In Christian theology, historical patripassianism is a version of Sabellianism in the Eastern church. Modalism is the belief that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three different modes or aspects of one monadic God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons within the Godhead - that there are no real or substantial differences between the three, such that there is no substantial identity for the Spirit or the Son. In the West, a version of this belief was known pejoratively as patripassianism by its critics, because the teaching required that since God the Father had become directly incarnate in Christ, that God literally sacrificed Himself on the Cross.
Trinitarian perspective
From the standpoint of the doctrine of the Trinity— one divine being existing in three persons— patripassianism is considered heretical since "it simply cannot make sense of the New Testament's teaching on the interpersonal relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit." In this patripassianism asserts that God the Father—rather than God the Son—became incarnate and suffered on the cross for humanity's redemption. This not only denies the personhood of God-the-Son, but is seen by trinitarians as distorting the spiritual transaction of atonement that was taking place at the cross, which the Apostle Paul described as follows: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ , not counting people’s sins against them.... God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God ." It is possible, however, to modify patripassianism so as to acknowledge the Divine Being as having feelings toward, and sharing in the experiences of, both Jesus— whom Christians regard as both human and divine— and other human beings. Full-orbed patripassianism denies Trinitarian distinctions, yet it does not contradict Christianity as defined in the Creeds to say that God feels or experiences things, including nonphysical forms of suffering. With regard to the crucifixion of Jesus, they claim it is consistent with Scriptural teaching to say that God the Father suffered—that is, felt emotional and spiritual pain as He watched His Son suffer on the Cross.
History
Patripassianism began in the third century AD. Patripassianism 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 the “economic Trinity” and he opposed the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of the “essential Trinity”. Praxeas and Noetus were some major followers. 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. Cyprian and Tertullian famously accused the ModalisticMonarchians of patripassianism. 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 to describe other Oneness religions.
