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Updated: June 14, 2025
I may help you to think yourself into a theoretical Tritheism, or a theoretical Sabellianism; I cannot make you think yourself into practical and living Catholicism. As you of anthropology, so I say of theology, Solvitur ambulando. Don't believe Catholic doctrine unless you like; faith is free. But see if you can reclaim either society or yourself without it; see if He will let you reclaim them.
The life of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness of the Arians; but he defended above twenty years the Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his respectable friend.
Whether Sabellianism made the heretics monophysites, or monophysitism made them Sabellians, we need not inquire. The two creeds are bound up in the same bundle by the tie of monism. The relation of the Son to the Father and the relation of the Son to humanity are vitally connected. Misconception of the one relation entails misconception of the other.
Both relied on numerous supporters, Arius counting among his not less than seven hundred virgins of the Mareotic nome. In his disappointment he accused his successful antagonist of Sabellianism, and, in retaliation, was anathematized. It was no wonder that, in such an atmosphere, the question quickly assumed a philosophical aspect.
In the West it was as yet almost unknown. Even Marcellus was more disposed to avoid all technical terms than to lay stress on those which the council sanctioned. Yet all parties had learned caution at Nicæa. Marcellus disavowed Sabellianism; Eusebius avoided Arianism, and nobody seems to have disowned the creed as long as Constantine lived. The next great change was at Alexandria.
It is probably in his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy comes most in conflict with the technicalities of later schools. If, as he says, modern theology oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and Tritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole. Father de Regnon, S.J., in his work on the Trinity, shows that the Greek Fathers and the Latin viewed the problem from opposite ends.
The monophysites as a body remained nominally and in intention Christians and trinitarians. But in the doctrinal area specified the resemblance holds. It could hardly be otherwise. Sabellian tendencies were always present and powerful in the monophysite communion, and Sabellianism is a long step in the direction of Islam. Sabellius taught in effect, "Allah is one."
He was one of those awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present form of the Nicene Creed one clause that which asserts that "the kingdom of Christ shall have no end" is said to have been expressly aimed at his exaggerated language.
The whole delusion of the Anti-Trinitarians arises out of this, that they apply the property of imaginable matter in which A. is, that is, can only be imagined, by exclusion of B. as the universal predicate of all substantial being. Ib. p. 357. And our English Unitarians have been still refining upon the Socinian scheme, and have brought it still nearer to Sabellianism.
His doctrine fell in with the prevailing dread of Sabellianism, his personal misfortunes excited interest, his dignified bearing commanded respect, and his connection with the school of Lucian secured him learned and influential sympathy.
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