Do you want to know what he is? contemporary sabellianism? How does the church today affect this theological bias? We invite you to stay with us to learn about the controversies on this interesting topic.
The three masks of contemporary Sabellianism
Being anti-trinitarian, that is, being against the popular notion that there are three different substances or persons in God, is generally interpreted by traditional Christianity and those of the evangelical movement as contemporary Sabellianism.
In the minds of these people, modalism and contemporary Sabellianism are confused as the same way of interpreting the existence of God. However, such a claim has no biblical or historical support, and reflects the gross and inexcusable ignorance of those who oppose the anti-Trinity notion, for there are considerable differences between the two.
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Surely these people will not appreciate being labeled ignorant and will complain about what seems unfair or vexatious to them, but if they are not ignorant, that would mean that they are criminals and distorters of the truth and historical facts, and that is what they are in for the most part.
The ignorance of knowing contemporary Sabellianism
Today it is notorious the ignorance of people who call themselves ChristiansWhat they do not understand they distort to the detriment of the truth in a vain attempt to hide the shame of their ignorance, because they are too proud to admit their incompetence.
It is unfortunate and sad to note that this harmful attitude is found especially among Christians, for it is not generally the case among Englishmen who are more conscientious and honest about the history of Christianity.
Our information on modalism and contemporary Sabellianism comes from reliable and competent sources, including “Burkoff Systematic Theology; history of doctrines, KR Hagenbach, 1862, Volume I and II”; and several others that do not need to be specified because they are unknown to the vast majority.
Modalism and contemporary Sabellianism
Modalism and contemporary Sabellianism are very misunderstood notions by modern Christianity. The original modalism came from Praxeas, Noet Y berylluswho were called ‘patripassians’ because they said that the Father had become incarnate and suffered with Christ in his death on the cross.
They tried to understand and explain the wonders and mysteries of the Christian faith, and for this they were labeled as heretics by intolerant fanatics.
Contrary to popular modern notion, this was not dogma but simple introspection into God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures, just as the people of Berea did in Acts 17:11, but this right was denied them by inept fools who wanted to rule over their faith. Their observations did not include the Holy Spirit, not that they did not recognize it, but rather that the emphasis of the subject was on the Father and the Son as a divine Being.
The aberrational notion of three distinct persons in God did not yet officially exist at this time, only coming to light a century later. However, his studies paved the way for the formation of contemporary Sabellianism that appeared later in the same period.
Sabellius added the Holy Spirit to the result of his studies and composed a new form of Modalism by making God three apparent and temporary aspects.
Theological controversies about contemporary Sabellianism
Christian authors from the 2nd and 3rd centuries extol the power and dignity of Jesus in the face of many deviations. Without addressing fringe movements of the Christian faith such as Manichaeism, Marcionism, or Gnosticism, let us dwell briefly on some subtle confusions about the understanding of the relationships between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
It is extremely important to capture the background of this time. We are in a period in which the Bible that we know as such did not exist, very few had the complete New Testament, the Word of God was read in the churches from papyrus samples, manuscript fragments, or partial copies that many Sometimes they are faulty, and many memorized what they heard; most people were illiterate and superstitious and therefore easy to manipulate, which was of great benefit to charlatans of all kinds
Debauchery and violence reigned everywhere; and knowledge of the arts, religious mysteries, medicine, mathematics, philosophy, and history was reserved for the elites of society.
We would only have to add our modern technology and we would find ourselves at home. Medicine, mathematics, philosophy and history were reserved for the elites of society.
Jesus is not divine according to contemporary Sabellianism
While Docetism and Manichaeism deny the humanity of Christ, four currents attack his divinity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Ebionites or messianic sect, in the first place.
They are Judeo-Christians who deny Jesus the title of Son of God. For them, he is just a prophet. They have their own gospel, a treacherous text full of intolerable abominations that rejects the virgin conception.
Adoptionism and contemporary Sabellianism
Adoptionism spread in the third century. He found a renowned spokesman in the person of Pablo de Samosate, Bishop of Antioch. Around 264, he begins to claim that Jesus is just a man who has been given a divine property, the Logos. This property inhabits him, but is not him.
Two new threats soon arose in Rome: monarchianism and contemporary Sabellianism.
Monarchianism is a theological trend of ancient Christianity that spread in the 2nd and 3rd centuries through the Roman Empire, more particularly in the East. Then it represents a conservative reaction that defends the monarchical essence of God, common in the second century, against the new theological speculations about the Logos, in particular those of Justin of Nablus.
The most representative personalities of this movement are Paul de Samosate and Sabellius. Monarchianism originated in Asia Minor and, before Logos theology appeared, initially represented a reaction against the Gnostic currents of Christianity in the mid-2nd century, especially the Valentinians.
Monarchianism is the divine conception of the majority of Christians of this time: the eternal logos that comes from God the Father and is revealed in Jesus Christ at his baptism.
Later, as part of the theological development of Christianity, and in the idea of maintaining divine unity – the monarchy – monarchism under Sabellius presents God in three different modes or intermediate aspects.
According to these conceptions of divine unity, monarchists will be led to oppose the orthodox Trinity heresy as its dogma develops.
Contemporary Sabellianism, as we have seen, has no relation to the patripassian modalist tendency of Noët and Praxéas for whom, for example, it is the Father who suffered in Jesus; or again with the adoptionism or dynamic monarchianism of Pablo de Samosate who affirms that Jesus was just a man who had been adopted by God during his baptism.
Modalism and contemporary Sabellianism
Patripassian modalists criticized the position of Clement of Rome or Ignatius of Antioch who firmly affirmed the divinity of Jesus being different from the Father. The modalists thought, and rightly so, that this conception results in “two gods.”
Sabellius (c. 217) then took this thought and distorted the original Patripassian Modalism by stating that God acts under three prosopa – three masks or faces – successive and interim: he is Father, as creator and lawgiver, he is Son, from his birth to his death. death on the cross; finally he is the Spirit who sanctifies the Church.
Callistus, the Roman slave who became pope around 218 and a martyr in 223, was first sympathetic to these teachings and then condemned Sabellius with his notion of a god wearing three different masks.
Modalism is contemporary Sabellianism
Modalism (or contemporary Sabellianism) is a modern term that designates, within the framework of ancient Christianity, a form -perhaps the most advanced- of monarchical unitarism that was taken up and taught by Sabellius, a character originally from Libya, settled in in Rome at the beginning of the 3rd century
Depending on the modalism, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of the divine Being, rather than three separate “hypostases” or persons. (Now, according to the authority of the Word of God in Hebrews 1:3there is only one hypostasis and not three.
We point out that the so-called Reformed Church affirms that the word “hypostasis” is not in the Bible when we have just seen the opposite, so it is not a church reformed by the truth, but a church deformed by lies and hypocrisy). Thus, for modalism, the Three are not in themselves but for us.
Panic in Alexandria and contemporary Sabellianism
Around 318-320, Arius, a priest from Alexandria, triggered a great crisis with his theses that consecrated the inferiority of the Son in relation to the Father. He refuses to acknowledge that, as God, the Son, or the Logos, he always has been.
For him, the Son was created out of nothing by the will of the Father. The Son is not true God, but he is of another substance than the Father. This position, with some variations, is that of modern Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Logos is limited and cannot perfectly know its Father.
In short, the Son is alien to the essence of the Father. Arianism professes a kind of subservient tritheism. But Arianism was successful and spread quite widely. The Emperor Constantine convened a council at Nicaea in 325 to resolve this issue.
Arius’ error is condemned, the relationship between the Father and the Son is clarified on the aberrant imperial notion that had been developed by Tertullian. In this deviation, the Son declares himself consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father. The affirmation of the identity of substance between the Father and the Son through the term “homoousios” causes more painful divisions.
theological retreat
Despite his condemnation, the Arian theses continue to spread. Theologians imbued with Platonic philosophy radicalize them and establish a hierarchy among the three persons of their chimerical philosophical Trinity.
Basilio and Gregorio de Nisa, two Fathers of the false Constantinian Imperial Church, then develop a terminology that constitutes a true theological retreat that distances itself from biblical revelation. It is about safeguarding the plurality in God without dividing the unique substance of God.
The three hypothetical persons of the speculative Trinity they are now known as “hypostases”. Therefore, there are three hypostases, but only one substance, called “ousia”. Unlike this outrageous abomination, the Bible tells us:
- “And who, being the splendor of his glory and the unique expression of his essence, and sustaining all things with his mighty Word, having cleansed himself…