THEOPHANY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Theophany

... is often by accident that one object or another displays itself as helpful or harmful, just as, in a later and higher form of religious belief, a theophany is often, as to time and place, a matter of accident. Indeed, most manifestations of extrahuman power in the earliest times may be said to come to man incidentally, since he does not generally ...

— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... the other gives but broken hints of an infinity beyond. Instead of destroying Arianism by the roots, Marcellus had fallen into something very like Sabellianism. He reaches no true mediation, no true union of God and man, for he makes the incarnation a mere theophany, the flesh a useless burden, to be one day laid aside. The Lord is our Redeemer and the conqueror of death and Satan, but there is no room for a second Adam, the organic head of regenerate mankind. The redemption becomes a mere intervention from without, not also ...

— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin