Triad (religion)

A triad (from Greek: τριάς, gen. τριάδος "trinity, number of three") refers in religion to a trinity of gods.

Divine triads (trinities, i.e. three different deities belonging together) are known from most polytheistic mythologies. In Roman mythology, for example, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva formed a triad, and in Hinduism the triad of the gods Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer) is called Trimurti. Shakti worshippers, the followers of the female form of God, also know a female Trimurti with Saraswati the creator, Lakshmi the preserver and Kali the destroyer.

Trinities of gods were worshipped especially in the Egyptian-Chaldean period, while duality was emphasised in the ancient Persian period and the unity of the divine in the ancient Indian culture. The Hindu Trimurti also dates back to the Egyptian-Chaldean period.

„The first, the primeval Indian period, developed a religion which appears like an inner illumination, like an inner repetition in ideas and feelings of the very first period, when the sun and moon were still connected with the earth, when those sublime beings of the sun still dwelt on the earth. We can imagine that a sublime idea had to be awakened there. And the spirit which united with all the angels and archangels, with all the spirits, high gods and beings, in the first state of the earth, the primeval mist, was united by the Indian consciousness under a high individuality, under the name Brahm, Brahma. In spirit, the first cultural epoch of the post-Atlantean period repeated what had happened. It is nothing other than a repetition of the first earth epoch in the inner vision.

Now let us consider the second cultural period. In the principle of light and darkness we have the religious consciousness of the Urpersian cultural period. There the great initiates placed two beings, one personified in the sun and the other in the moon, opposite each other. Ahura Mazdao, the aura of light, Ormuzd, is the being whom the Persians worshipped as the supreme god; Ahriman is the evil spirit, the representative of all the beings who possessed the earth plus the moon. A reminder of the second earth epoch is the religion of the Persians.

And in the third cultural period it was so that man had to say to himself: In me are the powers of the sun and the moon, I am a son of the sun and a son of the moon. All the forces of the sun and the moon present themselves as father and mother. If we have unity in primeval times as the view of the Indians, duality after the separation of the sun reflected in the religion of the Persians, then we find laid down in the religious view of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Babylonians the trinity as it was in the third earth epoch, after the separation of sun and moon. The trinity appears in all religious views of the third period, and in Egyptianism it is represented by Osiris, Isis and Horus.“ (Lit.:GA 106, p. 34f)

Part of the New Age movement refers to the Egyptian triad of gods, consisting of Osiris (god of death), Isis (goddess of fertility and nature) and their son Horus (god of light).

The Christian Trinity is often mistakenly referred to as the Triad. However, according to the understanding of the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches, the Trinity is a different concept from the Triad, which does not emphasise the consubstantiality of the three divine persons as laid down in the 325 Nicene Creed.

In Christianity, there is also the well-known image of Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, a representation of Mary, her mother Anne and the infant Jesus. The most famous depiction is by Leonardo da Vinci.

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Ägyptische Mythen und Mysterien, GA 106 (1992), ISBN 3-7274-1060-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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