Form of modalist monarchianism teaching that the Father Himself suffered on the cross as the Son. The name combines Latin pater (father) and passus (suffered): the Father-suffering heresy. The position follows logically from modalist monarchianism: if Father and Son are not really distinct Persons but two successive modes or manifestations of the one God, then the same God who appeared as Father in the OT economy is the same God who appeared as Son in the incarnation and crucifixion; therefore the Father suffered on the cross as the Son. The position was held by Noetus of Smyrna (late second century), Praxeas (early third century, refuted by Tertullian's Against Praxeas), and Sabellius (the most famous modalist; the third-century controversy is sometimes called the Sabellian-Patripassian controversy). Tertullian's famous polemic against Praxeas summarized the heresy: Praxeas at Rome had put the Paraclete to flight (denied the distinct Person of the Holy Spirit) and crucified the Father (collapsed Father and Son into one). The orthodox Trinitarian confession safeguards the substantive distinction between the Persons: the Father did not suffer on the cross; the Son in His incarnate state suffered; the Father is, with the Spirit, eternally distinct from the Son in the unity of the divine essence. The Reformed-confessional doctrine of the impassibility of the divine nature (Westminster Confession II.1, God is... without body, parts, or passions) is the substantive safeguard against Patripassianism and similar collapse-of-Persons positions.