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pleased Almighty God to reveal to us His being, is in its philosophical sense too wide for our meaning. Its essential signification, as applied to ourselves, is that of an individual intelligent agent, answering to the Greek hypostasis, or reality. On the other hand, if we restrict it to its etymological sense of persona or prosopon, that is character, it evidently means less than the Scripture doctrine, which we wish to define by means of it, as denoting merely certain outward manifestations of the Supreme Being relatively to ourselves, which are of an accidental and variable nature. The statements of Revelation then lie between these antagonistic senses in which the doctrine of the Holy Trinity may be erroneously conceived, between Tritheism, and what is popularly called Unitarianism.

In the choice of difficulties, then, between words which say too much and too little, the Latins, looking at the popular and practical side of the doctrine, selected the term which properly belonged to the external and defective notion of the Son and Spirit, and called Them Personæ, or Characters; with no intention, however, of infringing on the doctrine of their completeness and reality, as distinct from the Father, but aiming at the whole truth, as nearly as their language would permit. The Greeks, on the other hand, with their instinctive anxiety for philosophical accuracy of expression, secured the notion of Their existence in Themselves, by calling them Hypostases or Realities; for which they considered, with some reason, that they had the sanction of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Moreover, they were led to insist upon this internal view of the

doctrine, by the prevalence of Sabellianism in the East in the third century; a heresy, which professed to resolve the distinction of the Three Persons, into a mere distinction of character. Hence the prominence given. to the Three Hypostases or Realities, in the creeds of the Semi-Arians (for instance, Lucian's and Basil's, a.d. 341-358), who were the especial antagonists of Sabellius, Marcellus, Photinus, and kindred heretics. It was this praiseworthy jealousy of Sabellianism, which led the Greeks to lay stress upon the doctrine of the Hypostatic Word (the Word in real existence), lest the bare use of the terms, Word, Voice, Power, Wisdom, and Radiance, in designating our Lord, should lead to a forgetfulness of His Personality. At the same time, the word usia (substance) was adopted by them, to express the simple individuality of the Divine Nature, to which the Greeks, as scrupulously as the Latins, referred the separate Personalities of the Son and Spirit.

Thus the two great divisions of Christendom rested satisfied each with its own theology, agreeing in doctrine, though differing in the expression of it. But, when the course of the detestable controversy, which Arius had raised, introduced the Latins to the phraseology of the Greeks, accustomed to the word Persona, they were startled at the doctrine of the three Hypostases; a term which they could not translate except by the word substance, and therefore considered synonymous with the Greek usia, and which, in matter of fact, had led to Arianism on the one hand, and Tritheism on the other. And the Orientals, on their part, were suspicious of the 1 [λόγος ἐνυπόστατος. Vide supr. p. 176.]

Latin maintenance of the One Hypostasis, and Three Personæ; as if such a formula tended to Sabellianism2.

This is but a general account of the difference between the Eastern and Western theology; for it is difficult to ascertain, when the language of the Greeks first became fixed and consistent. Some eminent critics have considered, that usia was not discriminated from hypostasis, till the Council which has given rise to these remarks. Others maintain, that the distinction between them is recognized in the "substance or hypostasis "" of the Nicene Anathema; and these certainly have the authority of St. Basil on their side. Without attempting an opinion on a point, obscure in itself, and not of chief importance in the controversy, the existing difference between the Greeks and Latins, at the times of the Alexandrian Council, shall be here stated.

At this date, the formula of the Three Hypostases seems, as a matter of fact, to have been more or less a characteristic of the Arians. At the same time, it was held by the orthodox of Asia, who had communicated with them; that is, interpreted by them, of course, in the orthodox sense which it now bears. This will account for St. Basil's explanation of the Nicene Anathema; it being natural in an Asiatic Christian, who seems (unavoidably) to have arianized for the first thirty years of his life, to imagine (whether rightly or not) that he perceived in it the distinction between Usia and Hypo

2 [For the meaning of Usia and Hypostasis, vide Appendix, No. 4.] 3 ἐξ οὐσίας ἢ ὑποστάσεως.

4 Vid. Petav. Theol. Dogm. tom. ii. lib. iv. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nic. ii. 9, § 11.

5 i. e. Semi-Arianized.

stasis, which he himself had been accustomed to recognize. Again, in the schism at Antioch, which has been above narrated, the party of Meletius, which had so long arianized, maintained the Three Hypostases, in opposition to the Eustathians, who, as a body, agreed with the Latins, and had in consequence been accused by the Arians of Sabellianism. Moreover, this connexion of the Oriental orthodox with the Semi-Arians, partly accounts for some apparent tritheisms of the former; a heresy into which the latter certainly did fall o.

Athanasius, on the other hand, without caring to be uniform in his use of terms, about which the orthodox differed, favours the Latin usage, speaking of the Supreme Being as one Hypostasis, i. e. substance. And in this he differed from the previous writers of his own Church; who, not having experience of the Latin theology, nor of the perversions of Arianism, adopt, not only the word hypostasis but (what is stronger) the words "nature" and " substance," to denote the separate Personalities of the Son and Spirit."

As to the Latins, it is said that, when Hosius came to Alexandria before the Nicene Council, he was desirous that some explanation should be made about the Hypostasis; though nothing was settled in consequence. But, soon after the Council of Sardica, an addition was

6 Petav. i. fin. iv. 13, § 3. The illustration of three men, as being under the same nature (which is the ground of the accusation which some writers have brought against Gregory Nyssen and others, vid. Cudw. iv. 36. p. 597. 601, &c. Petav. iv. 7. and 10. Gibbon, ch. xxi.), was but an illustration of a particular point in the doctrine, and directed against the Tepovσióτns of the Arians. It is no evidence of tritheism. Vid. Petav. tom. i. iv. 13, § 6-16; and tom. i. ii. 4.

made to its confession, which in Theodoret runs as follows: "Whereas the heretics maintain that the Hypostases of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are distinct and separate, we declare that according to the Catholic faith there is but one Hypostasis (which they call Usia) of the Three; and the Hypostasis of the Son is the same as the Father's "."

Such was the state of the controversy, if it may so be called, at the time of the Alexandrian Council; the Church of Antioch being, as it were, the stage, upon which the two parties in dispute were represented, the Meletians siding with the orthodox of the East, and the Eustathians with those of the West. The Council, however, instead of taking part with either, determined, in accordance with the writings of Athanasius himself, that, since the question merely related to the usage of words, it was expedient to allow Christians to understand the "hypostasis" in one or other sense indifferently. The document which conveys its decision, informs us of the grounds of it. "If any propose to make additions to the Creed of Nicæa, (says the Synodal letter,) stop such persons and rather persuade them to pursue peace; for we ascribe such conduct to nothing short of a love of controversy. Offence having been given by a declaration on the part of certain persons, that there are Three Hypostases, and it having been urged that this language is not scriptural, and for that reason suspicious, we desired that the inquiry might not be pushed beyond the Nicene Confession. At the same time, because of

7 Theod. Hist. ii. 8.

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