In Christian theology, patripassianism is the view that God the Father suffers (from Latin patri- "father" and passio "suffering"). Its adherents believe that God the Father was incarnate and suffered on the cross and that whatever happened to the Son happened to the Father and so the Father co-suffered with the human Jesus on the cross. This view is opposed to the classical theological doctrine of divine apathy. According to classical theology it is possible for Christ to suffer only in virtue of his human nature. The divine nature is incapable of suffering. Classical theology is heavily influenced by Greek metaphysics and especially Neo-Platonic and Stoic conceptions of God. As a result, there is considerable debate among Christian theologians as to how much of classical theology is actually required for Christian orthodoxy. The early church considered patripassianism to be heresy.
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Patripassianism, to those that adhere to a belief in the Trinity, is problematic because they maintain, according to Biblical references concerning Jesus Christ as speaking to God the Father, while he was on the cross, as proof that the two are separate. It is also problematic for any that hold to the impassibility and immutability of the divine, as it implies that God the Father can suffer.
Patripassionism began in the third century AD. Patripassionism was referred to as a belief ascribed to those following Sabellianism, after its founder Sabellius, especially by the chief opponent Tertullian. Sabellius, considered a founder of an early movement, was a priest who was excommunicated from the Church by Pope Callixtus I in 220 and lived in Rome. Sabellius advanced the doctrine of one God sometimes referred to as “economic Trinity” and he opposed the Orthodox doctrine of the “essential Trinity”. Praxeus and Noetus were some major followers. Tertullian may have authored the term Patripassionism but was certainly a chief opponent of Modalism or the belief in one God with different modes. Therefore, opponents such as Tertullian advanced the idea that the Father co-suffers with the human Jesus.
Because the writings of Sabellius were destroyed it is hard to know if he did actually believe in Patripassianism but one early version of the Apostles' Creed, recorded by Rufinus, explicitly states that the Father is 'impassible.' This reading dates to about 390 AD. This addition was made in response to patripassianism, which Rufinus evidently regarded as a heresy.[1]
Cyprian and Tertullian famously accused the Modalistic Monarchians of patripassianism.[2] The Monarchians taught the unity of the Godhead in Christ and that as the Son suffered the Father also experienced the sufferings. They did not teach that the Father died on the cross, though they were sometimes accused of this.
This term has been used by others such as F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Accessed via Oxford Reference Online August 21, 2009.</ref> to describe other Oneness religions.
Oneness Pentecostalism has been associated with patripassianism. According to Dr. Gary Reckart, Sr. an Apostolic Messianic: "If as Oneness believe, that God the Father was incarnate in Christ, which Jesus confessed ("it is the Father in me that doeth the work"), the Father was in Christ during all of the sufferings and being nailed to the cross. Thus the Father did suffer or experience the sufferings of the Son up to the time the Father departed from the body". Oneness Pentecostals have the belief that those that make statements like Dr. Reckart, the assumption that God the Father, a divine spirit becoming flesh (Jesus Christ the Son), would have to feel pain, is advancing a supposition much like Tertullian and other opponents of a Oneness doctrine. Dr. Reckart emphasizes that Oneness do not believe (as also the ancient patripassians did not) that the Father died on the cross as the Son, nor that the Father died to replace the death of the Son.
There are no known examples of any direct writings of Oneness Pentecostals ascribing to the belief of Patripassianism.