MONARCHIANISM, a theological term designating the view taken by those Christians who, within the Church, towards the end of the 2nd century and during the 3rd, opposed the doc trine of an independent personal subsistence of the Logos, and af firmed the sole deity of God the Father. The representatives of the extreme monotheistic view, which, while regarding Christ as Re deemer, clung tenaciously to the numerical unity of the Deity, were called Monarchians, a term brought into general use by Tertullian. It is usual to speak of two kinds of monarchianism the dynamistic and the modalistic, though the distinction cannot be carried through without some straining of the texts. (a) By monarchians of the former class Christ was held to be a mere man, miraculously conceived indeed, but constituted the Son of God simply by the infinitely high degree in which he had been filled with Divine wisdom and power. This view was taught at Rome about the end of the 2nd century by Theodotus, who was excommunicated by Bishop Victor, and at a later date by Arte mon, excommunicated by Zephyrinus. About the year 26o it was again propounded within the Church by Paul of Samosata (q.v.).
(b) Modalistic monarchianism, conceiving that the whole full ness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ, took exception to the "sub ordinatianism" of some Church writers, and maintained that the names Father and Son were only different designations of the same subject, the one God, who "with reference to the relations in which He had previously stood to the world is called the Father, but in reference to His appearance in humanity is called the Son." It was first taught, in the interests of the "monarchia" of God, by Praxeas, a confessor from Asia Minor in Rome about 190, and was opposed by Tertullian in his well-known contro versial tract. The same view—the "patripassian" as it was also called, because it implied that God the Father had suffered on the cross—obtained fresh support in Rome about 215 from certain disciples of Noetus of Smyrna, who received a modified support from Bishop Callistus. (For the subsequent history of modalistic monarchianism see SABELLIUS.) See the Histories of Dogma by A. Harnack, F. Loofs, R. Seeberg ; also articles ADOPTIANISM, ARIANISM.