Sabellius

SABELLIUS (fl. 230), early Christian presbyter and theo logian, was of Libyan origin, and came from the Pentapolis to Rome early in the 3rd century. He became the leader of the strict Modalists (who regarded the Father and the Son as two aspects of the same subject) whom Calixtus had excommunicated along with their most zealous opponent Hippolytus. His party continued to subsist in Rome for a considerable time, and with stood Calixtus as an unscrupulous apostate. In the West, however, the influence of Sabellius seems never to have been important; in the East, on the other hand, after the middle of the 3rd cen tury his doctrine found much acceptance, first in the Pentapolis and afterwards in other provinces. It was violently controverted by the bishops, notably by Dionysius of Alexandria, and the de velopment in the East of the philosophical doctrine of the Trinity after Origen (from 26o to 32o) was very powerfully influenced by the opposition to Sabellianism.

Sabellian Doctrine.

The Sabellian doctrine itself, however, during the decades above mentioned underwent many changes in the East and received a philosophical dress. In the 4th century this and the allied doctrine of Marcellus of Ancyra were fre quently confounded, so that it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at a clear account of it in its genuine form. Sabellianism, in fact, became a collective name for all those Unitarian doctrines in which the divine nature of Christ was acknowledged. The teach ing of Sabellius himself was very closely allied to the older Modalism ("Patripassianism") of Noetus and Praxeas, but was distinguished from it by its more careful theological elaboration and by the account it took of the Holy Spirit. His central propo sition was to the effect that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same person, three names thus being attached to one and the same being. What weighed most with Sabellius was the monotheistic interest.

Sabellius further maintained that God is not at one and the same time Father, Son and Spirit, but, on the contrary, has been active in three apparently consecutive manifestations or energies— first in the rpoo-corov of the Father as Creator and Lawgiver, then in the rpOcrunrov of the Son as Redeemer, and lastly in the rpocronrov of the Spirit as the Giver of Life. It is by this doctrine of the succession of the rpOutora that Sabellius is distinguished from the older Modalists. In particular it is significant, in con junction with the reference to the Holy Spirit, that Sabellius regards the Father also as merely a form of manifestation of the one God—in other words, has formally put Him in a position of complete equality with the other Persons. This view prepares the way for Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity. Sabellius himself appears to have made use of Stoical formulas (1-XctrivEo-Oat avo-TaXEcreac), but he chiefly relied upon Scripture, especially such passages as Deut. vi. 4; Exod. xx. 3; Isa. xliv. 6; John x. 38. Of his later history nothing is known; his followers died out in the course of the 4th century.

The sources of our knowledge of Sabellianism are Hippolytus (Philos, bk. ix.), Epiphanius (Haer. lxii.) and Dionys. Alex. (Epp.) ; also various passages in Athanasius and the other fathers of the 4th century. For modern discussions of the subject see Schleiermacher (Theol. Ztschr. 5822, Hft. 3) ; Lange (Ztschr. f. hist. Theol. 2832, ii. 2) ; Dellinger (Hippolyt u. Kallist. 1853) ; Zahn (Marcell v. Ancyra, 1867) ; R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation (1896) ; various histories of Dogma, and Harnack (s.v. "Monarchianismus," in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. fur Prot. Theol. and Kirche, xiii. 303). (A. HA.)