Note 2 — BOOK IX NOETUS, CALLISTUS, AND OTHERS

This Noetus, whom Epiphanius (Haer., LVII) would make a native of Ephesus, possibly by confusion with the Praxeas against whom Tertullian wrote, was one of the first to teach the heresy called Patripassian, which made the Father as well as the Son to suffer on the Cross. His date is uncertain, but he was “not very long” dead when Hippolytus wrote (see Hippolytus’ Tractate against Noetus in Gallandi, Bibl. Vet. Patr. II, p. 454), and the seeds of the heresy seem to have been sown in the time of Justin Martyr. It was undoubtedly Eastern in origin and passed in Rome chiefly under the name of Sabellius. Hippolytus was evidently its greatest opponent there, Zephyrinus and Callistus maintaining a more tolerant attitude towards it, until the last-named Pope was compelled to excommunicate Sabellius. See Salmon’s articles in D.C.B., s.n.n. “Noetus,” “Praxeas,” “Epigonus” and “Cleomenes,” and Mr. Hugh Pope’s article on “Monarchian” in Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.