nor. After having acquired much credit by his fortitude and courage in
a time of persecution, he had also signalised himself by his zeal
against the Montanists. He now taught that the Son and Holy Ghost are
not distinct Persons, but simply modes or energies of the Father; and as
those who adopted his sentiments imagined that they thus held more
strictly than others the doctrine of the existence of a single Ruler of
the universe, they styled themselves _Monarchians_. [456:1] According to
their views the first and second Persons of the Godhead are identical;
and, as it apparently followed from this theory, that the Father
suffered on the cross, they received the name of _Patripassians_.
[456:2] Praxeas travelled from Asia Minor to Rome, and afterwards passed
over into Africa, where he was strenuously opposed by the famous
Tertullian. Another individual, named Noetus, attracted some notice
about the close of the second century by the peculiarity of his
speculations in reference to the Godhead. "Noetus," says a contemporary,
"calls the same both Son and Father, for he speaks thus--'When the
Father had not been born, He was rightly called Father, but when it
pleased Him to undergo birth, then by birth He became the Son of
Himself, and not of another.' Thus he professes to establish the
principle of Monarchianism." [456:3] But, perhaps, the attempts of
Sabellius to modify the established doctrine made the deepest
impression. This man, who was an ecclesiastic connected with Ptolemais
in Africa, [456:4] maintained that there is no foundation for the
ordinary distinction of the Persons of the Trinity, and that the terms
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, merely indicate different manifestations
of the Supreme Being, or different phases under which the one God
reveals Himself. From him the doctrine of those who confound the Persons
of the Godhead still bears the name of Sabellianism.

It has been sometimes said that the Church borrowed its idea of a
Trinity from Plato, but this assertion rests upon no historical basis.
Learned men have found it exceedingly difficult to give anything like an
intelligible account of the Trinity of the Athenian philosopher, [457:1]
and it seems to have had only a metaphysical existence. It certainly had
nothing more than a fanciful and verbal resemblance to the Trinity of
Christianity. Had the doctrine of the Church been derived from the
writings of the Grecian sage, it would not have been inculcated with