Adolf Harnack · 4 of 21

Expulsion of Modalistic Monarchianism · Part 1

3. Expulsion of Modalistic Monarchianism.

(a). The Modalistic Monarchians in Asia Minor and in the West: Noëtus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, Aeschines, Praxeas, Victorinus (Victor), Zephyrinus, Sabellius, Callistus.

The really dangerous opponent of the Logos Christology in the period between A.D. 180 and 300 was not Adoptianism, but the doctrine which saw the deity himself in Christ, and conceived Christ to be God in a human body, the Father become flesh. Against this view the great Doctors of the Church — Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, but above all, Hippolytus — had principally to fight. Its defenders were called by Tertullian “Monarchiani”, and, not altogether correctly, “Patripassiani” which afterwards became the usual names in the West (see e.g., Cypr., Ep. 73. 4). In the East they were all designated, after the famous head of the school, “Sabelliani” from the second half of the third century; yet the name of “Patripassiani” was not quite unknown there also. Hippolytus tells us in the Philosophumena, that at that time the Monarchian controversy agitated the whole Church, and Tertullian and Origen testified, that in their day the “economic” , and the technical application of the conception of the Logos to Christ, were regarded by the mass of Christians with suspicion. Modalism, as we now know from the Philosoph., was for almost a generation the official theory in Rome. That it was not an absolute novelty can be proved; but it is very probable, on the other hand, that a Modalistic doctrine, which sought to exclude every other, only existed from the end of the second century. It was in opposition to Gnosticism that the first effort was made to fix theologically the formulas of a naïve Modalism, and that these were used to confront the Logos Christology in order (1) to avert Ditheism, (2) to maintain the complete divinity of Christ, and (3) to prevent the attacks of Gnosticism. An attempt was also made, however, to prove Modalism by exegesis. That is equivalent to saying that this form of doctrine, which was embraced by the great majority of Christians, was supported by scientific authorities, from the end of the second century. But it can be shown without difficulty, how hurtful any contact with theology could not fail to be to the naïve conception of the incarnation of the deity in Christ, and we may say that it was all over with it — though of course the death-struggle lasted long — when it found itself compelled to attack others or to defend itself. When it required to clothe itself in a cloak manufactured by a scientific theology, and to reflect on the idea of God, it belied its own nature, and lost its raison d’être. What it still retained was completely distorted by its opponents. Hippolytus has in the Philosophumena represented the doctrine of Noëtus to have been borrowed from Heraclitus. That is, of course, an exaggeration. But once we grasp the whole problem “philosophically and scientifically” — and it was so understood even by some scientific defenders of Monarchianism — then it undoubtedly resembles strikingly the controversy regarding the idea of God between the genuine Stoics and the Platonists. As the latter set the transcendent, apathetic God of Plato above the λόγος-θεός of Heraclitus and the Stoics, so Origen, e.g., has charged the Monarchians especially with stopping short at the God manifest, and at work, in the world, instead of advancing to the “ultimate” God, and thus apprehending the deity “economically”. Nor can it surprise us that Modalistic Monarchianism, after some of its representatives had actually summoned science, i.e., the Stoa, to their assistance, moved in the direction of a pantheistic conception of God. But this does not seem to have happened at the outset, or to the extent assumed by the opponents of the school. Not to speak of its uncultured adherents, the earliest literary defenders of Modalism were markedly monotheistic, and had a real interest in Biblical Christianity. It marks the character of the opposition, however, that they at once scented the God of Heraclitus and Zeno — a proof of how deeply they themselves were involved in Neo-platonic theology. As it was in Asia Minor that Adoptianism first entered into conflict with the Logos Christology, so the Church of Asia Minor seems to have been the scene of the first Modalistic controversy, while in both cases natives of that country transferred the dispute to Rome.

It is possible that Noëtus was not excommunicated till about A.D. 230, and, even if we cannot now discover his date more accurately, it seems to be certain that he first excited attention as a Monarchian, and probably in the last twenty years of the second century. This was perhaps in Smyrna, his native place, perhaps in Ephesus. He was excommunicated in Asia Minor, only after the whole controversy had, comparatively speaking, come to a close in Rome. This explains why Hippolytus has mentioned him last in his great work against the Monarchians, while in the Philosoph. he describes him as the originator (IX. 6: ἀρχηγόν) of the heresy. A disciple of his, Epigonus, came to Rome in the time of Zephyrinus, or shortly before (+ 200), and is said to have there diffused the teaching of his master, and to have formed a separate party of Patripassians. At first Cleomenes, the disciple of Epigonus, was regarded as the head of the sect, and then, from c. A.D. 215, Sabellius. Against these there appeared, in the Roman Church, especially the presbyter Hippolytus, who sought to prove that the doctrine promulgated by them was a revolutionary error. But the sympathies of the vast majority of the Roman Christians, so far as they could take any part in the dispute, were on the side of the Monarchians, and even among the clergy only a minority supported Hippolytus. The “uneducated” Bishop Zephyrine, advised by the prudent Callistus, was himself disposed, like Victor, his predecessor (see under), to the Modalistic views; but his main effort seems to have been to calm the contending parties, and at any cost to avoid a new schism in the Roman Church, already sadly split up. After his death the same policy was continued by Callistus (217-222), now raised to the Bishopric. But as the schools now attacked each other more violently, and an agreement was past hoping for, the Bishop determined to excommunicate both Sabellius and Hippolytus, the two heads of the contending factions. The Christological formula, which Callistus himself composed, was meant to satisfy the less passionate adherents of both parties, and this it did, so far as we may conjecture. The small party of Hippolytus “the true Catholic Church”, held its ground in Rome for only about fifteen years, that of Sabellius probably longer. The formula of Callistus was the bridge, on which the Roman Christians, who were originally favourable to Monarchianism, passed over to the recognition of the Logos Christology, following the trend of the times, and the science of the Church. This doctrine must have already been the dominant theory in Rome when Novatian wrote his work De Trinitate, and from that date it was never ousted . It had been established in the Capital by a politician, who, for his own part, and so far as he took any interest at all in dogmatics, had been more inclined to the Modalistic theory.

The scantiness of our sources for the history of Monarchianism in Rome, — not to speak of other cities — in spite of the discovery of the Philosophumena, is shown most clearly by the circumstance that Tertullian has not mentioned the names of Noëtus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, or Callistus; on the other hand, he has introduced a Roman Monarchian, Praxeas, whose name is not mentioned by Hippolytus in any of his numerous controversial writings. This fact has seemed so remarkable that very hazardous hypotheses have been set up to explain it. It has been thought that “Praxeas” is a nickname (= tradesman), and that by it we ought really to understand Noëtus, Epigonus, or Callistus. The correct view is to be found in Döllinger and Lipsius. Praxeas had come to Rome before Epigonus, at a date anterior to the earliest of Hippolytus’ personal recollections, accordingly about contemporaneously with Theodotus, or a little earlier, while Victor was Bishop; according to Lipsius, and this is probable, even during the episcopate of Eleutherus. He probably resided only a short time in Rome, where he met with no opposition; and he founded no school in the city. When, twenty years afterwards, the controversy was at its height in Rome and Carthage, and Tertullian found himself compelled to enter the lists against Patripassianism, the name of Praxeas was almost forgotten. Tertullian, however, laid hold of him because Praxeas had been the first to raise a discussion in Carthage also, and because he had an antipathy to Praxeas who was a decided anti-montanist. In his attack, Tertullian has, however, reviewed the historical circumstances of about the year A.D. 210, when his work Adv. Prax. was written; nay, he manifestly alludes to the Roman Monarchians, i.e., to Zephyrinus and those protected by him. This observation contains what truth there is in the hypothesis that Praxeas is only a name for another well-known Roman Monarchian.

Praxeas was a confessor of Asia Minor, and the first to bring the dispute as to the Logos Christology to Rome. At the same time he brought from his birth-place a resolute zeal against the new prophecy. We are here, again, reminded of the faction of Alogi of Asia Minor who combined with the rejection of the Logos Christology an aversion from Montanism; cf. also the Roman presbyter Caius. Not only did his efforts meet with no opposition in Rome, but Praxeas induced the Bishop, by giving him information as to the new prophets and their communities in Asia, to recall the litteræ pacis, which he had already sent them, and to aid in expelling the Paraclete. If this Bishop was Eleutherus, and that is probable from Euseb. H. E. V. 4, then we have four Roman Bishops in succession who declared themselves in favour of the Modalistic Christology, viz., Eleutherus, Victor, Zephyrine, and Callistus; for we learn from PseudoTertullian that Victor took the part of Praxeas. But it is also possible that Victor was the Bishop whom Tertullian (Adv. Prax.) was thinking of, and in that case Eleutherus has no place here. It is at all events certain that when Dynamistic Monarchianism was proscribed by Victor, it was expelled not by a defender of the Logos Christology, but in the interests of a Modalistic Christology. The labours of Praxeas did not yet bring about a controversy in Rome with the Logos Doctrine; he was merely the forerunner of Epigonus and Cleomenes there. From Rome he betook himself to Carthage, and strove against the assumption of any distinction between God and Christ. But he was resisted by Tertullian, who, at that time, still belonged to the Catholic Church, and he was silenced, and even compelled to make a written recantation. With this ended the first phase of the dispute. The name of Praxeas does not again occur. But it was only several years afterwards that the controversy became really acute in Rome and Carthage, and caused Tertullian to write his polemical work. Of the final stages of Monarchianism in Carthage and Africa we know nothing certain. Yet see under.

It is not possible, from the state of our sources, to give a complete and homogeneous description of the doctrine of the older Modalistic Monarchianism. But the sources are not alone to blame for this. As soon as the thought that God Himself was incarnate in Christ had to be construed theologically, very various attempts could not fail to result. These could lead, and so far did lead, on the one hand, to hazardous conceptions involving transformation, and, on the other, almost to the border of Adoptianism; for, as soon as the indwelling of the deity of the Father (deitas patris) in Jesus was not grasped in the strict sense as an incarnation, as soon as the element that in Jesus constituted his personality was not exclusively perceived in the deity of the Father, these Christians were treading the ground of the Artemonite heresy. Hippolytus also charged Callistus with wavering between Sabellius and Theodotus, and in his work against Noëtus he alludes (ch. III.) to a certain affinity between the latter and the leather-worker. In the writings of Origen, moreover, several passages occur, regarding which it will always be uncertain whether they refer to Modalists or Adoptians. Nor can this astonish us, for Monarchians of all shades had a common interest in opposition to the Logos Christology: they represented the conception of the Person of Christ founded on the history of salvation, as against one based on the history of his nature.

Among the different expositions of the doctrine of the older Modalists that of Hippolytus in his work against Noëtus shows us it in its simplest form. The Monarchians there described are introduced to us as those who taught that Christ is the Father himself, and that the Father was born, suffered and died. If Christ is God, then he is certainly the Father, or he would not be God. If Christ, accordingly, truly suffered, then the God, who is God alone, suffered. But they were not only influenced by a decided interest in Monotheism,a cause which they held to have been injured by their opponents, whom they called ditheists (δίθεοι), but they fought in behalf of the complete deity of Jesus, which, in their opinion, could only be upheld by their doctrine. In support of the latter they appealed, like the Theodotians, chiefly to the Holy Scriptures, and, indeed, to the Catholic Canon; thus they quoted Exod. III. 6, XX. 2f.; Isa. XLIV. 6, XLV. 5, 14 f.; Baruch. III. 36; John. X. 30, XIV. 8f.; Rom. IX. 5. Even John’s Gospel is recognised; but this is qualified by the most important piece of information which Hippolytus has given about their exposition of the Scriptures. They did not regard that book as the introduction of a Logos, and the bestowal on him of the title Son of God. The prologue of the Gospel, as well as, in general, so many passages in the book, was to be understood allegorically. The use of the category of the Logos was accordingly emphatically rejected in their theology. We do not learn any more about the Noëtians here. But in the Philosoph. Hippolytus has discussed their conception of God, and has presented it as follows: They say that one and the same God was creator and Father of all things; that he in his goodness appeared to the righteous of olden times, although he is invisible; in other words, when he is not seen, he is invisible, but when he permits himself to be seen, he is visible; he is incomprehensible, when he wills not to be apprehended, comprehensible when he permits himself to be apprehended. So in the same way he is invincible and to be overcome, unbegotten and begotten, immortal and mortal.” Hippolytus continues: “Noëtus says, ‘So far, therefore, as the Father was not made, he is appropriately called Father; but in so far as he passively submitted to be born, he is by birth the Son, not of another, but of himself.’” In this way he meant to establish the Monarchia, and to say that he who was called Father and Son, was one and the same, not one proceeding from the other, but he himself from himself; he is distinguished in name as Father and Son, according to the change of dispensations; but it is one and the same who appeared in former times, and submitted to be born of the virgin, and walked as man among men. He confessed himself, on account of his birth, to be the Son to those who saw him, but he did not conceal the truth that he was the Father from those who were able to apprehend it. Cleomenes and his party maintain that “he who was nailed to the cross, who committed his spirit to himself, who died and did not die, who raised himself on the third day and rested in the grave, who was pierced with the lance and fastened with nails, was the God and Father of all.” The distinction between Father and Son was accordingly nominal; yet it was to this extent more than nominal, that the one God, in being born man, appeared as Son; it was real, so far, from the point of view of the history of salvation. In support of the identity of the “manifested” and the invisible, these Monarchians referred to the O. T. theophanies, with as good a right as, nay, with a better than, the defenders of the Logos Christology. Now as regards the idea of God, it has been said that “the element of finitude was here potentially placed in God himself,” and that these Monarchians were influenced by Stoicism, etc. While the former statement is probably unwarranted, the Stoic influence, on the contrary, is not to be denied. But the foundation to which we have to refer them consists of two ancient liturgical formulas, used by Ignatius, the author of the II. Ep. of Clement, and Melito, whom we include, although he wrote a work “Concerning the creation and genesis of Christ” (περὶ κτίσεως καὶ γενέσεως Χριστοῦ). Further, even Ignatius, although he held Christ to have been pre-existent, knew only of one birth of the Son, namely, that of God from the virgin. We have here to recognise the conception, according to which, God, in virtue of his own resolve to become finite, capable of suffering etc., can and did decide to be man, without giving up his divinity. It is the old, religious, and artless Modalism, which has here been raised, with means furnished by the Stoa, to a theological doctrine, and has become exclusive. But in the use of the formula “the Father has suffered,” we have undoubtedly an element of novelty; for it cannot be indicated in the post-apostolic age. It is very questionable, however, whether it was ever roundly uttered by the theological defenders of Modalism. They probably merely said that “the Son, who suffered, is the same with the Father.”

We do not learn what conception these Monarchians formed of the human σάρξ (flesh) of Jesus, or what significance they attached to it. Even the Monarchian formulas, opposed by Tertullian in “Adv. Prax”, and attributed to Callistus by Hippolytus, are already more complicated. We easily perceive that they were coined in a controversy in which the theological difficulties inherent in the Modalistic doctrine had become notorious. Tertullian’s Monarchians still cling strongly to the perfect identity of the Father and Son; they refuse to admit the Logos into their Christology; for the “word” is no substance, but merely a “sound”; they are equally interested with the Noëtians in monotheism, though not so evidently in the full divinity of Christ; like them they dread the return of Gnosticism; they hold the same view as to the invisibility and visibility of God; they appeal to the Holy Scriptures, sometimes to the same passages as the opponents of Hippolytus; but they find themselves compelled to adapt their teaching to those proof-texts in which the Son is contrasted, as a distinctive subject, with the Father. This they did, not only by saying that God made himself Son by assuming a body,or that the Son proceeded from himself — for with God nothing is impossible: but they distinctly declared that the flesh changed the Father into the Son; or even that in the person of the Redeemer the body (the man, Jesus) was the Son, but that the Spirit (God, Christ) was the Father.For this they appealed to Luke I. 35. They conceived the Holy Spirit to be identical with the power of the Almighty, i.e., with the Father himself, and they emphasised the fact that that which was born, accordingly the flesh, not the Spirit, was to be called Son of God. The Spirit (God) was not capable of suffering, but since he entered into the flesh, he sympathised in the suffering. The Son suffered, but the Father “sympathised” — this being a Stoic expression. Therefore Tertullian says (ch. 23), “Granting that we would thus say, as you assert, that there were two separate (gods), it was more tolerable to affirm two separate (gods) than one dissembling (turn-coat) god” [Ut sic divisos diceremus, quomodo iactitatis, tolerabilius erat, duos divisos quam unum deum versipellem prædicare].

It is very evident that whenever the distinction between caro (filius) and spiritus (pater), between the flesh or Son and the Spirit or Father, is taken seriously, the doctrine approximates to the Artemonite idea. It is in fact changing its coat (versipellis). But it is obvious that even in this form it could not satisfy the defenders of the Logos Christology, for the personal identity between the Father and the Spirit or Christ is still retained. On the whole, every attempt made by Modalism to meet the demands of the Logos doctrine could not fail logically to lead to Dynamistic Monarchianism. We know definitely that the formulas of Zephyrine and Callistus arose out of attempts at a compromise, though the charge of having two gods was raised against Hippolytus and his party. Zephyrine’s thesis (IX. 11), “I know one God, Christ Jesus, and besides him no other born and suffering,” which he announced with the limiting clause, “the Father did not die, but the Son,” agrees with the doctrines of “Praxeas”, but, as is clear from the Philos., is also to be understood as a formula of compromise. Callistus went still further. He found it advisable after the excommunication of Sabellius and Hippolytus, to receive the category of the Logos into the Christological formula meant to harmonise all parties, an act for which he was especially abused by Hippolytus, while Sabellius also accused him of apostasy. According to Zephyrine: God is in himself an indivisible Pneuma, which fills all things, or, in other words, the Logos; as Logos he is nominally two, Father and Son. The Pneuma, become flesh in the virgin, is thus in essence not different from, but identical with, the Father (John XIV. 11). He who became manifest, i.e., the man, is the Son, but the Spirit, which entered into the Son, is the Father. “For the Father, who is in the Son, deified the flesh, after he had assumed it, and united it with himself, and established a unity of such a nature that now Father and Son are called one God, and that henceforth it is impossible that this single person can be divided into two; rather the thesis holds true that the Father suffered in sympathy with the Son” — not the Father suffered.

Hippolytus discovered in this formula a mixture of Sabellian and Theodotian ideas, and he was right. The approximation to the Christology founded on the doctrine of substances (hypostases), and the departure from the older Monarchianism, are, in fact, only brought about by Callistus having also made use of a Theodotian idea. He still kept aloof from the Platonic conception of God; nay, it sounds like a reminiscence of Stoicism, when, in order to obtain a rational basis for the incarnation, he refers to the Pneuma (Spirit) which fills the universe, the upper and under world. But the fact that his formulas, in spite of this, could render valuable service in Rome in harmonising different views, was not only due to their admission of the Logos conception. It was rather a result of the thought expressed in them, that God in becoming incarnate had deified the flesh, and that the Son, in so far as he represented the essentially deified σἀρξ, was to be conceived as a second person, and yet as one really united with God. At this point the ultimate Catholic interest in the Christology comes correctly to light, and this is an interest not clearly perceptible elsewhere in Monarchian theories. It was thus that men were gradually tranquillised in Rome, and only the few extremists of the Left and Right parties offered any resistance. Moreover, the formula was extraordinarily adapted, by its very vagueness, to set up among the believing people the religious Mystery, under whose protection the Logos Christology gradually made good its entrance.

The latter was elaborated in opposition to Modalism by Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Novatian in the West. While Adoptianism apparently played a very small part in the development of the Logos Christology in the Church, the Christological theses of Tertullian and the rest were completely dependent on the opposition to the Modalists. This reveals itself especially in the strict subordination of the Son to the Father. It was only by such a subordination that it was possible to repel the charge, made by opponents, of teaching that there were two Gods. The philosophical conception of God implied in the Logos theory was now set up definitely as the doctrine of the Church, and was construed to mean that the unity of God was simply to be understood as a “unicum imperium”, which God could cause to be administered by his chosen officials. Further, the attempt was made to prove that Monotheism was satisfactorily guarded by the Father remaining the sole First Cause. But while the reproach was thus repelled of making Father and Son “brothers”, an approach was made to the Gnostic doctrine of Æons, and Tertullian himself felt, and was unable to avert, the danger of falling into the channel of the Gnostics. His arguments in his writing Adv. Praxeas are not free from half concessions and uncertainties, while the whole tenor of the work contrasts strikingly with that of the anti-gnostic tractates. Tertullian finds himself time and again compelled in his work to pass from the offensive to the defensive, and the admissions that he makes show his uncertainty. Thus he concedes that we may not speak of two Lords or two Gods, that in certain circumstances the Son also can be called Almighty, or even Father, that the Son will in the end restore all things to the Father, and, as it would seem, will merge in the Father; finally, and especially, that the Son is not only not aliud a patre (different in substance from the Father), but even in some way not alius a patre (different in person etc). Yet Tertullian and his comrades were by no means at a disadvantage in comparison with the Monarchians. They could appeal (1) to the Rule of Faith in which the personal distinction between the Father and Son was recognised; (2) to the Holy Scriptures from which it was, in fact, easy to reduce the arguments of the Monarchians ad absurdum; (3) to the distinction between Christians and Jews which consisted, of course, in the belief of the former in the Son; and lastly, and this was the most important point, they could cite the Johannine writings, especially in support of the doctrine of the Logos. It was of the highest importance in the controversy that Christ could be shown to have been called the Logos in John’s Gospel and the Apocalypse. In view of the way in which the Scriptures were then used in the Church, these passages were fatal to Monarchianism. The attempts to interpret them symbolically could not but fail in the end, as completely as those, e.g., of Callistus and Paul of Samasota, to combine the use of the expression “Logos” with a rejection of the apologetic conception of it based on Philo. Meanwhile Tertullian and Hippolytus did not, to all appearance, yet succeed in getting their form of doctrine approved in the Churches. The God of mystery of whom they taught was viewed as an unknown God, and their Christology did not correspond to the wants of men. The Logos was, indeed, to be held one in essence with God; but yet he was, by his being made the organ of the creation of the world, an inferior divine being, or rather at once inferior and not inferior. This conception, however, conflicted with tradition as embodied in worship, which taught men to see God Himself in Christ, quite as much as the attempt was opposed by doctrinal tradition, to derive the use of the name “Son of God” for Christ, not from His miraculous birth, but from a decree dating before the world. For the rest, the older enemies of Monarchianism still maintained common ground with their opponents, in so far as God’s evolving of Himself in several substances (Hypostases) was throughout affected by the history of the world (cosmos), and in this sense by the history of revelation. The difference between them and at least the later Monarchians was here only one of degree. The latter began at the incarnation (or at the theophanies of the O. T.), and from it dated a nominal plurality, the former made the “economic” self-unfolding of God originate immediately before the creation of the world. Here we have the cosmological interest coming once more to the front in the Church Fathers and displacing the historical, while it ostensibly raised the latter to a higher plane.

Wherever the doctrine of the Logos planted itself in the third century the question, whether the divine being who appeared on earth was identical with the Deity, was answered in the negative. In opposition to this Gnostic view, which was first to be corrected in the fourth century, the Monarchians maintained a very ancient and valuable position in clinging to the identity of the eternal Deity, with the Deity revealed on earth. But does not the dilemma that arises show that the speculation on both sides was as untenable as unevangelical? Either we preserve the identity, and in that case defend the thesis, at once absurd and inconsistent with the Gospel, that Christ was the Father himself; or with the Gospel we retain the distinction between Father and Son, but then announce a subordinate God after the fashion of a Gnostic polytheism. Certainly, as regards religion, a very great advance was arrived at, when Athanasius, by his exclusive formula of Λόγος ὁμοούσιος (consubstantial Logos), negatived both Modalism and subordinationist Gnosticism, but the Hellenic foundation of the whole speculation was preserved, and for the rational observer a second rock of offence was merely piled upon a first. However, under the conditions of scientific speculation at the time, the formula was the saving clause by which men were once for all turned from Adoptianism, whose doctrine of a deification of Jesus could not fail, undoubtedly, to awaken the most questionable recollections.