ERRORS DENYING THE REAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PERSONS

In the second century the Monarchians, believing in only one divine principle, declared that Christ was only man endowed with some divine power (Paul of Samosata) or that Christ was the Father who became incarnate and suffered (Patripassians). Chief among the Patripassians were Noetus, who was opposed in the East by Hippolytus, and Praxeas, whom Tertullian refuted in the West. Noetus and Praxeas argued that the Father and the Son were not really distinct but merely different names for the same person.

In the third century Sabellius proposed his Modalism, so called because in God he did not admit distinct persons but only accidental modes. Later the Modalists taught that in God there was but one person, who manifested Himself in three modes: as the lawgiver in the Old Testament (the Father), as the Redeemer in the New Testament (the Son), and finally as the sanctifier or Holy Spirit. The Sabellians and Modalists were opposed by Tertullian, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, St. Zephyrinus, and Callistus.[50]

In the seventh century Modalism was revived by the Mohammedans. Mohammed admitted the existence of only God the Creator, Allah, who alone was to be adored, excluding the Trinity of persons. The Islamic formula of prayer, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet, " was in Mohammed's mind a negation of the Trinity and contained within it the total apostasy from the Christian faith, denying at the same time the dogmas of the incarnation and redemption by Christ, who was no more than one of the prophets. Those who now write about the mysticism of Islam, should note this essential difference between Islam and Christianity.

In the Middle Ages, Modalism was again revived by the Waldensians and the Socinians, and later by the Unitarians, who constitute the liberal wing of Protestantism. It appears again in the theology of Kant, where God the Father is called the lawgiver, the Son the ruler, and the Holy Spirit the judge. Modern theosophists also are Unitarians, teaching that there is one eternal, infinite being, which manifests itself in three ways: as the first "logos" or the root of being, the second "logos" or the primitive duality, and the third "logos" or the universal intelligence.[51] Others say in God there is intelligence, without real distinction from the object and the union of these two, and that these three may be called, in the Hegelian sense, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All these errors are revivals of the Modalism of the third century.