(e) Formula Macrostichos, in Socrates. Hist. Ec., II, 19. (MSG, 67:229.)
In the Arian controversy several councils were held at Antioch in the endeavor to bring about a reconciliation of the parties. At the third council of Antioch, A. D. 345, the elaborate Formula Macrostichos was put forth, in which the council attempted to steer a middle course between the Sabellians, who identified the Father and the Son, and the extreme Arians, who made the Son a creature. Text may also be found in Hahn, op. cit., § 159.
Those who say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same person, impiously understanding the three names to refer to one and the same person, we expel with good reason from the Church, because by the incarnation they subject the Father, who is infinite and incapable of suffering, to finitude and suffering in the incarnation. Such are those called Patripassianists by the Romans and Sabellians by us.
(f) Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, IV, 9, 25. (MSG, 26:480, 505.)
For Athanasius, v. infra, [§ 65, c]. Of the four Orations against the Arians, attributed to Athanasius and placed between the years 356 and 362, doubts have been raised against the genuineness of the fourth. The following quotations are, in any case, valuable as setting forth the Sabellian position. But the case against the fourth oration has not been conclusively proved. In the passage from ch. 25 the statement is that of the Sabellians, not of Athanasius.
Ch. 9. If, again, the One have two names, this is the expedient of Sabellius, who said that Son and Father were the same and did away with both, the Father when there is a Son, and the Son when there is a Father.…
Ch. 25. “As there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit, so also the Father is the same, but is dilated into Son and Spirit.”
(g) Athanasius, Expositio fidei. (MSG, 25:204.)
For the critical questions regarding this little work of uncertain date see PNF, ser. II, vol. VI, p. 83.
For neither do we hold a Son-father, as do the Sabellians, calling Him of one but not of the same essence, and thus destroying the existence of the Son.