- Jun 22, 2023
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If Trinitarianism is a biblical truth, then how come it has never been taught in Orthodox Judaism?
Why did it take Pagans who were recent converts to Christianity reveal this?
Orthodox Judaism has always known about Trinitarianism. The only Jews who believed in Trinitarianism were Pagans, Mystics, Hellenist, and Kabbalist.
Trinity
In the fourth-century, Marcellus of Ancyra declared that the idea of the Godhead existing as three hypostases came from Plato, through the teachings of Valentinus. Valentinus is quoted as teaching that God is three, three prosopa (persons) called the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit:
These men also taught three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. It was believed he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but he was discovered to have taken this from Hermes and Plato.
Valentinus (also spelled Valentinius) (c.100 - c.160) was known as a early Christian Gnostic Theologian.
It should be noted that Nag Hammadi library Sethian text such as Trimorphic Protennoia identify Gnosticism as also professing Father, Son and feminine wisdom Sophia or as Professor John D Turner denotes, God the Father, Sophia the Mother, and Logos the Son.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, II, page 263:
"The baptismal formula was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by the Catholic Church in the second century."
Trinitarian formula
Some of the Church Fathers testified that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew. The Trinitarian formula does not appear in the Shem-Tob Hebrew manuscript of Matthew. This Hebrew manuscript does not seem to have been copied from the Greek or Latin either. The omission of the command to baptize and the Trinitarian formula in the Shem-Tob manuscript contributes to the conclusion that the Trinitarian formula did not exist in the original manuscript of Matthew, but was a later addition.
Also:
In the fourth century, a group called the “Pneumatomacki,” who resisted recognizing “the Holy Spirit” as the third person of the Trinity, apparently used a text of Matthew that did not have the Trinitarian formula.
It is known that after the time of Emperor Theodosius (346-395), that writings that did not agree with the official position of the Catholic Church were to be sought out and destroyed.
The teaching of a Trinitarian formula would be something new in Orthodox Judaism, and there is no examples of Christ teaching the Apostles any such thing.
All of the New Testament teaches baptism in the name of Christ. The only place that teaches a different baptism is Matthew 28:19.
So the bottom line is this; there were bible text after the fourth century that did not have the Trinitarian formula.
