Tritheists
TRITHEISTS
A sect of the sixth century, whose chief was John Ascunage, a Syrian philosopher, and at the same time a Monophysite. This man imagined in the Deity three natures or substances absolutely equal in all respects, and joined together by no common essence; to which opinion his adversaries gave the name of Tritheism. One of the warmest defenders of this doctrine was John Philoponus, an Alexandrian philosopher and grammarian of the highest reputation; and hence he has been considered by many as the author of this sect, whose members have consequently derived from him the title of Philoponists. This sect was divided into two parties, the Philoponists and the Cononites; the latter of whom were so called from Conon, bishop of Tarsus, their chief. They agreed in the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead, and differed only in their manner of explaining what the Scriptures taught concerning the resurrection of the body. Philoponus maintained, that the form as well as the matter of all bodies was generated, and corrupted, and that both, therefore, were to be restored in the resurrection. Conon held, on the contrary, that the body never lost its form; that its matter alone was subject to corruption and decay, and was consequently to be restored when this mortal shall put on immortality.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Tritheists
(TRITHEITES).
Heretics who divide the Substance of the Blessed Trinity.
(1) Those who are usually meant by the name were a section of the Monophysites, who had great influence in the second half of the sixth century, but have left no traces save a few scanty notices in John of Ephesus, Photus, Leontius, etc. Their founder is said to be a certain John Ascunages, head of a Sophist school at Antioch. But the principal writer was John Philoponus, the great Aristotelean commentator. The leaders were two bishops, Conon of Tarsus and Eugenius of Seleucia in Isauria, who were deposed by their comprovinicals and took refuge at Constantinople. There they found a powerful convert and protector in Athanasius the Monk, a grandson of the Empress Theodora. Philoponus dedicated to him a book on the Trinity. The old philosopher pleaded his infirmities when he was summoned by Justinian to the Court to give an account of his teaching. But Conon and Eugenius had to dispute in the reign of Justin II (565-78) in the presence of the Catholic patriarch, John Scholasticus (565-77), with two champions of the moderate Monophysite party, Stephen and Paul, the latter afterwards Patriarch of Antioch. The Tritheist bishops refused to anathematize Philoponus, and brought proofs that he agreed with Severus and Theodosius. They were banished to Palestine, and Philoponus wrote a book against John Scholasticus, who had given his verdict in favour of his adversaries. But he developed a theory of his own as to the Resurrection (see EUTYCHIANISM) on account of which Conon and Eugenius wrote a treatise against him in collaboration with Themistus, the founder of the Agnoctae, in which they declared his views to be altogether unchristian. The two bishops together with a deprived bishop named Theonas proceeded to consecrate bishops for their sect, which they established in Corinth and Athens, in Rome and Africa, and in the Western Patriarchate, while their agents travelled through Syria and Cilicia, Isauria and Cappadocia, converting whole districts, and ordaining priests and deacons in cities villages, and monasteries. Eugenius died in Pamphylia; Conon returned to Constantinople. We are assured by Leontius that it was the Aristoteleanism of Philoponus which 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 heresy 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.
(2) In the Middle Ages Roscellin of Compiegne, the founder of Nominalism, argued, just like Philoponus, that unless the Three Persons are tres res, then the whole Trinity must have been incarnate. He was refuted by St. Anselm.
(3) Among Catholic writers, Pierre Faydit, who was expelled from the Oratory at Paris in 1671 for disobedience and died in 1709, fell into the error of Tritheism in his “Eclaireissements sur la doctrine et Phistoire ecclésiastiqes des deux premiers siecles” (Paris, 1696), in which he tried to make out that the earliest Fathers were Tritheists. He was replied to by the Premonstratensian Abbot Louis-Charles Hugo (“Apologie du système des Saints Pères sur la Trinité,” Luxemburg, 1699). A canon of Trèves named Oembs, who was infected with the doctrines of the “Enlightenment”, similarly attributed to the Fathers his own view of three similar natures in the Trinity, calling the numerical unity of God an invention of the Scholastics. His book, “Opuscula de Deo Uno et Trino” (Mainz, 1789), was condemned by Pius VII in a Brief of 14 July, 1804. Gunther is also accused of Tritheism.
(4) Among Protestants, Heinrich Nicolai (d. 1660), a professor at Dantzig and at Elbing (not to be confounded with the founder of the Familisten), is cited. The best known is William Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul’s, whose “Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity” (London, 1690) against the Socinians was attacked by Robert South in “Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock’s Vindication” (1693). Sherlock’s work is said to have made William Manning a Socinian and Thomas Emlyn an Arian, and the dispute was ridiculed in a skit entitled “The Battle Royal”, attributed to William Pittis (1694?), which was translated into Latin at Cambridge. Joseph Bingham, author of the “Antiquities”, preached at Oxford in 1695 a sermon which was considered to represent the Fathers as Tritheists, and it was condemned by the Hebdomadal Council as falsa, impia et haeretica, the scholar being driven from Oxford.
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For bibliography see MONOPHYSITES.
JOHN CHAPMAN Transcribed by Michael T. Barrett Dedicated to Fr. Michael Sprauer
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Tritheists
a sect which appeared in the 6th century, and which taught that the Father, Son, and Spirit were three coequal, distinct Beings, united by one. common will and purpose. This sect was divided into the Philoponists and Cononites, according to the names of their respective leaders, who agreed in the doctrine of the three Persons in the Godhead, but differed in’ some opinions concerning the resurrection of the body. Having made this change in the doctrine of the Trinity, they made another change answerable to it in the form of baptism-baptizing in the name of three unoriginated principles, as three Sons; three Paracletes. As a consequence of asserting three unbegotten principles, they made three Fathers, three Sons, and three Holy Ghosts, which was a Trinity of trinities.
Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. c. 16) attributes the origin of Tritheism in its broadest form to Marcion, and Hilary (De Synod. 22:56) associates it with the heresy of Photinus. The Tritheists of the 6th century did not hold the opinion in its broad form, and would have shrunk from any such statement as that there are three Gods. The Tritheism of the 6th century was revived by Roscelin in the 11th, and his Nominalistic opinion that the name God is the abstract idea of a genus containing the three Persons called Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was opposed by Anselm (De Fide Trinitat. etc.), and was condemned by the Council of Sessions, A.D. 1092. In 1691 the heresy was revived by Dr. Sherlock (A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever blessed Trinity). In a sermon delivered before the University of Oxford (1695), the preacher maintained the theory of Dr. Sherlock that there are three infinite distinct minds and substances in the Trinity, and that the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct infinite minds or spirits, and three individual substances. These propositions were condemned by the authorities of the university. The speculation of Hutchinson in the last century was very similar in its logical consequences to that of the older Tritheists. See Bingham, Christ. Antiq. bk. 11:ch. 3, 4; Blunt, Dict. of Sects, s.v.