Damianus

Damianus 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 (θεύτης) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is an essential characteristic (ὕπαρξις) divided among the three, so that they are God only in their unity, not each one in himself (καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν), and that in this unity they constitute the one divine essence (μίαν οὐσίαν καὶ φύσιν). 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 (Τετραδίται), 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 (φύσει) and in himself (καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν), is God. — Herzog, Real- Encyklopadie, 3, 263; Mosheim, Ch. History, bk. ii, ch. vi, pt. i, § 4; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, § 96.