Sabellianism

Hoo boy, we’re really in the weeds this time with the heresy of Sabellianism. I’m talking real ‘Inside Baseball’ stuff here with terms like Patripassianism, Homoousios and modalistic monarchianism’ being bandied about. But while such words are unfamiliar, once one learns the definition, they’re not such a problem. On the other hand, a far more important word in our discussion is one that is familiar to every Christian but one that doesn’t limit itself to an easy definition, rather it opens into further mystery, that of ‘Trinity’. But before we can really dig in we have to go back, way back to the dawn of civilization.

You see, man has always had the sense of a power beyond himself. Left to his own devices, man quickly identifies that power with the marks of that power. Thus, the course of mighty rivers, the majestic mountains, and the sun in the sky aren’t merely evidence of divinity but become divinities themselves. Man’s natural inclination is to mistake the signs for the reality, worshiping idols of his own devising. This is the natural religion of mankind.

But from out of the desert came a people who made a unique claim in the history of mankind. They said there are not many gods but one. We call it monotheism (from the Greek words μόνος monos, meaning "single" and θεός, theos, meaning “god”).

As the Old Testament repeatedly demonstrates, the Oneness of God is paramount to understanding who God is and our relationship with Him. But then along comes Jesus. How can Jesus be the son of God? Does that make him a demigod, like Hercules? No, the Church fathers said, Jesus is fully God, countering various heresies that would deny His divinity.

Then, sometime in the 3rd century, a priest in Rome named Sabellius began to expound upon the Oneness of God. Jesus was indeed divine but because God the Son is merely one ‘aspect’, one ‘mode’ (hence ‘modalism’) of the One God. We are all very familiar with modes. Take a husband and a father for example. In one ‘mode’, he is a husband to his wife. To his children he is experienced in the ‘mode’ of a father. To his own father, he is a son. To his boss, he’s an employee, to the cashier he is a customer, and so on and so forth. Sabellius maintained the God was much the same. As Creator He is God the Father, as Redeemer the Son, and as Sanctifier, the Holy Ghost. The one God acting and being experienced by humanity as three different modes.

Sabellius was merely following the thought then current that the Oneness of God was based on His sovereign power over all reality itself, His kingship over creation, thus the term, ‘modalistic Monarchianism.’ But there are interesting implications if Jesus were merely one ‘mode’ of God, for it would mean God the Father also died and suffered on the Cross, thus the alternate name for Sabellianism, ‘Patripassianism’ (from Latin patri-, "father", and passio, "suffering").

But the Orthodox position is to identify the Oneness of God in the divine essence shared by the three persons of the Trinity, thus Homoousios (same in essence, from ὁμός, homós, "same" and οὐσία, ousía, "being" or "essence"). Thus the words we recite in the Nicene Creed, “being of one substance with the Father," in the Greek reads, “ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί.”

But this begs the question, what is meant by ‘Person’? Well, go ahead and check out my old post on the subject here.