McClintock Biblical Encyclopedia: Damianus

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McClintock Biblical Encyclopedia: Damianus


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Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria (t 601), expressed himself on the doctrine of the Trinity in a sense similar to that of Sabellius. He maintained that the divinity ( èåýôçò ) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is an essential characteristic ( ὕðáñîéò ) divided among the three, so that they are God only in their unity, not each one in himself ( êáè᾿ ἑáõôüí ), and that in this unity they constitute the one divine essence ( ìßáí ïὐóßáí êáὶ öýóéí ). His followers were called Damianites, after him, or Angelists, from Angelium, the place where they held their assemblies in Alexandria; their adversaries were called Tetradists ( Ôåôñáäßôáé ), as, going still further than the Tritheists, they acknowledged four gods, namely, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the higher Being, which, in his nature ( öýóåé ) and in himself ( êáè᾿ ἑáõôüí ), is God. — Herzog, Real- Encyklopadie, 3, 263; Mosheim, Ch. History, bk. ii, ch. vi, pt. i, § 4; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, § 96.