It was again condemned as tritheism at the third council of Constantinople in 680–81. In Late Antiquity, several heretical movements criticized Orthodoxy as equivalent to tritheism. The Sabellians, Monarchians and Pneumatomachoi labelled their opponents tritheists. Jews and Muslims frequently criticized Trinitarianism as merely dressed-up tritheism (see Islamic view of the Trinity).. Groups accused by the orthodox of tritheism include the Anomoeans and Nestorians.
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In the Middle Ages, the scholastic Roscelin was accused of tritheism. He was an extreme nominalist who saw the three divine persons as separately existing. He was condemned as a tritheist at the synod of Soissons in or about 1092. The realist scholastic Gilbert de la Porrée erred in the opposite direction, by distinguishing between three divine beings and the essence of God (making a quaternity rather than a trinity), and was accused of tritheism.
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Tritheism (from Greek τριθεΐα, "three divinity") is a nontrinitarian Christian heresy in which the unity of the Trinity and thus monotheism are denied. It represents more a "possible deviation" than any actual school of thought positing three separate deities.. It was usually "little more than a hostile label". applied to those who emphasized the individuality of each hypostasis or divine person—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—over the unity of the Trinity as a whole. The accusation was especially popular between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD. In the history of Christianity, various theologians have been accused of lapsing into tritheism.
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Anton Günther Anton Günther (17 November 1783, Lindenau, Bohemia (now part of Cvikov, Czech Republic) - 24 February 1863, Vienna) was an Austrian Roman Catholic philosopher whose work was condemned by the church as heretical tritheism. His work has been described as Liberal Catholicism and Vienna's first Catholic political movement.
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To Theodore's surprise, Antoninus renounced tritheism, and was supported by Elias, but neither of the two bishops broke off from the tritheist faction. After several years, the tritheists Elias and Theodore met with Peter on behalf of Conon of Tarsus and Antoninus to again discuss the patriarch's demands for their reunion. At the meeting's conclusion, Elias and Theodore accepted Peter's main conditions, and it was agreed they would write to the other tritheists at Constantinople to consult them before a union was formalised. A few days later, Peter received the delegation's reply and a letter from Elias declaring an end to talks of union as Conon and Antoninus refused to condemn proponents of tritheism.
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' He made galling references to Sherlock's career, 'tainted with a conventicle' at the outset; vehemently assailed his earlier writings as heterodox on the doctrine of atonement, and maintained his 'new notion' of the Trinity to be tritheistic; an opinion reiterated in his 'Tritheism Charged upon Dr Sherlock's New Notion of the Trinity, and the Charge Made Good (1695). The anonymity of these attacks was transparent. It is not certain that South was the translator of A Short History of Valentinus Gentilis the Tritheist (1696) from the Latin of Benedict Aretius; the dedication to the hierarchy is in his manner, and there is a reference to Gentilis in Tritheism Charged. p. 47\. South's position is mainly that of Wallis; but he chiefly devotes learning and to demolishing Sherlock.
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It is also suggested that he was consecrated at the monastery of Gubo Baroyo near Cyrrhus. After his consecration, Peter sent a letter to Damian to confirm their churches were in communion, and included a refutation of tritheism. Damian responded with a letter to Peter to give his official endorsement, and enthusiastically praised the new patriarch of Antioch.
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His book Opuscula de Deo Uno et Trino (Mainz, 1789), was condemned by Pius VII in a Brief of 14 July 1804. # The Bohemian Jesuit philosopher Anton Günther was also accused of tritheism, leading to his work ending up on the Index librorum. # Among Protestants, Heinrich Nicolai (d. 1660), a professor at Danzig and at Elbing (not to be confounded with the founder of Familia Caritatis), is cited.
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Julian was born in the 6th century, and became a monk at the Monastery of Qenneshre, where he likely learnt Greek. He served as syncellus (secretary) to Patriarch Peter III, and was elected as his successor as patriarch in 591. It is suggested that Julian was opposed to the doctrine of tritheism, like the Patriarch Peter, and this may have influenced his election. He was consecrated by the bishop John of Tella.
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Imaginal worlds, William Chiittick(1994), pg.53Souad Hakim – Unity of Being in Ibn 'ArabîIbn al-'Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (1164–1240) In Alevism, Muhammed is the means by which the Nasut (human nature) of the Avlioh (Saints) achieve ittihad (communion) with Haqq being the Lahut (divine nature) of Allah. It has more in common with theosis and the distinction and unity of the divine and human physes in orthodox Christology than it does with any kind of tritheism.
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Among the earliest were the monophysites John Philoponos (died c. 570) and his followers, such as Eugenios and Konon of Tarsos. They taught that the common nature of the Trinity is an abstraction, so that while the three persons are consubstantial they are distinct in their properties.. Their view was an attempt to reconcile Aristotle with Christianity. This view, which was defended by Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, was condemned as tritheism at a synod in Alexandria in 616.
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Upon his ascension to the patriarchal office, Peter became remorseful that he had agreed to become patriarch whilst its previous incumbent still lived, travelled to Alexandria with the theologians Probus and archimandrite John Barbour, and offered his resignation to Damian in an effort to reunite the Paulites and Jacobites. Damian refused Peter's offer, and Paul may have died soon after, thus bringing an end to the split between the two factions, however, it is alternatively asserted that Paul instead died in 584, suggesting the schism endured for several more years. Peter returned to Syria, whereas his companions Probus and John Barbour decided to remain at Alexandria as they had become disgruntled with Peter for not consecrating them as bishops. In 582, Peter met with the Cilician tritheist bishops Antoninus and Elias and archimandrite Theodore to discuss their reunion with the Syrian non-Chalcedonians under Peter, and he asserted that he would only assent to this if they renounced tritheism and its proponents, namely John Philoponus, and accepted the denunciation of tritheism as expressed in the aforementioned synodal letters of Peter and Damian, and the treatise of Pope Theodosius I of Alexandria.
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According to Pasqually’s teachings, Jesus Christ is the uncreated Word of God through whom the world is created. He is the King of Glory, and the Great Architect of the Universe, who is worshiped by Freemasons in their lodges. However, there is no indication in the Treatise that Pasqually accepted an orthodox Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. Moreover, judging by the fact that Pasqually was a convinced monotheist, it is likely that the Holy Trinity, precisely in the aspect of tritheism, was rejected by him.
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Peter's failure to end the dispute with Damian even after he had followed him to Egypt led him to write a treatise later named Contra Damianum ("Against Damian") to provide an account of the dispute between the two patriarchs. The treatise served as a defence against Damian's accusations of sabellianism and tritheism, and at its end Peter declared an end to the communion with Damian, thus officially marking the schism between the Syrian and Egyptian non-Chalcedonian churches. Peter later died of natural causes on 22 April 591, and was buried at the monastery of Gubo Baroyo.
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Encyclopædia Britannica: Monarchianism The term Monarchianism derives from the Greek word meaning "a single principle of authority", and monarchians were concerned with defending the absolute unity of God against ideas such as the Trinity, which they feared would lead to tritheism. Monarchians were opposed by Logos theologians (Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria), and gradually the Trinitarian view gained prominence and was adopted at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.The SCM Press A-Z of Patristic Theology, entry Monarchianism, p. 227 Monarchianism was generally considered a heresy after the 4th century.
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They consider God to be a triune entity, called the Trinity, comprising the three "Persons"; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, described as being "of the same substance" (). The true nature of an infinite God, however, is commonly described as beyond definition, and the word 'person' is an imperfect expression of the idea. Some critics contend that because of the adoption of a tripartite conception of deity, Christianity is a form of tritheism or polytheism. This concept dates from Arian teachings which claimed that Jesus, having appeared later in the Bible than his Father, had to be a secondary, lesser, and therefore distinct god.
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Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism).
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Leontius assures that the Aristotelianism of Philoponus made him teach that there are in the Holy Trinity three partial substances (merikai ousiai, ikikai theotetes, idiai physeis) and one common. The genesis of the doctrine has been explained (for the first time) under MONOPHYSITES, where an account of Philoponus's writings and those of Stephen Gobarus, another member of the sect, will be found. #John Philoponus, an Aristotelian and monophysite in Alexandria about the middle of the sixth century, was charged with tritheism because he saw in the Trinity as separated three natures, substances and deities, according to the number of divine persons. He sought to justify this view by the Aristotelian categories of genus, species and individuum.
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Paul took refuge at the encampment of the non-Chalcedonian Ghassanid King Al-Harith ibn Jabalah in Arabia before returning to Constantinople. The tritheist controversy surfaced amongst the non-Chalcedonians in 567, and the situation deteriorated until the tritheist advocates Conon of Tarsus and Eugenius of Seleucia were deposed and excommunicated in 569. Paul came under criticism for his opposition to tritheism, and its proponents claimed he was opposed by Jacob Baradaeus and Theodore of Arabia, to which they responded by formally reaffirming their support for him. In 570, the tritheists appealed to the Emperor Justin, and he arranged for a disputation to be held under the auspices of the Chalcedonian Patriarch John Scholasticus of Constantinople.
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It was mainly under the influence of the Cappadocian Fathers that the terminology was clarified and standardized so that the formula "three hypostases in one ousia" came to be accepted as an epitome of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Specifically, Basil of Caesarea argues that the two terms are not synonymous and that they, therefore, are not to be used indiscriminately in referring to the godhead. He writes: This consensus, however, was not achieved without some confusion at first in the minds of Western theologians since in the West the vocabulary was different. Many Latin-speaking theologians understood hypo-stasis as "sub- stantia" (substance); thus when speaking of three "hypostases" in the godhead, they might suspect three "substances" or tritheism.
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In c. 586, the formerly cordial relationship between Peter and Damian was soured by theological controversy, and ultimately led to schism between their two churches that would endure until its resolution in 616. However, the origins of this quarrel is obscured by the partisanship of the available sources. The Egyptian sources, the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Synaxaire Arabe-Jacobite, support Damian, and subsequently attest that the dispute had begun with Peter's synodal letter to Damian, in which he had allegedly declared it was unnecessary to speak of the Trinity, thereby constituting an accusation of the heresy of sabellianism, but had also supported the division of the Trinity, thus suggesting he supported tritheism, which was theologically opposed to sabellianism.
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The Roman government attempted to hinder the non-Chalcedonian revival and imprison Jacob, however, in his travels he wore a disguise and thus became known as Burde'ana, "man in ragged clothes", from which the sobriquet "Baradaeus" is derived. Jacob ordained Sergius bar Karya as Bishop of Harran and Sergius of Tella as Patriarch of Antioch in 544. After Sergius of Tella's death in 547, with Eugenius, Jacob ordained Paul as Patriarch of Antioch in 550. Differences between Jacob and Eugenius and Conon later emerged and Jacob anathematised the pair for their adherence to Tritheism, and they anathematised Jacob on the accusation of adherence to Sabellianism. In 553, Emperor Justinian I convened the Second Council of Constantinople in an attempt to unite Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians.
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He then composed a series of dialogues on the nature of truth, free will, and the fall of Satan. When the nominalist Roscelin attempted to appeal to the authority of Lanfranc and Anselm at his trial for the heresy of tritheism at Soissons in 1092, Anselm composed the first draft of De Fide Trinitatis as a rebuttal and as a defence of Trinitarianism and universals. The fame of the monastery grew not only from his intellectual achievements, however, but also from his good example and his loving, kindly method of discipline—particularly with the younger monks—and from his spirited defence of the abbey's independence from lay and archiepiscopal control, protecting it from the influence of both the new Archbishop of Rouen and the Earl of Leicester.
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In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 1, chapter 13 Calvin attacks those in the Reformation family who while they confess ‘that there are three [divine] persons’ speak of the Father as ‘the essence giver’ as if he were ‘truly and properly the sole God’. This he says, ‘definitely cast[s] the Son down from his rank.’ This is because it implies that the Father is God in a way the Son is not. Modern scholars are agreed that this was a sixteenth century form of what today is called, ‘subordinationism’. Richard Muller says Calvin recognised that what his opponents were teaching ‘amounted to a radical subordination of the second and third persons, with the result that the Father alone is truly God.’ Ellis adds that this teaching also implied tritheism, three separate Gods.
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Roscelin considered the three Divine Persons as three independent beings, like three angels; if usage permitted, he added, it might truly be said that there are three Gods. Otherwise, he continued, God the Father and God the Holy Ghost would have become incarnate with God the Son. To retain the appearance of dogma he admitted that the three Divine Persons had but one will and power [Audio ... quod Roscelinus clericus dicit in tres personas esse tres res ab invicem separatas, sicut sunt tres angeli, ita tamen ut una sit voluntas et potestas aut Patrem et Spiritum sanctum esse incarnatum; et tres deos vere posse dici si usus admitteret (letter of Anselm to Foulques)]. This characteristic tritheism, which Anselm and Abelard agreed in refuting even after its author's conversion, seems an indisputable application of Roscelin's anti-Realism.
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In 610 or 616/617, Athanasius and five bishops travelled to Alexandria in Egypt after receiving a letter from the Coptic Pope Anastasius of Alexandria written in the hope of restoring relations. The Syriac and Coptic churches, although both non-Chalcedonian, had been in schism as a consequence of the dispute over the issue of tritheism between Patriarch Peter III and Pope Damian of Alexandria in the late 6th century. Athanasius and his companions, including the bishops Paul of Edessa, Paul of Tella, and Thomas of Mabbogh, met with Anastasius at a monastery near Alexandria, as non- Chalcedonians were forbidden from entering the city, and discussions were held to end the schism. Under the auspices of Nicetas, governor of Egypt, Paul of Tella and Thomas of Mabbogh represented Athanasius in discussions with the Coptic representatives, and eventually an agreement was reached and the schism between the churches was ended.
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Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1974) art. "Monotheism" which believes in a God revealed in three different persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the position of some Jews and Muslims who contend that because of the adoption of a Triune conception of deity, Christianity is actually a form of Tritheism or Polytheism, for example see Shituf or Tawhid. However, the central doctrine of Christianity is that "one God exists in Three Persons and One Substance".Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1974) art. "Trinity, Doctrine of the" Strictly speaking, the doctrine is a revealed mystery which while above reason is not contrary to it. The word 'person' is an imperfect translation of the original term "hypostasis". In everyday speech "person" denotes a separate rational and moral individual, possessed of self- consciousness, and aware of individual identity despite changes.
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Roscellinus seems to have put forward this doctrine in perfect good faith, and to have claimed for it at first the authority of Lanfranc and Anselm. In 1092/1093, however, a council convoked at Soissons by the archbishop of Reims condemned his interpretation, and Roscellinus, who was accused of tritheism, recanted the doctrines attributed to him, but only out of fear of excommunication and even stoning to death by the orthodox populace, for later he returned to his early theories. He fled to England, but having made himself unpopular by an attack on the doctrines of Anselm, he left the country and repaired to Rome, where he was well received and became reconciled to the Catholic Church. He then returned to France, taught at Tours and Loc-menach (Loches) in France (where he had Abelard as a pupil), and finally became canon of Besançon.
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It is claimed that Peter had ignored a treatise from Damian that had informed him of his errors. On the other hand, the Syrian sources, including Peter's letters and the histories of Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus, favour Peter, and record the dispute had begun after Damian had written an anti-tritheist book in response to a tritheist tract, and sent it to Peter to be examined and correct any errors. Peter's reply to Damian gave praise of his refutation of tritheism, but also noted that he may have deviated from the doctrine that had been established by the Cappadocian Fathers, Cyril of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, and Pope Theodosius I of Alexandria, and asked that he clarified several points. Damian resented Peter's request, and claimed that he had rejected his work out of envy, thus prompting Peter to assemble a synod, which compiled and conveyed a text to Damian to reply to his claims.
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