The error of Praxeas appears to have originated in anxiety to maintain the unity of God; which, he thought, could only be done by saying that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were one and the same. He contended, therefore, according to Tertullian, that the Father himself descended into the virgin, was born of her, suffered, and was in a word Jesus Christ. From the most startling of the deductions from Praxeas' general theory, his opponents gave him and his followers the name of Patripassians; from another point in his teaching they were called Monarchians. [Probable date not earlier than a.d. 208]. ↩

[Elucidation I.] ↩