EPIGONO (Ἐπίγονος). - A heretic of the monarchian-modalist tendency, who was active shortly after A.D. 200, together with Noeto di Smirne. He taught that if Christ is God, He is one with the Father; if He suffered, being God, it was the Father who suffered (patripassianism). Insisting on the concept of the unity of God, apart from whom there is no other God, he concluded that if Christ is God, He is God in nature and person, and found grounds for regarding Christ’s Passion as an act, a mode of the Father’s own life.
According to the testimony of Ippolito, E. went to Rome at the beginning of the 3rd century to propagate the heresy of Noeto, founded a patripassian sect whose subsequent leaders were Cleomene and Sabellio. His teaching gave rise to that theological controversy in which he found opponents in Tertulliano and Ippolito.