Sabellians

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

  1. Adherents of an ancient Christian theological view denying the distinct persons of the Trinity by teaching that God manifests in different modes rather than as separate entities; proponents of a doctrine emphasizing the unity of the divine nature over personal distinctions; followers of a belief system rejecting traditional Trinitarian dogma and asserting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different expressions of a single divine person
  2. Supporters of a religious ideology from early Christianity that rejects the existence of three separate persons in God, instead proposing that God reveals Himself in various forms; advocates for a theology focusing on God's singular personhood expressed through different manifestations; members of a sect emphasizing a modalistic understanding of divinity rather than a triune nature
  3. Believers in a theological perspective that denies the traditional Trinity by viewing God as one person appearing in multiple modes such as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; followers of a variant Christian teaching that stresses divine unity and the interchangeability of God's experiences; partisans of a doctrine opposing the concept of coexisting distinct divine persons within the Godhead

Etymology: Sabellius, a theologian from Libya who taught in Rome, argued that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not three distinct persons but three modes in which one God reveals Himself, much like a single actor wearing different masks. Church authorities opposed him, and the Roman bishop Callixtus excommunicated him. His name then became the label for those who held his view. The group name is simply his name turned into an adjective and then a plural noun, the usual way English labels followers of a named teacher, as with "Lutheran" or "Calvinist." Critics also called the doctrine "Patripassianism," meaning that the Father himself suffered on the cross. That charge followed from the idea that the one God wore all three modes, so the suffering of the Son was, in their view, the suffering of the Father.

Synonyms: polychaete worms