CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: MONARCHIANS
Monarchians
Heretics of the second and third centuries. The word, <Monarchiani>, was first used by
Tertullian as a nickname for the Patripassian group (adv. Prax., x), and was seldom
used by the ancients. In modern times it has been extended to an earlier group of
heretics, who are distinguished as Dynamistic, or Adoptionist, Monarchians from the
Modalist Monarchians, or Patripassians.
I. DYNAMISTS, OR ADOPTIONISTS
All Christians hold the unity (<monarchia>) of God as a fundamental doctrine. By the
Patripassians this first principle was used to deny the Trinity, and they are with some
reason called Monarchians. But the Adoptionists, or Dynamists, have no claim to the
title, for they did not start from the monarchy of God, and their error is strictly
Christological. An account of them must, however, be given here simply because the
name Monarchian has adhered to them in spite of the repeated protests of historians of
dogma. But their ancient and accurate name was Theodotians. The founder of the sect
was a leather-seller of Byzantium named Theodotus. He came to Rome under Pope
Victor (c. 190-200) or earlier. He taught (Philosophumena, VII, xxxv) that Jesus was a
man born of a virgin according to the counsel of the Father, that He lived like other
men, and was most pious; that at His baptism in the Jordan the Christ came down upon
Him in the likeness of a dove, and therefore wonders (<dynameis>) were not wrought
in Him until the Spirit (which Theodotus called Christ) came down and was manifested
in Him. They did not admit that this made Him God; but some of them said He was
God after His resurrection. It was reported that Theodotus had been seized, with
others, at Byzantium as a Christian, and that he had denied Christ, whereas his
companions had been martyred; he had fled to Rome, and had invented his heresy in
order to excuse his fall, saying that it was but a man and not God that he had denied.
Pope Victor excommunicated him, and he gathered together a sect in which we are told
much secular study was carried on. Hippolytus says that they argued on Holy
Scripture in syllogistic form. Euclid, Aristotle, and Theophrastus were their admiration,
and Galen they even adored. We should probably assume, with Harnack, that
Hippolytus would have had less objection to the study of Plato or the Stoics, and that
he disliked their purely literal exegesis, which neglected the allegorical sense. They also
emended the text of Scripture, but their versions differed, that of Asclepiodotus was
different from that of Theodotus, and again from that of Hermophilus; and the copies
of Apolloniades did not even tally with one another. Some of them "denied the law and
the Prophets", that is to say, they followed Marcion in rejecting the Old Testament. The
only disciple of the leather-seller of whom we know anything definite is his namesake
Theodotus the banker (<ho trapezites>). He added to his master's doctrine the view
that Melchisedech was a celestial power, who was the advocate for the angels in
heaven, as Jesus Christ was for men upon earth (a view found among later sects). (See
MELCHISEDECHIANS). This teaching was of course grounded on Hebrews, vii, 3, and
it is refuted at length by St. Epiphanius as Heresy 55, "Melchisedechians", after he has
attacked the leather-seller under Heresy 54, "Theodotians". As he meets a series of
arguments of both heretics, it is probable that some writings of the sect had been before
Hippolytus, whose lost "Syntagma against all heresies" supplied St. Epiphanius with all
his information. After the death of Pope Victor, Theodotus, the banker, and
Asclepiodotus designed to raise their sect from the position of a mere school like those
of the Gnostics to the rank of a Church like that of Marcion. They got hold of a certain
confessor named Natalius, and persuaded him to be called their bishop at a salary of
150 <denarii> (24 dollars) a month. Natalius thus became the first antipope. But after he
had joined them, he was frequently warned in visions by the Lord, Who did not wish
His martyr to be lost outside the Church. He neglected the visions, for the sake of the
honour and gain, but finally was scourged all night by the holy angels, so that in the
morning with haste and tears he betook himself in sackcloth and ashes to Pope
Zephyrinus and cast himself at the feet of the clergy, and even of the laity, showing the
weals of the blows, and was after some difficulty restored to communion. This story is
quoted by Eusebius II (VI, xxviii) from the "Little Labyrinth" of the contemporary
Hippolytus, a work composed against Artemon, a late leader of the sect (perhaps c.
225-30), whom he did not mention in the "Syntagma" or the "Philosophumena". Our
knowledge of Artemon, or Artemas, is limited to the reference to him made at the end
of the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata (about 266-268), where that heretic
was said to have followed Artemon, and in fact the teaching of Paul is but a more
learned and theological development of Theodotianism (see Paul of Samosata). The sect
probably died out about the middle of the third century, and can never have been
numerous. All our knowledge of it goes back to Hippolytus. His "Syntagma" (c.205) is
epitomized in Pseudo-Tertullian (Praescript., lii) and Philastrius, and is developed by
Epiphanius (Haer., liv. lv); his "Little Labyrinth" (written 139-5, cited by Eusebius, V,
28) and his "Philosophumena" are still extant. See also his "Contra Noetum" 3, and a
fragment "On the Melchisedechians and Theodotians and Athingani", published by
Caspari (Tidskr. fr der Evangel. Luth. Kirke, Ny Raekke, VIII, 3, p. 307). But the
Athingani are a later sect, for which see MEDCHISEDECHIANS. The Monarchianism
of Photinus (q. v.) seems to have been akin to that of the Theodotians. All speculations
as to the origin of the theories of Theodotus are fanciful. At any rate he is not connected
with the Ebionites. The Alogi have sometimes been classed with the Monarchians.
Lipsius in his "Quelenkritik des Epiphanius" supposed them to be even Philanthropists,
on account of their denial of the Logos, and Epiphanius in fact calls Theodotus an
<apopasma> of the Alogi; but this is only a guess, and is not derived by him from
Hippolytus. As a fact, Epiphanius assures us (Haer. 51) that the Alogi (that is, Gaius
and his party) were orthodox in their Christology (see MONTANISTS).
II. MODALISTS
The Monarchians properly so-called (Modalists) exaggerated the oneness of the Father
and the Son so as to make them but one Person; thus the distinctions in the Holy Trinity
are energies or modes, not Persons: God the Father appears on earth as Son; hence it
seemed to their opponents that Monarchians made the Father suffer and die. In the
West they were called Patripassians, whereas in the East they are usually called
Sabellians. The first to visit Rome was probably Praxeas, who went on to Carthage
some time before 206-208; but he was apparently not in reality a heresiarch, and the
arguments refuted by Tertullian somewhat later in his book "Adversus Praxean" are
doubtless those of the Roman Monarchians (see PRAXEAS).
A. History
Noetus (from whom the Noetians) was a Smyrnaean (Epiphanius, by a slip, says an
Ephesian). He called himself Moses, and his brother Aaron. When accused before the
presbyterate of teaching that the Father suffered, he denied it; but after having made a
few disciples he was again interrogated, and expelled from the Church. He died soon
after, and did not receive Christian burial. Hippolytus mockingly declares him to have
been a follower of Heraclitus, on account of the union of the opposites which he taught
when he called God both visible and invisible, passible and impassible. His pupil
Epigonus came to Rome. As he was not mentioned in the "Syntagma" of Hippolytus,
which was written in one of the first five years of the third century, he was not then
well known in Rome, or had not yet arrived. According to Hippolytus (Philos., IX, 7),
Cleomenes, a follower of Epigonus, was allowed by Pope Zephyrinus to establish a
school, which flourished under his approbation and that of Callistus. Hagemann urges
that we should conclude that Cleomenes was not a Noetian at all, and that he was an
orthodox opponent of the incorrect theology of Hippolytus. The same writer gives most
ingenious and interesting (though hardly convincing) reasons for identifying Praxeas
with Callistus; he proves that the Monarchians attacked in Tertullian's "Contra Praxean"
and in the "Philosophumena" had identical tenets which were not necessarily heretical;
he denies that Tertullian means us to understand that Praxeas came to Carthage, and he
explains the nameless refuter of Praxeas to be, not Tertullian himself, but Hippolytus. It
is true that it is easy to suppose Tertullian and Hippolytus to have misrepresented the
opinions of their opponents, but it cannot be proved that Cleomenes was not a follower
of the heretical Noetus, and that Sabellius did not issue from his school; further, it is not
obvious that Tertullian would attack Callistus under a nickname. Sabellius soon
became the leader of the Monarchians in Rome, perhaps even before the death of
Zephyrinus (c. 218). He is said by Epiphanius to have founded his views on the Gospel
according to the Egyptians, and the fragments of that apocryphon support this
statement. Hippolytus hoped to convert Sabellius to his own views, and attributed his
failure in this to the influence of Callistus. That pope, however, excommunicated
Sabellius c. 220 ("fearing me", says Hippolytus). Hippolytus accuses Callistus of now
inventing a new heresy by combing the views of Theodotus and those of Sabellius,
although he excommunicated them both (see CALLISTUS I, POPE). Sabellius was
apparently still in Rome when Hippolytus wrote the Philosophumena (between 230
and 235). Of his earlier and later history nothing is known. St. Basil and others call him
a Libyan from Pentapolis, but this seems to rest on the fact that Pentapolis was found to
be full of Sabellianism by Dionysius of Alexandria, c. 260. A number of Montanists led
by Aeschines became Modalists (unless Harnack is right in making Modalism the
original belief of the Montanists and in regarding Aeschines as a conservative).
Sabellius (or at least his followers) may have considerably amplified the original
Noetianism. There was still Sabellianism to be found in the fourth century. Marcellus of
Ancyra developed a Monarchianism of his own, which was carried much further by his
disciple, Photinus. Priscillian was an extreme Monarchian and so was Commodian
("Carmen Apol.", 89, 277, 771). The "Monarchian Prologues" to the Gospels found in
most old manuscripts of the Vulgate, were attributed by von Dobschütz and P.
Corssen to a Roman author of the time of Callistus, but they are almost certainly the
work of Priscillian. Beryllus, Bishop of Bostra, is vaguely said by Eusebius (H. E., VI,
33) to have taught that the Saviour had no distinct pre-existence before the Incarnation,
and had no Divinity of His own, but that the Divinity of the Father dwelt in Him.
Origen disputed with him in a council and convinced him of his error. The minutes of
the disputation were known to Eusebius. It is not clear whether Beryllus was a
Modalist or a Dynamist.
B. Theology
There was much that was unsatisfactory in the theology of the Trinity and in the
Christology of the orthodox writers of the Ante-Nicene period. The simple teaching of
tradition was explained by philosophical ideas, which tended to obscure as well as to
elucidate it. The distinction of the Son from the Father was so spoken of that the Son
appeared to have functions of His own, apart from the Father, with regard to the
creation and preservation of the world, and thus to be a derivative and secondary God.
The unity of the Divinity was commonly guarded by a reference to a unity of origin. It
was said that God from eternity was alone, with His Word, one with Him (as Reason,
<in vulca cordis>, <logos endiathetos>), before the Word was spoken (<ex ore Patris,
logos prophorikos>), or was generated and became Son for the purpose of creation. The
Alexandrians alone insisted rightly on the generation of the Son from all eternity; but
thus the Unity of God was even less manifest. The writers who thus theologize may
often expressly teach the traditional Unity in Trinity, but it hardly squares with the
Platonism of their philosophy. The theologians were thus defending the doctrine of the
<Logos> at the expense of the two fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of
God, and the Divinity of Christ. They seemed to make the Unity of the Godhead split
into two or even three, and to make Jesus Christ something less than the supreme God
the Father. This is eminently true of the chief opponents of the Monarchians, Tertullian,
Hippolytus, and Novatian. (See Newman, "The Causes of Arianism", in "Tracts theol.
and eccles.") Monarchianism was the protest against this learned philosophizing, which
to the simplicity of the faithful looked too much like a mythology or a Gnostic
emanationism. The Monarchians emphatically declared that God is one, wholly and
perfectly one, and that Jesus Christ is God, wholly and perfectly God. This was right,
and even most necessary, and whilst it is easy to see why the theologians like Tertullian
and Hippolytus opposed them (for their protest was precisely against the Platonism
which these theologians had inherited from Justin and the Apologists), it is equally
comprehensible that guardians of the Faith should have welcomed at first the return of
the Monarchians to the simplicity of the Faith, "ne videantur deos dicere, neque rursum
negare salvatoris deitatem" ("Lest they seem to be asserting two Gods or, on the other
hand, denying the Saviour's Godhead". - Origen, "On Titus", frag. II). Tertullian in
opposing them acknowledges that the uninstructed were against him; they could not
understand the magic word <oikonomia> with which he conceived he had saved the
situation; they declared that he taught two or three Gods, and cried "Monarchiam
tenemus." So Callistus reproached Hippolytus, and not without reason, with teaching
two Gods.
Already St. Justin knew of Christians who taught the identity of the Father and the Son
("Apol.", I, 63; "Dial.", cxxviii). In Hermas, as in Theodotus, the Son and the Holy Ghost
are confused. But it was reserved for Noetus and his school to deny categorically that
the unity of the Godhead is compatible with a distinction of Persons. They seem to have
regarded the <Logos> as a mere name, or faculty, or attribute, and to have made the
Son and the Holy Ghost merely aspects of modes of existence of the Father, thus
emphatically identifying Christ with the one God. "What harm am I doing", was the
reply made by Noetus to the presbyters who interrogated him, "in glorifying Christ?"
They replied: "We too know in truth one God; we know Christ; we know that the Son
suffered even as He suffered, and died even as He died, and rose again on the third
day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and cometh to judge the living and the dead;
and what we have learned we declare" (Hippol.; "Contra Noetum", 1). Thus they
refuted Noetus with tradition - the Apostles' Creed is enough; for the Creed and the
New Testament indeed make the distinction of Persons clear, and the traditional
formulas and prayers were equally unmistakable. Once the Monarchian system was
put into philosophical language, it was seen to be no longer the old Christianity.
Ridicule was used; the heretics were told that if the Father and the Son were really
identified, then no denial on their part could prevent the conclusion that the Father
suffered and died, and sat at His own right hand. Hippolytus tells us that Pope
Zephyrinus, whom he represents as a stupid old man, declared at the instance of
Callistus: "I know one God Christ Jesus, and besides Him no other Who was born and
Who suffered"; but he added: "Not the Father died, but the Son". The reporter is an
unsympathetic adversary; but we can see why the aged pope was viewing the simple
assertions of Sabellius in a favorable light. Hippolytus declares that Callistus said that
the Father suffered <with> the Son, and Tertullian says the same of the Monarchians
whom he attacks. Hagemann thinks Callistus-Praxeas especially attacked the doctrine
of the Apologists and of Hippolytus and Tertullian, which assigned all such attributes
as impassibility and invisibility to the Father and made the Son alone capable of
becoming passible and visible, ascribing to Him the work of creation, and all
operations <ad extra>. It is true that the Monarchians opposed this Platonizing in
general, but it is not evident that they had grasped the principle that all the works of
God <ad extra> are common to the Three Persons as proceeding form the Divine
Nature; and they seem to have said simply that God as Father is invisible and
impassible, but becomes visible and passible as Son. This explanation brings them
curiously into line with their adversaries. Both parties represented God as one and
alone in His eternity. Both made the generation of the Son a subsequent development;
only Tertullian and Hippolytus date it before the creation, and the Monarchians
perhaps not until the Incarnation. Further, their identification of the Father and the Son
was not favourable to a true view of the Incarnation. The very insistence on the unity of
God emphasized also the distance of God from man, and was likely to end in making
the union of God with man a mere indwelling or external union, after the fashion of
that which was attributed to Nestorius. They spoke of the Father as "Spirit" and the Son
as "flesh", and it is scarcely surprising that the similar Monarchianism of Marcellus
should have issued in the Theodotianism of Photinus. It is impossible to arrive at the
philosophical views of Sabellius. Hagemann thought that he started from the Stoic
system as surely as his adversaries did from the Platonic. Dorner has drawn too much
upon his imagination for the doctrine of Sabellius; Harnack is too fanciful with regard
to its origin. In fact we know little of him but that he said the Son was the Father (so
Novatian, "De. Trin." 12, and Pope Dionysius relate). St. Athanasius tells us that he said
the Father is the Son and the Son is the Father, one is hypostasis, but two in name (so
Epiphanius): "As there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit, so the Father is the
same, but is developed [<platynetai>] into Son and Spirit" (Orat., IV, c. Ar., xxv).
Theodoret says he spoke of one hypostasis and a threefold <prosopa>, whereas St. Basil
says he willingly admitted three <prosopa> in one hypostasis. This is, so far as words
go, exactly the famous formulation of Tertullian, "tres personae, una substantia" (three
persons, one substance), but Sabellius seems to have meant "three modes or characters
of one person". The Father is the Monad of whom the Son is a kind of manifestation: for
the Father is in Himself silent, inactive (<siopon, hanenerletos>), and speaks, creates,
works, as Son (Athan., 1. c., 11). Here again we have a parallel to the teaching of the
Apologists about the Word as Reason and the Word spoken, the latter alone being
called Son. It would seem that the difference between Sabellius and his opponents lay
mainly in his insisting on the unity of hypostasis after the emission of the Word as Son.
It does not seem clear that he regarded the Son as beginning at the Incarnation;
according to the passage of St. Athanasius just referred to, he may have agreed with the
Apologists to date Sonship from the creative action of God. But we have few texts to go
upon, and it is quite uncertain whether Sabellius left any writings. Monarchianism is
frequently combated by Origen. Dionysius of Alexandria fought Sabellianism with
some imprudence. In the fourth century the Arians and Semi-Arians professed to be
much afraid of it, and indeed the alliance of Pope Julius and Arhanasius with Marcellus
gave some colour to accusations against the Nicene formulas as opening the way to
Sabellianism. The Fathers of the fourth century (as, for instance, St. Gregory of Nyssa,
"Contra Sabellium", ed. Mai) seem to contemplate a more developed form than that
known to Hippolytus ("Contra Noetum" and "Philosophumena") and through him, to
Epiphanius: the consummation of creation is to consist in the return of the <Logos>
from the humanity of Christ to the Father, so that the original unity of the Divine
Nature is after all held to have been temporally compromised, and only in the end will
it be restored, that God may be all in all. Our chief original authorities for early
Monarchianism of the Modalist type are Tertullian, "Adversus Praxean", and
Hippolytus, "Contra Noetum" (fragment) and "Philosophumena". The "Contra Noetum"
and the lost "Syntagma" were used by Epiphanius, Haer. 57 (Noetians), but the sources
of Epiphanius's Haer. 62 (Sabellians) are less certain. The references by Origen,
Novatian, and later Fathers are somewhat indefinite.
JOHN CHAPMAN
Transcribed by Anthony A. Killeen
<Aeterna, non caduca>
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an effort aimed at placing the
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