MONARCHIANS, "believers in one fountain or source of being," were persons in the early Christian church who did not admit a distinction of persons in the divine Being. Believing strictly in the unity of God, they rejected the orthodox doctrine of the trinity. Traces of their opinions appeared at a very early period of the Christian era, and are alluded to by .Justin Martyr as held both by Jews and Christians. He con demns the former for saying that when God communed with the patriarchs it was God the Father who appeared. He makes the same complaint against certain Christians. From this it is manifest that in Justin's day there were nominal Christians, who spoke of the Son as only an unsubstantial energy of the Father. This leading opinion of the monarchians is thought to have been brought into Christianity chiefly through Alexan drian Jews and Gnostics, or in some instances,to.have been derived directly from pagan Philosophy. From pagan religion it could not have come, unless very indirectly, as that took little thought Of I Re unity of God. But whatever its origin. it was embraced by two c.asses, who differed gremly in their application of tliii theory: the one, who may be called rationalistic, admitted the divinity of Christ only as being at most a mere power; the other, sonic of whom were Patripasvian.s, identified the Son with the Father, and allowed at most only a trinity of manifestation. " The one," says Schaff, " prejudiced the dignity of the Son, the other the dignity of the Father; yet the latter wait by far the more profound and Christian, and accordingly met with the greater acceptance." 1. Those of the first class saw in Christ a mere man filled with divine power; but con ceived this divine power as present in him not merely from his baptism, but from the beginning, and admitted his supernatural conception through the Holy Ghost. 2. The second class, whotn Tertullian called Patripassione, while they professed Unitarian opin ions, strove also to hold fast the divinity of Christ; and, as they thought, accomplished their object by merging his independent personality in the essence of the Father. Sabel
lilts, about the middle of the 3d c., denying both trinity of essen•e aid permanent trinity of manifestation, taught that the unity of God, without distinction in itself, after the'creation, unfolds itself in the course of the world's development in three different forms and periods of revelation, and after the completion of redemption, returns into unity. The Father (he said) reveals God in the giving of the law and the Old Testament economy; the Sot reveals God in the incarnation; and the Holy Ghost reveals God in inspiration. He illustrated this trinity of relations by comparing the Father to the sun, the Sun to its enlightening power, and the Spirit to its warming influence. Athanasius pointed out coincidences of thought in the stoic philosophy with the doctrine of Sabel lins, which, however, is generally admitted to have been thought out independently in his own mind. He may be regarded as the most briginal, ingenious, and profound of the monarehians. His system has been revived by Schleiermacher in a very modified form; and is substantially held in still later times by some who, holding to Christ's supreme divinity, deny the union in hint of the human and divine natures, and snrpose that lie was God dwelling in human flesh and subject to its limitations and infirmities. It will be seen that the general principle of monarehianism admits various modifications in theory, and may be pressed in one extreme into a denial of any proper divinity in Christ, and in the opposite extreme to a position scarcely distinguishable from the stand ard doctrine which has been upheld in the church. See INCARNATION, Tnucerv.