In Christian theology, Sabellianism is the belief that there is only one Person ('hypostasis' in the Greek language of the fourth century Arian Controversy) in the Godhead. For example, Hanson defines Sabellianism as the "refusal to acknowledge the distinct existence of the Persons" and "Eustathius was condemned for Sabellianism. His insistence that there is only one distinct reality (hypostasis) in the Godhead, and his confusion about distinguishing Father, Son and Holy Spirit laid him open to such a charge." Condemned as heresy, Sabellianism has been rejected by the majority of Christian churches.
Monarchianism Sabellianism appeared for the first time in the second century in the form of Monarchianism. While "this movement called themselves 'Monarchians', the Greek Fathers called them 'Sabellians', as Sabellius was the person who has put this doctrine in its philosophical form."
Monarchianism opposed the Logos-theology. As from the late second century, non-Jewish Christianity was dominated by Logos-theology which taught a two-stage existence for the Logos: He always existed inside God but became a separate Being – a distinct Reality – when God decided to create. Monarchians claimed "that the theology of the Apologists involves a division in the being and unity of God that is unacceptable" and that Logos-theology teaches two creators and two Gods (bi-theism), "inconsistent with monotheism."
In Monarchianism, "the Father and Son were different expressions of the same being, without any personal distinctions between them. In other words, the Father is himself the Son, and therefore experiences the Son's human frailties. ... In the words of Noetus: ... the Father ... Himself became His own Son. ... It was therefore God who was born from a virgin and who confessed himself to humankind as the Son of God. At the cross, God commended his spirit to himself, as he acted to be dead, but he was not dead in reality, although he raised himself on the 3rd day."
Tertullian was one of the Logos theologians and strongly opposed Monarchianism. "The treatise Against Praxeas is widely recognized as Tertullian's greatest work on the Trinity. The view apparently taught by Praxeas has come to be called 'modalism', thanks to that designation appearing in Adolf von Harnack's History of Dogma (1897). Tertullian simply calls his opponent a 'monarchian'."
"Adolph Von Harnack coined the term 'Modalism' for this 2nd-century doctrine, which referred to the Trinity as consisting of 'three modes or aspects of one divine existence'."
Following Tertullian, "The Latin Fathers ... called them 'patripassians' because they have identified the Father and the Son to such an extent that they believed that it was the Father who suffered and died on the cross."
Sabellius Sabellianism is named after Sabellius (fl. c. 215), who taught a form of it in Rome in the 3rd century. None of his writings have survived, and all that is known about him comes from his opponents.
Monarchianism had come to Sabellius via the teachings of Noetus and Praxeas.A History of Christianity: Volume I: Beginnings to 1500 by Kenneth S. Latourette, Revised Edition p.144-146, published by HarperCollins, 1975: , Noetus was excommunicated from the Church after being examined by council, and Praxeas is said to have recanted his modalistic views in writing, teaching again his former faith. Sabellius likewise was excommunicated by council in Alexandria, and after complaint of this was made to Rome, a second council then assembled in Rome and also ruled against Sabellianism.
Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, German Lutheran theologian who founded the pragmatic school of church historians, argued that Sabellius described God as three in one sense but one in another. "Sabellius held to the simple unity of the person and nature of God." However, the form of Sabellianism taught by Sabellius is not the same as Monarchianism. He did not believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply three names for the same Reality. He "believed the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, described in the Scriptures, to be a real distinction, and not a mere appellative or nominal one." He maintained that, just like a man is one person, but has a body, a soul, and a spirit, so God is one Person, yet in that Person, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be discriminated.
“Sabellius, according to the account of Epiphanius, used the comparison of the sun; which is one body, but has three powers, namely, its circular form, its power of illuminating, and its power of heating. This comparison was intended to show, that in the one divine person there are three distinct things, which are not to be confounded.”
“It appears from these comparisons [the sun and the man] that Sabellius did not believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three names for the same thing... but rather three distinct things which exist together in the one Divine Person.”
“He believed the one divine person whom he recognized, to have three distinct forms, which are really different, and which should not be confounded... Sabellius used the term 'prosopa' which is Greek for 'faces' to describe how the person of God has three faces”
As a result, the Greeks would formally adopt three hypostases language instead of one, to define the distinctions of the persons. The Latins would continue to use the term persona which in Greek was prosopon.
Hippolytus of Rome knew Sabellius personally, writing how he and others had admonished Sabellius in Refutation of All Heresies. He knew Sabellius opposed Trinitarian theology, yet he called Modal Monarchism the heresy of Noetus, not that of Sabellius.
Jesus Christ In (Modalistic) Monarchianism, Jesus Christ is God. In Dynamic Monarchianism, Jesus Christ is a mere man.
Homoousios It has been reported that Sabellius used the Greek term homoousian (, 'same substance', 'consubstantial'), which is also used by the Nicene Creed. The term describes the relationship between Father and Son. Many who held with Athanasius were uneasy about the term. Their objection was that it was considered to be un-scriptural, suspicious, and "of a Sabellian tendency."Select Treatises of St. Athanasius - In Controversy With the Arians - Freely Translated by John Henry Cardinal Newmann - Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911, footnote n.124 For Sabellius, this term means that the Father and Son were one essential person, operating as different manifestations or modes.
Other competing views Simonetti sees Arianism "as an extreme reaction against a Sabellianism which was at the time rife in the East." Arianism advocated three hypostases. The Trinitarian view also presents three distinct persons within the Godhead,G. T. Stokes, "Sabellianism", ed. William Smith and Henry Wace, A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines (London: John Murray, 1877–1887), 567. but while Arianism taught three distinct substances, the Trinity doctrine asserts that the three Persons exist in one substance.
History and development
Sabellianism was embraced by Christians in Cyrenaica, to whom Dionysius, Patriarch of Alexandria (who was instrumental in the excommunication of Sabellius in Alexandria), wrote letters arguing against this belief. Hippolytus wrote:
Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, (and) lived not very long ago. ... This person introduced a heresy from the tenets of Heraclitus. Now a certain man called Epigonus becomes his minister and pupil, and this person during his sojourn at Rome disseminated his godless opinion. But Cleomenes, who had become his disciple, an alien both in way of life and habits from the Church, was wont to corroborate the (Noetian) doctrine. | But in like manner, also, Noetus, being by birth a native of Smyrna ... introduced (among us) this heresy which originated from one Epigonus. It reached Rome, and was adopted by Cleomenes, and so has continued to this day among his successors.
Tertullian also perceived modalism as entering into the Church from without as a new idea, and opposing the doctrine which had been received through succession. After setting forth his understanding of the manner of faith which had been received by the Church, he then describes how the "simple" who always constitute the majority of believers are often startled at the idea that the One God exists in three and were opposed to his understanding of "the rule of faith." Proponents of Tertullian argue that he described the "simple" as the majority, rather than those who opposed him as the majority. This is contended from Tertullian's argument that they were putting forth ideas of their own which had not been taught to them by their elders:
We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία, as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date.
The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned,) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own οἰκονομία . The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth.