Where did modalism originate?

Where did modalism originate?

Before answering that specific question, it would probably be helpful to define what modalism is. Stephen Nichols, in his excellent book For Us and For Our Salvation: The Doctrine of Christ in the Early Church, gives us this helpful definition:

Modalism is a “heretical view that denies the individual persons of the Trinity. [It] views biblical terminology of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as merely modes of existence or manifestations of the one God” (p. 153).

As for where it started, an early third-century teacher from Rome named Sabellius is generally credited with popularizing the view. For that reason, modalism is sometimes called Sabellianism. However, as Gregg Allison explains (in his excellent Historical Theology), modalism was first “introduced by Praxeas in Rome, articulated by Noetus of Smyrna and his disciples Zephyrinus and Callistus (both bishops of Rome), and popularized by Sabellius” (p. 235).

Also known as “modalistic monarchianism,” this heretical view

… held that there is one God who can be designated by three different names—‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit’—at different times, but these three are not distinct persons. Instead they are different modes (thus, modalism) of the one God. Thus, God can be called ‘Father’ as the Creator of the world and Lawgiver; he can be called ‘Son’ as God incarnate in Jesus Christ; and he can be called ‘Holy Spirit’ as God in the church age. Accordingly, Jesus Christ is God and the Spirit is God, but they are not distinct persons. (Ibid., 235–36).

Modalism (a.k.a. Sabellianism) was soundly condemned by the orthodox church—even before the doctrine of the Trinity was defended at the Council of Nicaea. For example, second and third-century church leaders like Tertullian (160–220), Origen (184–254), Dionysius (3rd century), and others clearly denounced it.

Since the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), modalism has been universally understood by every major branch of Christianity as heretical—falling outside the boundaries of theological orthodoxy. The Council of Constantinople, for example, explicitly condemned and anathematized “the Sabellians” in both Canon I and VII. The Athanasian Creed adds this:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic [universal] faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.

(Importantly, as a side note, the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople did not invent the doctrine of the Trinity; rather, they defended and articulated what orthodox Christians had always believed, from the time of the apostles. It is critical to remember that the doctrine of the Trinity is established in Scripture, not church history. The early councils merely affirmed the biblical teaching in the face of heretical attack.)

Thus, to arbitrarily discard the Nicene Creed is to place oneself outside of historic Christian orthodoxy. As Carl Trueman rightly explains in this post,

To place Nicene orthodoxy in the category of over-scrupulous doctrinal precisianism is, in effect, to declare the entire church (except for strands of American evangelicalism, apparently) from 381 to the present day to be wrong-headed. True catholic Christianity has always regarded Nicene orthodoxy as vital. An evangelicalism which argues for the basic irrelevance of such is simply not part of that catholic tradition; rather than being generously connected to other believers, it effectively isolates itself from the mainstream Christian tradition.