THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
as an innovation the Patripassian doctrine. In
their concept of God, on the other hand, the Mon-
archians were generally supported by
5. Struggle the earliest Christian tradition. Their between opponents, well aware of the difficul-
Hypostat- ties confronting them, plunged into ism and speculation, even at the risk of ap-
Modalism. proximating Gnosticism. Yet in their Christology Tertullian and his disciples were unable either to satisfy the Christian views or to silence their opponents; for though their Logos was essentially one with God, yet in origin he is an inferior divine being. This view, moreover, conflicted with liturgical tradition, which taught that God himself must be seen in Christ; while the attempt to deduce the appellation of Son of God for Christ from an act before the creation of the world, instead of from his miraculous birth, was opposed by dogmatic tradition. The final conquest of Monarchianism, impossible for Tertullian and Hippolytus, was achieved by Origen and the Alexandrine theologians. In the Logos-doctrine of the third century, there was no positive answer to the problem whether the divine which was manifest on earth in Christ was identical with the Godhead. Athanasius was the first to make certain reply on the basis of the Logos-doctrine; but until his time the modalistic Monarchians represented a primitive and valuable movement in the Church. After Calixtus' formula of compromise and the excommunication of Sabellius (see Calixtus I.), aggressive modalism, as well as Hippolytus' sect, declined in the West. Nevertheless, sporadic modalistic tendencies, formulas, and doctrines still survived, as assailed by the Creed of Aquileia, by Cyprian, and by Dionysius of Rome, and as shown by numerous passages in the writings of Commodian. There were Sabellians at Rome as late as the fourth century. The true cause of the downfall of western modalism lay in the firm attitude assumed by the West in the Roman struggle, in the energetic defense of the homoousia, and in the rejection of the formula of three hypostases.
VI. Modalistic Monarchians in the East; Sabel-
lianism: The term "Sabellians" was applied in
the East, after the beginning of the third century,
to the modalistic Monarchians, and
1. Sabellius; occurs sporadically in the West in the
Obscurity fourth and fifth centuries. The data of the concerning the teaching of Sabellius
Sources, himself and of his immediate successors, however, is very confused. Not only have the doctrines of Marcellus of Ancyra (q.v.) been confounded with those of Sabellius — especially as Monarchianism assumed various forms in the century between Hippolytus and Athanasius— but philosophical speculation also entered in, and Kenotic (see Kenosis) and transformation theories were developed; besides which, deductions were drawn and consequent tenets assigned by the sources which probably never existed in the form described. It is, therefore, impossible to write a history of Monarchianism from Calixtus to Marcellus, no matter how carefully all available material be studied. Nevertheless, it is clear that, at least between 220 and 270, the battle against Monarchi-
anism must have been bitter in the East, and that the development of the Logos Christology was there directly influenced by this opposition. The very fact that in the East Monarchianism was almost exclusively known as " Sabellianism " shows that schisms first arose there through the activity of Sabellius, that is, after the fourth decade of the third century. Apparently during the pontificate of Zephyrinus, Sabellius, who was probably born in the Pentapolis in Libya, became the successor of Cleomenes as the head of the Monarchians at Rome. With his excommunication by Calixtus, he became the leader of a Monarchian sect which branded Calixtus as an apostate. He was still in Rome when Hippolytus wrote the Philosophumena, and there developed far-reaching relations, especially with the East. His doctrines, which were evidently unknown to Origen, were closely akin to those of Noetus, from which they differed, however, both in their more exact theology and in their recognition of the Holy Ghost. The cardinal tenet of Sabellius was that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are identical, but with three names. Ever inspired by a rigid monotheism, Sabellius also termed the one God the " Son-Father," evidently to avoid all suspicion of ditheism, meaning hereby the final designation of God himself, and not any manifestations of a monad remaining in the background. At the same time, he taught that God is not the Father and the Son simultaneously; but that he became operative in three successive energies: first, as the person (" manifestation," not " hypostasis ") of the Father, the creator and legislator; then as the person of the Son as the Redeemer (this period extending from the incarnation to the assumption); and finally as the person of the Holy Ghost as the maker and giver of life. It is improbable, however, that he was able to make a strict delimitation of these successive persons, for he can scarcely have avoided the recognition of the continuous activity of God the Father in nature.
While both Sabellius and his followers acknowledged the catholic canon, Epiphanius states that they derived their entire heresy from certain apocryphal books, especially from the Gospel of the Egyptians. It is thus evident that the Sabellian Christology was not essentially differ- 2. Relations ent from the older Patripassian sysand Decay tern. The only noteworthy points of of Sabel- divergence were the attempt to demlianism. onstrate the succession of the persons; the recognition of the Holy Ghost; and the formal parallelization of the person of the Father with the two other persons. The first point may be regarded as a harking back to rigid modalism, while the second was in keeping with the new theological school. The most important point was the third, since by paralleling the person and the energy of the Father with the other two persons, not only was cosmology introduced into modalism as a parallel to soteriology, but the preeminence of the Father over the Son and the Holy Ghost was broken. Thus the way was prepared for Athanasian and Augustinian Christology —Sabellius was the forerunner of the exclusive