heresy hunting through the ages, who are Arians, Sabellians, Tritheists, creed deniers, subordinists

[Steven Avery]

Modalism, Tritheism, Or the Pure Revelation of the Triune God According to the Bible (1994)
Living Stream Ministry Staff
https://books.google.com/books?id=JXfe5pt5-kUC&pg=PA12

Jonathan Edwards, a highly respected servant of the Lord, was accused of both tritheism and modalism. He wrote a book entitled Observations Concerning the Scripture Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemption, for which he came under attack by one writer who said:

The writer is informed on unquestionable authority that there is, or was, in existence a manuscript of Edwards, in which his views appear to have undergone a great change in the direction of Arianism or of Sabellianism....”42

It is well to give here other examples of church Fathers who were accused of modalism, tritheism, or both. Tertullian (A.D. 160-220), who was a leader in the fight against modalism and who is regarded as orthodox and fundamental, was accused of Arianism by one who said, “Tertullian, prior to his falling into the heresy of Montanus, entertained the same opinions as those of Arius, concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”'43

Origen - , anathematised by the second council of Constantinople in 553,

Tertulllian - Montanists were Sabellian
http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com/showthread.php?t=7723&page=7

Eusebius of Caesarea
https://archive.org/details/doctrineofholytr00nyes/page/132/mode/2up

Jerome called Sabellian and heretic
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001015.htm
http://www.archive.org/stream/doctrineofholytr00nyes#page/132/mode/2up

Cyril of Jerusalem -
Jerome calls him an Arian
https://books.google.com/books?id=SDswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR49

Erasmus -
Inquisition of Faith
Valladolid
https://books.google.com/books?id=4sQ7jJymp2MC&pg=PA39#

John Calvin
see Caroli accusations

 

[Steven Avery]

Jerome called Sabellian and heretic

Jerome - Letter 15 to Damasus
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001015.htm
3. Just now, I am sorry to say, those Arians, the Campenses, are trying to extort from me, a Roman Christian, their unheard-of formula of three hypostases. And this, too, after the definition of Nicæa and the decree of Alexandria, in which the West has joined. Where, I should like to know, are the apostles of these doctrines? Where is their Paul, their new doctor of the Gentiles? I ask them what three hypostases are supposed to mean. They reply three persons subsisting. I rejoin that this is my belief. They are not satisfied with the meaning, they demand the term. Surely some secret venom lurks in the words. If any man refuse, I cry, to acknowledge three hypostases in the sense of three things hypostatized, that is three persons subsisting, let him be anathema. Yet, because I do not learn their words, I am counted a heretic. But, if any one, understanding by hypostasis essence, deny that in the three persons there is one hypostasis, he has no part in Christ. Because this is my confession I, like you, am branded with the stigma of Sabellianism.

Stephen Nye - based on his writing to Damasus
http://www.archive.org/stream/doctrineofholytr00nyes#page/132/mode/2up

Letter to Damasus
Marcum Presbyteram

Thomas Burgess
https://archive.org/details/lettertoclergyof00burg/page/76/mode/2up

http://books.google.com/books?id=w-EtAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PR46

Marcus Celedensis per Roger Pearse
http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2011/01/08/more-on-anianus-of-celeda/
The letter to Marcus is :

Letter XVII. To the Presbyter Marcus.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.XVII.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=73lPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA20

This is a letter where Jerome says he is accused of being Sabellian. Interestingly he asserts “fluent knowledge of Syriac” which I think is not today’s generally accepted scholarship (GAS). And Jerome made a confession of faith at baptism (sounds like Acts 8:37) .

Note:
“As regards the questions which you have thought fit to put to me concerning the faith, I have given to the reverend Cyril a written confession which sufficiently answers them.”

The editor says
“the extant document purporting to contain this confession is not genuine”.

The Great Bible Text Fraud
http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/bible-fraud-online/content/bible-fraud7.html
Jerome’s Latin text omitted the “Three Heavenly Witnesses”, but it also stated that the earthly witnesses, spirit, water and blood, “are one” (“unum sunt” in Fuldensis and Amiatinus), instead of the correct “agree in one”, according with the Greek eis to ‘en. The purpose of this alteration shines through: by omitting the “Three Heavenly Witnesses” Jerome’s text reflected the Artemonite denial that the heavenly Spirit of God was distinct from the human spirit in Jesus, then by declaring the spirit, water and blood actually to be “one”, that is, one in substance, the three earthly material elements were proven to be, not three different substances, but a single divine substance which merely “appeared” (dokeo) to be three. In his own day Jerome, along with his bishop Damasus, was accused of Sabellianism (Jerome, Epistolae XV. 3, ad Damasum, Migne PL XXII. col. 356). Jerome rejected the charge, and truly he was not, strictly speaking, a Sabellian: he was a Callistian, — though the difference between the Noetian doctrine of Callistus, bishop of the First Church of Rome in the first quarter of the third century AD, and that of the guru Sabellius, a member of Callistus’ congregation, was hard to define, even for the acute Hippolytus, who knew both heretics personally. Indeed, Jerome’s doctrine included the belief, according to the very words of Jerome himself (ibid. 4, col. 357) in refuting the charge of heresy, that “all created things besides only appear to be, and are not … God alone who is eternal, who has no beginning, truly bears the denomination ‘being’.1” This is the Noetian/Sabellian belief precisely. Hence, of course, the three substances of spirit, water and blood, amongst the rest, were only three in appearance, and, in actuality, one divine essence. The Docetist (Sabellian) heresy enshrined in Jerome’s text was thereby confirmed.

 

[Steven Avery]

https://forums.carm.org/threads/speculum-liber-de-divinis-scripturis.10899/page-9#post-850368

But in Trinitarianism, "God the Son" is not substantially different from God the Father, as they are of the "same substance." One wouldn't even describe two human beings as of the same substance, so why use that motif for the Son and the Father? Can anyone define the substance of the invisible God, or is it just a human deception?

Any differentiation of hypostasis may be viewed as only nominal in the light of Heb 1:3 (Son is the imprint of the hypostasis of God). Taking Heb 1:3 together with the motifs of modern Trinitarianism, you are into Sabellian territory. Thus it can be construed as somewhat hypocritical in condemning the Priscillianists as Sabellians.

Most everybody gets accused, even Augustine:

Modalism, Tritheism, Or the Pure Revelation of the Triune God According to the Bible(1994)
Living Stream Ministry Staff
https://books.google.com/books?id=JXfe5pt5-kUC&pg=PA13

Adolf Hamack, a renowned authority in the history of dogma, said, “We can see that Augustine only gets beyond Modalism by the mere assertion that he does not wish to be a Modalist, and by the aid of ingenious distinctions between different ideas.”47

47. Adolf Hamack, History of Dogma (Peter Smith Publishers, 1976), pp. 129-131.

History of Dogma, Volume 4 (1907)
Adolf Harnack
https://books.google.com/books?id=VFFGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA131
https://ccel.org/ccel/harnack/dogma4/dogma4.ii.ii.i.ii.html

This gentleman defends Augustine from Harnack's charge, and that of Andrew L. Davis.

Modalism, Tritheism, or the Pure Revelation of the Triune God
http://articulifidei.blogspot.com/2018/07/augustines-trinity-modalistic-semi.html

IMO, Harnack should have read Augustine much more closely, for Augustine definitively goes well beyond, "the mere assertion that he does not wish to be a modalist". Time and time again Augustine makes it clear that the Trinity (i.e. the Three) is composed of three distinct persons, and that the Father is the beginning/source of the Son and the Holy Spirit. As mentioned above, I have already provided a number of examples which are germane to Augustine's anti-modalistic understanding of the Trinity. The following selections will add further support that Augustine did not espouse some degree and/or form of modalism:

 

[Steven Avery]

And more in that book,

Athenagoras as Sabellian
https://books.google.com/books?id=JXfe5pt5-kUC&pg=PA13

 

[Steven Avery]

Bishop Bull
https://books.google.com/books?id=yFBtcWdqdKUC&pg=PA292
4. But who, that has any love for truth and candour,
could patiently endure this most shameless sophist, when
he endeavours to prove out of Ruffinus, that Cyprian was
an Arian? "Wherefore,” these are his words, “ Ruffinus, in
his Apology for Origen, says, that ‘very many in those parts,’
(he is speaking of Constantinople,) ‘ were persuaded that the
holy martyr Cyprian was of that belief, which has been set
forth, not correctly, by Tertullian in his writings.’ Tertullian
he certainly honoured with the title of master, and applied
himself1 daily to the study of his writings; and that Tertul-
lian’s belief was Arian, we have already stated.” A little
after he subjoins, “ It is clear from the words of Ruffinus
which immediately precede, that Arianism and Macedonian-
ism were what Ruffinus and the orientals meant.” But with
what face could he have referred his reader to the preced-
ing words of Ruffinus? seeing that from them it will be
clearer than noon-day, that most dishonestly is Ruffinus
alleged to prove that Cyprian’s belief was the same as that
of Arius. Here, reader, is the passage of Ruffinus entire1;
“The whole collection2 of the Epistles of the martyr St.
Cyprian,” he says, “ is usually written in one volume: in
this collection, certain heretics who blaspheme against the
Holy Ghost, inserted a short treatise of Tertullian on the
Trinity, written, so far as regards the truth of our faith, in
a way open to blame; and making as many transcripts as
they could from these copies, they caused them to he circu-
lated throughout the great city of Constantinople at a low
price, in order that people, attracted by the smallness of
the price, might the more readily buy their unknown and
latent snares; that hy this means the heretics might be
able to gain belief for their misbelief3 from the authority
of so great a man. It happened, however, that not long
after this had been done*, certain of our catholic brethren,
happening to be there*, laid open the artifices of the villainy
which had been practised, and in some measure recovered
such as they could from the entanglement of this error; not-
withstanding, very many in those parts were persuaded that i
the holy martyr Cyprian was of that belief, which has been set c
forth, not correctly, by Tertullian in his writings.” By this "c
time any one may clearly see that the heretics at Constanti-
nople were Pneumatomachians, who were endeavouring to
persuade others that Cyprian’s belief was different from the
catholic; and that they went about to provo this not from
any genuine work of the martyr, (inasmuch as lie has every
where written as a Catholic on the doctrine of the Iloly
Trinity,) but from a treatise of some other writer, which
these worthless deceivers had themselves inserted among the
works of Cyprian, by an impious fraud which was soon after
discovered by the Catholics. And, in truth, no ecclesias-
tical writer has ever stated that Cyprian wrote a work on
the Holy Trinity. Nor indeed do I believe that that treatise
which these heretics circulated1 was Tertullian’s throughout,
but that it was in many places corrupted by themselves.
For Tertullian never held the opinions of the Pneumatoma-
cliians, but, even when he had fallen into heresy, constantly
believed three Persons of one Godhead, and expressly called
the Iloly Ghost God, as well as the Father and the Son, as
is evident from the passages which we have already quoted
from him. But the Catholics of that period did not care
much about the character and reputation of Tertullian; for,
on account of other doctrines of his, he was at that time
regarded among all the orthodox as a heretic and an alien
from the Church. Of Novatian, tooa, whose treatise on the
Trinity (the one, I mean, which is now extant among the
works of Tertullian) was thought by Jerome to have been
that which was circulated by the heretics, almost the same
must be saidb; for he too held the catholic view on the
Trinity, as we shall presently shew. The reader, however,
may see further from these and many other indications, what
it is that Sandius means by " bringing out the kernel2 of ec-
clesiastical history •” namely, to seek out and bring together,
from every quarter, exploded and silly stories, and manifest

Continues with Petavius and more