Triads and Trinity.

Griffiths, J. Gwyn

ISBN 10: 0708312810 / ISBN 13: 9780708312810

Published by University of Wales Press, 1900

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 32409

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Triads and Trinity.
• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Publication Date: 1900
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0708312810
• ISBN 13: 9780708312810
• Binding: Hardcover

About this title

Synopsis

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 AD 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.

About the Author

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.