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40 Pages
Page 30
The treatise, De Sancta Trinitate is one of those which are attributed by some to S. Basil, by others to S. Gregory: but for the purpose of showing the difficulties with which they had to deal, the question of its exact authorship is unimportant. [44] The most obvious objection alleged against their teaching was that which had troubled the Western theologians before the Alexandrine Council,--the objection that the acknowledgment of Three Persons implied a belief in Three Gods. To meet this, there was required a statement of the meaning of the term hupostasis, and of the relation of ousia to hupostasis. Another objection, urged apparently by the same party as the former, was directed against the "novelty," or inconsistency, of employing in the singular terms expressive of the Divine Nature such as "goodness" or "Godhead," while asserting that the Godhead exists in plurality of Persons [45] . To meet this, it was required that the sense in which the Unity of the Godhead was maintained should be more plainly and clearly defined.
The position taken by S. Basil with regard to the terms ousia and hupostasis is very concisely stated in his letter to Terentius [46] . He says that the Western theologians themselves acknowledge that a distinction does exist between the two terms: and he briefly sets forth his view of the nature of that distinction by saying that ousia is to hupostasis as that which is common to individuals is to that in respect of which the individuals are naturally differentiated. He illustrates this statement by the remark that each individual man has his being to koino tes ousias logo, while he is differentiated as an individual man in virtue of his own particular attributes. So in the Trinity that which constitutes the ousia (be it "goodness" or be it "Godhead") is common, while the hupostasis is marked by the Personal attribute of Fatherhood or Sonship or Sanctifying Power [47] . This position is also adopted and set forth in greater detail in the treatise, De Diff. Essen. et Hypost. [48] , already referred to, where we find once more the illustration employed in the Epistle to Terentius. The Nature of the Father is beyond our comprehension; but whatever conception we are able to form of that Nature, we must consider it to be common also to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: so far as the ousia is concerned, whatever is predicated of any one of the Persons may be predicated equally of each of the Three Persons, just as the properties of man, quâ man, belong alike to Paul and Barnabas and Timothy: and as these individual men are differentiated by their own particular attributes, so each Person of the Trinity is distinguished by a certain attribute from the other two Persons. This way of putting the case naturally leads to the question, "If you say, as you do say, that Paul and Barnabas and Timothy are three men,' why do you not say that the Three Persons are three Gods?'" Whether the question was presented in this shape to S. Basil we cannot with certainty decide: but we may gather from his language regarding the applicability of number to the Trinity what his answer would have been. He [49] says that in acknowledging One Father, One Son, One Holy Spirit, we do not enumerate them by computation, but assert the individuality, so to say, of each hypostasis--its distinctness from the others. He would probably have replied by saying that strictly speaking we ought to decline applying to the Deity, considered as Deity, any numerical idea at all, and that to enumerate the Persons as "three" is a necessity, possibly, imposed upon us by language, but that no conception of number is really applicable to the Divine Nature or to the Divine Persons, which transcend number [50] . To S. Gregory, however, the question did actually present itself as one demanding an answer, and his reply to it marks his departure from S. Basil's position, though, if the treatise, De Diff. Essen. et Hyp. be S. Basil's, S. Gregory was but following out and defending the view of his "master" as expressed in that treatise.
[44] It appears on the whole more probable that the treatise is the work of S. Gregory; but it is found, in a slightly different shape, among the Letters of S. Basil. (Ep. 189 in the Benedictine Edition.)
[45] In what sense this language was charged with "novelty" is not very clear. But the point of the objection appears to lie in a refusal to recognize that terms expressive of the Divine Nature, whether they indicate attributes or operations of that Nature, may be predicated of each hupostasis severally, as well as of the ousia, without attaching to the terms themselves that idea of plurality which, so far as they express attributes or operations of the ousia, must be excluded from them.
[46] S. Bas. Ep. 214, §4.
[47] The differentia here assigned to the Third Person is not, in S. Basil's own view, a differentia at all: for he would no doubt have been ready to acknowledge that this attribute is common to all Three Persons. S. Gregory, as it will be seen, treats the question as to the differentiation of the Persons somewhat differently, and rests his answer on a basis theologically more scientific.
[48] S. Bas. Ep. 38 (Benedictine Ed.).
[49] De Spir. Sancto, §18.
[50] On S. Basil's language on this subject, see Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Div. 1. vol. ii. pp. 309-11. (Eng. Trans.)
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/life-works.asp?pg=30
