Sabellian1
/səˈbɛlɪən
/noun
A member of a group of Oscan-speaking peoples of ancient Italy, including the Sabines and Samnites.The Umbrians lived to the north of the Sabellians; they are said to have been the oldest people of Italy....
- For some time the land had been conquered by second-wave Indoeuropean populations such as a type of Sabellians called Bruttii.
adjective
Relating to the Sabellians.Strictly speaking the Samnite tribes were Sabellian, and their language, Oscan, a Sabellian dialect....
- Using a variety of archaeological and literary sources, Leonardis examines the conflicts between the native Sabellian population of south Italy and the long-established and dominant Greek presence in Magna Graecia.
Origin
From Latin Sabellus + -ian.
Rhymes
Sabellian2
/səˈbɛlɪən/adjective
Relating to the teachings of Sabellius (fl. c.220 in North Africa), who developed a form of the modalist doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not truly distinct but merely aspects of one divine being.On the other hand, the Sabellian heresy loses a proper conception of distinction among the persons by speaking of God as singular, alone, solitary, and the like....
- So while the Sabellian doctrine may preserve a sense in which the nature of Christ can be adequately expressed in ordinary experience-describing language, it is difficult to see how the ‘incarnation strategist’ can resort to it.
- We do not make a Sabellian error simply for the fact that Sabellian modalism is Unitarian, and not Trinitarian.
noun
A follower of the teachings of Sabellius.He was presbyter of the church of Antioch, where he wrote a confession of faith in opposition to the Sabellians....
- Dionysius exemplifies the concern of the East to do greater justice to the distinction and reality of the Three within the One than did the Sabellians or even the other orthodox theologians of the West.
Derivatives
Sabellianism
- To illustrate, the early church heresy of Sabellianism understood John 1: 1c to read, ‘and the Word was the God’; while the early church heresy of Arianism understood John 1: 1c to read, ‘and the word was a God.’
- Sabellianism emphasized the fact that God is one, wrongly concluding that in the Godhead there is a single principle or rule.
- Sabellianism, the doctrine that the Persons of the Trinity are roles that a single divine being plays either simultaneously or successively, is commonly thought to entail that the Father is the Son.