A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Sabellians

SABELLIANS, the disciples of Sabellius, an African bishop (or presbyter) in the third century. He maintained that the Divine Essence subsisted in one person only, namely, the Father; but that a certain energy, or ray of divinity, was united to the man Jesus, and formed the character of the Son of God; while a similar divine emanation—a celestial warmth —constituted the Holy Ghost. This they endeavoured to illustrate by comparing God the Father to the material Sun, the Word, or Son of God, to the light issuing therefrom, and the Holy Spirit to the heat emanating from the same source. His doctrine seems to differ from that of Noetus in this respect, that the latter taught it was the one person of the Deity which acted under the three relative characters, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of mankind; whence his followers were reckoned Patri-passians; but not so the Sabellians, who preserved a sort of distinction between the sacred Three, tho' it was not personal. This system is called an economical or modal trinity, and its believers are called Modalists.

Sabellius had many followers during the age in which he lived; and modifications of his doctrines have subsisted in various succeeding denominations. It is said to be found in the creed of many of the general baptists in the principality of Wales. The Swedenborgians have also been. charged with Sabellianism.