Monarchianism

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Monarchianism. A Christian understanding of God, of the 2nd–3rd cents. Concerned to uphold monotheism and the unity (‘monarchy’) of God, it was condemned as heretical for threatening the independence of the Son. The modalist monarchians held that within the Godhead there was no difference of persons, only a succession of transitory modes of operation. Modern scholars also speak of those adoptianists who held that Christ was a mere man, endued with God's power at his baptism, as ‘dynamic’ monarchians.

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