PATRIPASSIANS

( A patre pas so. ) A denomination that arose in the second century. Praxeas, a man of genius and learning, denied any real distinction between the Father , Son , and Holy Ghost , and maintained that the Father , sole Creator of all things, had united to himself the human nature of Christ . Hence his followers were called Monarch i ans, because of their denying a plurality of persons in the Deity; and also Patripa ians, because they believed that the Father was so intimately united with the man Christ , his Son , that he suffered with him the anguish of an afflicted life, and the torments of an ignominious death. It does not appear that this sect formed to itself any separate place of worship, or removed from the ordinary a emblies of Christians.