Sabellius is by far the most original and ingenious of the so-called Jlonarchians. His system is known to us only from a few fragments imperfectly preserved in Athanasius and other fathers. It has been carefully discussed, and even partially revived, by Schleiermacher in modern times (see Schaff, Church History, p. 292- 294). The beginnings of Sabellianism are foinul in Noetus, though there is no evidence of any historical connection between Noetus and Sabellius. The system seems rather to have sprung out of Judaizing and Gnos-
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tic tendencies wliich were indigenous to Egypt. Sa- bellius held the Jewish position of a strict monotheism, recognising only a single divine substance and a single hypostasis, which are but two words for the same thing. Ill themselves they constitute the monad. As simple substance, the monad is " tlie silent God," i. e. it is in- operative and unproductive. It becomes active only through revelation and development, which are some- times conceived of as an unfolding, sometimes as a .speaking. The first form of ISabellianism seems to have held merely to a dyad, to wit, God simple and God speaking, that is, God and the Logos. But this earlier form soon disappears, and gives place to a triad. Thus the monad evolves itself as a triad, as three divine per- sons, but not in the Nicene sense. The one divine sub- stance simply assumes three forms (the Father, the Son, and tJie Holj' Ghost) in its threefold relation to the world. This is not, however, simply three appellations, but it is three sitccessii'e forms of manifestation of the one divine substance. In illustration of this, Sabellius compares the Father to the visible globe of the sun, the Son to its illuminating effects, and the Spirit to its warming influence, while the sun, ^)er se, would corre- spond to the simple divine substance. To the first form of manifestation (the Father) is attributed the giving of the law, and in general the whole pre-Christian economy. Thereupon ensued the second form, the in- carnation, in which God accomplished our objective re- demption. Thereafter he appears under a third phase, the Spirit of sanctification, which exerts its efhciency in the hearts of believers. As the three manifestations are conceived of as successive, so, also, are they but tem- porary and transitory. The divine substance does not manifest itself simultaneously in three forms, but as each new manifestation is made the previous one ceases ; and when, finally, all three stages have been passed, the triad will again return into the monad, and the di- vine substance will again be all and in all. Thus ap- pears the pantheistic tendency of Sabcllianism as a whole. God is the abstract substance which evolves itself into the world of reality, traverses the stage of finite life, and eventually retires within itself. The "silent" God speaks forth in the universe, and then re- turns back into silence. Some of the fathers traced the doctrine of Sabellius to the Stoic system. The only common element, however, is the pantheistic expansion and contraction of the divine nature immanent in the world. Kindred ideas are also found in Pythagorean- ism, in the Gospd of the Egyptians, and in the Psevdo- Clementine Homilies. But this does not affect the vig- orous originality of Sabellius. His theory broke the way for the Nicene Church doctrine by its full rejection of subordinationism, and by its complete co-ordination of the three persons. He differs from the orthodox view by his denial of the trinity of essence and the perma- nence of the threefold manifestation, thus making of the Father, Son, and Spirit simply a transient series of phenomena, which fulfil their mission, and then return into the abstract one divine substance.
See Athanasius, Contra Arianos Oratio, iii, 4; De Synodis, e. vii; Philastrius, De Hai-es.jwst Christi Pas- sionem, lib. xxvi; Thcodoret, Hwrct. Fab. Compend. ii, 9; Augustine, De Ilwres. lib. xli ; Basil, Epist. 210, 214; Tillemont, Memoires, iv, 237; Mosheim, De Rebus Christian. sa;c. Ill, § xxxiii ; Neander, Church Hist. (Kose's ed.), ii, 276; Jlilman, Hist, of Latin Christian- ity, ii, 429; Schleiermacher, Uther den Geyensatz der Sabellianischen und athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinitiit ; Herzog, Real-Encykl. xiii, 214-21G. (J. P. L.)
Sa'bi [or rather Sabi'e, as in the earliest editions of the A. v.] (i:«/3(//, V. r. '^afttiv'^, given in 1 Ksdr. v, 34 as the head of one of the families of " Solomon's ser- vants" who returned from Jerusalem ; apparently a false Grascism for the Zkbaim (q. v.) of the Heb. lists (Ezra ii, 57 ; Xeh. vii, 59).
Sabians (sometimes confounded with Sabceans), a
very ancient sect, said to be named after SaU, son of Enoch, reputed to have been the founder of their relig- ion in its original and purest form. Their creed com- jirehended the worship of one God, the Governor and Creator of all tilings, who was to be addressed through a mediator, which office was to be performed by pure and invisible spirits. An admiration of the heavenly bodies, and an undue idea of their influence over earth- ly objects, soon produced an idolatrous worship of the heavenly luminaries, in which they conceived that the mediative intelligences resided. At first the Sabians worshijiped towards the planets, as the residences of the mediating spirits between God and man ; hence soon arose star-worship. Then they made images to repre- sent the stars, in which, after consecration, they imag- ined the intelligences came to reside; they named the images after the planets, and hence arose idolatrj' and its corruptions. They taught that the sun and moon were superior deities and the stars inferior ones; that the souls of the wicked were punished for nine thousand years, and then pardoned. They highly valued agri- culture and cattle, and it was unlawful to kill the latter. The principal seals of Sabianism were Ilarran and "Ur of the Chaldees." Maimonides says that Abraham was originally a Siibian, till he was converted and left Chal- d.'ta. JNIaimonides also says that it was very prevalent in the time of IMoses. It is to Sabianism that Job al- ludes (xxxi, 2G, 27), " If I beheld the sun when it sinned, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand" — i. e. in token of salutation. Also in different parts of the second book of Kings, and in Zeph. i, 5; Jer. xix, 13, the idolatrous worship of the host of heaven is mentioned. The Sabians of later times, when praying, turn towards the north pole ; pray at sunrise, noon, and sunset; abstain from many kinds of vegetables; believe in the ultimate pardon of the wicked, after nine thousand years of suffering; keep three year- ly fasts — one in February of seven days, one in March of thirty days, and one in December of nine days; offer many burnt-offerings, or holocausts; adore the stars; teach that mediators live in the seven planets, whom they call lords and gods, but the true God they call , Lord of lords; each planet, they teach, has his distinct region, office, and objects of guardianship; they believe that an intercourse is kept up between the planetary in- telligences and the earth, and that their influence is conveyed by talismanic mystic seals, made with spells and according to astrological rules. They go on pil- grimage to Harran, in Mesopotamia, respect the temple at Mecca, and venerate the pyramids in Egypt, which they believe to be the sepulchres of Seth, Enoch, and Sabi ; and they offer there a cock and black calf, and burn incense (Sale, Koran). See Tsabiaxs.