Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« Absurd is the calumny that the Nicene Fathers and the holy Doctors who followed them up to St. Augustine did not acknowledge the numerical unity or unity of singularity in the divine nature, but taught a distinction in nature just as in the persons. For the faith and profession of one nature numerically one in distinct persons is demonstrated both from the common principle, which the Nicene Fathers and the Arians themselves supposed as certain and beyond controversy, and from the state of the question among Catholics declared in the Alexandrian synod under Athanasius, and from the express doctrine of the Fathers who vindicated the faith defined in the Nicene Council against heretics ».

That the Nicene Council and the Fathers who followed the faith of the same Council taught not one but three divine natures numerically distinct, only specifically one, and thus introduced tritheism, were asserted by Curcellaeus, Cudworthus, Clericus (cf. Maran. op. cit. l. IV. c. 29); the same opinion of specific unity was attributed to the Fathers by Peter Faydit and after him a certain monk in Germany, Placidus Stürmer (cf. Wirceburgens. T. II. n. 357); but what surpasses all wonder, in our age Antonius Günther tells us that the holy Gregory of Nazianzus (perhaps he meant to say Nyssenus) and Basil expressly taught the specific unity of the divine nature (Propaedeutica ad specul. theol. T. II. p. 365. 366).

But although consubstantiality (τὸ ὁμοούσιον) can be predicated in an analogous sense even of creatures, and in them it does not stand for a numerical but for a specific unity of nature in distinct hypostases; yet in God it cannot stand for anything other than the numerical unity of the divine nature in distinct persons.

For by itself it signifies a unity of nature in several distinct things, without determining the mode of the unity, whether numerical or specific. But since in creatures this unity cannot exist except by a multiplication of nature in many, while in God a multiplication of nature is repugnant, hence from the very intrinsic nature of the subject of which it is predicated, τὸ ὁμοούσιον is determined to the supposition of numerical or specific unity. This is the same rationale of all names which are transferred from creatures to designate divine perfections, namely that in this transfer one must exclude all the imperfections which the same names connote in creatures (Tract. de Deo). Whoever therefore teaches that the Son is consubstantial with God the Father, either retains the fundamental dogma of the whole of revelation, indeed the concept evident to the light of reason itself, of the non-multiplicable unity of God, and then by the very predication of consubstantiality enunciates one nature numerically one in distinct persons; or, with the dogma and the rational concept itself of the unity of God overturned, falls into polytheism. But to suppose this latter of the Nicene and subsequent Fathers is most absurd; and certainly no Christian could with better right suspect polytheism in the words of the Council « the Son is consubstantial with the Father » than in the words of Christ the Lord himself: « I and the Father are one ». Therefore in the very watchword of consubstantiality the numerical unity of nature in distinct persons is evidently enunciated.

I. This is shown from the very manner of disputing of the Arians against the profession of consubstantiality. They supposed two things as most certain and admitted by all Catholics: first, that God in the proper sense is only one; second, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons; but to these indubitable principles they added a third, which the Catholics wholly denied, that generation properly so called, and consequently consubstantiality of distinct things, can exist only by division and propagation or, what comes to the same, by multiplication of nature. Hence they argued that by the profession of τοῦ ὁμοουσίου one must fall into one or the other error, both of which the Catholics also condemned: either, namely, retaining the unity of the divine nature, one must with the Sabellians deny the distinction of the Father and the Son; or, retaining the distinction of the hypostases, one must affirm a splitting and multiplication of the divine nature, as happens in human generations. So Arius already argued in the letter to his Bishop Alexander, and so afterwards Eunomius and others frequently objected: « if anyone contentious should urge that the Son is consubstantial, one deity surely, admitting a division, becomes a duality » (γέγονεν εἰς δυάδα) apud s. Cyrill. Thesaur. l. IX. T. V. P. I. p. 68.

But this multiplication would have been conceded by the Catholics if they had had a specific unity of nature in mind; and then who does not see with how easy a task they could have been convicted of error from all the documents of revelation and ineluctable arguments? Upon this demonstration of the unity of the divine nature, therefore, the whole force of the Arian disputation against the Catholics ought to have rested, and the Fathers' denial of it ought to appear in the history of the controversy. But the contrary of all these things happened. Both Catholics and Arians assume as a common principle, indubitable on both sides, that God is one, and consequently that the divine nature is one not in species but in number. And just as the Arians from this principle deny the true generation of the Son from the substance of the Father and consubstantiality, because they simultaneously assume the false principle that what is consubstantial cannot exist except by multiplication of nature: so the Catholics first demonstrate from revelation the true generation and true divinity of the Son, and then, assuming the principle of the non-multiplicable unity of nature, infer that generation and consubstantiality in divine things are not, as in human things, through multiplication, but through communication of one numerically single nature from the Father to the Son. « They wrote (the Nicene Fathers) that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, to signify that the Son is not only similar but by that likeness one and the same (what the Father is), μὴ μόνον ὅμοιον ἀλλὰ ταὐτὸν τῇ ὁμοιώσει... For in corporeal things, indeed, those which are similar to one another can stand apart and be far distant from each other, as among men sons stand to their begetters, as it is written of Adam and Seth, born of him, that he was like him according to his own form. But since the generation of the Son of God from the Father is plainly different from the nature of men, and he is not only similar but indivisible from the substance of the Father, and he and the Father are one, as he himself said, and the Word is always in the Father and the Father in the Word, as splendor stands to light — for this is what that expression too signifies — therefore this synod, seeing this, rightly wrote ὁμοούσιον.... All called the Son splendor, to declare that he is properly and without division from the substance, and his unity with the Father... But far from here be every thought of corporeal things; rather, having surpassed the imagination of all the senses, let us think with pure understanding and mind alone of the genuine Son of the Father and properly the Word of God and the splendor of light without any discrepancy. For just as he is called and is begotten and Son not in a human manner but as befits God, so also when we hear the word ὁμοούσιος we must not follow human senses, nor are partitions and divisions of the divinity to be fashioned, but thinking as of incorporeal things let us not divide the unity of nature and the identity of light » (τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς φύσεως καὶ τὴν ταὐτότητα τοῦ φωτὸς μὴ διαιρῶμεν) Athan. de decret. Nicaen. n. 20. 23. 24. See Petav. l. IV. c. 5; Maran. de Divin. D. N. I. C. l. IV. c. 30.

II. The history of the controversy over the names ὑπόστασις, οὐσία, πρόσωπον, settled by Athanasius in the Alexandrian synod, is rightly wont to be adduced by theologians as an evident demonstration of how indubitably all Catholics understood, in the definition of consubstantiality, the numerical unity of the divine nature in three distinct persons.

In order that this controversy may be understood, some things must be noted about the philosophical use of these names and their transfer into theological use for the declaration of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The philosophers called οὐσία or essence that which is expressed by the definition of each thing (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι). Now essence can be viewed in two ways: either abstractly, while it is considered as communicable to many individuals and universal, as a species is; or as this determinate singular essence really existing. Viewed in the first way, Aristotle called it δευτέραν οὐσίαν (the Scholastics said of second intention), because universals formally as universals neither exist nor can exist really; viewed in the other way, he called it πρώτην οὐσίαν (of first intention), as really existing in the nature of things or at least able to exist; whence this first essence can fittingly be called, and in the course of time was also called, ὑπόστασις or substance, by which word according to its etymology real existence ¹ is expressed.

Now in the transfer of these terms to express the one Godhead common to three distinct persons, and to designate the three distinct persons whose one is the Godhead, the Eastern Fathers and with them Meletius of Antioch were moved by this consideration, that a singular determinate hypostasis or substance, if it is whole and exists connaturally, in creatures is subsisting in itself, not common to several, but as this one distinct from others having the same common nature; therefore they called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, really distinct, whose one is the Godhead, three hypostases, while the Godhead common to the three they called οὐσία, although in divine things they saw this commonness to be far other than in creatures. They taught therefore one οὐσία, three hypostases. But the three really distinct among themselves they were unwilling to call πρόσωπα or persons without an added declaration, lest suspicion of the error of Sabellius arise, who placed in one divine hypostasis three persons according to diverse manifestations and operations ad extra, and said that the same hypostasis had borne the person of the Father in the Old Testament, the person of the Son in the Incarnation, the person of the Holy Spirit in the sanctification and governance of the Church. Against this, on the other hand, the Western Fathers, who rendered ὑπόστασις in Latin as substantia, and agreeing with them Paulinus, the other Bishop of Antioch, considered that the Godhead is one singular determinate non-multiplicable essence, and therefore to express this singularity they called it one hypostasis, or substance, while the three distinct among themselves they named persons not in the Sabellian sense but in exactly the same sense in which the Easterners said three hypostases. Hence it came about that the former, when they heard one hypostasis and three persons, suspected Sabellianism; but the latter, when three hypostases were named, feared the danger of Arianism — namely that three diverse natures were counted — or of tritheism from the number of three equal divine natures. « A thing indeed to be laughed at, says Gregory of Nazianzus, or rather to be wept over; what seemed a diversity of faith was an altercation about the sound of a word. Hence afterwards Sabellianism was reproached on account of three persons, and Arianism on account of three hypostases, which were figments born of too great eagerness to dispute » Gregor. Naz. or. 21. n. 35.

Moreover, that the dispute was not about dogma but only about words, Athanasius made manifest to the very disputants in this way. First he asked the assertors of three hypostases whether they said the hypostases were of diverse essence, as are gold, silver, bronze, which was the opinion of Arius; or whether they said the hypostases were separate, as among men are the hypostases of parents and children, and so « would think three principles and three Gods ». They indeed answered that they said three hypostases because not only in name but in reality itself the three are distinct; « and yet, they said, they had not said three Gods or three principles, nor did they at all tolerate those who would say or think such things, but they acknowledged the holy Trinity, yet one Godhead and one principle and the Son consubstantial with the Father ». Then others were asked whether they said one hypostasis, denying with Sabellius that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three really distinct; they answered: « that they had never so thought; but we say hypostasis, they said, judging that to say hypostasis is the same as to say essence; and we believe one hypostasis for this reason, that the Son is from the substance of the Father and on account of the identity of nature (διὰ τὴν ταὐτότητα τῆς φύσεως); for we believe one Godhead and one nature of it, not one indeed of the Father and another foreign to it of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ». Athanasius concludes: « with these also those consented who, because they had said three hypostases, were accused; and those very ones saying one essence proved the doctrine of these, as they had interpreted it » Ath. ep. synod. ad Antiochenos n. 5. 6. cf. Gregor. Naz. or. 21. n. 35; or. 42. (al. 32) n. 16. et alios citatos penes Petav. l. IV. c. 4. n. 10 seqq.

Here now let the following be noted. a) Hypostasis always signifies a singular substance (individual, at least insofar as the individual is opposed to the universal), nor can one hypostasis signify a merely specific unity. Hence those who, not content with saying one οὐσία, wanted one hypostasis of the three persons to be asserted, by this very name affirmed one numerical and singular nature of the three persons. But with this explanation of the name hypostasis given, all Catholics agreed that the hypostasis, or singular non-multiplicable substance, of the three persons is one.

b) Where there is only a specific unity of nature in several persons, necessarily just as many numerically distinct natures must be counted as there are persons. Because those saying one οὐσία and three hypostases came under suspicion, lest perhaps they said one οὐσία specifically and counted three numerically distinct singular natures, therefore this manner of speaking seemed suspect of tritheism to those who said one hypostasis to express one singular nature not multiplied in three persons ². But those former too declared that they admitted exactly the same unity of singularity of nature, and that three natures or three deities could in no way be said, although there are three persons of one Godhead.

c) Among men, without doubt, children are consubstantial with their parents by a specific unity of nature, and therefore there are several men. But all the Catholics of both sides denied that such a unity of the divine nature and consubstantiality of persons could be admitted without falling into tritheism, and therefore they expressly affirmed in the three persons an identity (ταὐτότητα) of nature in such a way that the three are one God. It is evident, therefore, that among Catholics, even those who disagreed in the manner of speaking about hypostasis and persons, there was no one who did not profess the Nicene faith in this sense, that the essence, nature, substance, or Godhead of the three distinct persons is one numerically, not however one only specifically.

III. All the Fathers, defenders of the Nicene faith, taught with express words and the amplest declarations one numerically single nature in the three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The many things that could be brought forth we shall compress into few.

a) They say that the mystery is above the grasp of human reason, because the same supreme reality is both countable according to the notion of the hypostases and one, not multiplicable, according to the notion of the Godhead or nature. But there would be nothing mysterious in the fact that the nature of the three is specifically one: «for what would there be to admire, says St. Maximus (cent. II. de charit.), if, as there is unity and division of man with man, so there were unity and division of the Son with the Father?» And surely this — both the ground of the mystery and the exclusion of number in the nature of the three hypostases — can in no way be understood except of the unity of singularity.

«The ineffable depth of the mystery cannot be declared by any speech: how the same reality is both countable and flees number; and it is discerned in distinction and understood in the monad, and is distinguished by hypostasis and is not divided by subject (τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ, i.e., the nature which is conceived to underlie the distinct hypostases, or better, is identified with them). Moreover, He is another whose are the Word and the Spirit; but where you have conceived distinction in these, in turn the unity of nature admits no partition» Gregory of Nyssa, or. catech. c. 3. T. II. p. 481; Basil, de Spiritu Sancto c. 18, etc. These things are proclaimed still more expressly, if possible, when the heresy of the Tritheites had already become known. Among many others, Sophronius vindicates this unity in the synodal epistle read in Council VI, Act. XI. «We announce three as one, whose is the Godhead — or, which is more accurate and manifest to say, the three are and are known to be the Godhead; for this very thing both is one and is believed to be three..... and neither is one, inasmuch as it is one, taken as three, nor are three, inasmuch as they are three, said to be one, which is surely marvelous and full of all wonder. For the same reality both is countable and flees number: countable indeed by the three hypostases, fleeing number by the unicity of the Godhead (τῇ ἑνότητι τῆς θεότητος).... The Holy Trinity is therefore numbered not by essences or natures and diverse godheads or three dominions — far be it — as the Arians rave, and as the new Tritheites rage most vainly, saying three essences and three natures and three dominions and three godheads... But we know neither three Gods, nor three natures, nor three essences, nor three godheads, neither of one origin nor of another, neither of one species nor of diverse species; but neither do we know Gods or natures or essences or godheads at all, nor do we admit those who know such things; but him who receives, or thinks, or knows these things we strike with anathemas» (Hard. Concil. T. III. p. 1202. 1263).

b) From the explicit teaching of the same Fathers about creatures, where there is specific unity of nature, this is said to be unity only by consideration of reason; in the things themselves there are not one singular nature but many natures distinct in number. On the contrary, they say, the divine nature is one singular — not by consideration of reason only but really — in the three distinct persons, in such a way that it is the same to say that the nature of the Father is identical with the nature of the Son or of the Holy Spirit as to say that it is identical with itself. «For us there is one God, because there is one Godhead..... But what, they will perhaps say, is not the Godhead one also among the pagans, as those among them who philosophize more perfectly teach, and among us is not the whole genus one humanity; nevertheless there are many gods and not one, just as there are also (many) men? But in these the community has unity considered only by reason, while the singulars are for the most part divided among themselves... Ours is not so, and "this is not the portion of Jacob," says my theologian (Jer. X. 10); but each one of them (each divine person) has unity with the other no less than with itself, by identity of essence and power» (τῷ ταὐτῷ τῆς οὐσίας καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως) Gregory of Nazianzus, or. 31. (al. 37.) n. 14-16. Athanasius uses the same argument in de decret. Nicaen. n. 20 and elsewhere; Cyril, dialog. VI. de Trin. T. V. P. I. p. 592; Maximus, de charit. cent. II.; but most brilliantly John Damascene, Fid. orthod. l. I. c. 8. c) In this sense the μονάς and ταυτότης of nature, by which the three persons are one God, is everywhere commended by Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril and others; and with this monad denied, one must fall into polytheism. «One God the Father, one God also the Son, and not two Gods, because the Son has identity (ταυτότητα) with the Father; for I behold not one Godhead in the Father and another in the Son, nor another nature in that one and another in this one. That therefore the property of the persons may become clear to you, number the Father distinctly and the Son distinctly; but lest you be torn apart into polytheism, confess one essence in both» Basil, cont. Sabell. n. 3. (T. II. p. 191). «Since by the confession of all the Godhead is one, it cannot be that the Holy Trinity is not referred to the identity (ταυτότητα) of nature» Cyril, in Io. (T. IV. p. 20). In the profession of faith which is found appended to the synodal epistle of the Council of Sardica (in Theodoret, H. E. l. II. c. 6; cf. on this profession the Ballerini, Opp. s. Leonis T. III. p. XXXIX.), it is said most effectively: «but we have received and learned this catholic tradition and faith and profession, that there is one substance (ὑπόστασιν) — which the heretics themselves call οὐσίαν — of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and if they ask what is the substance (ὑποστάσεως) of the Son, we profess that it is the same which is proclaimed the only one of the Father» (ὁμολογοῦμεν, εἶναι αὐτὴν ἣν μόνη τοῦ Πατρὸς ὁμολογουμένη).

d) It is the common declaration of the Fathers that the catholic doctrine is the truth in the middle between the opposite errors: on the one hand those of the Sabellians and the Jews, on the other those of the Arians and the pagans. For the catholic faith approves in the Jews and Sabellians that they profess one divine nature; in the Arians and the pagans themselves it does not disapprove the doctrine, inasmuch as they distinguish several persons; but in the former it condemns the denial of several distinct persons, and in the latter not only the assertion of diverse natures but also the multiplication of nature, from which there would follow only a specific unity. But the Sabellians and the Jews taught that the divine nature is one in number and not multiplicable; this same unity, therefore, the Fathers held as settled. Indeed, since the Sabellians denied that there are several distinct persons because, from the principle common to all heretics erring in the doctrine either of the Holy Trinity or of the Incarnation, they thought that there are always as many persons as there are singular natures, and that by this very fact, with the divine persons multiplied, the nature is understood to be multiplied and so the unity of God taken away; the unity of nature asserted by them would have had to be disapproved no less than the unity of person, if the Fathers had had in mind numerical multiplication and only specific unity of nature. But in fact the Fathers agreed with those heretics and with the Jews that the divine nature is altogether one and singular, yet denied that the unity also of person or hypostasis follows from this. «Truth, cast between two opinions, comes forth..... let the unity of nature remain from the Jewish persuasion, and from the gentile error only the distinction according to hypostases, and so the impious opinion on both sides is healed» Gregory of Nyssa, or. catech. c. 3. «One God is the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; for the nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, but not one person... For it is true that the Sabellians believe one nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but it is false that they do not believe that there are three persons. It is also true that the Arians say three persons of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; but it is false that they strive to persuade that these three persons have three natures» Fulgentius, ep. 8. (or the book to Donatus) c. II. 12. Parallels are had in Athanasius, contr. Arian. or. III. n. 15; or. IV. n. 10; Gregory of Nazianzus, or. 21. n. 13; Basil, contr. Sabell. n. 3; Isidore of Pelusium, l. II. ep. 143. p. 190; Faustinus, contr. Arian. c. 1. Bibl. Max. PP. T. V. p. 640.

e) Finally, not only Augustine — whom some have dared to say was the first to set forth clearly the singularity of nature in the three persons — but all the Fathers, defenders of the Nicene synod, of whom we now treat, also declared the manner in which the numerical unity of the divine nature in three really distinct persons is to be conceived. For they teach, according to the Scriptures and the catholic understanding handed down from the Apostles, that the Father is distinguished from the Son, and both from the Holy Spirit, by no other reason and by no other thing, than solely by that which is formally signified by the names Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But by these names are formally signified things relative to one another, not things absolute. Whatever is said of God besides this formal notion of things relative to one another — Godhead, essence, nature, absolute perfection, etc. — is altogether one, admitting no multiplication or real distinction. Therefore the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as they are God, are altogether one, one supreme reality, one God; but inasmuch as they are referred to one another — the Father formally as Father of the Son, the Son formally as Son of the Father, the Holy Spirit formally as spirated or proceeding from the Father and the Son — they are another and another, three distinct persons, yet of one singular essence or nature. The distinction of the three, therefore, consists solely in mutual relations, and not in nature or in any absolute perfection. Hence, since the mutually distinct persons, having the same nature, are and are called persons or hypostases, the divine persons are understood to be constituted by relations. But this whole doctrine of the distinction of the persons — that it is solely through mutual relations and in no way through one nature really common to the three — not only most explicitly enunciates the numerical unity of the divine nature in three distinct persons, that it is; but it also explains how it is, namely, insofar as the reason of the mystery implicit in the word of God can be explained by men.

To the Pneumatomachian asking: «what then is lacking to the Spirit, that it may be the Son? for unless something were lacking, it would be the Son», Gregory of Nazianzus answers: «we do not say that something is lacking — for God is not lacking in anything — but the difference of manifestation (τῆς ἐκφάνσεως), so to speak, or of relation to one another, has also made for them diverse names. For nothing is lacking to the Son that he may be the Father; for filiation is not a defect, and yet for that reason he is not the Father; otherwise by the same reasoning something would also be lacking to the Father that he may be the Son, for the Father is not the Son; but surely these things in no way indicate a defect or a submission according to essence. But these very things — not to be begotten, and to be begotten, and to proceed — designate another Father, another Son, another called by the name of the Holy Spirit, so that the unconfused distinction of the three hypostases may be preserved in one nature and dignity of the Godhead. For neither is the Son the Father, for there is one Father; yet the Son is what the Father is; nor is the Spirit the Son, because it is from God, for there is one only-begotten; yet the Spirit is what the Son is: the three are one by the Godhead, the one is three by the properties»³ Nazianz. or. 31. (al. 37.) n. 9. See the parallel declarations of several Fathers in Petavius, l. IV. c. 10.

Scholion. When the same Fathers, who defend the divine nature as one in number in the three persons by so manifold an argument, seem to draw the explanation of the mystery from the unity of the human nature in several men, this comparison or declaration is not everywhere instituted by them in the same sense, but in a threefold diverse manner.

1°. Most frequently they do not have as their immediate purpose to declare what sort of thing the unity of the divine nature is, but to set forth the universal notion of nature and of hypostasis, which they then apply analogically to the divine nature and hypostasis, and from which they show why and how one must distinguish by reason between nature and hypostasis. For all the heretics — the Monarchians as much as the Arians and the Tritheites — distinguishing nothing between the notion according to which nature is said and the notion according to which hypostasis is said, by this very fact affirmed that there are always as many distinct natures as there are hypostases. Whence either, insisting on the revealed truth that God is one and the divine nature one, they likewise affirmed that the hypostasis is one, the same being designated by the three names Father, Son, Holy Spirit according to diverse manifestations ad extra; or, conversely, retaining the revealed truth of three distinct hypostases, they also asserted three natures. But this latter they did in a twofold way: either so that they wished at the same time to save the dogma of the unity of God — and then, admitting one divine hypostasis as also one nature, they reduced the hypostasis and nature of the Son and of the Holy Spirit to the order of creatures; or so that they preserved the dogma of the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — and then, from that very philosophical principle common to them all, it had to be conceded that there are three distinct divine natures, and hence a unity of nature only collective or specific. Since, therefore, all the mutually opposed heresies set out from that one principle, the Fathers saw how important it is to declare the diverse notion of nature and of hypostasis in such a way that from the unity of nature the unity of hypostasis does not follow, or conversely from the trinity of hypostases the multiplication of nature.

In this declaration they kept before their eyes above all the revealed truth that God is one, and that three distinct persons — Father, Son, Holy Spirit — are one God. To this dogma, then, the philosophical notion of nature and of hypostasis had to be applied and adapted; but the revealed mystery was not, as was done by the heretics, to be subjected and accommodated to the philosophical notion drawn from the order of creatures. Now in creatures, whence the philosophical notions were first formed, that which is contained in the definition — i.e., the essence or nature — is common to many and inheres in many according to the same notion; but the singular persons having the same nature are not something common to several, but one is another and another, distinct as this one is distinct from another of the same nature. According to this analogy, therefore, the holy Doctors, looking to the one Godhead of the three distinct persons, universally defined that nature is that which is common to several (τὸ κοινόν); hypostasis is that which is one distinct from another of the same nature (τὸ μερικόν), the proper (τὸ ἴδιον), not common to several, and in this sense of incommunicability the individual (τὸ ἄτομον). Where, however, they expressly teach that in the transference of the notions from creatures to God, common and individual are to be understood not in the same but only in an analogous sense; for we have seen their most frequent declarations that the unity of nature in creatures is formed only by abstraction of the mind, and therefore the community of nature is not real but only by reason and consideration of the mind; whereas in God the nature is singular, really one, common to the three; and for this reason also the distinct and the individual in God are not, as in creatures, by something absolute (for whatever is absolute in God is altogether one and common to the three), but by the mutual relations designated by the personal names Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

When, therefore, they teach that, just as in men there is one human nature common to several and yet there are several hypostases mutually distinct, so also in God there is one common nature and there are three mutually distinct hypostases of one nature; this definition does not pertain to asserting in God the same unity and the same distinction as that which exists among several men, but to declaring the distinction of reason between nature and hypostasis. Because, namely, nature is said according to that which is revealed as one, i.e., according to the absolute; hypostasis, however, is said according to those things which have been revealed as really distinct, i.e., according to the relative; therefore from revelation itself is refuted the fundamental principle of the heretics, by which they assert that there are always as many natures as there are hypostases. See the Fathers who declare this definition of nature and of hypostasis and the distinction of both, in Petavius, l. IV. c. 7. Cf. our Tract. de Incarnat. sect. III. c. 3.

2°. Nature taken abstractly, e.g., humanity, as it is contained in the definition and the universal notion, is altogether one and admits no multiplication; for indeed, if humanity is taken in this way, two humanities cannot be conceived. But in this way, formally as universal, it cannot exist objectively; for whatever exists is singular, and the singular humanities are as many as there are men, to all of whom one universal notion and definition applies. Hence nothing prevents the non-multiplicable unity of the abstract and universal nature from being taken up to explain the non-multiplicable unity of the divine nature, provided that great difference is not lost from sight: that the divine nature is this one determinate singular nature, really and necessarily existing in three distinct hypostases; whereas that universal notion of the created nature, e.g., of humanity, formally under the universal notion under which it has non-multiplicable unity, does not exist outside the mind's consideration and in the thing itself. In this way some Fathers declared the unity of the divine nature in the three distinct persons; and surely I do not think that a closer analogy can be found by the human mind for some explanation of the mystery. St. Cyril proves that, once the consubstantiality of the Father and of the Son is admitted, two natures cannot be numbered, because then a distinction between one nature and the other would have to be admitted; but the distinction of a nature from a divine nature could not be anything but diversity, and so the Father and the Son would no longer be consubstantial — just as, once a distinction between one universal nature and another is admitted in creatures, by that very fact the diversity of natures is posited. For another and another universal human nature cannot be understood, but another human nature and another non-human one, e.g., bestial; and so only diverse natures are distinguished, which have diverse definitions. «If the nature of the Father is one, and again another nature of the Son besides that one, will it not be necessary to devise a reason which divides and separates the two natures unequal between themselves? For it is not permitted, even in men having one and the same reason of consubstantiality, to say another and another essence, and to attribute to the individuals existing some particular definition with respect to those things which are common to many. For if we do this and introduce some necessary difference between one essence and another (if we number humanity taken in the abstract as another and another), the universal will vanish into nothing» Cyril, dial. I. de Trin. T. V. P. I. p. 409. cf. in Io. T. IV. p. 798; Damascene, Fid. orthod. l. III. c. 6.

3°. The Platonists — whom some of the Scholastics, namely the Scotists, followed — posited that the universal, which is conceived by the mind and enunciated by the definition, has objective real existence under the formal notion of universal. Whence it followed that human nature, inasmuch as it is universal — i.e., the essence itself, once precision has been made from all the particular and individuating notes which are conceived as affecting and circumscribing it — is one in number in all men, really existing no otherwise than as it is conceived by the mind under the formal notion of universal as one, non-multiplicable and common to all men. Just as, therefore, the abstract concept of man is not another if it is said of Peter and if it is said of Paul, and there are not two notions but this universal notion is altogether one; so, given that objective existence of the universals, Peter and Paul do not have two humanities distinct in number but one humanity, precisely as it is humanity; and they are not two men but one man, precisely as only the notion of man is considered. Moreover, that universal essence, or that precise notion of man, is affected by many individuating notes, by which it comes about that there is Peter and there is Paul; and by these notes the hypostases are constituted and differ mutually. Peter and Paul, therefore, are not distinguished from each other inasmuch as they are men; but inasmuch as the one is that hypostasis Peter, the other this other hypostasis Paul. In this philosophy, to be sure, the distinction between the infinite divine essence and the finite nature remains intact: because the divine essence, most simple and admitting no composition, is affected by no accidents and by no absolute individuating notes; whereas the human nature would be one in number in several hypostases, just as is the unity of the divine nature in the three persons. Whence he who, following this philosophy, would say that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, just as Peter, Paul and Barnabas are one man — he would not deny the unity of God and the singularity of the divine nature in the three distinct persons; indeed he would expressly affirm it; but he would draw the illustration and understanding of the revealed truth from false philosophical principles, and so the error would be not theological but philosophical.

Now St. Gregory of Nyssa seems to have followed these philosophical principles somewhere. To those objecting that from the consubstantiality of the three persons it follows that there are three Gods, just as there are three men, Nyssenus answers: that "three men" is said by an abuse of speech; from the principles of science one ought to say three hypostases and one man, because they have one humanity, and therefore, inasmuch as they are men, they are neither distinguished from one another nor ought to be numbered; whence much more does the most simple divine nature, one in three, constitute not three Gods, but God is one. How clearly Nyssenus asserted the numerical unity of the divine nature, we saw above; he does not, therefore, deny this unity, nor does he assert a unity of God such as the unity of three men is in point of fact, but such as the unity of human nature is asserted in those philosophical principles, which is a real and numerical unity. «We say, therefore, he says, that it is a certain abuse of custom that we name in the plural, through the very name of nature, those who are not distinct by nature, and say: many men; to which it is similar if someone should say: many human natures..... Many indeed have obtained the same nature, but one is man in all.... But the notion of the hypostases, through the properties which are considered in each one, admits distribution and is considered by computation in number; but nature is one, unified with itself, and is an altogether undivided unity (μονάς), which is neither increased by addition nor diminished by subtraction; but, remaining one, which it is, even if it is seen to be in many, it is indivisible, continuous, whole, and is not divided along with the singulars that participate in it... so that it would have been much more correct to correct the erring custom in us and no longer to extend the name of nature to the multitude, than, serving custom, to retain the error.... Therefore one God is to be confessed by us according to the testimony of Scripture: hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one: even if the name of the Godhead pertains to the whole holy Trinity» Gregory of Nyssa, l. ad Ablavium T. II. p. 449; l. de commun. notion. T. I. p. 915 ff. The author of the dialog. de Trin. (among the Opp. of Athanasius) and Theodore Abucara, opusc. II, have things not very dissimilar, derived from Nyssenus.