• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

230 - Modalist Monarchian / Patripassianism

As their name imports, the Patripassians held that God the Father became incarnate, and suffered for the redemption of man. This heresy presupposes a denial of the distinction of Persons in the Godhead [Monakchians], and the word Father, in the statement of the Patripassian tenet, is not used to signify the Father of the Begotten Word, but to signify the Godhead, One single Hypostasis, the Father of all.

It will be readily seen that there may be two forms of Patripassianism ; one, which in the Person of the Redeemer substitutes for the Divine Nature of the Word the one undistinguished God ; the other, which attributes a capacity of suffering to the Godhead itself. The former asserts that the Father of all becoming incarnate, suffered in the same way as Catholic doctrine asserts that Christ suffered, namely, as to the Human Nature, not as to the Divine Nature, which is Itself impassible : the latter, not excluding this suffering of the One Person constituted of Two Natures, asserts that the very Nature of the Godhead is itself passible.

The former of these two doctrines was ascribed to the Praxeans and Sabellians, and it followed so directly from their Monarchian tenets, compared with their estimate of the Person of the Redeemer, that it may be doubted whether their denial of Patripassianism was really anything more than a denial of the latter doctrine. The former doctrine again was avowed by the Noetians, and there is some reason to think that they held also the latter. The latter doctrine is also involved iu the Arian and Apollinarían heresies.

As dynamistic Monarchianism first gained vogue in Asia Minor, the Church of this same region seems to have been the scene of the earliest Patripassian controversy; and in both instances may be regarded as having of transplanted the strife to Rome. Noepassianismtus, who seems to have been excomatmunicated about 230, doubtless first attracted attention as a Monarchian, probably in the last fifth of the second century, either at his native city Smyrna, or at Ephesus. His excommunication in Asia Minor seems to have taken place after the entire controversy had been settled at Rome.

Epigonus (d. 200), a pupil of Noetus, came to Rome during the pontificate of Zephyrinus, and is said there to have promulgated the teachings of his master and to have founded a separate Patripassian party. The first head of the faction was Cleomenes, the pupil of Epigonus, and in 215 he was succeeded by Sabellius. Although they were opposed at Rome especially by Hippolytus, the sympathy of the majority of the Roman Christians was Monarchian. Even Zephyrinus, like his predecessor Victor, was inclined toward modalism, though his chief endeavor seems to have been to avoid schism at any cost. His policy was followed by his successor Calixtus (217-222); but when the struggle only became intensified, he resolved to excommunicate both Sabellius and Hippolytus, though it is not impossible that Hippolytus and his minority had already broken with Calixtus.

The moderates of both parties seem to have been satisfied with the Christological formula proposed by Calixtus, and formed the bridge by which the Roman Christians passed from Monarchian to hypostatic Christology. The small faction of Hippolytus maintained an existence in Rome for some fifteen years; the Sabellians survived still longer. The scantiness of the sources for the history of Monarchianism in Rome - to say nothing of other cities - despite the discovery of the Philosaphumena, is exemplified in the fact that Tertullian never mentions Noetus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, or Calixtus, but mentions a Monarchian in Rome ignored entirely by Hippolytus, Praxeas. He probably came to Rome during the pontificate of Victor, but remained there only a short time. Fifteen years later, when the controversy was in full course at Rome and Carthage, his name was forgotten.

Notwithstanding this, Tertullian polemized against him as the first to arouse controversy in Carthage, although in his attacks he regarded the conditions of about 210, with reference, apparently, to the Roman Monarchians. Praxeas was a confessor of Asia Minor, the first to bring the Christological controversy to Rome, and a man filled with zeal against the rising prophetic school. Not only did he find no opposition at Rome, but he even induced the pontiff (either Eleutherus or Victor) to retract the "letters of peace" which he had bestowed on the new prophets and their communities in Asia. But the presence of Praxeas in Rome caused no lasting strife. From Rome he went to Carthage, where he opposed the hypostatic Christology, only to be silenced and forced to a written retraction by Tertullian. Thus ended the first phase of the controversy, and the name of Praxeas vanished; nor is anything certainly known of the downfall of Monarchianism in Carthage.