Trinity​—from What Source?

A principal teaching of the majority of the churches of Christendom is the Trinity doctrine, the unity and equality of the Father, the Son (the Word or Logos) and the holy ghost. Modern adherents to this doctrine often claim that it is based on the Scriptures and that it thus was a Christian doctrine from the earliest period of church history.

However, Alvan Lamson, D.D., examined the evidence for this view and in particular whether Justin Martyr and other early writers accepted and taught that doctrine. Dr. Lamson observes:

“For the original and distinctive features of the doctrine of the Logos, as held by the learned Fathers of the second and third centuries, we must look, not to the Jewish Scriptures, nor to the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, but to Philo [the Jewish philosopher of the first century C.E.] and the Alexandrine Platonists. In consistency with this view, we maintain that the doctrine of the Trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation; that it had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; that it grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers; that in the time of Justin [c. 100-165 C.E.], and long after, the distinct nature and inferiority of the Son were universally taught; and that only the first shadowy outline of the Trinity had then become visible.”​—The Church of the First Three Centuries, p. 34.