From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian by Marian Hillar (PDF)

Description

This book presents a critical evaluation of the doctrine of the Trinity, tracing its development and investigating the intellectual, philosophical, and theological background that shaped this influential doctrine of Christianity. Despite the centrality of Trinitarian thought to Christianity, and its importance as one of the fundamental tenets that differentiates Christianity from Judaism and Islam, the doctrine is not fully formulated in the canon of Christian scriptural texts. Instead, it evolved through the conflation of selective pieces of scripture with the philosophical and religious ideas of ancient Hellenistic milieu. Marian Hillar analyzes the development of Trinitarian thought during the formative years of Christianity from its roots in ancient Greek philosophical concepts and religious thinking in the Mediterranean region. He identifies several important sources of Trinitarian thought heretofore largely ignored by scholars, including the Greek middle-Platonic philosophical writings of Numenius and Egyptian metaphysical writings and monuments representing divinity as a triune entity.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Book Description A critical evaluation of the doctrine of the Trinity, tracing its development and investigating its intellectual, philosophical and theological background. About the Author Marian Hillar is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Texas Southern University, where he is also Director of the Center for Philosophy and Socinian Studies. His books include Michael Servetus: Intellectual Giant, Humanist, and Martyr (2002) and The Case of Michael Servetus (1511–1553): The Turning Point in the Struggle for Freedom of Conscience (1997). He is also editor-in-chief of Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, a publication of the American Humanist Association and (with Christopher A. Hoffman) is currently translating the major work of Servetus (Christianismi restitutio, 1553).

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Excellent history of the trinity ideology and development.

⭐With evolution in the subtitle I should have suspected an anti-biblical bias. However it was well written and provided material to counter with apologetics.

⭐This book is one of those rare gems which deserves a thorough reading by all who are concerned with the history and practice of the Christian faith, particularly in relation to other great world religions. Dr. Marian Hillar has broken new ground in the detail of his work, while his foundational point is one made by significant predecessors in the history of the development of Christianity, such as Adolph Harnack and his student Friedrich Loofs.Why is this account of the development of doctrine from the Logos to the Trinity so critically important in our time? Because the public, as well as scholars, seems largely ignorant of the profound shifts in thinking which occurred when the essentially Jewish faith of New Testament times became severed from its roots and succumbed to the distorting influence of neo-Platonism. The churches have in general turned a blind eye to the somewhat embarrassing fact that a very strong pagan Greek influence adversely affected the Christian faith as it emerged after apostolic times.It is a strange paradox that it is only in the 21st century that a scholar well versed both in both biblical Testaments and in the Greek philosophical schools of late antiquity has set his hand to provide us with just the information we need for an intelligent assessment of pristine Christianity compared with its remarkable deterioration from the second century. Hillar’s thesis has enormous implications for Jewish Christian relations as well as sensible dialogue between both those faiths and Islam.Marian Hillar is perhaps the first to put his finger on the detail of just how Biblical Christianity’s decline into a philosophical form of religion came about. He shows us that the middle-Platonist Numenius quite evidently exhibits an extraordinary affinity with the thinking of the second-century Christian apologist, Justin Martyr. The mid-second century marks the transition, via a mishandling of John’s logos teaching, from one theological paradigm to a new and very different one. By stages the unitary monotheism of Jesus and the apostles became the complex construction of the nature of God as Trinity. Now that this scholar has laid bare the evidence, we are all more able to reevaluate our own positions vis-a-vis Christianity as it originally stemmed from Jesus himself. Hillar confirms the reflection of Dr. Colin Brown of Fuller Seminary who in his remarkable Ex Auditu article, “Trinity and Incarnation” (Vol. 7 1991, p. 90) wonders “whether the thorny questions of later ages might have been avoided if the church fathers had not embarked on the language of the ‘eternal generation of the Son.’ How things might have been different if the fathers had kept strictly to the language of John’s prologue as their paradigm…”Marian Hillar spells out the process by which that departure from John into the muddy waters of Greek philosophy took place. His work thus provides an important contribution to the contemporary debates over Christology. The necessary detective work has now been done. This is a trail-blazing endeavor. Though From Logos to Trinity may not be for the timid who cannot imagine that the status quo on the identity of the biblical Jesus could be askew from a biblical point of view, it challenges all those prepared to take a new look at how the Christian faith in all its forms arrived at its present condition. It may in fact lead to an almost complete rewriting of theological history. Though the author allies himself with none of the faith claims of any of the parties described by him, he follows hard on the heels of a hero of his, Michael Servetus, whose remarkably advanced Restoration of Christianity Marian Hillar and Christopher A. Hoffman have been the first to translate from Latin into English. That exercise was an ideal springboard to this present unveiling of the astonishing compromise, noted already by Servetus – a compromise made with neo-Platonism found in the early church fathers and largely hidden from the churchgoing public. Hillar’s thorough investigation is likely to have profound effects on the reader.

⭐Hillar, Marian (2012) From Logos to Trinity The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian. New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN: 9781107013308.Dr. Marian Hillar has written a comprehensive work detailing the development of thought surrounding Logos in the Mediterranean world from the Pythagorean era in Greece, sixth century b. c. e., through the years of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The notion of God during this era and in this locale was shared by Judaism, Islam and Christianity (p. 1). As Christianity developed, the unitarian view on God shared by Judaism and Islam was left behind. While Michael Servetus tried to re-unite these faiths on that doctrine in the sixteenth century, he could not, and suffered death because of his efforts.Throughout the Greek and Hebrew world in the early centuries the meanings of Logos included “word, speech, statement, discourse, refutation, ratio, proportion, account, explanation, reason and thought” (6). It came to mean man’s intrinsic ability to reason or think, and also his outward means of expression. Logos was accepted as an “intelligent…principle of the universal” (6).Building on this ubiquitous understanding, Pythagoras (570 b. c. e), a noted theologian and philosopher, taught the “cosmological principles, Monad, Dyad and Harmony” (7). Hillar labels this a “trinity” which corresponds to the moral philosophy of Goodness, Truth and Beauty. (10). Men of that era believed these principles controlled the Universe and were a “philosophy of immanent order” (8).Hillar next discusses several philosophers who added concepts to the accepted philosophical thought on Logos. Among them was Alemaeon of Croton, who mingled the idea of Logos with medicine, thereby setting the precedent for the development of the Hippocratic Oath (9,10). Other early disciples included Heraclitus of Ephesus who equated “Mind” with Logos by discussing the force of Logos/Mind in creation, and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae who thought “Mind” more an impersonal force (11). The philosopher, Xenocrates of Chalcedon (d. 314 b. c. e.), agreed with Pythagoras and Plato that numbers represent universal regularities and melded “the ideal with the mathematical” (22). And, “Xenocrates philosophy constitutes an important transition to Middle Platonism” (22). Xenocrates discussed the ideal in terms of the three perfect triangles: equilateral, representing unity; isosceles, representing unity and variety; and scalene representing “descending souls with material elements” (23), i. e., human beings.Adding to this foundation, the Stoics of the third century b. c. e. developed the thought on Logos which became the accepted teaching of early Christians. The Stoics taught that the principle of Logos governed the structure of the world. It was a “celestial fire, intelligent breath” (26). They believed several “world cycles began and ended with fire” (31), and that warm, intelligent breath, pneuma, held the elements of the universe together.The equivalent Hebrew concept of Logos, davar, was considered to be “the speech of God”. It is often seen in the Old Testament as “And God said,” (36). From this Hillar directs the reader in a discussion of the Hebrew personification of Wisdom, and subsequently of the union of Logos and Wisdom in John 1.Philo (20 b .c. e-50 c. e.), another philosopher of importance, added significantly to the theological underpinnings of Christianity. Philo used allegory to interpret Hebrew religious traditions. In this manner he looked for hidden meaning in the text and read back into it new interpretation (45). This method had implications for Philo’s thoughts on Logos. Philo “fused Greek philosophical concepts with Hebrew religious thought” (55), providing more intellectual foundation for the acceptance of Christian writings than was produced in the first and second centuries. Hillar believes that Philo spent more time developing his ideas on Logos than on his other intellectual interests.For example, Philo defined Logos as “utterance of God” and “divine mind” (56), “the agent of creation and transcendent power” (57), “Universal bond and immanent reason” (60), “the immanent Mediator” (62), and the “Angel of the Lord which is the Revealer of God” (63).In guiding the reader toward understanding the development of thought leading to the trinity, Hillar elaborates regarding the messianic tradition of the Jews in which eschatological and apocalyptic themes were emphasized in Judaic writings, worship and culture. The Jews believed God acts on behalf of the righteous of Israel (102). Further, the ideas of messianic and apocalyptic eschatology were carried through to Hellenistic Christian thought. “Christianity” was first an early Jewish messianic movement (112). Members were first identified as “Nazoraeans” before being called “Christians” because their Messiah would be a Nazarene as stated in Matthew 2:23 (114).In the historical journey of discovery guided by Hillar’s research, the reader is next given a thorough tour of the works of Justin Martyr. Martyr was influenced by Numenius’ Middle Platonic thought on the soul (148), and also by his thought on Logos as First God and Second God (147). To Martyr belongs the distinction of being the first church father to label the theological ideas of Pythagoras, the Monad, Dyad and Harmony, as “triad”. This is significant because it was the Latin layman, Tertullian, who finally translated “triad” to the Latin trinitas, or “trinity”.Hillar’s discussion on Tertullian is quite thorough. Tertullian handled scriptures often with legal terminology in which he may have had some training, but his interpretation was not very accurate. Hillar’s discussion identifies such errors through phrases as, “…he (Tertullian) twists its meaning” (220), and, in “Psalms 44:7-8 Tertullian erroneously interprets…”(231), “through this type of twisted speculation, Tertullian claims to avoid double blasphemy”(241), “Tertullian is in contradiction”(244), and so on. Hillar’s specific comments reveal his own intellectual distaste and distrust of Tertullian’s scholarship. Here, more than any other scholar included in the book, does the author inject his disagreement. Tertullian took such broad leaps that only a noted scholar such as Dr. Hillar could recognize and criticize the errors. He reflects upon all the church fathers’ scholarship in a balanced style which indicates that Dr. Hillar has neutrality and objectivity in analyzing the research, and is therefore a credible scholar capable and bold enough to also comment on errors of church fathers that orthodoxy has accepted over the centuries. Hillar is so thorough and comprehensive in his reading and research that his conclusions can be trusted.The books concludes with a discussion on the contribution of Thomas Aquinas who formulated the doctrine of the trinity in its accepted form in Summa Theologia, Hillar classifies Thomas in the same philosophical neighborhood as the Middle Platonists and Neoplatonists: as Hellenistic metaphysical philosophers (250).This book is both a history of philosophy, and a work of theology. It is a polemic for the Oneness of God which takes the position not of attacking the trinity, but of revealing its false assumptions. By showing the natural, intellectual, philosophical and metaphysical development of the Logos, (which by the third century came to mean the Word (Jesus) Incarnate, Hillar has revealed the philosophical scholarship that strayed from scripture leading eventually to an artificially derived doctrine (trinity) not found in either the Old or the New Testament. Hillar’s chronological account of the historical development of thought on Logos, incarnation, trinity and Holy Spirit has revealed the errors and omissions of the great reformer, Martin Luther who failed to reform all the doctrinal errors that had crept into the Roman Catholic Church since the first century. Hillar, also a scholar on Michael Servetus, discussed his important role in bringing the Oneness issue to light during his lifetime.While the book includes many unusual names, concepts, Greek, Hebrew and Latin phrases, the average intelligent laymen, and, certainly, the religious scholar will find it an easy read. Hillar’s sentences are clear, well organized and penetrating. He provides a clear and concise summary at the end of each of the nine chapters, and includes an extensive bibliography at the end of the book together with appropriate appendices.Hillar reports the findings of his extensive research in a soundly scholarly style with profound implications upon the orthodox doctrinal establishment in this postmodern milieu of Christian thought. This book is highly recommended for men and women of faith, and the reader is encouraged to examine the facts carefully. On a scale of one to five with five for excellence, this book is a five plus.

⭐The relationship of Christian thought to the Greek intellectual tradition is a fascinating topic. Unfortunately, the fact that more than 50% of the Greek words in the first several pages of this book are misspelled or wrongly accented does not inspire confidence that the author possesses the equipment to perform the job properly. You can’t do physics without math and you can’t do historical theology without Greek.

⭐Complete this book with : “Tertullian’s Treatise against Praxeas”

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