Integration of Divine Impassibility with the Theopaschite Formulas in Early Christianity

Abstract

This article deals with a variety of opinions concerning impassibility of God in the early Christian thought of the first three centuries. Along with obvious similarities of this concept with the stance of the ancient philosophical theology certain differences also present themselves, the most obvious of which marks the presence of theopaschite formulas due to the doctrine of Incarnation. The viewpoints stretch from the rigid insistence on impassibility (Apologists, Clement of Alexandria) to a more flexible approach of Origen and, finally, to the statement that it is possible to speak of the divine suffering in some sense (Gregory Thaumaturgus). With no unified terminology worked out, Patristics of this period, nevertheless, managed to lay an appropriate framework enabling the development of metaphysics of «impassible suffering» of God in subsequent Christian philosophy.