Folia Theologica et Canonica 4. 26/18 (2015)
SACRA THEOLOGIA - László Perendy, God’s impassibility and His compassio in Chrisin the patristic tradition
68 LÁSZLÓ PERENDY thodox writers taught that impassibility does not prevent God from acting on the created world, but at the same time it prevents us from attributing him emotions without certain qualifications. So they defended the faith of the church that Christ was really suffering, and they expressed this faith in so-called Theo- paschite formulas, which sounded sometimes very daring. As a result, they defended the faith of the church in the personal unity of God's incarnate Son. In Gavrilyuk's opinion4“, however, there was no consensus patrum yet about the restrictions with which God can be said to have suffered. This set of problems appears evident only in the struggle against the heresy which is called Patripas- sianisnr" in the West, and Sabellianism40 41 42 in the East. The contemporary sources are quite scanty about this movement, and in the works of its opponents these ideas appear in an exaggerated way. In Tertul- lian’s account a priest from Asia Minor, Noetus “crucified the Father’’43, because in his mind the words ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are only names, which mean only the various and subsequent modes of existence of the same person, i.e. God. Hippolytus also criticized Noetus for confusing the Father and the Son44, and he demonstrated the correct doctrine by a careful analysis of numerous biblical passages. Later, already as a schismatic, Hippolytus attacked also Pope Callixtus for his view about the Holy Trinity. He objects to the use of the following expression: tóv narépa ovpnenovOévca tS> vim.4S It is interesting that in about 213, also already outside the church, Tertullian blames Praxeas, whom he accuses of Patripassianism. because he said this: Pater compassus estfilio,46 Both Hippolytus and Tertullian make it appear that these authors allege that the passion of the Son affected the Father himself. However, with a careful analysis R. E. Heine47 demonstrates that the expression ovpnáQeia is one of the terms of the martyrologies. but it is also one of the technical expressions of Stoic psychology. In the acts of martyrs it has the following meaning: Christ is suffering together with the martyrs in the sense that he gives them strength. The Stoic expression does not mean, either, that the suffering of the body would redouble in the soul. It rather refers to the fact that both the soul and the body, either of them according to its own nature, reacts to the changes going on in the other. Tertullian is not right, either, that he does not distinguish between the meaning of compassio, and that of passió. So, applying 40 Gavrilyuk, P. L., The Suffering of the Impassible God, 89-90. 41 Cf. Slusser, M., The Scope of Patripassianism, in Studia Patristica 17/1 (1982) 169-175. 42 Athanasius, De synodis, 7 43 Tertullianus, Adversus Praxean, 1. 44 Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, 17. 45 Refutations, IX. 12, 18-19. 46 Tertullianus, Adversus Praxean ,29. 47 Heine, R.E., The Christology of Callistus, in Journal of Theological Studies 49 (1998) 56-91.
