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Concept
Tritheism
Summary
Tritheism (from Greek τριθεΐα, "three divinity") is a nontrinitarian Christian heresy in which the unity of the Trinity and thus monotheism are denied. It represents more a "possible deviation" than any actual school of thought positing three separate deities. It was usually "little more than a hostile label" applied to those who emphasized the individuality of each hypostasis or divine person—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—over the unity of the Trinity as a whole. The accusation was especially popular between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD.
In the history of Christianity, various theologians have been accused of lapsing into tritheism. Among the earliest were the monophysites John Philoponos (died c. 570) and his followers, such as Eugenios and Konon of Tarsos. They taught that the common nature of the Trinity is an abstraction, so that while the three persons are consubstantial they are distinct in their properties. Their view was an attempt to reconcile Aristotle with Christianity. This view, which was defended by Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, was condemned as tritheism at a synod in Alexandria in 616. It was again condemned as tritheism at the third council of Constantinople in 680–81.
In Late Antiquity, several heretical movements criticized Orthodoxy as equivalent to tritheism. The Sabellians, Monarchians and Pneumatomachoi labelled their opponents tritheists. Jews and Muslims frequently criticized Trinitarianism as merely dressed-up tritheism (see Islamic view of the Trinity). Groups accused by the orthodox of tritheism include the Anomoeans and Nestorians.
In the Middle Ages, the scholastic Roscelin was accused of tritheism. He was an extreme nominalist who saw the three divine persons as separately existing. He was condemned as a tritheist at the synod of Soissons in or about 1092. The realist scholastic Gilbert de la Porrée erred in the opposite direction, by distinguishing between three divine beings and the essence of God (making a quaternity rather than a trinity), and was accused of tritheism.
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