
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"And those that say 'there was when he was not,'
and, 'before he was begotten he was not,'
and that, 'he came into being from what-is-not,'
or those that allege, that the son of God is
'of another substance or essence'
or 'created'
or 'changeable'
or 'alterable'
these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes."
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The creed that came out of the Counsel of Nicea in 325 AD did not explicate the trinity. It simply proclaimed the divinity of Christ, rejecting Arianism. There was no resolution on the "personhood" of the Holy Spirit. That notion would not arise in full strength until the Counsel of Constantinople in 381 AD.
Basilius, commonly known as Basil, bishop of Caesarea in the later 300's AD, formulated ideas as to what the Holy Spirit was. This was mainly in reaction to Arius who was his enemy doctrinally. Basil and others such as Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa were encouraged to develop ideas to combat the idea of arianism. The person who encouraged them was Athanasius who hated Arianism and wanted to wipe it out.
Gregory of Nazianzus acknowledged that the scripture does not refer to the Holy Spirit as God. Therefore they (he and the other Gregory and Basil) would have to pursue a line of logic outside of scripture in order to formulate the Holy Spirit to be more than it really is.
Using human reasoning, Basil concluded that spirit itself
necessarily meant unchangeable. This is contrary to the
teaching of scripture (some angels, for example,
changed -- they followed Satan!). Nevertheless it
appealed to the academic minds of that day.
Also using human reasoning, Basil concluded that if the
Spirit was sanctified, how could it be anything less than
divine. The next logical step (also using human reasoning)
was to declare the Holy Spirit a person. And that is exactly
what he did.
This reasoning was the basis for the creed that came out
of the Counsel of Constantinople in 381 AD. This creed
declared the Holy Spirit to be co-equal and co-essential
to God the Father and God the Son. It was the origin of
the doctrine of God in three persons, holy trinity, the
doctrine that is popular even in today's information age.
References:
Bettenson, Henry, Documents of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, London, 1963
Fakhoury, Gary, History of the Trinity, The Journal, Big Sandy, Texas, July 31, 1997
Schimmel, Martha F., The Supreme God, Ministry Publications of God, Cottonwood, Arizona, 1997
-- wilyelder
