Did the stoics invent the Trinity?

Monday 8th March 2010 10:40pm 1
perpetualstudent
perpetualstudent
2 Posts
I am reading Karen Armstrong's "A Case for God" right now and she said something very interesting. "They [stoics] saw the whole of reality as animated by a fiery vaporous breath that Zeno called Logos ("Reason"), Pneuma ("Spirit"), and God." When I read that, the first thoughts that crossed my mind were "Gospel of John" and "Trinity." I already knew that ideas like incarnation and the death/resurrection of God's was not originally a Christian concept. Is that true for the Trinity as well? Does anybody here know much about the stoics and can you recommend any good books about them?
Tuesday 9th March 2010 03:22am 2
Infidel
Infidel
86 Posts
I don't know about that, but there is a Jewish Kabbalistic teaching referred to as The Three Pillars which some believe was the foundation for Christianity's trinity.

Since the very first Christians were Jews who lived in a Greek culture and later gentiles came into the fold, it is very possible that they synthesized both the kabbalistic and the stoic ideas of the godhead.

Please login or sign up to post on this network.
Click here to sign up.