Sect. 99The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Divine Hypostases and Persons—definition of Hypostasis and Person as Applied to GodThe Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Divine Hypostases and Persons—definition of Hypostasis and Person as Applied to God

I. Tradition, like Holy Scripture itself, had at first no common name for the three Subjects which are distinguished in the Deity. Even the dogmatic definitions of the third and fourth centuries repeat the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and when the collective noun τριάς (the Three) is used, no name is added to designate the Three generally. In the course of time, however, when heresy had made it necessary to assert the unity of God as a unity of essence (οὐσία, used almost exclusively by the Greek Fathers) and of nature (natura, the favourite term of Latin writers), or, in a word, as a unity of substance, it also became necessary to determine for the three Subjects (Whose unity of essence was asserted) a name which should express in a convenient manner Their relation to the Substance, viz. that They are distinct bearers and holders of one Essence and Nature.

Even in the third century, Origen used for this purpose the term ὑπόστασις, and Tertullian, Persona. This usage, however, became general only with the Fathers of the fourth century, and by slow degrees. St. Gregory of Nazianzum often uses circumlocutions, e.g. “They in whom is the divinity, etc.” Many controversies preceded the universal acceptance of the two terms; their full etymological sense and the relation they bear to each other were only fully understood after they had come into general use. Harmony of expression and thought was obtained by translating the Greek ὑπόστασις by subsistentia (used by the Fathers in the concrete sense of subsistent, by the Schoolmen in the abstract sense of subsistence) and by suppositum. Both forms are found in St. Ambrose; but the second only became general in the schools of the Middle Ages. On the controversy concerning the terms Hypostasis and Substantia, see Petav. 1. iv., c. 4; Kuhn. § 29; Card. Newman, Arians, p. 432.

II. Ὑποστασις. when used concretely, designates in general something existing in and for itself, and consequently having and supporting in itself other things, of which it is the substratum or suppositum. Hence, an hypostasis is a substance and not a mere accident. But not every substance is an hypostasis. Substances which are parts of a whole, as, for instance, the arm of the body, are not so designated, but only substances which constitute a total or a whole in themselves. Nor is the hypostasis the substantial essence in as far as this is common to the several individuals of the same kind or species (substantia secunda), for the substantial essence does not exist in itself, but in the individuals of which it is predicated. Hence the concept of hypostasis implies 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 (substantia prima integra in se tota). The relations between an hypostasis and its essence and nature are that the essence and nature, when and because possessed by the hypostasis, are individualized and incommunicable; the hypostasis is always the bearer (subject or suppositum) of the nature; in other words, the hypostasis has the nature. If we consider a substance formally as possessing itself, it is identical with the hypostasis; if we consider it as possessed, it is, like essence and nature, in the hypostasis.

Person is defined “an individual rational substance,”—that is, the hypostasis of an intellectual nature and essence. The note “intellectual” or “rational,” restricts the concept of hypostasis to one kind of hypostasis, the most perfect of all, viz. that of substances wholly or partially spiritual. The perfection which distinguishes a personal hypostasis from a material one consists not only in the perfection of the substance itself but also in the manner of possessing it: a person is more than the bearer, he is the holder of his substance and is “sui juris”—that is, in his own right and power.

Impersonal hypostases have no proper right over their parts, no free use of them. They are but “things” without a “self.” Persons, on the contrary, have, in virtue of their spiritual nature, a higher dignity which commands respect, and thus gives them a right over what they possess; they are conscious beings and are thus able to enjoy their various properties and to dispose of them for their own purposes. Besides, persons have a greater independence or self-sufficiency than impersonal hypostases. Their spiritual substance is imperishable and cannot be absorbed by another hypostasis; although they can be made subordinate to other persons, still they never can be treated as mere things and means; lastly, on account of the respect which one person owes to another, they are kept more apart than other hypostases of the same kind, and are not liable to be absorbed by others.

III. As to the applicability of the terms “Hypostasis” and “Person” to God, it is clear that they can only be applied analogically: whatever perfection they express is eminently present in God; whatever imperfection they imply, must be excluded from Him.

1. The perfection of a hypostasis consists in its not forming part of a whole or being an attribute of a substance, but rather the bearer and holder of a complete substance, essence, and nature. A person is an hypostasis endowed with dignity and conscious power, possessing his property immutably, and making it the end and object of his actions; equal to and not absorbable by the other holders of the same nature, and entitled to be respected by them in the same measure as he is bound to respect himself. All this is eminently applicable to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

2. The imperfections of created hypostases are (a) that they are not absolutely independent, their principle and last end being outside of and above them; (b) persons who possess the same nature, do not possess numerically one nature, but only similar natures; so that the distinction of created persons implies a distinction and separation of their substances; (c) hence the distinction between created persons is independent of their origin one from the other, and does not of necessity imply a connection based upon mutual esteem and love. In opposition to this, the Divine Persons are (a) absolutely independent, Their perfection and dignity being absolutely the highest; (b) the unity of substance in the Trinity is perfectly undivided, excluding the possibility of multiplication, so that the difference of Persons is merely a distinction of the Persons themselves and not of Their substance; (c) the distinction between the Divine Persons is essentially and exclusively founded upon Their relations of origin, and causes Them to be essentially bound together, and necessitates the most intimate mutual esteem and love.

IV. In consequence of these differences, the concepts of Hypostasis and Person must be modified when applied to the Deity. The notion that a person is the bearer and holder, distinct from other bearers and holders, of a rational nature, is applicable to the uncreated as well as to the created person; but not so the definition of a hypostasis as a subsisting and individual substance.

In a certain sense, it must be said of God that His Substance subsists and is individual, even apart from the distinctions between the Three Persons. Without supposing this, we cannot understand the subsistence and individuality of the several Divine Hypostases. Not only does the Divine Substance exist essentially, but it also essentially exists in itself and for itself, so that it can be in no manner part of another substance, but only be possessed by itself. Further, being unique in its kind and excluding multiplication, it also is, by reason of its unicity, eminently individual. Hence, if the notion of “subsistent and individual substance” be used to characterize the Divine Hypostases, the subsistence (that is, the independence and self-possession) must be conceived, not in opposition to the dependence of partial substances, but in that peculiar form in which it exists in the individual holders of the Divine Substance; and the individuality must not be conceived, as in creatures, only in opposition to the notion of a common genus, but in opposition to the communicability of a single indivisible object to distinct holders. In other words: the notions of subsistence and individuality must be so modified as to agree with the form or manner in which the one Divine Substance is possessed by the three Divine Persons.

V. Although the Divine Persons are Persons in the highest sense of the term, they are essentially related to each other; that is, each of them separately possesses the Divine Nature only inasmuch as He stands to another in the relation of principle to product or vice versâ, and consequently each single Person possesses the Divine Nature for Himself only in as far as He possesses it at the same time for and from the other two Persons. Otherwise there would be no distinction of the Persons, nor would the Persons have that intimate union among Themselves which is required by their absolutely perfect personality. Moreover, because the relations of the Persons to each other are the one thing which determines the difference in the possession of the same Divine Nature, these mutual relations in God are not only, as in created persons, a distinctive attribute of each Person, but they constitute the fundamental character of the personality of each Person.

From what has been said, the specific notion of the Divine Persons may be completely determined as follows. The Divine Persons are more than simply related to each other; They are nothing else but “subsisting relations,” that is, relations identical with the Divine Substance, and representing it as subsisting or appertaining to itself in a distinct manner. Conversely, it may be said that the Persons are the one Divine Substance under a determined relation—that is, as having, through the relation of origin, three particular forms of possessing Itself. This essential relativity of the Divine Persons is not indeed expressed by the term person, but the thing signified by the term is in fact a subsisting relation or the substance under a determined relation; the proper names of the Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (i.e. Spirit of the Father and the Son)—clearly express their relations. (Cf. St. Thomas, I., q. 29, a. 3.)