The "Shield of the Trinity" or Scutum Fidei diagram of traditional medieval Western Christian symbolism, since 12th-century CE. [Image from the Wikipedia 'Trinity' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]
Marcus Aurelius discusses what one could think of as certain tripartite divisions in his Meditations which, upon close examination, seem to be matches for the Christian Holy Trinity, which consists of three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. First, some preparatory material:
In the bible's Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 20-23, a correspondence is drawn between breath, and the Holy Spirit:
20. [T]hen the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
22. When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
23. "If you received the sins of any, they are forgiven them..."
[New Revised Standard Version; emphasis not in original.]
There are several ways in which the entities of Aurelius's division are put into words by him. From the Hammond translation of Meditations:
[2.2] "Whatever it is, this being of mine is made up of flesh, breath, and directing mind..."[a]
The correspondence with the Holy Trinity here seems to be, 'flesh = God the Son (Jesus), breath = Holy Spirit, directing mind = God the Father.'
[3.16] "Body, soul, mind. To the body belong sense perceptions, to the soul impulses, to the mind judgments..."[b]
'body = God the Son (Jesus), soul = Holy Spirit, mind = God the Father.'
Aurelius's other formulations are, 'directing mind, sensual soul, body' [7.16], which corresponds to 'God the Father, Holy Spirit, God the Son (Jesus)', and 'body, breath, and mind' [12.3], corresponding to 'God the Son (Jesus), Holy Spirit, God the Father'.
a. Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Trans. with notes Martin Hammond. London: Penguin Group, 2006. p. 10.
b. Ibid., p. 22.
