The Speculative Theological Development of the Dogma of the Trinity — Section 3: The Divine Relations and Divine Personality (1. Hypostasis and Person)

SECTION 3: THE DIVINE RELATIONS — DIVINE PERSONALITY

1. Definition of the Terms “Hypostasis” and “Person”

As the Divine Persons consist in, and are constituted by, “subsistent relations,” we shall have to introduce this division of our treatise with a scientific exposition of the terms hypostasis and person, as distinguished from, and opposed to, nature.

a) Though they differ formally, and, when predicated of creatures, even really, the terms “essence,” “substance,” and “nature” are applied synonymously to God. “Tres quidem personae,” says the Fourth Lateran Council, “sed una essentia, substantia seu natura simplex omnino — Three Persons, it is true, but only one absolutely simple Essence, or Substance, or Nature.”¹ The physical essence of a thing — its metaphysical essence does not concern us here — is the sum total of all those notes by which the thing is what it is. By substance we understand “ens in se” or, in the words of St. Thomas, “Being, inasmuch as this Being is by itself,” in contradistinction to accident, which is “that whose being is to be in something else.”² “Nature” is the principle of activity of a substance, or its physical essence. We know from Divine Revelation that there is in the Blessed Trinity only one Nature in three Hypostases, or Persons, while in Christ, on the contrary, there are two complete natures in but one Hypostasis, or Person. It follows that, commonly speaking, there is both a logical and a real distinction between Nature and Person. Since Person is generally defined as hypostasis rationalis, we have first to examine the notion of Hypostasis.

b) In order to arrive at a correct idea of Hypostasis, it will be advisable to institute a process of logical differentiation, by proceeding from the universal to the particular, and constantly adding new marks, until we attain to a complete definition.

An Hypostasis, to begin with, must be an “ens” or being. Every “ens” is either an “ens in se” (substance) or an “ens in alio” (accident). An Hypostasis is manifestly not an accident; therefore it must be a substance. Now, with Aristotle, we distinguish between substantia prima (οὐσία πρώτη) and substantia secunda (οὐσία δευτέρα). Substantia prima is individual, substantia secunda abstract substance. Common sense tells us that an Hypostasis must be an individual substance. But the term substantia prima is applied not only to complete but also to incomplete substances, such as body and soul, or the human hand or foot, which are individual substances, but clearly not Hypostases. Consequently, the concept of Hypostasis, besides inseitas, must have another essential note, viz.: integrity or completeness of substance. “Hypostasis est substantia prima et integra.” Since, however, Christ’s humanity is a substantia prima et integra, that is, a complete human nature, yet no Hypostasis, it is plain that inseitas and integritas do not suffice to constitute the notion of Hypostasis. There is required a further determinant, namely, that it is not a part, and cannot be regarded as a part of any other thing. Hence the famous definition evolved by Tiphanus: “Hypostasis est substantia prima, integra, tota in se.”³ In plain English: An Hypostasis is an individual substance, separate and distinct from all other substances of the same kind, possessing itself and all the parts, attributes, and energies which are in it.

Of these three momenta the first two form the proximate genus, while the third and last constitutes the specific difference. As the proper essence of Hypostasis lies in its specific difference, Christian philosophers have been at great pains to discuss and circumscribe the notion of totietas in se. They emphasize that it excludes every species of composition or union with other beings, and that it consequently signifies incommunicability and independent being (esse per se seu perseitas).⁴ It is, therefore, merely a different way of expressing the definition we have given above, when we say that inseitas, integritas, and perseitas are the essential notes of an Hypostasis. Any substance that has ceased to be tota in se can no longer perform the functions of an Hypostasis. Conversely, as soon as a substance acquires independence or perseitas, it becomes an Hypostasis. As a substance which forms part of another substance becomes an Hypostasis immediately upon being detached from that substance (for example, an amputated limb of the body separated from its soul), so a substance which is tota in se loses its character as an Hypostasis as soon as it becomes a part or quasi-part of something else (as, for instance, the human body in the resurrection of the dead, or the humanity of Christ in the Hypostatic Union).

c) If we compare Hypostasis with nature and consider their mutual relations, we find that the Hypostasis possesses the nature, while the nature is possessed by the Hypostasis; in other words, “the Hypostasis has the nature.”⁵ Hence the axiom: “Hypostasis habet, natura habetur.” An Hypostasis operates through the nature of which it is the bearer and controller, and all attributes and operations of that nature are referred back to the Hypostasis as its subject. Hypostasis, therefore, as subiectum attributionis, in the language of the Schoolmen, is the principium quod, while nature is the principium quo.

Thus we say of man, who is an Hypostasis, that he eats and drinks, sees and hears, thinks and feels, digests and sleeps; that is, he operates by and in his nature and natural faculties, though the principium quo proximum of all these operations are the five senses, the organs of digestion, reason and will. If we take suppositum as synonymous with Hypostasis, we shall also understand that other Scholastic axiom: “Actiones et passiones sunt suppositorum — Actions belong to their respective supposita.”⁶

d) A Person (persona, πρόσωπον, also ὑπόστασις) is an Hypostasis plus the note “intellectual” or “rational.” “Persona est hypostasis rationalis.” Person and Hypostasis, therefore, differ materially, but not formally. A crystal is just as truly an Hypostasis as a human being, because it is “substantia tota in se.” But the possession of reason exalts an Hypostasis in ipsa ratione hypostaseos, in so far as independence is increased by self-consciousness and the Ego not only is an individualized and incommunicable substance, but is also conscious of this fact. A person, moreover, is sui iuris, and hence both the responsible possessor of his natural faculties and the subject of personal rights that are entitled to respect and protection. It is for this reason that the Schoolmen define an angel as “hypostasis cum dignitate.”

Boethius’s famous definition: “Persona est rationalis naturae individua [i. e., prima et completa] substantia — A person is the individual subject, self, or ego of a rational nature,”⁷ can easily be reduced to the shorter one which we gave above, viz.: “Persona est hypostasis rationalis — A person is an Hypostasis endowed with reason.” For by individua substantia the ancients understood precisely the same thing that we mean when we speak of substantia prima, integra et tota in se. The Greek Fathers were adverse to the use of the word πρόσωπον for persona, because Sabellius had put it to heretical uses. They preferred the generic term ὑπόστασις. Thus St. John Damascene teaches: “Neither the soul alone nor the body is an Hypostasis, but they are called ἐνυπόστατα; that which is perfected and made of both, is the Hypostasis of both. For ὑπόστασις properly is and means that which exists by itself, having its own independent being (καθ’ ἑαυτὸ ἰδιοσυστάτως).” (Dialect., c. 44.)

e) If this definition of Person is correct, that invented by Locke and introduced into Catholic theology by Günther, must be false. Locke holds that personality is constituted by continued consciousness. But if consciousness were the only essential and formal note of personality, it would follow that where there is but one consciousness, there is but one person, whereas a double consciousness would constitute two persons, and so forth. Inasmuch as the Triune God has but one (absolute) consciousness, while Christ the Godman has two, Locke’s theory would destroy both the Trinity and the uni-personality of Christ, which latter is based upon the Hypostatic Union. In other words, this theory entails grave Trinitarian and Christological heresies, and must therefore be false. It is also opposed to experience and the common sense of mankind, which treats a child as yet unconscious of self, or an idiot devoid of consciousness, as persons in the true sense of the word.⁸

The terminology which we have explained above is definitively fixed by ecclesiastical and theological usage. It is the product of a historical development which involved harsh and weary struggles extending over the first four or five centuries of the Christian era,⁹ and it must not be changed. It took a long time to determine which were the best terms to be employed for designating Nature, Hypostasis, and Person. The Greeks said that there were in the Divine Trinity μία οὐσία καὶ τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις; the Latins, “una natura (substantia, essentia) et tres personae.” Both formulas mean precisely the same thing. St. Athanasius did much towards introducing a uniform terminology when, at the irenic council of Alexandria, A. D. 362, he reconciled the contending factions by showing that while one party took hypostasis to mean “Substance,” and the other used it in the sense of “Person,” both were really agreed as to the underlying doctrine.¹⁰