Posted on 11/14/2012 9:33:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I haven’t a clue about this Theotokos fellow, what I say here I speak only for myself.
First, I think I should say that I don’t believe in what you fellows call “Modalism.” At least as you misconstrue it. The term is not found in the Patristic writings, it is a term church historians came up with after the fact. They could have used Tertullian’s term, “Monarchians,” by which he meant one God, or one King, ruling from one throne over a kingdom, common in the ancient world, but, no, they come up with “Modalist.”
And no wonder, “Monarchian” has implications these historians, as Trinitarians, who hold to multiple divine persons, wouldn’t like. Imagine that, one God on one throne, we can’t have that now can we. Where are the thrones for all three to sit? Better the waters get muddied with the Modalist term.
I find myself agreeing with these ancient “Monarchians,” makes sense to me. Is there three thrones in heaven? I don’t think so. These ancient Monarchians sound like our modern Oneness belief. As to what the Monarchians believed, Irenaeus said it best:
“The Father is that which is invisible about the Son, the Son is that which is visible about the Father…The Father is God revealing himself, and the Son is God revealed.”
He actually said that. Col. 1:15, Christ the image of the invisible God, and Heb. 1:3, would agree with him.
Are you prepared to call Irenaeus a Modalist? I know, you guys have got good old Sabellius to throw at me. It would be nice if we had his actual writings by which we could evaluate what he actually believed. All we know of him comes from his enemies. Somebody somewhere saw to it that his writings did not survive. Wonder who?
Oneness historians see Oneness belief as the common belief about God among ordinary Christians in the second century, carried over from the church of the first century. In the third century, the controversy between Oneness and prototype Trinitarians such as Tertullian came to a head. Tertullian complained bitterly of them:
“The simple, indeed (I will not call them unwise and unlearned), who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the three in one), on the ground that their Rule of Faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God…The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity, they assume to be a division of the unity,” Against Praxeus, vol. III of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 598,599.
1. Those who believed in simply one only God, Tertullian’s “The simple,” who were still in the majority here in the third century (who constitute the majority of believers, he said), were startled at his new terminology, the “Trinity,” “three in one.”
2. Their “Rule of Faith,” must have been a hard and fast rule that God was indivisibly one, and not to be divided into three (they assume to be a division of the unity).
3. They saw Tertullian’s new terminology a departure from the oneness of God, having similarity to the pagan gods of the ancient world (the world’s plurality of gods). Tertullian didn’t say it as such, but his “plurality of gods” would have meant the very prominent pagan trinities of the ancient world.
“The Father is that which is invisible about the Son, the Son is that which is visible about the Father…The Father is God revealing himself, and the Son is God revealed.”
“The simple, indeed (I will not call them unwise and unlearned), who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the three in one), on the ground that their Rule of Faith withdraws them from the world’s plurality of gods to the one only true God…The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity, they assume to be a division of the unity,” Against Praxeus, vol. III of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 598,599.
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