CHAPTER III: QUESTION 29 THE DIVINE PERSONS


INTRODUCTION

IN the beginning we treat of the persons in common, then of the individual persons, and finally of the persons in comparison with the essence and each other. This is the content of the treatise.

Concerning the three persons in common there are four questions:

1. The meaning of the word "person."

2. The plurality of persons.

3. Their differences and similarities.

4. How they can be known by us.

The first question has four divisions: 1. the definition of person; 2. the comparison of person with essence and subsistence; here person is identified with the Greek "hypostasis"; 3. whether the word "person" is used with reference to God; 4. whether in God person signifies relation. The reply will be in the affirmative: person signifies a subsisting relation opposed and incommunicable to others. In the appendix we shall see what is to be said about the absolute subsistence common to the three persons.

In this question it will be made clear that the general idea of person is to be applied to God analogically, not metaphorically but properly, without any distinction or multiplication in the divine nature itself. A great deal of effort was required to make this point clear. In the third century the Latins, like Tertullian, spontaneously declared that there are three persons in God and one substance because the names Father and Son and Holy Ghost are personal. This statement, however, was the source of much difficulty for the Greeks, who used the words ousia and "hypostasis" promiscuously to designate essence, substance, and nature. On other occasions the term prosopon a translation of the Latin persona, designated the mask or theatrical costume which actors donned to impersonate famous personages, and this term was not considered definite enough to express the real distinction between the divine persons. At the time of Origen and St. Dionysius of Alexandria, however, the term "hypostasis" designated a divine person and ousia the divine nature. St. Athanasius also used these terms in this manner.