To most people today, “the Trinity” is a distinctly Christian concept, referring to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But as African American studies scholar Jennifer Williams writes, this wasn’t the first religious trinity. Christianity borrowed the idea from ancient Egyptians, making some significant changes along the way.
Williams notes that early Christians found inspiration for their spiritual system in religions from around the Mediterranean. The region was full of stories involving resurrection, salvation, virgin births, and central figures who were the sons of supreme gods. In ancient Egypt—or Kemet, as it was known to its people at the time—one key concept was the relationship among three deities, Asar, Aset, and Heru. (Most Americans today know them better by the names the Greeks gave them: Osiris, Isis, and Horus, respectively.)
Like many Egyptian gods, these divine beings started out as humans. Asar was a revered king who was murdered by a usurper but became king of the afterlife, or spiritual realm. His wife, Aset, took their son, Heru, into hiding, and Heru eventually returned to reclaim the earthly throne.