Editing Sabellianism (section)

==Current adherents==
At the Arroyo Seco World Wide Camp Meeting, near Los Angeles, in 1913, [[Canadians|Canadian]] evangelist [[R.E. McAlister]] stated at a baptismal service that the apostles had baptized in the name of Jesus only and not in the triune Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Later that night, John G. Schaeppe, a German immigrant, had a vision of Jesus and woke up the camp shouting that the name of Jesus needed to be glorified. From that point, Frank J. Ewart began requiring that anyone baptized using the Trinitarian formula needed to be rebaptized in the name of Jesus "only".   Support for this position began to spread, along with a belief in one Person in the Godhead, acting in different modes or offices.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Arroyo Seco Camp Meeting - 1913 |url=https://www.apostolicarchives.com/articles/article/8801925/173376.htm |website=Apostolic Archives International |publisher=The M. E. Golder Library and Research Center |access-date=7 November 2020}}</ref>
 
The [[Assemblies of God USA#General Council|General Council of the Assemblies of God]] convened in St. Louis, Missouri in October 1916, to confirm their belief in Trinitarian orthodoxy.  The Oneness camp was faced by a majority who required  acceptance of the Trinitarian baptismal formula and the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity or remove themselves from the denomination.  In the end, about a quarter of the ministers withdrew.<ref>Kerry D. McRoberts, "The Holy Trinity", in Systematic Theology: Revised Edition, ed. Stanley M. Horton (Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 2007), pp. 171–172.</ref>

[[Oneness Pentecostalism]] teaches that God is one Person, and that the Father (a spirit) is united with Jesus (a man) as the Son of God. However, Oneness Pentecostalism differs somewhat by rejecting sequential modalism, and by the full acceptance of the begotten humanity of the Son, not eternally begotten, who was the man Jesus and was born, crucified, and risen, and not the deity.  This directly opposes the pre-existence of the Son as a pre-existent mode, which Sabellianism generally does not oppose.

Oneness Pentecostals believe that Jesus was "Son" only when he became flesh on earth, but was the Father before being made man. They refer to the Father as the "Spirit" and the Son as the "Flesh", but they believe that Jesus and the Father are one essential Person, though operating as different "manifestations" or "modes". Oneness Pentecostals reject the Trinity doctrine, viewing it as pagan and nonscriptural, and hold to the [[Jesus' Name doctrine]] with respect to baptisms. They are often referred to as "Modalists" or [[Jesus' Name doctrine|"Jesus Only"]]. Oneness Pentecostalism can be compared to Sabellianism, or can be described as holding to a form of Sabellianism, as both are [[nontrinitarian]], and as both believe that Jesus was "Almighty God in the Flesh", but they do not totally identify each other.

It cannot be certain whether Sabellius taught [[Modalism]] completely as it is taught today as Oneness doctrine, since only a few fragments of his writings are extant and, therefore, all we have of his teachings comes through the writing of his detractors.<ref>Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1949), 83.</ref>

The following excerpts which demonstrate some of the known doctrinal characteristics of ancient Sabellians may be seen to compare with the doctrines in the modern Oneness movement:

* [[Cyprian]] wrote - "...how, when God the Father is not known, nay, is even blasphemed, can they who among the heretics are said to be baptized in the name of Christ, be judged to have obtained the remission of sins?"<ref>Cyprian of Carthage, "The Epistles of Cyprian," in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), p.383.</ref>
* [[Hippolytus of Rome|Hippolytus]] (A.D. 170–236) referred to them - "And some of these assent to the heresy of the Noetians, and affirm that the Father himself is the Son..."<ref>Hippolytus of Rome, "The Refutation of All Heresies", in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. [[John Henry MacMahon]], vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 123–124.</ref>
* [[Pope Dionysius]], Bishop of Rome from A.D. 259–269 wrote - "Sabellius...blasphemes in saying that the Son Himself is the Father and vice versa."<ref>Dionysius of Rome, "Against the Sabellians", in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily, and Liturgies, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 7, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), p.365.</ref>
* [[Tertullian]] states - "He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into three persons, at each several mention of their names."<ref>Samuel Macauley Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology and Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Biography from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908–1914), p.16.</ref>