This would be absolutely incorrect. We have St. Ignatius of Antioch referring to the trinity in the very early 2nd century -- his references to the trinity predate some of the people's estimates as to when the Gospels were put down, which is rather remarkable.
Check out this blog post on Orthocatch:
https://orthocath.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/ignatius-of-antiochs-view-of-the-trinity/
Thankyou.
Writing off the top of my head by memory, I may well have made a mistake as to when the word "trinity" is seen as first used in history.
One source I have before me now informs me that -
C. The Testimony of Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 115-188)
Theophilus, a bishop of Antioch, was the first to use the word "Trinity" in his writings. In Theophilus to Antolycus, Book II. 15, in his comments on Genesis 1:1-13 he says:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries are types of the Trinity, of God and His Word, and His Wisdom.
His use of the word "Trinity" here implies that it had already become a familiar term, and was accepted at its face value without the addition of all the technical language which later was brought in to attempt to explain it."
From The Testimony of Church History Regarding The Mystery of the Triune God compiled by Bill Freeman, the Stream Publishers, 1976, pg. 8,9.
But thanks again for your recommended reference.
Right, Sonship!
And you know what this means... According to all the people who love to say that the Bible was just some book compiled "three hundred years after" the fact, the concept of the Trinity is demonstratably older than the Bible.
It becomes one of these funny angles where now some of the most controversial and abstract teachings of the Bible that people say we just arbitrarily deduced from the Bible now... predate the Bible.
I honestly think that the more that one studies the Bible, and the more that one treats it in the very light that the critics want to put it in, the more outstanding it can really become.
It is now a book compiled by men that took some of the most interesting positions ever: Jeremiah the Jew cheering on the destruction of his own nation for the sake of their sins; proclaiming Cyrus the Great anointed by God; God Himself coming to earth to clarify the law by abolishing the WORD of it and invigorating the SPIRIT of it...
No other people thought in these ways. No other people had this depth, these revelations, this way of thinking, and when Christianity left little Jerusalem, it took the world by storm, and to this day is constantly on the lips of even its detractors.
We've defined the world -- both for ourselves as Christians, and especially for those who reject us.
@Philokalia
Some of the participants here trying their best to discredit the Bible, are simply going to have it all unveil in the world under their noses. They seem asleep. Some seem that they cannot be roused out of this sleep.
It is something of a miracle of mercy that we believe the Bible.
Recall the words of Christ that these things have been hidden from the so-called wise and intelligent and revealed to babes - by the will of God. God resists our pride. He gives grace to the humble.
Not that all my interpretations are infallible. But the word is truth. And the most critical matters are repeated in more than one place in more than one way, I think.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I extol You, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
Yes, Father, for this has been well-pleasing in Your sight.
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father; neither does anyone fully know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." (Matt. 11:25-27)
We have to consider it a mercy of God that He has revealed these things about Himself to us. May He have mercy on others also. Amen.
Don’t you do this all the time to your detractors here?
I have also done it at times.
Strutting around, assuming others have been heroically vanquished is unreliable usually.
As to your point - Revelation is not so a matter of a binary "literal or not?"
And one has to consider that IF there is symbolism, then WHAT is the nature of the reality to which it refers ? And one has to do so realistically.
Prophecy is often THAT and much more. Prophecy when fulfilled is often what was spoken PLUS more that was not spoken.
What was revealed is sometimes just the tip of the iceberg. More of the unspoken will take place which is presently below the surface of detection.
In the case of a "lake of fire" I believe it will be that PLUS some. It will be at least that and plus more that we may not be told specifically now.
The same would apply to the New Jerusalem as the city with the living water of God flowing through it. We should be today in the FORETASTE of something which we will have a FULLER taste of in the millennium and in eternity.
The Book of John has multiple authors.
The Book of Revelation reads like spiritual experience while consuming mind altering mushrooms. That is a more likely explanation.
It reads like a climax of other things said elsewhere in the Bible.
it reads like it takes up matters previously revealed in -
Genesis.
Exodus,
Ezekiel,
Zechariah,
Daniel,
etc.
It reads as a book with actually very little that is absolutely new. Rather it is a grand recapitulation of fore-mentioned themese in the Bible.
If you are not familiar with the previous treatment of those themes you are disadvantaged and may regard everything in Revelation as "new stuff". It is not "new things" as much as a grand recapitulation of previously revealed matters.
as for "multiple authors" - this is the approach of the enemies of God's revelation - to divide and conquer. That is to chop up into pieces in order to kill the meaning. Ascribe what is revealed to wildly DIFFERENT minds- to cut and chop up the Bible, separating the "pieces" from one another in order to chop the life out of it.
Ie. "Let us chop up what is said into separate pieces to destroy the organic unity. And let us kill the life there by cutting and dicing it up into pieces. "
That's how you've been led into deception.
The trinity is man made and pagan in origin. It’s inclusion in apocryphal writings by St Nobody of Nowhere or wherever is irrelevant.
No. You have the Father as God and Father.
You have the Son as God.
And you have the Holy Spirit as God.
And you have the divine "Us" and the divine "We" in the New Testament.
Which one of the Divine "We" here is not God ?
Jesus answered and said to him,
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him. (John 14:23)
Which one of the divine "We" there is not God?
And I expect now we will not here from St. Nobody. But we will hear from the midnight chirping crickets school of theology - SILENCE .... ie. better not say anything.