The Suffering of the Impassible God (Arianism Opposed)

Introduction

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Chapter 3
Chapter 4 

Continuing the summary of Gavrilyuk’s book:

In reaction against Patripassionism, with its failure to distinguish the Father and the Son, some turned to ditheism or tritheism and others demoted Christ from full deity. It was this last proposal that gained the most traction at the popular level.

Anti-Nicene literature is full of arguments against Sabellianism, a clear sign that their theology developed in response to modalistic extremes. Dionysius of Alexandria (d. c.264), for example, sought to correct certain Sabellian bishops by emphasizing the differences between the Father and the Son.  He wrote to them that ‘the Son of God is a creature and made’ and compared the Father and Son to a boat and its maker.

Another evidence of this resistance to Sabellianism can be seen in the local editions of the ancient Roman creed. In Aquilea and Milan (for part of the 4^th century) the words ‘invisible and impassible’ were added to the first article (referring only to the Father). Rufinus of Aquilea wrote (early 5^th century) that this language was added to counter the Patripassian heresy ‘which said that the Father himself was born of the Virgin and became visible, or affirmed that he suffered in the flesh.’

Ambrose of Milan, while recognizing that these creedal additions did effectively refute Sabellianism, contended that in his day they should be rejected because they lent credence to the Arians’ views. They used these additions to commend their contention that, unlike the Father, Christ was passible and mutable from the beginning. Again, the rejection of the extreme of Sabellianism led to the opposite extreme of subordinationism.

Five Interpretations of Arianism

There are at least five distinct interpretations of Arian theology:

1)      Following the later Platonic model of reality, Arian subordinationism emphasized the transcendence of the Father. He possessed all the apophatic attributes, unlike the generated God. The Son, being passible mutable, was able to communicate and interact with the creation. Suggested influences include: ‘Aristotle, Plato (and Platonists like Atticus and Albinus), Philo, origen, Lucian, Paul of Samosata, and the exegetes of the “schools” in Alexandria and Antioch’[1]

2)      The Arians were Judaizers, not Hellenizers. They sought to preserve Jewish monotheism. Christ was still somehow recognized as divine, or, as they often said, the ‘uniquely-generated God’ (monoghnej qeoj).

3)      Arius was a careful Bible student and took the statements about the Son’s inferiority to the Father seriously (John 14:28; Mark 13:32; John 6:38, etc.). Arius did not do much allegorizing. He tended to take the text rather literally, siding with the simpliciores rather than the Alexandrians who came before him. Maurice Wiles comes close to this interpretation.

4)      Arians believed that the Father freely chose to generate the Son. The Father foresaw the (Stoic) moral progress of the Son and adopted him – leaving an example for us all. Robert Gregg and Dennis Groh introduced this hypothesis. They claimed that Arians ‘emphatically’ denied that Christ was God.

5)      Arians insisted that Christ was in some way divine. That’s why they denied that the Logos had a human soul. The affirmation of the divinity of the one who suffered and died was of central importance for Arian soteriology. Hanson-Wiles interpretation.

Considering these diverse proposals about the overarching concern of Arian theology, Gavrilyuk contends that there is no single governing principle – the quest is in vain. He contends that the first three theories offer useful insights, the fourth has too many faults to be of much use, and the fifth theory needs drastic revision. [He goes into greater detail about the basis for these judgments here and later in the chapter. I’ll not be covering that material.]

Gavrilyuk stops here to point out that the diverse influences and interests of Arian theology is a good example of what is wrong with The Theory of Theology’s Fall Into Hellenistic Philosophy. The Theory utterly fails to explain Arianism. No philosophically neutral reading of Scripture is possible, contrary to the implications of the Theory. There’s more to the question of the nature and extent of divine involvement than a mere dichotomy of either Bible or philosophy.

Does Generation Entail pathos?

The generation of the Son, viewed primarily as a cosmological rather than soteriological matter, was a central concern of Arian theology. They sought to articulate the precise boundaries of analogical statements about the Son’s generation. So did their opponents.

Arian theologians tended to take the analogies more literally than orthodox theologians. The Arians accused the orthodox of sucking all meaning out of the terms. The orthodox accused the Arians of excessive anthropomorphism.

One of the primary issues of debate was the question of pathos. Did the generation of the Son involve pathos? Defining this term, pathos, is no simple matter. Jean Danielou suggests that ‘Pathos, as used by all fourth century theologians is an almost untranslatable word; it means anything that necessitates change or becoming or human experience.’

Arians insisted that the Son was necessarily involved in pathos since he was generated. And if generated he must have had a beginning. If not, what meaning remains to the analogy of generation? The Fathers insisted that the primary commonality between the generation of the Son and human birth is that humans beget humans. Likewise, God begets God.

Nevertheless, several Arian bishops refused to sign at the council of Nicaea because the term homoousios seemed to them to imply that the Son is the result of either ‘division, derivation, or germination.’ All of these analogies unacceptably entailed pathos.

Even those bishops who rejected homoousios upheld the impassible generation of the Son. The [semi-Arian] ‘dated creed’ of 359 declares that that the Son was ‘like to the Father who begot him,’ and affirmed that ‘the uniquely-generated Son of God…was begotten impassibly from God.’ This creed anathematized anyone who claimed that ‘the Father begot the Son unwillingly, i.e., being compelled by the necessity of his nature.’

The Arians offered Nicene theologians two options: either the Father was compelled to generate the Son (denying his sovereignty) or he begot him as a matter of will (which entailed that the Son came from the Father’s will instead of his essence). Athanasius responded by insisting that an act of essence is higher and did not minimize the freedom or power of God. He emphasized that the generation of the Son is a mystery beyond our understanding.

Gregory of Nyssa made the excellent contribution that even Christ’s earthly birth was without pathos. He was not the product of sexual union, but rather of the Holy Spirit. He further introduced the analogy of the new birth in water baptism. This birth frees us from passion. It is an impassible birth (John 1:13). If Christians can be willingly born-again impassibly then so can the Son.

Orthodox Responses

According to Gregory of Nyssa, the thing of primary importance for the Arians was that the High God be protected from the shame of the cross. They contended that his inferior (passible) nature allowed the Son to suffer on the cross. To say that the Father suffered was blasphemous to the Arians.

The orthodox, on the other hand, affirmed a sort of impassibility that still allowed the fully divine Son to suffer.

It is true that for the pro-Nicenes the Logos did not become an exact copy of his passible human nature. At the same time, as one of Athanasius’ supporters point out, when the flesh suffered, the Logos was not outside of it (evktos), which is why the suffering is said to be his’. As we will see in the next chapter, Cyril of Alexandria made the concept of appropriation (ivdiopoih.sij) of the flesh by the Logos central to his defence of the unity of Christ’s person in the economy of salvation. In the incarnation God put human nature to God-befitting use, sanctified it, and made it life-giving.

The orthodox held that the Logos was somehow the subject of the human experiences of Christ. He suffered impassibly. Athanasius declares that the Logos ‘permitted his body to weep and hunger,’ and ‘let his own body suffer’.

Closing Comments (Chapter 5)

I think I have a better grasp of Arianism after reading this chapter. It seems less ridiculous now.

Apparently, the intuition that God cannot suffer or change was truly widespread by this time. Would Arian theology have become the force it was had it not been for the popularity of this conception of impassibility?

Are we really expected to believe that impassibility came from somewhere other than Hellenistic thought? One thing I don’t think I’ve seen yet is any suggestion of an alternative source for it other than the LXX, which allegedly downplayed anthropomorphism/pathism in the OT in Alexandria without any influence from Hellenistic philosophy. I’m not persuaded.

It is noteworthy that orthodox theologians allowed that the fully divine Son did indeed suffer impassibly.  

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[1] Robert Gregg, Early Arianism

The Suffering of the Impassible God (Patripassian Controversy)

Introduction

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Last chapter dealt with Docetism, which denied the full humanity of Christ in order to affirm his full (impassible) divinity. Now Gavrilyuk turns to another Christological controversy – Patripassianism. This controversy dealt with Christ’s relationship with his Father. How was the Father involved in Christ’s earthly ministry?

Noetus, Sabellius, Praxeas, and Callistus were the key figures in this controversy. Unfortunately, we do not have any of their writings. We learn of their views only through the writings of their theological opponents. This is problematic because we can’t be sure that the actual views of these men are accurately presented by those who disagreed.

The Patripassians were Modalists. Weinandy points out that the issue was not so much about impassibility as it was about the Trinity. The Modalists believed that the one God manifested himself sometimes as Father and sometimes as Son. This belief entailed that the Father suffered on the cross.

Harnack contended that no one actually believed that God suffered, it was only attributed by theological opponents. Gavrilyuk believes Harnack went too far in saying this. Surely someone said it, or else, ‘we’d have to imagine that all third- and fourth-century anti-Patripassian theologians were valiantly fighting with windmills.’ There is evidence to believe that Noetus, at least, taught that the Father suffered. Noetus’ view, as reported by Hippolytus, was a simple one: ‘If I acknowledge Christ to be God; He is the Father himself, if He is indeed God; and Christ suffered, being Himself God; and consequently the Father suffered, for He was the Father Himself.’

Hippolytus didn’t refute the claim that God suffered. He acknowledged that ‘the impassible Word of God underwent suffering through the flesh.’ What he did have a problem with was Noetus’ teaching that the Father became the Son. He refuted Noetus by pointing to some of the passages that show that Christ spoke to the Father, not himself. He also appealed to the rules of faith, ‘which spoke of the Father and the Son as coexisting entities, not as successive temporal modes of God.’

We do not know about what Noetus thought of the relationship between the humanity of Christ and the suffering of the Father. Also, Hippolytus’ presentations of Noetus’ though does not clarify how it can be said that the Father suffered if he was in the mode of Son during his suffering.

At the time when they wrote against Praxeas and Callistus, Tertullian and Hippolytus were both on the outs with the church and had other, unrelated, disputes with their Patripassian adversaries. This being the case, it’s reasonable to question just how charitable (and accurate) their interpretations are. [1] To add to the difficulty, Callistus excommunicated Sabellius (whose name later became synonymous with Modalism).

Hippolytus admits that Callistus was careful not to say that the Father suffered. Callistus rather said that ‘ton patera sumpeponqenai tw/ uivw.’ To Hippolytus this was nothing more than a word game. Likewise, Tertullian had to admit of Praxeas that he did not teach that the Father suffered on the cross, the Father only ‘compassibilis est.’ Tertullian thought this a feeble attempt to avoid the charge of Patripassianism. To him, being compassible could mean nothing other than ‘to suffer with another.’

It seems that neither Callistus nor Praxeas believed that Father and Son were successive roles. Instead they proposed something along the lines that ‘the Father’ corresponded with the spirit while ‘the Son’ pertained to the flesh. They likely used sumpascein in the Stoic sense (a term for the interaction of the body and soul). An example of this usage from Cleanthes: ‘the soul interacts (sumpascein) with the body when it is sick and being cut, and the body with the soul; thus when the soul feels shame and fear the body turns red and pale respectively.’ 

So, when the human body (the Son) suffered on the cross the spirit (the Father) was not totally unaffected. But neither did the Father suffer exactly as did the flesh. Gavrilyuk points out that if this interpretation of Callistus and Praxeas is correct then they were indeed onto something (in spite of their Trinitarian error). They pointed out that God ‘participated in death without dying and in suffering without being conquered by suffering.’

In summary, Noetus was truly a Patripassian. He taught that the Father and the Son were one and the same and suffered on the cross. Callistus and Praxeas contended that the Father only suffered through the Son (the flesh). Tertullian and Hippolytus emphasized that the Father and the Son were distinct, that the Father was not crucified.

Chapter 5

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[1] Praxeas and Callistus were both likely in good graces with the church. Callistus was bishop of Rome at the time.

The Suffering of the Impassible God (Docetism Resisted)

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The Suffering of the Impassible God

This chapter is so full of fascinating and important stuff that it’s been hard to choose what to leave out. At times I’ve wanted to quote pages on end. I continue to try to fairly represent Gavrilyuk’s work and leave off commentary until the end of the post.

“Docetism Resisted: Christ’s Suffering is Real”

Gavrilyuk now turns to Christological debates in the early church. Current scholarship tends to divide the Fathers into two camps – the impassibilists (the majority view) and the passibilists (the minority view). Sometimes the evidence for placing individuals in these camps is slim.

In previous chapters Gavriyuk has sought to demonstrate that this either/or approach to (im)passibility is inadequate. This proof-texting approach to the Fathers has failed to take into account the broader context of patristic belief and practice. “Instead of merely assembling theopaschite statements as presumably conveying a biblical idea of divine involvement, we will do better if we consider both impassibility and passibility as corollary terms necessary for an adequate account of the incarnation.” 

A Tension Introduced

From the beginning, Christians lived and died declaring faith in the crucified one. The NT includes (creedal) hymns devoted to the crucified Jesus. They tend to include three emphases – 1) pre-existence, 2) earthly ministry (including suffering and crucifixion), and 3) exaltation. Philippians 2 is a key example.

Many proto-creedal statements (such as those found in the writings of Justin Martyr) followed the same pattern for the second article – pre-existence, earthly ministry, and exaltation. Somehow, the one who is attributed ‘divine status’ is also said to suffer. Gavrilyuk contends that this creates a ‘tension [that] is stark and obvious.’ Origen put the tension this way: ‘he who was in the form of God saw fit to be in the form of a servant; while he who is immortal dies, and the impassible suffers, and the invisible is seen.’

Theology of Martyrdom

Early martyrs sought to ‘follow the footprints of the Lord’s passion’.[1] Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the church of Rome (on his way to execution): ‘Allow me to be the imitator of the sufferings of my God (πάθους του θεου μου).’ But Ignatius did not expect to suffer perpetually. He anticipated his following of Christ in suffering to lead to glorious freedom from suffering. In his letter to the Ephesians Ignatius declared that Christ was ‘first subject to suffering and then beyond it.’ Justin Martyr echoes this understanding in his writings – the destiny of those who imitate Christ is one of freedom from suffering (εν απαθεια). They will be raised ‘incorruptible, impassible, and immortal.’

Various New Testament writers insisted that Christ suffered but once (Rom 6:9-10; 1 Pet 3:18; Heb 7:27; 9:12, 26-28; 10:10). Likewise, many pre-creedal statements and ‘all later synodal creeds’ proclaim that Christ suffered sub Pontio Pilato. Jesus suffered at a specific point in time and space. 

Then again, the NT writers also speak of participation in Christ’s sufferings. For this communion to be possible it seems there must be some way that Christ continues to suffer. We cannot suffer with him if he is no longer in any way open to suffering. When Paul encountered the risen Christ he was told that he was persecuting Jesus (Act 9:4). And Paul later professed to bear the marks of Jesus in his body (Gal 6:17).

This idea of participatory suffering is found in the early Christian account of martyrdom, Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Felicitas, a young woman, is one of five martyrs in the story. Prior to their execution she prematurely gives birth. When a guard sees her going through the pain of birth he comments that she will not be able to handle the suffering she will endure from the wild animals in the amphitheater. She responds, ‘I suffer now myself that which is natural. But then, another will be in me who will suffer for me, because I am about to suffer for him.’

The concept of mystical union with Christ in the hour of martyrdom is found in various martyr-acts.[2] “In contrast to Whitehead’s portrait of God as ‘a fellow-sufferer who understand’, in the scene of Blandina’s death [in The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons] Christ offers more than just a helpless commiseration. His suffering gives the power to withstand torture.” In the same letter deacon Sanctus endures excruciating torture including a red-hot iron applied to ‘the most delicate parts’ of his body. He was able to bear it because it was Christ who suffered in him and did great wonders, destroying the enemy and showing as a pattern to the rest that there is nothing terrible where there is the love of the Father, nothing painful where there is the glory of Christ.’ As deacon Sanctus was tortured the second time his first wounds were miraculously healed.

The earliest extant paschal sermon, by Melito of Sardis, contends that the Logos suffers not only in martyrs but in the OT saints as well:

It is he who in many endured many things: it is he that was murdered in Abel, and bound in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and slain in the lamb, and persecuted in David, and dishonored in the prophets. It is he that was enfleshed in a virgin, that was hanged on a tree, that was buried in the earth, that was raised from the dead, that was taken up to the heights of the heavens.

Interestingly, this same Father also made use of apophatic terms such as immortality and impassibility. Melito’s participatory view of OT suffering was not widely held among the Fathers. Instead, patristic theology tended to see a mere foreshadowing in the OT which would ultimately be realized in the incarnate work of Christ.

“Pagan Reactions to Worship of the Crucified God”

Pagans scoffed at the idea of a crucified God. A graffito from the second century gives poignant expression to the sentiment. A boy is seen kneeling in front of a crucified man with a donkey’s head. Below this drawing, on the same wall, is carved: ‘Alexamenos worshipping his god.’ Somehow, the belief that Jews worshipped a donkey came to be widespread. It was even reported that the holy of holies used to have a donkey’s head hanging on the wall. The graffito managed to mock Christians and Jews at the same time.

Christians were mocked through literary satire as well. In The Passing of Peregrinus martyrs were portrayed as objects of Christian worship. Jesus was presented as just a divinized martyr. The people who followed these martyrs were naïve and gullible.

Religiously devout pagans sometimes took even more serious offense to the crucified God. To them, such wholehearted commitment to an executed criminal should itself be considered a crime. Many feared that the gods were angry at the Christian’s single-hearted adoration of Christ.

Philosophically minded pagans raised their own objections. They contended that the Christians were being inconsistent. How was the invisible, omnipotent, impassible God seen, tortured, shamed, and crucified? Another declared that if Christ were really God he should ‘have disappeared suddenly from the cross.’  

Impassibility in Docetism

Docetism, narrowly defined, contended that Christ only seemed to have a human body. A more inclusive definition allows for various ways of dividing Jesus the human and the divine Christ. These two brands of docetic Christology shared in common the belief that the divine 

Christ did not personally experience human life.

The Docetists held that certain aspects of Christ’s ministry were beneath God’s dignity. They shared this conviction with their Hellenistic neighbors, and perhaps hoped to make the Christian faith more palatable to its cultured despisers. The Docetists did not worship a shamefully crucified slave. They worshipped a mighty God. For some of these folks the cross was valuable as a sort of cosmic symbol, never mind the historical cross. While on the one hand they would indulge in the wildest speculations, on the other they went to extremes of apophatism. They would rather reject the humanity of Christ than limit their doctrine of impassibility.

Docetism Rejected

Gnostics combined opposing theologies. They humanized the erotic gendered gods of mythology even further, making them subject to fears, anxieties, and burning lusts. Yet right in the middle of such theology they also engaged in the apophatic method. Some suggest that the inconsistency is only apparent. The Father is above all while all lesser deities are quite passible. Irenaeus rejected this view as illogical. If, as the Gnostics claimed, all lesser deities emanated from the Father (like rays from the sun) then they should be like him. He contended that logic dictates that either the Father is passible along with all his s divine offspring or he and they are impassible.

The patristic response was to simple. Rather than try to minimize or remove the scandal of the cross (as the Docetists attempted) they unapologetically affirmed it. Such lowly activity as the incarnation, suffering, and crucifixion of Christ were all deemed fitting because they were for our salvation. The only actions truly unworthy of God were the deceptive actions attributed to him by the Docetists. The Fathers insisted that the Impassible indeed suffered.

Closing Thoughts (Chapter 3)

I’m fascinated by the theology of martyrdom. I don’t recall ever running into these ideas before. Melito’s statements intrigue me. Do we enter the suffering of Christ by his participation in our present sufferings? It makes me think of a verse that has long puzzled me – Col 1:24.

The mystery of God’s way is unquestionably amazing. In spite of his transcendence and power, in spite of his triune self-sufficiency, the Father sent, the divine Son condescended and suffered, and the Spirit enabled and applied the work – all to reconcile us to himself. I’m amazed at such love – whether you call it passible or impassible!

Chapter 4

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[1] Irenaeus of Lyons

[2] Martyrium Polycarpi and The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons for example.