Chapter II:

CHAPTER II: WHICH EXPLAINS THE NOMENCLATURE

§ 38. Up to this point we have been explaining the first part of this treatise, which includes the six introductory theses. We now come to the second part, which contains the actual elaboration of this article and which consists of both the nomenclature and the factual material. The nomenclature is either general or special. We shall cover the general with two theses, and the special will list the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and German terms that the Church uses in this article.

On the general nomenclature.

Let this, then, be Section I of the first part of the nomenclature: on the general nomenclature. Thesis I: In explaining the mystery of the Trinity, we are permitted to use words that do not exist in the Holy Scriptures in express words. To this thesis we shall add an explanation.

§ 39. To be sure, the Church does not have an autocratic power to fashion new articles of faith, since she is bound by divine command to the voice of Christ, her Bridegroom, which is heard only in the Scriptures (Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Isa. 8:20; Matt. 17:5; John 10:27). However, the Church nevertheless can explain articles of faith declared in the Scriptures in words other than those that are in the Scriptures. This we prove: (1) From necessity. Although heretics teach things different and, in fact, contrary in meaning from the Church’s dogmas, nevertheless they imitate the phrasing of Scripture, “saying the same things but meaning different things,” as Irenaeus says about them (preface to bk. 1). They are like a hyena that comes at night to the sheep pen, imitates the sounds that it hears the shepherd speak, calls out the sheep, and rips them apart and eats them when they come out. Therefore necessity itself compels the Church when explaining the mystery of the Trinity to use the sort of words that would draw heretical trickery out of its dens and make an obvious distinction between the orthodoxy of the Church and the errors of heretics.

Thus when the Church teaches that there are three in whose name we are baptized, who give testimony in heaven, etc.—namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Sabellius immediately twisted it in this way, saying that “these three are not distinct with a real difference but are one and the same person, now called the Father, now called the Son, now called the Spirit,” to which he accommodated the fact that the Church said, “There are three names.” Therefore to free the orthodoxy of this article from that Sabellian corruption, the Church began to call those three “three distinct persons.” When the Church taught that the Father and Son were one (John 10:30), soon Arius twisted this to indicate that they were one in agreement and will in the way that believers are said to be of one heart (Acts 4:32). Therefore, so that the orthodoxy of this article might be freed from that Arian corruption, the Church began to teach that the Son was of the same substance [] with the Father. It is for this reason that Ambrose says (De fid., bk. 3, c. 7): “The Nicene fathers used the word , ‘of the same substance,’ in their treatment of the faith (because they saw it was a source of dread for their adversaries), in order to, as it were, unsheathe their swords and cut off the head of their terrible heresy.”

§ 40. (2) From usefulness. There are three practical functions of these words, for we use them partly for a richer explanation, partly for a better distinction, and partly for a more solid and complete refutation. When the Church asserts the three persons of the Godhead and defends their consubstantiality and, as concerns the matter, adds nothing to the Scriptures (since it is taught in them, if not in the same words, then with other words that mean the same thing), meanwhile the use of those terms is useful to the Church because the sound doctrine regarding this mystery is comprehended briefly and strongly in such terms, which the adversaries of heavenly truth cannot draw into a foreign and heretical meaning.

Here we cite the words of the devout ancients: Athanasius in his debate with Arius before Probus, the heathen judge (vol. 2, p. 374): “Whenever a new teaching of the heretics springs up, it is always the custom of ecclesiastical discipline (against the arrogant changes of questions) to change the terminology while the things remain unchanged and to express the natures of the things more distinctly. Nevertheless these new words are in harmony with the meanings of the existing cases and show that those cases were even older and are not a measure of the novelty of what has sprung up.” And later: “Against the arrogant and furtive corruptions of heretical understanding, some terms of the confession had been taken up not rashly, but being garnered from the natural reasoning of the faith, they were inserted into the authorities.⁷ Thus the religious intellect made as many improvements with new words as there were treacherous occasions demanded or supplied, despite the fact that the words are not read in Holy Writ in so many letters and syllables.”

Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. in sancta lumin.: “We must not contend in hateful struggle over words so long as their syllables bring us to the same meaning. Let us confess that these words were born out of a need to speak when there was a need for an ample organization against the snares of heretics. Let us confess,” etc.

Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 5, c. 9: “Human language labors under a great poverty. Nevertheless we say ‘three persons’ not so that that would be said but so as not to be completely silent. For this expression can explain the importance of something indescribable.” De Trinit., bk. 7, c. 4: “It is a wickedness if someone would disapprove of words that explain nothing else but what is explained and taught by the Scriptures.” See more of Augustine, treatise 97 on John. The apostle in 2 Timothy 2 does not say “ ‘avoid new words,’ but he adds ‘profane,’ for the new words are in harmony with religious doctrine, just as the very name ‘Christians’ was written when people began to say it (Acts 11, etc.). The things that are called by new names in the Church also existed before their names and are confirmed by the truth of religion, by which they are also defended against the wicked. However, if everything new were profane, the Lord would not say, ‘A new commandment I give to you,’ nor would the Testament be called ‘New’ nor would a new song be sung in all the world.”

Thomas, [ST,] p. 1, q. 29, art. 3: “The necessity of disputing with heretics forces us to find new names that signify the ancient faith concerning God.”

Antithesis.

§ 41. (I) The Arians, Sabellians, and other Antitrinitarians pressed this point against the orthodox: that the words [“essence” or “substance”], [“consubstantiality”], and [“person”] do not exist in Holy Writ. Dr. Chemnitz writes (Loci, vol. 1, p. 86): “The orthodox fathers were oppressed with great envy by the heretics under this specious pretext, that the Church ought to think about that inaccessible light of Divinity in no other way than as that Divinity, coming forth from the arcane throne of its majesty, has revealed itself. And she should speak no differently, but rather should imitate the language of the Holy Spirit and thus should also express the same words in precisely the same letters and syllables.”

Arius, debate with Athanasius, p. 373: “Why do they add to the apostolic faith a word that neither the prophets nor the apostles mention?”

§ 42. (II) The Neophotinians walk in the footsteps of those ancestors of theirs. In his Theses, Nicolaus Paruta urges in the first place that “never in the Scriptures does it literally say that there are three persons of the same divine essence.” This statement of Paruta is explained by Socinus as follows (Animadv. ad 16. assert. Posnan., no. 1): “At times our people have said that the word ‘Trinity’ does not exist in Holy Writ as an indication of the falsehood of the opinion of our adversaries, but they would not say that as a solid argument to refute them.” Socinus again, Defens. animad., p. 42: “The terms that our adversaries have employed out of necessity to explain their dogmas are never read in the holy writers. This can be an indication of the falsehood of their dogmas.” p. 450: “We have sometimes mentioned that the words ‘essence’ and ‘Trinity’ are not found in Holy Writ, not as a solid argument for refuting our adversaries but as an indication of how false their opinion is.”

Yet (1) how can they consider that from which they dare not take an argument as an indication of falsehood? (2) They should grant to us that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God, and yet are only one God, and we shall not compel them to use those ecclesiastical words. (3) The Photinians themselves use some words that we do not find in the Scriptures because they teach that Christ “became” God and “twice” ascended into heaven, neither of which are found in the Scriptures literally or materially. Socinus, Defens. animad., p. 191: “It can be said that Christ became God, though we do not expressly find this in Holy Writ.” (Cf. our Disp. 2. ex dicto 1 Joh. 5, § 1.)

§ 43. (III) One cannot simply and without adding an explanation approve what Calvin writes in Instit., bk. 1, c. 13, sect. 5: “O that those words (“Trinity,” “consubstantiality,” etc.) were buried! This faith would now be evident among all, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God.” Surely we shall have to understand this as referring to the occasion for and origin of these expressions, which was heretical perversity, but not to the actual use of those expressions.

§ 44. Here the question arises: Do words taken from the common way of speaking and applied to this mystery retain the same meaning in every respect? We respond. Of course not! Rather, the Church grants them the legal right of her own citizenship and employs them in a special sense. Therefore the heretics look in vain for arguments from the properties of a finite essence and a finite person with which to assail that sublime mystery of three distinct persons in one undivided essence of the Godhead. They also urge in vain a common way of speaking because they go some distance away from what the Church uses for any kind of explanation of this mystery. If we confess the three persons of the Godhead to whom the divine essence is predicated as something common to them, that predication of essence to the three persons is constituted far differently than how the common humanity would be predicated to Peter, Paul, and John, as will become clear from the following. Athanasius writes (Epist. de synod. Nicen. decret.):

Although we find in the Scriptures the same words in reference to God and humans (and to other created things), nevertheless it is the responsibility of intelligent humans to pay attention to the reading in order to discern the matter with judgment and to understand the words for the nature of the matters without any confusion of understanding, lest they understand the things that are of God in a human way, for this is mixing wine with water and bringing strange fire to the altar.

§ 45. Thesis II: One should not approve the rashness of those who, in explaining this mystery, use new words that are not yet accepted by the Church. We take our explanation from: (1) The apostle’s command in 1 Tim. 6:20: “Guard the deposit entrusted to you, avoiding profane novelties of words [].” (Some read “vain chatter.” There is a close kinship between both these words and what they signify, for “new” often is “vain.” See Acts 17:21.)

(2) The troublesome complexity that follows such rashness, for our adversaries are given the opportunity to bring false charges, seeds of dissent are sown in the Church, the suspicion of singularity arises, etc. And on the other hand, it is the mark of a moderate mind not only to think reverently with the Church but also to speak reverently with the Church, and it is the mark of obedient children not to hold the voice of their mother in disdain. Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 10, c. 23: “Philosophers speak freely and are not afraid to offend religious ears in understanding the most difficult matters. But we are bound to speak according to a definite rule lest our license with words produce a wicked opinion regarding the things themselves. Thus when we speak about God, we do not speak of two or three principles, just as we are not permitted to speak of two or three Gods.” (Cf. Basil, Contra Eunom., bk. 2, not far from the beginning; Jerome, Epistola ad Damasum de verbo hypost.; the Damascene, [Orth. fid.,] bk. 1, c. 2—all of whom teach as carefully as possible the precept to avoid using new words in divine matters.)

§ 46. There are two practical uses: (1) That we should explain those things the ancients said improperly according to the analogy of faith but should not imitate their words. In Dial. cum Tryph., pp. 209 and 213, Justin calls the Son “another and a different God,” but observe that he is introducing the words of the Jew Trypho, who is not speaking carefully about this mystery, and after his words, Justin himself later speaks. Tertullian, Adv. Prax.: “They are three, not in status but in level; not in subsistence but in form; not in power but in species of the one subsistence, of one status, of one power, because [they are] one God.” (In De Christo, bk. 1, c. 10, Bellarmine makes excuses for them by saying that they take “level” to mean the ranking of the persons. The author of the letter to the reader prefixed to Tertullian writes: “The word ‘status’ is what the Scholastics call ‘substance,’ ‘level’ is what they call ‘conception,’ ‘form’ is what they call ‘properties,’ ‘species’ is what they call ‘mode of having.’ ”) By misapplication Hilary said “three substances” because, as Thomas teaches (7, Sent., dist. 24, art. 1), he took substances to mean “persons,” not “essence.”

(2) That we should abstain from the lust to innovate and from the rashness of manufacturing new terms. Thus one cannot approve of the fact that some have begun to argue that “there is one essence of the Godhead but three existences”; that some say that the persons of the Trinity “differ”—since “difference” is the characteristic of things that differ essentially; that the three persons are said to subsist in one divine essence—since, on the contrary, one should say that the essence subsists in the three persons. John of Damascus, bk. 3, c. 6: “Essence does not subsist of itself but is preserved in the hypostases themselves.” (See our treatise On the Three Elohim [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 4], § 64, where we listed more poorly expressed statements.)

The Hebrew terms.

§ 47. Having explained the general nomenclature, we go on to the special, which will explain (1) the Hebrew, (2) Greek, (3) Latin, and (4) German terms used in the explanation of this mystery.

Therefore let this be the first article, concerning the Hebrew terms. The Hebrews generally express the mystery of the Trinity with the triple repetition of the name “Jehovah” and [“holy”], as will become evident in the factual material. The divinity common to the three persons is called , “dwelling,” either because “the glory of the Lord dwelt” or remained ( in Hebrew) upon Mount Sinai (Exod. 24:16); or because He “dwelt upon the ark of the covenant between the two cherubim” (Exod. [25:22]); or because He dwells in the hearts of believers, “comes to them and makes His home with them” (John 14:23). “Essence” is called from the root , “was” or “existed.” (In De arcan., bk. 2, c. 3, Galatino writes this as .) The name “Jehovah” also is derived from this root and is attributed equally to the three persons of the Godhead. Galatino, op. cit., also calls essence , which we find in Isa. 28:29 and Mic. 6:9 from the root , and by apocope [it becomes] , “he was, exists, is.” “Person” is called , “face,” from the root , “he turns,” to which those words of Deut. 4:37 can be referred: “and He brought you out of Egypt with His own face in great power.” The Targum rendered this as , “with His Word,” which is the proper name of the Son, who is the Second Person of the Trinity. Exod. 33:14: “ My face will go with you, and I shall give you rest.” The Targum has translated this as “ , My divinity, My presence will go,” but the Septuagint renders it , “I myself shall go,” because the Son who led the Israelites out of Egypt through the wilderness is the true God, of one and the same essence with the Father. Isa. 63:[9]: “And the Angel of His face saved them.” We shall explain the meaning of this emphatic term in its own place. The ancient rabbinic scholars call the three persons of the Godhead , “properties,” from the root , “he measured.” You see, because the properties introduce the distinction of persons, they sometimes express the mystery of the Trinity through the three . This manner of speaking is imitated by the Confessio Wirtenbergensis, c. de Deo: “We confess that in this one eternal Godhead there are three properties or persons subsisting of themselves.”

The word .

§ 48. (II) The Greek words are (1) , (2) , (3) , (4) , (5) . (1) Concerning the word [“essence” or “substance”], we must note: (a) Its etymology. is said to be from , “being,” which is a proper name of God. Exod. 3:[13–15]: “They will ask me: What is His name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses: (in the Septuagint: ), I am who is. Say to the children of Israel: ‘I shall be’ (in the Septuagint: ) has sent me to you. And He also said: ‘ the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you, that is My name forever.’ ” John expressed this as follows: , “who is, who was, and who will be” (Rev. 1:4; 4:8). (Cf. Cyril, De Trinit., bk. 1.)

(b) Its origin. The word certainly is found in the Scriptures. Tobit [14:13]: “He inherited the [substance].” Luke 15:12: “Give me the share of the [property] that falls to me.” V. 13: “He squandered the [property].” In the doctrine of the Trinity, however, it is not taken in this sense. Consequently, Epiphanius is correct in writing: “We do not find the word ‘essence’ in a bare manner in the Old and New Testaments, but we find its sense and meaning everywhere” (Haeres. 73, p. 385). Basil, Epistle 43: “These two words— and —are not taken from the vocabulary of Scripture but from our common way of speaking.” (See Socrates, bk. 6, c. 21.) Some of the ancients, of course, have tried to look for this word in the Scriptures. Athanasius quotes from Jer. 23:22: “If they had stood in My substance, I would have turned them from their evil ways.” Nazianzen quotes from Wisdom 16:21: “You showed Your substance and sweetness that You have toward Your sons.” However, those testimonies clearly are foreign. Bellarmine also tries to accommodate the meaning that it has in Scripture to this article. He says (De Christo, bk. 2, c. 3): “ (in Luke 15) refers to the possessions of the Father, but what are the possessions of God except His divinity, which is the greatest and infinite good?” Because this is quite forced and subject to the false accusations of our adversaries, it is more simple to claim that in Holy Writ this word is not found expressly in the sense with which we use it in the mystery of the Trinity.

Nevertheless the Antitrinitarians should not on that account reject it: First, because the matter itself is treated in Scripture. For when Scripture makes the name “Jehovah” and the divine attributes, works, and glory common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, surely it is teaching that the essence of God is common to these three. For the name “Jehovah” is indicative of the essence and is formed from the verb , “he was, he existed,” and from the letter , which is used to form proper names. The attributes and works bear witness of the divine essence because the essential attributes in God are the very essence of God, and the divine works are performed through the divine power, which is the very essence of God. Finally, divine glory has to do with the divine essence as foundation is related to place.

Second, because the concrete noun of this word, “being,” and its root are found in the Scriptures, as we have shown in Exodus 3 and Revelation 1. Socinus writes: “They make a serious error who affirm that the word ‘essence’ is drawn from the fact that God is called ‘who will be.’ For since essence either signifies or at least always indicates something that already exists, how will one be able to deduce the word ‘essence’ from the verb ‘will be,’ which in every respect indicates something future?” (Animadv. Posn., assert. 17, no. 2). We respond. The Hebrew word can be translated in the past, present, and future, as is evident from the Hebrew manner of speaking. For this reason the Septuagint translators rendered it as , which translation John approves in Rev. 1:4. With God, times do not come nor pass, but with respect to us, eternity is expressed with words signifying a continuation of time.

Third, because there are synonyms of it in the Scriptures: [“the divine nature”] (2 Pet. 1:4; Gal. 4:8), [“deity”] (Col. 2:9), [“divinity”] (Rom. 1:20; Wisdom 18:9). But what else are the nature of God, the deity, the divinity than the divine essence or the essence of God? To this some refer the word [“form”] (Phil. 2:6), because Christ was “in the form of God.” As a consequence Tilenus writes: “, , and in God are all the same” (Not. ad Bellarmin. de Christo, bk. 2, c. 3). However, here [“form”] does not signify first and foremost the divine essence and nature considered in itself, absolutely, and according to its being, but according as it advances outwardly with its actions and reveals itself as something to be perceived by human senses. For opposed to it is “the form of a servant,” which does not primarily and immediately signify the nature and effectiveness of a slave but the servant status that is temporarily assumed, something we shall treat elsewhere in greater detail.⁸

(c) Its meaning. The word , used to refer to God, means an essence one in number and undivided, common to the three persons of the Godhead. This is not in the three persons partially, as if part of it were in the Father, part in the Son, and part in the Holy Spirit, but the entire essence is in the Father, the entire essence is in the Son, and the entire essence is in the Holy Spirit because of infinity and immateriality. The orthodox man in Athanasius, Dial. 1, says, “Essence [] means what is shared.” Athanasius again, Definitiones: “Nature, essence, genus, and form are one.” John of Damascus, Isagog., c. 1: “Essence, nature, and form are the same according to the holy fathers.” Nicetas, Thesaurus, bk. 3, c. 14: “Nature, essence, genus, and form are taken to mean one and the same thing in the dogmas of the Church.” John of Damascus, Dial., c. 39: “Essence is something self-subsistent that does not require another for its support.” Idem.: “Being is not another thing nor does it have its beginning in another, but in itself.” In De duab. naturis, Boethius translates it with the Latin essentia, “essence.” According to Quintilian (bk. 3, c. 7; bk. 8, c. 3), Servius Flavius also translated that Greek word in this way.

Antithesis.

§ 49. In the Councils of Sirmium and of Ariminum the Arians judged that one should abstain no less from the word than from [“person”]. The Photinians say that we cannot call God , “essence.” The Transylvanians say: “The word was taken from Mercurius Trismegistus, who philosophized many things about the of God in Pymander, and was incorrectly applied to the doctrines of the Christian faith.” Nicholas Paruta, Thes. 5:

Is not the essence of God far different from the existing God, because essence, if one speaks truly and literally, is not God Himself but God’s attribute? For the word “essence” signifies nothing living or intelligent, no more than the words “nature” or “divinity” do, but instead it signifies the state or disposition of some thing. Also, as we do not say that nature and divinity are God, so also we do not say that essence is God. We can correctly say that there is one divine essence just as there is one existing God, but by no means that the one God is essence, for this would be not only to confuse the state of a thing with the thing itself but also to say something different from what Scripture says.

Socinus cites those words of Paruta and says: “From these words it is quite clear that he does not reject the expression ‘essence of God’ and also that this is what he denies: that it is said or contained in the Holy Scriptures that essence is God or that the one God is essence, but not the term ‘essence of God’ ” (Defense. animadv. Posn., p. 42).

We respond. (a) Here the most important question is not whether God can be called His own essence or , but whether the words and “essence” can be used in this mystery or whether we must completely reject them as absurd and foreign to the Scriptures.

(b) Here the most important question concerns whether it is correct to predicate one common divine essence to the three distinct persons of the Trinity. If our adversaries concede this, the matter is safe; but if they do not, let them present the arguments for their negation.

(c) In our treatise on the divine attributes, we showed that not only concrete but also abstract terms are predicated of God because of His supreme simplicity. Therefore just as God not only is wise but is wisdom itself, is not only truthful but is truth itself, is not only [good] but is good[ness] itself, so also not only is He a being but also essence.

(d) Therefore we find a great and, in fact, infinite distinction in these predications: when I predicate humanity or human nature to three human individuals and when I predicate the divine nature or essence to the three persons of the Godhead. Consequently, Augustine is correct when he says (De Trinit., bk. 7): “Essence is predicated to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as a genus to species nor as species to individuals nor as a whole to its parts but in another, ineffable, and incomprehensible manner.” A comparison shows that this statement of Augustine is utterly true. Essence with regard to humans is a universal noun that actually does not exist of itself but is only concluded by thought and comprehended by the intellect. But essence in God is not something imaginary, like genus or species, but actually exists, though it is communicable. This distinction is noted by Chemnitz (part 1, Loci, p. 93).

With respect to the divine persons: (α) It is not a species, because the persons of the Trinity do not share essence in the same way as individual things share a common nature, and nothing is diffused outside of it of which there would be like a part, such as man is a species of animal or Peter is an individual of the human species. (β) It is not said of many individuals different in essence according to number in the way that three men are said to differ according to number. (γ) It is not predicated of individuals in plural form, for the three persons are not three gods nor three divine essences in the way that Peter, Paul, and John are three men. (δ) It belongs to neither more nor fewer persons than three, whereas the human essence is not restricted to a determined number of persons. I cannot say in reference to one man that all humanity is in him, but I can say correctly with reference to one person of the Godhead that “the whole fullness of the deity is in Him” (Col. 2:9). The reason for this depends on the infinity of the divine essence. In three human individuals there is not one essence in number but one in species. But in the three persons of the Deity there is one essence in number that is completely undivided. Human persons are distinguished by substance, time, will, accidents of mind and body, power, operation, status, dignity, etc. In this way the substance of Peter is different from that of Paul. Peter taught before Paul; Peter disagreed with Paul; Paul preached among the Gentiles, Peter among the Jews; etc. But in the Trinity the persons are not distinguished in this way, for the Son is consubstantial and coeternal with the Father. Both have one essence and power, one will, one operation, for “whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise” (John 5:19). One cannot say about human persons that one is in another, but concerning Himself and the Father, Christ says: “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (John 14:10). One cannot say about human persons that because of a common nature, where one person is, there also is the other, because they are locally distinct. But concerning Himself and the Father, Christ states, “The Father has not left Me alone” (John 8:29). One cannot say about human persons that because of a common nature, whoever honors one honors also the other; in fact, one cannot be honored without the other being abased. But concerning Himself and the Father, Christ says: “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father” (John 5:23). (ε) Those statements of Paruta are wicked and blasphemous when he says that “the essence of God is far different from the existing God” (for this certainly is as if one were to intend to say that the wisdom of God differs from the wise God, that the goodness of God differs from the good God); that “the word ‘essence’ signifies nothing living or intelligent, no more than the words ‘nature’ or ‘divinity’ do” (yet the divine essence, the divine nature, and divinity are really nothing other than God Himself, and denying that He is an intelligent and living being is denying God Himself); that “we cannot say that His nature and divinity are God” (for as God is His own goodness, His own wisdom, so also He is His own nature, His own divinity, His own essence).

The word .

§ 50. (2) [“of the same ,” “consubstantial”]. Concerning this word we must note: (a) Its etymology. Ambrose teaches: “This word is not alien to the Scriptures,” because it is formed from in almost the same way as [“peculiar”] (Titus 2:14) and ⁹ (Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3). It comes from [“equally”] and [“essence”], because the one undivided essence equally belongs to those persons who are said to be . The Arians tried to overturn the force and efficacy of this word by inserting merely one letter and saying that the Son was not [“of the same substance”] with the Father but was , of similar but not of the same essence.

(b) Its origin. The Arians brought the serious charge against the ancient Catholics of introducing a new word in the Council of Nicaea and called them “Homoousians.” The holy fathers responded to them in two ways. First, they tried to show them that the word was in use in the Church before the Council of Nicaea. In the Historia of Prochorus, who was one of the seven deacons (Acts 6:5) and the kin of Stephen, the first martyr (which is in the Orthodoxographa patrum, vol. 1, p. 85), we find the expression [“the consubstantial Trinity”]. But that Historia of Prochorus is by a more recent author, for neither the phrasing nor the forcefulness of the narrative is in harmony with apostolic majesty. There are those who think that the story of Prochorus is that book which Athanasius lists in his Synopsis as being among the Apocrypha under the title Circuitus Johannis. It contains many fables, such as that “when John was assigned Asia by lot, he took it hard, mourned bitterly, and threw himself at the feet of Christ’s other disciples,” something unworthy of so great an apostle. Again: “After John had emerged unharmed from a great cask of boiling oil, the faithful who were present built a temple in his honor,” something the persecutor Domitian would never have allowed.

There is extant under the name of Justin, who lived in the second century after Christ, a book with the title [A Faithful Explanation of the Consubstantial Trinity]. That Justin wrote it, however, is a matter of doubt to those whose opinion we approve: (a) Because of the manner of its style. According to Sylburg, the style in this book is brighter than in the Paraenetica and Apologetica ad Graecos and in the Agonistica ad Tryphonem. (b) Because it is not mentioned. Eusebius, Jerome, Photius, and Honorius certainly would have mentioned this book because in those days Justin’s authority could have contributed much to the controversies on the Trinity and because elsewhere they wrote a catalog of the writings that Justin left. In the sixth century, Leontius of Jerusalem and Euthymius Zigabenus mention this book, and from this arises the conjecture that it was written about AD 400. (c) Because of a consideration of its contents. The words and are quite often differentiated and explained in that book. But if Justin did write this book, it would quite deservedly seem strange to someone that Gregory of Nyssa did not have the admonition of his brother Basil the Great about this matter and that Basil did not mention this book when he wrote at length to his brother regarding this matter. The words [“unity”], [“trinity”], and others of this doctrine were not yet used in the Church in this way. Consequently, there is no mention of any of them in the genuine and undoubted writings of Justin, though he nevertheless deliberately treats the doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit several times. Chemnitz says: “He discusses much more openly and clearly the mysteries of the Trinity and the incarnation than writers of his century generally do.” At the beginning of his ., Justin says that he learned about God “from the teachings of the fathers,” whereas in his Epist. ad Diogn. he calls himself “the disciple of the apostles.” At the end he explains in detail the indwelling of the Word in the flesh and His indwelling in other created things, from which we infer that this book was written after the Nestorian controversy had developed in the Church. (d) Because of the testimony of authors. Philipp [Melanchthon] (in his Epist. ad Camer.), Périon, Sylburg, Chemnitz (in his De lect. patr.), Bellarmine (De script. ecclesiast.), etc., have doubts about it. In his Epist. de sent. Dionysii Alexandrini, Athanasius relates that Dionysius of Alexandria used this title in his Apologia ad Dionys. Rom. In his book De decret. syn. Nicen., Athanasius cites the testimonies of both Dionysii, of Theognostus, and of Origen. In his book De synod. Arimin. et Seleuc., he says that the Council of Nicaea used the words that their ancestors had used.

Second: Some, on the other hand, admit that the fathers of the Council of Nicaea were the first to use this word but that the word cannot be rejected since Scripture contains the subject itself. Augustine, treatise 97 on John: “Against the wickedness of the Arian heretics the fathers coined a new word, homoousios, but they did not signify a new thing with such a name, for that is called homoousios which is: ‘I and the Father are one,’ that is, of one and the same substance.” In Contra Maxim., bk. 3, c. 14, he writes that “the word was established against the Arian heretics by the authority of truth and by the truth of authority.”

Third: In De fide, bk. 3, c. 7, Ambrose teaches that the fathers of the Council of Nicaea took the opportunity to use this word from the words of the Arian heretic Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had written in some letter: “If we say that He is the true and uncreated Son of God, we are beginning to confess that He is consubstantial [homousios] with the Father.” Ambrose says: “When this letter had been read in the Council of Nicaea, the fathers put this word into their treatise on the faith because they saw it as a threat to their adversaries.”

§ 51. (c) Its meaning. Clearly it is with divine ingenuity that Christ expresses both the unity of essence and the personal distinction when He says about Himself and the Father: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). “By saying ‘one,’ He struck down Arius; by saying ‘are,’ He flattened Sabellius, because He would not say ‘are’ about one nor ‘one’ about something diverse” (Augustine, De quinque haeres., c. 7). In the same way, the word includes both the fact that the Son is a person distinct from the Father and that He is of one and the same essence with the Father. Ambrose, De fide, bk. 3, c. 7: “We are correct in saying that the Son is consubstantial [homousios] with the Father because that word signifies both the distinction of persons and the unity of their natures.” Athanasius explains this point in greater detail in De decret. synodi Arim. et Seleuc., where he teaches: “One does not say ‘consubstantial’ about those things that have one essence in any way, but only about those of which one is from the other and receives the same essence from Him.”

Sabellius admitted that the Father and the Son had the same essence but denied that the Son was begotten from eternity by the Father and was distinct in person from Him. Arius admitted that the Son was from the Father and was personally distinct from Him but denied that He had received the same essence from the Father through begetting. Therefore the word was set against both men by the Council of Nicaea.

Epiphanius teaches in the Ancoratus that ¹⁰ is one thing, another. The former means unity without distinction, while the latter signifies unity with the distinction of one from another. Some of the ancient fathers teach that there is a distinction between and and also between and , so that they take to mean not only similar but also equal, and, in fact, the essence, power, eternity, will, operation, and majesty are understood to be the same in number.

§ 52. (d) Antithesis. (α) The Arians hated the word so much that they tolerated all other words but that, obviously because they could not twist it to their heretical meaning. Athanasius (De decr. synod. Nicen.), Theodoret (Hist., bk. 2, c. 18–19), and [Socrates,] Tripart. (bk. 5, c. 21 and 33) teach: “The Arians asked the Catholics to omit just one word that occurred neither in Scripture nor in the apostolic symbol, or to [add] just one letter and say instead of , and in this way they promised to promote peace with the Catholics.” The Catholics were correct to refuse this. However, because the Arians at the Council of Ariminum had deceived the more simple, so that these latter agreed that the word should be removed, the Arians soon decreed throughout the world that the Catholics had gone off in their own direction. Thus in the course of time the Arians substituted [“of a different substance”] for [“of similar substance”]. (See Theodoret, op. cit., c. 21.) Certainly the fathers of the Council of Antioch—which was held in AD 266 against the Samosatene¹¹—had clearly denied (and this before the Arian heresy) that the Son was consubstantial [homousios] with the Father, and for this reason this word seemed too unusual and dangerous, even to some of the orthodox and to those who accepted the Nicene Creed. However, Athanasius teaches (De decret. synod. Nicen.): “The Nicene fathers and the orthodox took it in one sense, and the fathers of Antioch rejected it in a different sense.” For the Samosatene said that the Son was consubstantial with the Father only according to species, not according to number, in the same way that Peter is consubstantial with Paul because of the same humanity of their species. However, the fathers of the Council of Nicaea call the Son consubstantial with the Father according to and because of the same divine essence in number. Accordingly, Hilary writes toward the end of De synod.: “The Samosatene confessed ‘consubstantial’ badly, but did the Arians deny it better? Eighty bishops once rejected it, but 318 recently accepted it. The former disapproved it against a heretic. Did the latter not approve it against a heretic? If both established one thing both by approving and by disapproving, why do we tear away what has been well-established?”

(β) The Papists say that Luther wrote: “My soul hates the word ‘consubstantial’ [].” For this reason they declare him guilty of the charge of Arianism. (Cf. Bellarmine, Praefat. cont. de Christo, § Sed mittamus; Jud. de lib. concord., mend. 3; Possevino, De notis verbi Dei, bk. 3, p. 68; Campianus, Rat. 8; Gregory of Valencia, De unit. et trinit., c.7, p. 146, whose words we have quoted in our locus On the Nature of God [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3], § [33], and De gloria Dei, disp. 4, § 1.) The Calvinist Johann Lampadius of Bremen trods the same path in Cens. ubiquit. (c. 6, p. 45) and writes: “We confess that Christ is not only similar [] but also consubstantial [], though this word displeases Luther since he says, ‘My soul hates the word “consubstantial.” ’ ”

We respond. (1) Bellarmine reports that the fathers of the Council of Antioch denied that the Son was consubstantial with the Father yet that it is correct to hold that they were not the kin of the Arian heretics (De Christo, bk. 2, c. 3). (2) Luther not only uses the word “consubstantial” in his explanation of this mystery but even fights energetically on behalf of it (De conc. et eccles., German edition of Jena, vol. 7, f. 243). (3) In Confut. rationum Latomi, he does not say categorically and absolutely but in a certain respect: “if my soul hates the word ‘consubstantiation’ ” (vol. 2 of his Latin works, f. 407). (4) In the same place he adds clearly that he is speaking not about the subject but about the actual word and says: “Provided that I maintain the subject defined in the council through the Scriptures, I shall not be a heretic.” (5) We justly set the support of the Englishman Thomas Morton (preface to Apol. Cathol., bk. 1, c. 51), which [deals with] Luther, against the false charge of Lampadius.

The word .

§ 53. (3) [“person” or “subsistence”]. We must also note: (a) The etymology of this word. is so called from , “to subsist, to stand firmly.” However, there is no need to list the various meanings of this word because they have no kinship with the meaning in which it is used in this place, unless one would relate it to Aristotle’s distinction between “emphatic uncertainties” and “subsistent uncertainties” (De mund.).

(b) Its origin. In the Holy Scriptures the word certainly does occur, though it is used with reference to firm trust and unshaken confidence of the heart (2 Cor. 6:4; 11:[17]; Heb. 3:14; 11:1; etc.). However, the question here is whether it is used in that sense which it has in the mystery of the Trinity. But since no passage of Scripture can be produced that proves this with any appearance of truth except Heb. 1:3 (“The Son is the [“character” or “imprint”] of the of the Father”), the aim of the question, consequently, returns to whether in that passage of the apostle is used in that sense in which the word “person” is taken in the explanation of this chief doctrine. Among the Papists it is affirmed by Bellarmine (De Christo, bk. 2, c. 4), Ribera (on Hebrews 1, p. 59), Salmerón (vol. 2, treatise 11, p. 103); and among the Calvinists, by Calvin (Instit., bk. 1, c. 13, sect. 1), Zanchi (De trib. Elohim, bk. 1, c. 2), Ursinus (Catech., p. 2, q. 25), and many others. The words of Calvin read as follows: “To take hypostasis in Heb. 1:3 as essence is not only strained but also absurd, for since the essence of God, who contains it entirely within Himself, is simple and undivided, without part or outflowing but of total perfection, it is improper and, in fact, inept to talk about its ‘character.’ ”

From these words of Calvin, the first refutation of this opinion can be deduced from the nature of the divine essence. For because it is utterly simple and completely undivided, therefore it seems that the Son cannot be called the “character” of His Father’s essence. The essence of the Son is not similar to the essence of the Father but is completely the same; therefore with respect to essence the Son cannot be called the “character” or “expressed” essence of the Father.

A second refutation can be taken from the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. In whatever respect the Father and the Son are simply one, in that respect the Son cannot be called the “character” of the Father because one cannot say “character” and “image” with regard to itself. Yet in essence and with respect to essence, the Father and the Son are simply one. Therefore.

A third argument can be taken from the absurd. If the Son is said to be the image of His Father’s essence, then the Father’s essence will be the exemplar corresponding to its image, because it is not called an image with respect to itself, but it is distinguished from its exemplar as something produced is distinguished from its producer, and the essence of the Son will not be the very essence of the Father. But the latter is absurd, because the essence of the Father is not that exemplar to which the image of the Son corresponds reciprocally but is, rather, that third thing [tertium] or foundation in which the pattern and its image are alike.

The positive arguments are these: (1) From the proper meaning of this word. literally and in its native significance marks something subsisting and is distinguished from , which designates a nature common to several individuals. Yet it is not likely that the apostle wanted to confuse the native meaning of the word.

(2) From a consideration of the apostle’s purpose. With an emphatic appellation the apostle calls Christ “the character,” that is, the expressed and perfect image. However, the word “image” draws us to consider the correlation, for an image is not an image of itself but of another. Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 7, c. 1: “ ‘Image’ is a personal name because it is not called an image with respect to itself but to another.” Therefore the Son is called the image of His Father because whatever property the Father has as His own is expressed in the Son, who, because He is begotten by the Father, is said to be the character of the person of the Father.

(3) From the sonship [filiatio] of Christ. Christ according to His deity, or the Word, is the image of Him whose Son He is, since for this reason He is the image of the Father, and as begotten by the Father from eternity, He expresses completely and fully Him by whom He was begotten. But now the Word is the Son not of the essence but of the person of the Father because, properly speaking, person, not essence, begets. Therefore He is also called the image of the person rather than of the essence.

(4) From a comparison of the apostle’s text. In whatever sense and manner the Son is said to be “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), in that sense and manner He is said to be the “character of the hypostasis.” But now the Son is said to be the image of the invisible God with respect to person because the person of the Father is that correlate to which the Son is said to be similar. Therefore.

(5) From the relationship connoted. Whatever is said relatively in God and signifies its origin or proceeding is personal and is used in relation to a person. “Image” is used relatively because it is referred to a person and signifies the “origin from which” or the “proceeding out of which.” Therefore.

(6) From the witness of the ancients. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Oecumenius (in their commentaries on this passage); Gregory of Nyssa (De different. essentiae et suppositi); and Thomas ([ST,] p. 1, q. 35, art. 1) claim this. Some of our people also follow this opinion: Dr. Hutter (Loci, de Deo), Dr. Meisner (Sobr. phil., part. 2, p. 417), Grawer (Exam. sophistic., p. 20), etc.

§ 54. On the other hand, Dr. Chemnitz says, “The word is indeed extant (Heb. 1:3), but it is employed in a different manner from that in which the Church uses it today, for what we now call in the use of the Church is there called ” (part 1, Loci, p. 88). Dr. Mentzer claims the same thing (Disp. Gissens., vol. 3, disp. 4, thesis 58). In favor of this opinion the following arguments can be produced:

(1) From the actual meaning of the word. In 2 Cor. 9:4; Heb. 3:14; 11:1, it can be translated as “substance” or proof and support of boasting and of things hoped for, but it cannot be taken for “person.”

(2) From the connection of the apostolic text. In whatever way and sense the Son is said to be the “radiance of glory,” in that way and sense He is also called the “character of hypostasis.” But now “the glory of the Father” does not indicate His person as distinguished from the Father but His eternal and divine majesty and glory. Therefore hypostasis does not indicate the person of the Father as distinguished from His essence.

(3) From the condition of an image. The Son is the character of the Father in that by which He is as similar as possible, or rather equal, to the Father and is most simply one with the Father, not in that by which He is distinguished from the Father. For image and character are marks of likeness. But now the Son is similar, or rather equal, to the Father and, in fact, is most simply one with the Father in essence, glory, power, and majesty—which He has in common with the Father—but not in person, which He has truly and really distinct from the Father. For this reason the Son is called the image of the Father, because as the Father is true God, eternal, omnipotent, all-wise, so also the Son is true God, eternal, etc. Yet divinity, eternity, and omnipotence pertain to essence, not to the idea of person.

(4) From the manner of naming. The Son is called the image of the Father not only because He reveals to us the counsel of the Father concerning our salvation but also because “in Himself He shows the entire one who begot Him.” Basil, on John 1: “He expresses in Himself the complete essence of the Father.” We see the Father in Him, etc. (See our locus On God the Father and His Eternal Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § 159.) However, these ideas are not related to the person, according to which He is distinguished from the Father, but to the common and, indeed, one nature of both.

(5) From the meaning used in the Church. The Son is called the essential, substantial, natural image, but not the personal image of the Father. Therefore He is called this with respect not to His person but to His nature.

(6) From the Vulgate version, which has translated that the Son is the image of the substance of the Father, not of the person or of the subsistence.¹² Luther’s version: seines Wesens [“of His essence”].

(7) From the Syriac version, which has the word , “essence,” as does also the Arabic, which has the word , “splendor, light, radiance.”

(8) From the witness of the ancients. Epiphanius explains the hypostasis in the apostle’s text as essence (Haeres., bk. 2, vol. 2, haeres. 69). Basil (Epistle 43) and Cyril (dial. 1. De Trinit. trip., bk. 6, c. 21) assert that “this word is not taken from the phrasing of Scripture but from the common manner of speaking.”

§ 55. To decide the question, we repeat: (1) The distinction given in our locus On the Nature of God [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3], § 34, between person and personality. The word hypostasis in Heb. 1:3 does not signify “personality” or a personal property taken formally, but “person,” that is, the essence of the Father distinguished by the hypostatic character, so that the sense is: The Son is the character of the hypostasis of the Father, that is, of the First Person, which is the Father. Moreover, He is called the image of the person of the Father not because He has the person of the Father communicated to Him but because He has the same essence (according to number) as the Father. Some people bring out the following distinction: The word “person” is taken either materially and concretely for the person having the essence or formally and precisely when it is distinguished from essence and is the same as personality. The Son is called the image of the person of the Father in the prior sense but not in the latter.

(2) One must distinguish between the correlate and the foundation of an image. The correlate, because of which the Son is called the image and character of the Father, is the person of the Father, as the arguments of the prior opinion prove; but the foundation, by reason of which the Son is called the image of the Father, is the essence of the Father that has been communicated to the Son through His eternal begetting, as the arguments of the latter opinion prove. Consequently, in the Syriac letter of the Council of Ephesus to Nestorius it is written: “Because of one and the same substance, the Son is the image, imprint, and splendor of the glory of the Father.” Therefore as we have said about the word homoousios, that it expresses at the same time the unity of essence and the distinction of persons, so also the words “character” and “image” have to do with the person of the Father as their correlate and to the essence of the Father as their foundation and formal principle, as it were, of the likeness.

Nazianzen, Orat. 5. de Filio, vol. 1, p. 165: “The Son is called the image of the Father as being of the same essence with the Father, because the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son.” From this the Scholastics argue: “The concept of an image includes not only likeness but also origin, because a sheep is not called the image of another sheep, though there is some similarity there, because it is not expressed from the other.” Literally speaking, however, a likeness expressed from the other is not an image but merely the similarity that is expressed from the other according to species or according to its own accident. For if a likeness is expressed merely according to genus, it is not properly called an image. For example, a grub springs from man, but it is not called the image of man because its likeness is merely according to genus. Similarly, if the likeness is expressed according to a common accident, it is not properly called an image. For example, if something white is produced according to the image of some other white thing, we cannot literally say that that was produced according to the image of some other white thing because whiteness is a common accident not only of many individual things but also of many species.

Now the Son is correctly said to be the image of the Father because there the likeness is expressed according to species. Therefore because in God the Son is expressed as the likeness of the Father not only according to species but also according to the same essence according to number, it follows from this that the Son is the image of the Father in the most perfect and literal way.

(3) It is one thing to speak about a person but another to speak about the character of a person. The Son is not the person of the Father because the Father did not communicate His person to the Son, nor is the person of the Father and of the Son the same. However, He is the character of the person of the Father because He exactly represents the person of the Father, obviously because in His own person He has the same essence according to number as the Father has. “As the Father has life in Himself, so also the Son has life (that is, the life-giving essence) in Himself” (John 5:26). “Therefore He has all things that the Father has” (John 16:15).

(4) Immediately, image has to do with person, because image, to the extent that it is such, is a relative word. Mediately, it has to do with essence. For because the Son, according to divinity, is the substantial image of His Father not in just any way, not accidentally, not imperfectly, but in an utterly perfect way, therefore it is required that He have one and the same essence with the Father. It is enough for the definition of any image taken in general that there be some likeness between the exemplar and the image corresponding to it. But for the definition of that utterly perfect image, which Scripture places in the Son with respect to the Father, an identity of essence in the Father and the Son is required. Therefore mediately and consequently, the word “image” has to do with the essence of the Father. Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 35, art. 2: “The image of a thing may be found in something in two ways. In one way it is found in something of the same nature; in another way it is found in something of a different nature, such as, the image of a man in wood or the figure of a king on a coin. The former is perfect and essential; the latter, imperfect and accidental. The former requires consubstantiality, but not the latter.”

§ 56. In De Christo, bk. 2, c. 4, Bellarmine also applies to this those passages of Scripture in which the word is used with reference to confidence and boasting, such as 2 Cor. 9:4; 11:16; Heb. 3:14; 11:1. He says:

In these passages the word hypostasis is explained in general to mean the foundation or basis that holds up other things and stands of itself. Faith is called a hypostasis because it is the foundation of righteousness and not only exists of itself but also even gives subsistence to things that have been hoped for. For the things we hope for do not exist in themselves but appear now to exist somehow through faith. Hence this is also adapted to suppositum or to person, which is the foundation of nature and of all things that accompany nature, for all things exist in a person and it exists in itself.

One of our people approves of the same idea and says: “When the word hypostasis is attributed to inanimate substances or accidents, it signifies bare subsistence” (commentary on Hebrews 1, p. 21). For this reason he also says: “It signifies some subsistence, if faith indeed can be called subsistence in its own definite way” (commentary on Heb. 3:14; 11:1). However, since in the cited passages is explained more accurately as firm trust and confidence, and because faith does not cause things to subsist of themselves and does not itself subsist of itself, therefore it is simpler to respond that the word is taken in one way when it is used in reference to inanimate things or accidents, but it is taken in another way when it is predicated of an intelligent substance, as examples show also in secular authors.

With perhaps greater likelihood it could here be mentioned that in Wisdom 16:21 it says: “Your showed sweetness toward Your children,” that is, “You Yourself were showing it.” And we read in Job 22:20: “… if our subsistence has not been cut off.” The Septuagint translates that as , but there it appears to be taken in the same way as in Luke 15:12, namely, as resources, in which manner it is also used in Judg. 6:[4]. Furthermore, in Scripture itself there are extant traces of the meaning of the word as used in this article. The same use is accepted and found in the oldest and continued use in the Church. You see—to pass over the fact that Dionysius (De div. nom., c. 1) and Justin () said that the three persons of the Godhead are three hypostases, since there remains some doubt as to whether their books are genuine—Athanasius (Symbol.; Epist. de syn. Nic. decret.), Nazianzen (Orat. de Epiph.), and all the Greek fathers use this word in their explanation of this mystery. Therefore what Socrates (bk. 3, c. 5), Sozomen (bk. 5, c. 11), and Nicephorus (bk. 10, c. 13) write (“Hosius of Cordova was the first to mention this word in his disputation about the deity of the Son”), I say, what they write must be understood concerning an accurate distinction of and . What Socrates teaches must be understood in the same sense: “The word was first received in the Greek Church at the time of Athanasius” (Tripart., bk. 1, c. 21).

§ 57. (c) Its meaning. In this place is a subsisting individual, intelligent, incommunicable, not sustained by another. The Scholastics say that hypostasis signifies first substance,¹³ which we call in general suppositum, in an intelligent nature “person.” Consequently, they establish a dual distinction between “essence” and “person”: (α) A priori, that “essence” signifies a total form existing in another, but hypostasis signifies the entire thing that exists not in another but in and of itself. For we say that those things subsist that exist not in another but in themselves. From this they draw the further conclusion that hypostasis does not add to essence any grade of nature or any actuality, but only the mode of being. (β) A posteriori, that “essence” is communicable but hypostasis is incommunicable, because what is in itself or what subsists of itself cannot be in something else, since being in another is not being in itself. From this they conclude that hypostasis also adds a property to essence, that is, something or some mode, with reference to which it becomes incommunicable.

All this must be explained correctly, however, lest we take it exclusively, understanding hypostasis to be only a manner of subsisting. For hypostasis is one thing, the manner of hypostasis another, just as a person is one thing and a personal property another. Hypostasis, person, is the divine essence itself distinguished with a certain hypostatic character and distinct from the others by its own mode of subsisting. The manner of hypostasis, the property of the person, is its own manner of subsisting through which and by reason of which any person is distinguished from another. Some people express it in this way: that the word hypostasis is taken either materially and concretely, or formally, abstractly, and precisely, as we showed earlier. Of the ancients, Basil (epistle 43), Gregory of Nyssa (De differ. essent. et hypost.), and the Damascene (Orth. fid., bk. 3, c. 3) teach: “The distinction between ‘essence’ and hypostasis is like the distinction between a species and an individual or between human nature and an individual human,” Peter, for example. Theodoret says: “Essence and person differ as common and particular or as genus and species and individual” (Dial. 1, vol. 2, p. 297), which John of Damascus explains in greater detail in De duab. volunt. Christi, p. 470.

However, this, too, must be explained correctly and not extended beyond their intent, for they themselves teach that the divine essence or nature common to the three persons of the Deity is not only one in species—as there is one humanity in Peter, Paul, and John—but that it is also one in number and thus is, as Luther speaks in his commentary on Genesis 1, “the onest one” [unissime unam]. Thus the entire divine essence and not a part of the essence is in the Father and the entire essence is in the Son, the like of which does not occur in the entire universe of created things. John of Damascus, Dialect., c. 66: “Hypostasis is the unoriginate manner of eternal existence of each one” of the Holy Trinity. Suidas, bk. 3, c. 15, col. 964, defines hypostasis and says, “It is that which is proper beyond what is common.”

Antithesis.

§ 58. (d) Its antithesis. (α) The fathers of the Council of Sardica, held in AD 347, decreed the same as was decided by the Council of Nicaea: “It is heretical to assert that there are three hypostases and catholic to declare that there is only one.” We respond. As far as the Council of Sardica is concerned, there is still a question about whether it should be counted among the ecumenical and orthodox councils. Many depart from it because there were two Councils of Sardica, one legitimate that confirmed the Nicene faith, the other illegitimate, which subscribed to the faithlessness of the Arians. As to the rejection of the three hypostases that occurred in this council, this is concluded from no other source than from the synodical letter quoted by Theodoret in Hist., bk. 2, c. 8. However, Baronius (Ann. 347, nos. 38 and 41) and, from him, Severinus Binius (Not. ad conc. Sard., vol. 1, p. 447) mark as spurious the appendix added to the synodical epistle in which that rejection of the three hypostases is contained. They do so because in it Ursacius and Valens are claimed to be followers of the Sabellian heresy, but it is evident that they were infected with the Arian heresy. They also do so because on the basis of Athanasius’s letter from the Council of Alexandria to Euseb. and Lucifer. it is evident that in the Council of Sardica no rule of faith at all was published nor was the earlier Nicene Creed increased by so much as a dot. In addition, they use the word for because they say that they confess “one hypostasis, which the heretics call the of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

(β) Jerome thought that “a poison is concealed in the word ” (Epist. 57 ad Damasum, vol. 2, p. 131, published at Basel in 1553). He concludes that letter in this way: “I beseech your Blessedness by the crucified Savior of the world, by the consubstantial Trinity, that your epistles give me authority to keep silent or to say ‘hypostasis.’ ” Also from Jerome’s Dial. adv. Luciferianos, p. 153, it is apparent that many in the Church were suspicious of it because it was new. In Sent., bk. 1, dist. 26, the Lombard takes the words of Jerome in a certain respect, as if he wrote to Damasus because of the snares of the heretics. In De concil., the blessed Luther asserts that what Jerome had written about the word , he [Luther] had written about the word , because of which word Bellarmine (preface to De Christo; Jud. de Form. Concor., mend. 3) and Gregory of Valencia (De unit. et trinit., bk. 1, c. 7, p. 146) ascribe to Luther the guilt of a great lie and even the crime of the Arian heresy. But the memorable fault did not have to be attacked so hatefully and transferred to the place of such a great lie. Finally, however, even Jerome himself used the word , because he writes in his Epist. ad August. et Alipium: “As we avoid the error of Sabellius, we distinguish three expressed persons under the property. For we confess not merely names but also the properties of names, that is, persons, or, as the Greeks express it, hypostases, that is, subsistencies.”

(γ) What Gregory Nazianzen mentions in Orat. de laud. Athanas., quest. 31, is worth noting: that the Greeks who said hypostases seemed to the Latins to have said three beings or essences along with Arius, because “the entire school of the secular Greeks was ignorant of the distinction between and ,” as Jerome speaks in his aforementioned letter to Damasus. On the other hand, however, Gregory mentions that the Latins who rejected the word hypostasis and said “three persons” [tres personas] seemed to the Greeks to have acknowledged not a real distinction but only a manner of duty or office among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this respect they seemed to favor Sabellius because, in Latin authors, the word “person” was generally adapted to office and disposition. Therefore because the war of words had brought the situation to the point that peril seemed close, Athanasius called together both sides so that the Eastern and Western churches would not be torn from each other and burst apart along with their syllables. When he saw that they meant the same thing in what they were referring to, he began to encourage and persuade them that, because of their harmony, they should also agree in their ways of speaking. As a result, it happened that thereafter the Greeks used the word [“person”] for hypostasis and the Latins also said hypostasis for persona [“person”].

(δ) Socrates (bk. 3, c. 5) and Nicephorus (bk. 10, c. 15) say that the word is barbaric and nearly unknown to the philosophers. Nicephorus even calls the debates over the distinction between and “trifling things.” However, the opposite can be easily proved from sacred, ecclesiastical, and secular authors.

(ε) Nicolaus Taurellus argues: “The persons of the Trinity cannot be called hypostases” (Synops. metaph., p. 101).

(ζ) As the Antitrinitarians reject the word , so also they reject the word .

The word .

§ 59. (4) In this mystery [“existence”], from , is the same as [“person” or “subsistence”]. Thus Justin said: “There are three modes of existence” (.). Indeed, the Septuagint translators use this word not in the same sense in which it is used here, but instead for , and , for “good resources,” the “possession of riches,” which the Latins, too, call substantia [“substance”] (Prov. 13:11; Jer. 9:10; Dan. 11:13; etc.). It is taken in the same way in Acts 2:45 and Heb. 10:34.

The word .

(5) The Greeks began to use [“person”] (from and ) for when they saw that the Latins were expressing hypostasis with the word persona [“person”]. Justin, QQ. et resp., q. 17, p. 313: “There is one God, of one undivided essence, and three persons [] with a divisibility of hypostases.” (See also Athanasius, Orat. quod unus sit Christus; Nazianzen, Orat. in sanct. lum.; etc.) It is extant both in the Septuagint translation and in the New Testament, but in a different sense from the one used in this mystery.

Suidas, on the word , adapts Ps. 27:8 to this meaning: “I have sought out Your [“face”]; Your , O Lord, do I seek. Hide not Your from me.” Some of our people relate 2 Cor. 1:11 to this: “so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us in answer to many prayers.” Here means nothing other than “people” or “human faces.” 2 Cor. 3:13: “Moses put a veil over his ”; [2 Cor.] 4:6: “God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God of Jesus Christ.” In the latter two passages, however, is used as “face,” and it is not used in that sense in this commonplace. Therefore the apostle’s words in 2 Cor. 2:[10] could be referred more suitably to this: “If I have forgiven anything for your sake in the person of Christ.” ([Isidorus], Dial. 1: “We say that , , and [“property”] mean the same thing.” In Thesaur., bk. 2, c. 14, Nicetas adds the words [“character”] and [“individual”].) 2 Thess. 1:9: “The wicked will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction from the of the Lord.” That is, they will suffer the punishment they have been awarded by Christ the Lord, who will appear in His own person and demonstrate His glorious power. But it is better to call this word, taken in this sense, as it is used in the mystery of the Trinity, not scriptural but ecclesiastical.

The word .

(6) God is called [“trihypostatic” or “of three persons”], a word formed from “three hypostases” by Dionysius (De div. nom., c. 2) and Basil. Gregory of Nyssa calls Him [“the tripersonal Unity”], which the Photinians explain through a false accusation as “three-personed.” Socinus, Animadv. in assert. Posnan. 17, no. 1: “They introduce a three-personed God, though they never say clearly the word ‘three-personed.’ ” Defens. animadv., p. 454: “Although it is clearly unusual for anything to have three persons by nature and each person to be found to have one, nevertheless if God Himself naturally has three persons, He can justly be called ‘three-personed’ without any mockery in the same way as the poets call Geryon ‘the three-bodied.’ ”

The words and .

(7) [“unity”] and (8) [“trinity” or “triad”] denote the unity of essence and the trinity of persons, and they occur in the earliest writers of the Church. Justin, .: “He is perceived as Unity in Trinity; He is known as Trinity in Unity.” Why, even the concrete , “three,” is found clearly in 1 John 5:7[–8]: “There are three who bear witness … and these three are one.”

The word essentia.

§ 60. (III) The Latin terms are (a) essentia, substantia, consubstantialis; (b) persona, subsistentia; (c) Trinitas.

(1) The Latins express the Greek word with essentia [“essence”]. Hilary, De synodis, p. 305: “ ‘Essence’ is something that is or from which it is and that subsists in what remains.” Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 12, c. 2: “Just as sapientia [“wisdom”] is from sapere [“to understand”], so also essentia is from that which is esse [“to be”]. Indeed, this is a new word that the ancient writers of the Latin language did not use. Now, however, what the Greeks call is being used in our days, lest it be lacking in our language, for this word is expressed from a word, so that we say essentia.”

They preferred to use “essence” rather than “substance”: (a) To indicate that God is an essence beyond essence [], not contained in categories, among which the first is substance. The Damascene, bk. 1, c. 12: “God is a sea of infinite substance.” (See our locus On the Nature of God [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3], § 32.) (b) Because God does not exist [substat] with accidents as do the essences of created things, but the attributes are His essence.¹⁴ (c) The word “substance” is ambiguous because sometimes it is used for , sometimes for . Thus in De synod., Hilary says: “There are three substances in God,” that is, three persons. Some also understand the Latin translation of Heb. 1:3 in this sense, where the Son is called “the character of the substance of the Father.” Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 7, c. 4:

For the sake of speaking about unspeakable things, so that we may be able to say in some way what we can by no means say fully, our Greeks have spoken of one essence and three substances, that is, one , three . For the Greeks take “substance” differently than the Latins do. However, the Latins speak of one essence or substance and three persons, because in our language, that is, in Latin, “essence” is generally not understood any differently from “substance.”

On the other hand, however, Tertullian (Contra Praxeam), Jerome (Ad Damas.), and Augustine (De trinit., bk. 5, c. 9) say that there is one substance in God and deny that there are three substances in Him.

Otherwise, the metaphysical philosophers take the word “essence” in two ways: First, when it signifies that which is a thing, then it is expressed through a concrete noun, for example, “Paul,” “Peter,” etc., because it signifies the essence of Peter and of Paul. Second, when it means that by which it is a thing, then it is expressed as an abstract noun, such as “humanity.” According to the first meaning, ens [“a being”] and essentia [“essence”] do not differ, not even in creatures. According to the second, they differ in creatures but not in God, for God is His own essence, since He is of and through Himself, something that belongs to no created thing.

§ 61. (2) Persona corresponds to the Greek word . We should note: (a) The etymology of this word. It is derived from personare, “to give out a great sound” and “to cry out with a loud voice,” as we have it in Gellius (bk. 5, c. 7). But this etymology does not fit its current meaning. Bede, on Boethius’s De trinit., vol. 8, col. 1112: “ ‘Person’ [persona] is derived, as it were, from ‘through itself one’ [per se una].”

(b) Its origin. Because on the basis of Christ’s institution we are baptized “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), they accordingly said, “There are three names of the same essence,” as we know from the following words concerning the Trinity. However, because Sabellius corrupted this and said that there was only one person in the Godhead, but a three-named person, therefore they began to say that there were not only three names but also three properties of names. When Sabellius also corrupted this by saying that there were three properties just as there is only one soul that has three powers, they then said, compelled as they were by the need to speak, that there are three persons or hypostases. Nazianzen, Orat. in sanct. lum.: “When I speak of God, you must be illumined at once by one light and by three—three according to properties or, if any prefer to call them this, hypostases or persons. For we are not quarreling about words, provided that their syllables lead us to the same meaning: one in respect to the substance or the deity, for they are divided divisibly, so to speak, and they are united indivisibly.” We find this word in the most ancient teachers of the Latin Church. Tertullian, Adv. Prax.: “Nothing useless and without substance can come forth from God; therefore the Word [sermo] of God is a thing and person. Therefore whatever substance the Word had, I call that ‘person’ and vindicate the name ‘Son’ for it.” (See also Cyprian, Serm. de Christi nativ.; Hilary, De synod.; Jerome, Ad Damas.; Lactantius, Div. instit., bk. 4, c. 39; Ambrose, De inst. virg., c. 10; Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 11, c. 14; etc.)

There are some who insist that the word persona is extant in Scripture, such as when it says of God “that He is not a respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11; etc.). In these passages they think that “person” signifies a human hypostasis. (See Bellarmine, De Christo, bk. 2, c. 5.) But even in those passages “person” means “quality” rather than hypostasis. For the Hebrew wording reads that one who does something as a kindness for another “accepts someone’s face or person,” considering his external features and qualities, which are seen with the eyes or observed with the mind and which make him commendable to us—for example, wealth, honor, kinship, dignity, power, etc.—so that meanwhile meritorious causes are not noticed.

§ 62. (c) Its meaning. Just as the meaning of “essence” is to be, so the meaning of hypostasis is to subsist of oneself. As is something shared in common, so is something distinctive.

** Three things are required for a persona: (α) That it subsist of itself, not in something else as in a subject. (β) That it be of an intelligent nature. (γ) That it be distinguished from another, not predicated of another person in the nominative case [in casu recto]. Augustine, De Trinit., bk. 5, c. 9:

Really, because the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit (who is also called “the gift of God”) is neither the Father nor the Son, surely they are three. So it is said in the plural: “The Father and I are one.” … Yet when one asks, “What three?” human language struggles under a great poverty. Nevertheless we say “three persons,” not that it may be spoken but that it not be left silent.

Boethius defines persona as “the individual substance of a rational nature” (De duab. natur., c. 17). **

Richard of St. Victor adds the word “incommunicable” (De Trin., bk. 4, c. 18). Scholastics on both sides define it as “intelligent, individual, incommunicable substance.” More recent Scholastics add to this definition: “which is not part of another and which is not sustained by another,” because the human nature of Christ, which is an intelligent, individual, and incommunicable substance, is nevertheless not a persona because it does not subsist of itself but in the Word. Nevertheless the Scholastics teach that the definition of Boethius can be explained in such a way that it does not apply to the assumed nature of Christ, for they say that “individual” is taken in two ways: First, for that which is determined in itself and is singular, namely, as “singular” differs from “universal.” Second, for that which is absolutely and completely singular, that is, which not only is this singular determined thing but also subsists of itself and not in another and which has some ultimate limit of its own in the whole complex of substance. In the first way the assumed human nature is an individual substance, but not in the second way.

Hugo Eterianus, De process. Spiritus s. contra Graecos, bk. 1, c. 1: “Persona is substance that differs in number from things of the same nature on the basis of its properties.” Also: “Persona is rational substance that can be understood as singular through its properties.” Suidas: “Hypostasis is essence with characteristic properties.” Lombard, bk. 1, dist. 25, c. 11: “The noun persona is taken in three ways: (1) as essence, (2) as hypostasis, and (3) as property.” Alexander of Hales provides this definition, which he calls “masterly”: “Persona is hypostasis distinct by the property that pertains to its dignity”¹⁵ (p. 1, q. 56, memb. 3). Again, Alexander (p. 3, q. 4, memb. 6) says that the definition of persona brings in three distinctions: of singularity, of incommunicability, and of dignity, namely, by which one persona is distinguished from another on the basis of individual rationality, which is the most worthy [dignissima] characteristic.

In other respects, though persona may be said to be individual substance, nevertheless there occurs a difference between persona and “individual,” as the philosophers call it. Durand explains the difference in this way (Sent., bk. 2, dist. 3, q. 2; bk. 3, dist. 1, q. 1, no. 17):

Every persona is a suppositum and every suppositum is an individual, but not every individual is a suppositum nor is every suppositum a persona, because any singular nature, in whatever genus it may be, can be called individual, but it is not called a suppositum unless the singular nature is in the category of substance, and not of just any substance but only a complete one. The same is said of persona: [it exists] only in an intellectual nature, such as in angels, humans, and in God Himself.

The word “individual” is very broad and signifies any nature, substantial and accidental, singular and determined. But suppositum signifies a complete substantial nature, subsisting of itself, and persona means a complete substance subsisting in an intellectual nature.

Here, however, we must finally observe that there is a great—in fact, an infinite—distinction between human persons and divine persons. For every human person has its own incommunicable essence, but the persons of the Trinity have one and the same communicable essence. The unity of essence in the persons of the Trinity is numerical. The reason [for this distinction] depends on the finity of the human essence and on the infinity of the divine essence, as we have said earlier.

Some define persona as the “intelligent subsistence of an incommunicable nature,” in which definition persona is taken formally and abstractly, while in the definition of Boethius the word is taken materially and concretely. We spoke earlier about this dual understanding of persona. In vol. 2, treatise 101, Salmerón (vol. 2, treatise 10) calls hypostasis “first substance,” but essence he calls “second substance.” However, this must be taken cautiously, because essence is neither genus nor species in the Godhead. Yet this statement is somewhat fitting, because essence is common to the three persons, but hypostasis is proper to each.

Antithesis.

§ 63. (d) Its antithesis. (α) Lorenzo Valla accuses Boethius of having dared to define persona as substance, whereas “it rather signifies an accident or quality” that, since it has no place in God, therefore it is no more in God than, as he says, persona is in a brute animal (Elegant., bk. 6, c. 34). However, one ought not pass judgment on an ecclesiastical word on the basis of secular writers. Furthermore, in proven authors of the Latin language, persona signifies not only quality but also substance. Cicero says (De invent. topic. et partit.): “Some things are attributes of things, while others are attributes of personae.” De orat., bk. 2: “There are countless personae of people.” Philipp. 6: “It was not unusual for you to recognize some personae, so that you can think silently of those with whom you waged war.” Valerius Maximus calls any people at all personae (bk. 2, c. 21). Lawyers establish three objects of law: “personae, things, and actions.”

(β) The Photinians, who deny a trinity of persons in the Godhead, provide a definition of persona from which they hope to be able to overthrow that mystery. Goslavius, Contra Keckerm., part 3, c. 1: “That serious error regarding the Trinity can be checked without any trouble by a true understanding of persona, so I am surprised that otherwise learned men permit themselves to be convinced that three persons can exist in a single essence, though they certainly are not unaware that any persona requires a singular essence.” (We respond. If one should take “singular essence” to mean a separate incommunicable essence, we deny that it is required or has a place in the divine persons, because the divine essence is infinite.)

Ibid., c. 2, he says that “incommunicable” must be removed from the definition of Boethius “because the same thing is contained in the word ‘individual.’ ” (Yet “individual” and “incommunicable” are not clearly reciprocal. “Individual” merely speaks of something subsisting singularly and relates to first substance, while “incommunicable” explains the formal principle of “individual” and relates to other personae of the same nature. In nature, something can be this, hence the prime substance and, consequently, an individual; but it still is not incommunicable, such as fire in heated iron. Jacob Martini, De trib. Eloh., c. 4: Many individual things retain their individuality but lose their incommunicability or the constitution [ratio] of their own suppositum [c. 6].)

Ibid., he defines persona as “intelligent first substance.” However, in that definition he omits the formal definition of persona, which is incommunicability.

The word trinitas.

§ 64. (3) Trinitas [“trinity”]. We should note: (a) The etymology of this word. They mean the word “trinity” as the unity of three, as the statement of the apostle expresses emphatically: “And these three are one” (1 John 5:[8]). (See Thomas, [ST,] p. 1, q. 31, art. 1, from Isidore, bk. 1, c. 4.)

Yet, first, the Latin trinitas corresponds to the Greek , which does not include the term for “oneness.” Second, Athanasius says in his creed: “We worship the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity.” But who speaks in such a way: that we worship the unity of three in unity? Third, the devout ancients acknowledge a unity, or , in essence and a trinity, , in persons; thus they distinguish trinity from unity. Fourth, if trinity were a unity of three persons, quaternity would be a unity of four persons. Fifth, Gentilis, in his Protheses, concludes from this that “essence is a fourth thing outside the three persons.” Therefore we say that the word trinitas indicates formally and precisely a threeness of persons but only consequently a oneness of essence, and therefore that the etymology of Thomas is only allusive and considers the sound of the word, just as we say that city [civitas] is a unity of citizens [civium unitas].

(b) Its origin. The concrete is extant in the Scriptures, and the abstract is in the oldest writers of the Church: Tertullian (Contra Prax.), Cyprian (Serm. de orat. Domin.), Ambrose, etc.

(c) Its meaning. “Trinity,” from the force and first application of the word, signifies the number of any three things, but when it is used absolutely in the ecclesiastical custom of speaking, where it denotes the unique and incomprehensible trio of divine persons, it does not mean anything composed of three but the three persons of the one essence. For this reason, trinity, or three persons taken together, does not differ from essence—otherwise quaternity would be introduced instead of trinity. Consequently, there is a great difference between trinus [“three”] and triplex [“triple”]. That which is trinus is one in essence and has three modes of subsisting; triplex is that which is composed of three. We say that God is trinus, but the Christian religion forbids us to say that He is triplex. God is said to be trinus not with respect to essence, which is one in number; nor with respect to essential idioms, which indeed with the essence are most simply the same thing; nor with respect to genus or species, because there is neither genus nor species in God; but rather with respect to the three modes of existence [], which are “unbegotten” in the case of the Father, “begotten” in the case of the Son, and “proceeding” in the case of the Holy Spirit. (See our locus On the Three Elohim [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 4], §§ 1–2.)

Antithesis.

§ 65. (d) Its antithesis. (α) As the ancient heretics rejected the referent itself, so also they rejected the word “trinity” as they denied the mystery of “the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity.” The Photinians today follow in their footsteps, who are justly called “Antitrinitarians” because of this. Socinus, Defens. animadv., p. 311: “When the ancient theologians said ‘Trinity,’ they understood that to mean not, as it often happens today, the very essence of God consisting of three persons but simply the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” And a little earlier: “Jerome could have understood the words ‘Holy Trinity’ to mean not that there are three persons in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but that these three come together in the mystery of our salvation.”

(β) Calvin writes: “This prayer so commonly heard, ‘Holy Trinity, one God,’ does not please me” (Epist. ad Polon., in Opusc., p. 1972, published in 1566).

(γ) The Jesuits bring a serious accusation against Luther under the same charge. Bellarmine, Praefat. controv. de Christo and in Jud. de Form. Concord., mend. 3, col. 1539: “If the Catholic doctrine of the unity of essence and trinity of persons is proved to Luther, why has he removed that little imprecation from the common prayers of the Germans: ‘O Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us’?” Gregory of Valencia, De unit. et trinit., bk. 1, c. 7. p. 146: “As the soul of Luther appears to have hated not the syllables of but the thing signified by the word ‘consubstantial,’ so also with the word ‘Trinity,’ which he caused to be removed in German prayers in 1543: ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us.’ ” Tanner, Disp. 3 in Thomam, c. 1, thesis 2, p. 137: “Luther hated the word ‘Trinity’ and removed it from the German litanies by expunging that form of prayer, ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us.’ He showed that he would consider the Trinity to be propitious just as little as he would be suppliant to the Trinity.” The Jesuit Sandaeus of Würzburg, Thema seculare de secta Protest. deserenda, thesis 232: “In order for Luther to take away the honor owed to God, he forced out of the orthodox litanies the customary form of prayer, ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us.’ He was accustomed to biting and gnawing away at the word ‘Trinity.’ ” This same tune is played by Paraeus in Iren. (c. 24, art. 14, p. 147) and Slade (appendix to Disp. 1 contra Vorstium, p. 61). But we freed Luther of this accusation in our locus On the Three Elohim [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 4], § 3, and in De gloria Dei, disp. 9, § 6.¹⁶

As for us, along with the ancients, we freely employ this formula of speaking. Nazianzen, Orat. 2. de pace: “O holy, patient Trinity, help us.” Augustine, epistle 67: “As the Father, as the Son, as the Holy Spirit, so the Trinity, one God.” De trinit., last bk., last c.: “O God, the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of You, may Your people acknowledge it. If there is anything of mine in them, may it be forgiven by You and Your people.”

§ 66. These are the things we had to say about the Latin words used in this article. Besides these, the Scholastics use proprietas [“property”], notio [“concept”], relatio [“relationship”], and circumincessio [“interpenetration”], which corresponds to the of the Greeks.

They list three properties: innascibility [inability to be born], the of the Greeks, which is the property of the Father, which they also call “paternity”; filiation, , which is the property of the Son, which they also call “nativity”; and spiration [breathing], the of the Greeks, which is the property of the Holy Spirit, which they also call “procession.”

They list four relationships: active generation and passive generation (terms taken not physically but grammatically) and active and passive spiration.

They list five concepts: innascibility, paternity, filiation, active spiration, and passive spiration. “Interpenetration,” they say, is that “intimate and perfect dwelling of one person in another,” about which Augustine writes: “Each is in each, all are in each, all are in all, and one is all” (De trinit., bk. 6, c. 10). The Greek , which the Damascene uses in bk. 3, c. 4, and elsewhere, is far more significant, a beautiful description of which he gives in bk. 1, c. 18. However, one will be able to pass judgment on these points more fully from the following paragraphs.

The German terms.

§ 67. (IV) In the German language, (1) “essence” is called Substanz or Wesen. (2) The word “person” is retained and Dr. Chemnitz gives the German its description in part 1 of his Loci, p. 95. (3) “Trinity” is called Dreifaltigkeit [“threefoldness”], but because that means “triplicity,” it must be explained correctly. Instead of it, the word Dreieinigkeit [“three-oneness”] should rather be used.

7 That is, the confession of Nicaea.

8 See 1625 Exegesis, Commonplace IV (On the Person and Office of Christ), § 294.

9 Sometimes translated as “daily.”

10 Literally, “consubstantial” or “coessential.”

11 Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch from AD 260/1–268, who taught that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but modes of the one God, not distinct persons, and that Jesus was a normal man inspired by the Spirit of God.

12 Cotta’s reading. Preuss here reads substantiae.

13 That is, substance that is concrete and individual. “Second substance,” on the other hand, is abstract and general. Cf. Deferrari s.v. substantia.

14 Substare, “to substand” or “exist among,” is a verb for existence used only of created substances, which carry accidents. It is the root of the noun substantia, “substance.”

15 Or “principle” (dignitas). Cf. Deferrari.

16 In his 1610 Loci Theologici, locus 4 (On the Three Elohim), § 3, Gerhard explains: “But we know that Dr. Luther used this word in his writings quite often. But I think that the occasion for this false charge arose from the fact that he himself taught that the German word is not exact enough, and therefore its meaning and sense must be correctly explained to the people.”

↑ Back to top