surrounding paganism- and it's understandable that some would've been eager to
misinterpret Bible passages to this end.
The idea of a 'trinity' of gods was widespread in paganism. The Egyptians had three
main gods, Osiris, Isis and Horus. Horus was in turn divided into 3 parts or persons:
Horus - the King Horus - Ra Horus - the Scarabaeus.
Likewise the Hindu Vedas of around 1000 BC claimed that one God existed in three
forms:
Agni - Fire, presiding over the earth Indra - the Firmament, presiding over the mid-
air Surya - The Sun. presiding over the Heavens.
In later Hinduism, the 'trimurti' or trinity of gods became:
Brahma - the creative power Vishnu - the preserving power Siva - the transforming
power.
So when Theophilus, bishop of Antioch introduced the word 'trias' to Christian
literature for the >irst time in AD170, and the word 'trinitas' was >irst used by
Tertullian in AD200, they were importing pagan concepts which were familiar and
had been for millenia.
Remember that the trinity was adopted at the Council of Nicea in AD325. This
Council was called by Constantine after he decided he wished to turn the official
religion of the Roman empire from paganism to Christianity. Not long before that
Council, Christians had been cruelly persecuted. Some of the delegates at that
Council even bore on their faces and in their bodies the marks of that persecution.
The pagans had [falsely] accused the Christians of making Jesus into a God whom
they worshipped. Pliny had reported how they “chant antiphonally a hymn to Christ
as to a god”. In the pagan Roman world, only the Jews refused to worship other
gods on the basis that there was only one true God. The fact the Christians did the
same led to the perception that they too thought that there was only one God, just
that they called Him ‘Christ’. The Jews likewise wrongly assumed that anyone
claiming to be the Son of God was claiming to be God (Jn. 10:33-36; 19:7)- even
though Jesus specifically corrected them over this! As often happens, the
perceptions of a group by their enemies often come to define how the group
perceive themselves. Constantine was a politician and a warrior. He wasn’t a Bible
student, or a theologian, in fact he wasn’t even a very serious Christian. Although he
accepted Christianity, he said he didn’t want to be baptized because he wanted to
continue in sin. He seems to have figured that Christianity was the right thing for the
empire. So, Christianity, here we come. Constantine, and many others who jumped
on the ‘Christian’ bandwagon, shared the perception of Christ which had existed in
the pagan world which they had grown up in. And the pagan perception, as Pliny
and many others make clear, was that Jesus was a kind of God. And so when
Constantine presided over the dispute amongst the bishops at Nicea about who