From where did the trinity teaching come?

Sir E. A. Wallis Budge further goes on to say the following about the Egyptian god Thoth and how it parallels Plato's Logos which was later absorbed into the Churches doctrines as Plato received his ideas via the Egyptians:-

"We are now able to sum up the attributes ascribed to Thoth, and to consider how he employed them in connection with the dead. In first place, he was held to be both the heart and the tongue of Ra, that is to say, he was the reason and the mental powers of the god, and also the means by which t their will was translated into speech ; from one aspect he was speech itself, and in later times he may well have represented, as Dr. Birch said, the logoV of Plato. In every legend in which Thoth takes a prominent part we see that it is he who speaks the word that results in the wishes of Ra being carried into effect, and it is evident that when he had once given the word of commend that command could not fail to be carried out by one means or the other."-'The gods of the Egyptians' by E.A. Wallis Budge Vol. 1 p.407

parallel to the above they conceived the nature of the "One Great God" is via the trinity concept as note in the book 'Before Philosophy' by H. Frankfort, Mrs. H. Frankfort, J.A. Wilson, T. Jacobsen page 75:-

"The fluidity of Egyptian concepts and the tendency to synthesize divergent elements have led some Egyptologists to believe that Egyptians were really monotheistic, that all gods were subsumed into a single god. In a moment we shall present a text that would seem to be a prime document for this thesis of essential monotheism, but we wish to preface it by insisting that it is not a matter of a single god but of single nature of observed phenomena in the universe, with the clear possibility of exchange and substitution. With relation to gods and men the Egyptians were monophysites : many men and many gods, but all ultimately one nature.

The text that we mentioned presents an Egyptian trinity : the three gods who were supremely important at one period of history all taken up into a single divinity. The purpose was to enlarge the god Amon by incorporating the other two gods into his being. 'All gods are three - Amon, Re, and Ptah - and they have no second'. Amon in the name of this single being, Re in his head, and Ptah in his body. 'Only he is : Amon and Re (and Ptah), togther three.' [Leyden Amon Hymn, 4:21-26.] Three gods are one, and yet the Egyptians elsewhere insists on the separate identity of each of the three."

Further to quote renowned Egyptian Archaeologist Sir W. M. Flinders Pertie:-

*"God is not Mind, or spirit or Light, but is the cause of Mind, Spirit, and Light No other so-called gods or daimons can be in any measure Good, but God only can be Good, as He is the same as Good. God also is the universal Father as Creator. . . . The gods were seen as stars. . . . As Kosmos is the Second God, so Man is the third living thing after the image of the Kosmos. He has feelings with the Second God, and a conception of the First God. Kosmos is by God and in God. Man is by Kosmos and in Kosmos. In none of these is Logos personified, nor Wisdom mentioned. . . . It seems probable that such works belng to 450-350 B.C., as they have none of the marks of later thought.

**We now enter on the next stage, in the Corp. Herm [Corpus Hermeticum], xiii, v, xiv, and i, where these writings introduce the personification of the Divine Logos, but not that of Divine Wisdom Thus it appears that the Logos literature precedes the Wisdom literature, in which the Logos is also found We will first notice the development of doctrine in these works . . . One of the earliest of this class must be "About the Universal Mind" (Corp. Herm., xiii) . . . it must be earlier than 332 B.C. . . . "Unto this Logos, son, thy adoration and thy worship pay."

The Logos also begins to appear in "The Cup" or rather "Font" (Corp. Herm., v). "With Logos (reason) not with hands did the Demiourgos make the universal Kosmos," "Man did excel by reason of the Logos," "Logos indeed among all men He hath distributed."

"The Secret Sermon" (Corp. Herm., xiv) seems to be of the same date [300 B.C.] or rather later. The Logos is a higher principle apparently, as we read "Rejoice, O Son, for by the Power of God thou art being purified for articulation of the Logos. Gnosis of God hath come to us." "Thy Logos sings through me thy praises." "Send thou oblation . . . acceptable to God . . . but add my son too 'through the Logos.' " The Logos seems in this Sermon to be the divine principle. Here we find a development of the doctrine of Conversion; it is no longer being baptized in the Divine Mind, but it is "the tradition of Re-birth"; . . . "How is the author of Re-birth? The Son of God, the One Man, by God's will." . . . At first sight this might be put down as Christian in source; but we have already seen in the Perfect Sermon, which can only be put to 340 B.C. "The Lord and Maker of all . . . from himself made the Second God, the Visible . . . whom he loved as his Son," and the Logos doctrine is far less developed than in Philon.

These allusions naturally bring next to this the "Shepherd of Men" or Poimandres, the best known Hermetic work (Corp. Herm., i) In that the Logos doctrine is further developed. In the Creation "a Holy Logos descends on that Nature, and upward to the light from Moist, Nature leaped pure fire" ; "Earth and water no one could discern, yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Logos pervading them" ; "The Logos that appeared from Mind is Son of God". . . Here the Logos holds the place afterwards taken by Wisdom or the Spirit. "Holy art Thou who didst by Logos make to consist the things that are"

Advanced as these statements may be, they scarcely reach the level of Philon, in such terms as the Son of God, the One Man, the Logos ; and as Philon thus decisively cuts them off from being necessarily of Christian origin, we need not hesitate at their being two or three centuries earlier . . .

Having now traced the growth of post-Alexandrine documents, we will turn back to summarise the general ideas and beliefs which we find in them, before proceeding to the later developments.

The treatise on "The Universal Mind" (Corp. Herm.,xiii) deals with several problems, which we here divide in to separate paragraphs.

Logos is only used by Man, animals have mere voice. logos is in Mind, and Mind in is God ; Mind also is in Soul, Soul in Form, and Form in Body, The other series of cosmic nature is God, in Mind, in Soul, in Air, in Matter. Kosmos continue for ever, and therefore it must Needs be a God ; it is filled full of Life, and is a Mighty God, image of the mightier God.

The Hymn of Re-birth is to be said in open air, facing south-west at sunset, and facing east at sun-rise. The earth is called on to open, every bolt of the abyss to be drawn (the Egyptian view of the twelve gates of the underworld) and heaven is to open. The praises of the Creator is to be sung by man, by nature, and by all the inner powers of man, The Logos sings through man and praise for God's indwelling. God's Mind shepherds the Logos in Man. The doctrine of the re-birth is to be secret or esoteric.

The Hermetic books as a whole seem to hang together, and to belong to one general period, 500-200 B.C., while the Logos only begins to appear in the latter, and Wisdom never appears."-Personal Religion in Egypt Before Christianity by W. M. Flinders Pertie Ch. V. The Undated Hermetic Writings pp.*87, **91 -102