Two and three

[rhu]

The Talmud has a general aversion to pairs of things. There was a lot of superstition about pairs attracting demons, and in general I think this originated from a revulsion against the religious beliefs of the neighboring nations that there were two deities: one in charge of good/light/day and one in charge of evil/dark/night. So the Talmud recommends against walking two abreast, etc.

This morning after the early service at shul I joined a group that's been working their way through the volume on Sukkah and we learned about the minimum size of the hyssop bundle used in the sprinkling of the water of purification made from the ashes of the red heifer. And the minimum is: one root system with at least three stems, each of which has at least three seed sprigs. (cf Sukkah 12b-13a)

And I found myself wondering: if the Gemara had been formally codified a few centuries later, would it have forever captured an aversion to threes instead of twos? For that matter, to what extent did Paul and the early Christians, who were influenced by their Jewish upbringing, allow the cultural rejection of dualism to influence the construction of the concept of the trinity?

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

But...but...what about marriage? That's a duo, according to how we currently practice Judaism.

[cellio]

On the other hand, it's also reuniting the two halves, symbolically reversing the separation of adam rishon into male and female parts. So maybe marriage is special.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Fascinating question... I don't feel I can comment with any authority, though.

[fauxklore]

It isn't just pairs - it is even numbers in general. I heard a talk some years ago about Jewish demon superstitions and that was one thing that stuck in my mind. The speaker said that if a demon comes up to you and says "you and I are two," you can protect yourself by saying "you and I are three."

I was then walking home with 3 other people and we realized that made us four - an even number. "It's OK," I said. "Some of us are odd." (I will spare you the mathematical proof of why a horse has an odd number of legs.)

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's a concern even numbers in general (I oversimplified a little) but that's basically because any even group can be considered a group of pairs.

My favorite demon story, though, is post-Talmudic. Supposedly the Ramban once said "there are no such things as demons" and the demons, out of respect for the Ramban's religious authority, stopped existing. And that's why there are no longer demons.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I can only comment on your last speculation; Paul and the early Christians did not have a well defined concept of the trinity. To them, the Holy Spirit was quite similar to many of the references to Wisdom in the Prophets and Writings of the Jewish bible.

It wasn't really until the fourth century before the trinity as such became dogma, with three distinct personae mutually indwelling. And of course by then, the Jewish influence on Christian thought was much weaker than in Paul's day.

In fact, one of the New Testament passages that provides the strongest support for the notion of the trinity, the Comma Johanneum, was probably added to the text something like 300 years after the original text was written.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was unaware of that.