The Christological dogma with its formula had already had a share in the establishment of the Trinitarian dogma. Tertullian had already made use of the same conceptions for giving a fixed form both to his doctrine of God and to his Christology (adv. Prax.). The form taken by the Trinitarian doctrine of the Modalism and the teaching of Athanasius than that of Gregory and has a strong resemblance to the doctrine of an immanent Trinity, without actually being such: the Godhead in substantia, status, potestas, virtus, is one (2 ff.), there is only one divine substance and therefore there are not two or three Gods or Lords (13, 19). In this one substance there is no separatio, or divisio, or dispersio, or diversitas (3, 8, 9), though there is indeed a distributio, distinctio, dispositio, dispensatio (9, 13), an oinovouía in short, a differentia per distinctionem (14). Accordingly the unitas substantiæ is not in any way a singularitas numeri (22, 25)—God is not unicus et singularis (12)—but it comprises three nomina or species, formæ gradus, res, persona, (Tertullian here, however, usually avoids the use of all substantives), see 2, 8 etc. No one of these is a mere attribute, on the contrary each is a substantiva res ex ipsius dei substantia (26); there are thus tres res et tres species unius et indivisæ substantiæ (19); these, however, are most intimately connected together (conjuncti 27); they are tres cohærentes (8, 25) without, however, being one (masc.) [rather are they one (neut. 22, 25)], because the second and the third spring ex unitate patris (19) and are accordingly God as He is, individui et inseparati a patre (18). In the divine substance there are in fact conserti et connexi gradus (8). These three gradus or persons are different from each other in proprietas and conditio, but not in substance (8, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 24, 25). The peculiar property of the Father is that He is a nullo prolatus et innatus (19) and also absolutely invisible. The Son is also invisible in virtue of the substance, but visible as to his conditio (14). In virtue of the substance there is in fact a perfect societas nominum; even the Son in accordance with this is "almighty" (17, 18). It is thus necessary to believe in the unitas ex semetipsa derivans trinitatem. This has already become an established truth as against Jews and heathen. What is most instructive of all, however, is to notice Tertullian's use of "persona" as distinguished from "substantia”, because it is here that he has most plainly prepared the way for the later orthodox phraseology. The Latin Bible supplied Tertullian with the word "persona"; for (adv. Prax. 6) in Proverbs VIII. 30 it had "cottidie oblectabar in persona ejus" and in Lamentations IV. 20 (adv. Prax. 14) "spiritus personæ ejus Christus dominus." (The LXX. has pórov in both passages.) Both passages must have attracted special notice. But Tertullian was further a jurist, and as such the conceptions "persona" and "substantia" were quite familiar to him. I accordingly conjecture-and it is probably more than a conjecture-that Tertullian always continued to be influenced in his use of these words by the juristic usage, as is specially evident from his naive idea of a substantia impersonalis and from the sharp distinction he draws between persona and substantia. From the juristic point of view there is as little objection to the formula that several persons are possessors of one and the same substance or property, that they are in uno statu, as to the other formula that one person possesses several substances unmixed. (See Tertullian's Christology adv. Prax. 27; Vol. ii., p. 281.) The fact that Tertullian, so far as I know, never renders "substance" by "natura"-although he takes the latter to in

Homoiousians, as represented by Basil of Ancyra and of Apollinaris, was likewise determined by their Christological speculations. (It was Christological speculation which produced the "¿poiwpa”

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clude substance-seems to me as conclusively in favour of my view as the other fact that, in the introduction to his work (3), he attempted to elucidate the problem by making use of an image drawn from the spheres of law and politics. "Monarchy does not always require to be administered by one despot; on the contrary he may name proximæ personæ officiales, and exercise authority through them and along with them; it does not cease to be one government, especially when the Son is the co-administrator. Son and Father are, however, consortes substantiæ patris." Tertullian's exposition of the doctrine in which he hit upon the spirit of the West was, however, hardly understood in the East. In the East the question was taken up in a philosophical way, and there the difficulties first made themselves felt, which in the juristic way of looking at the matter had been kept in the background. In the latter "persona" is sometimes manifestation, sometimes ideal subject, sometimes fictive subject, sometimes "individuum", and "substantia" is the property, the substance, the Real, the actual content of the subject as distinguished from its form and manifestation (persona). It is significant that Tertullian is also able to use nomen, species, forma, gradus, and in fact even res for "persona", so elastic is the conception, while for "substantia” he has deitas, virtus, potestas, status. On the other hand, when the question is viewed philosophically it is difficult, it is in fact actually impossible to distinguish between nature and person. The following passages will illustrate Tertullian's use of words, (ad v. persona): adv. Valent. 4: "personales substantiæ", sharply distinguished from "sensus, affectus, motus"; adv. Prax. 7: "filius ex sua persona profitetur patrem"; ibid: "Non vis eum substantivum habere in re per substantiæ proprietatem, ut res et persona quædam videri possit” (scil. Logos); ibid: "quæcumque ergo substantia sermonis (To λóyou) fuit, illam dico personam"; 11: "filii personam... sic et cetera, quæ nunc ad patrem de filio vel ad filium, nunc ad filium de patre vel ad patrem, nunc ad spiritum pronuntiantur, unamquamque personam in sua proprietate constituunt"; 12: "alium autem quomodo accipere debeas jam professus sum, persona, non substantia, nomine, ad distinctionem non ad divisionem"; 13: "si una persona et dei et domini in scripturis inveniretur, etc."; 14: "si Christus personæ paternæ spiritus est, merito spiritus, cujus personæ erat, id est patris, eum faciem suam ex unitate scilicet pronuntiavit”; 15: “manifesta et personalis distinctio conditionis (this too is a juristic conception) patris et filii”; 18: "pater prima persona, quæ ante filii nomen erat proponenda'; 21: quo dicto (Matt. XVI. 17) Christus utriusque personæ constituit distinctionem "; 23: (on John XII. 28) "quot personæ tibi videntur, Praxea?" ... "Non propter me ista vox (John XII. 30) venit, sed propter vos, ut credant et hi et patrem et filium in suis quemque nominibus et personis et locis"; 24: "duarum personarum conjunctio (in reference to John XIV. 10 "apparet proprietas utriusque personæ "); 26: nam nec semel sed ter ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur "; 27: "Father and Son must not be distinguished in una persona "; c. 27: "videmus duplicem statum non confusum sed conjunctum in una persona, deum et hominem Jesum"; 31: “sic voluit deus renovare sacramentum, ut nove unus crederetur per filium et spiritum, ut coram iam deus in suis propriis nominibus et personis cognosceretur."

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[likeness] and which gave currency to the analogy of the conceptions "Humanity" and "Adam" in relation to individual men.) But the Cappadocians learned from them. Quod erat in causa, apparet in effectu! An Aristotelian and a Subordinationist element lurks in the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as well as this element of dependence upon Christological dogma. The Christological controversies accordingly could not but re-act on the form given to the dogma of the Trinity. That their influence was not stronger than the historical evidence shews it actually to have been, is to be explained solely by the rigid form taken by the dogma so quickly rendered sacred by tradition. Anything in the way of modification was unsuccessful, and accordingly the attempts in this direction belong not to the history of dogma, but of theology. Some Monophysites who were influenced by the Aristotelian philosophy and who were thus scholars of the same type as Apollinaris, but who were also Chalcedonian theologians, attempted to give a dialectic shape to the ambiguous conceptions of "Nature" and "Person" in the Church. In doing this they naturally landed either in Tritheism or in Unitarianism, which their opponents could also represent as Quaternity whenever the three persons were reckoned as belonging to the one real Substance as Reals and not as attributes. The departure on the part of the Monophysites from orthodox dogma had not a philosophical cause only, though the period was one in which there had been a revival of Aristotelian study, but was also the result of their Christology. Since in their Christology they regarded Quis (nature) as equal to úzóσTaσis (hypostasis), it naturally suggested itself to them to carry out the same equation in reference to the

1 Natural theology also exercised an influence here and did good service to the Homousios. If it is certain that man has been created xa' dμośwσry of God, and if the view-a view which was indeed rejected-could even suggest itself, that his spirit is a portio dei (substantia divina), then the Logos appeared to have no advantage over man if the Homoousia were not attributed to Him.

2 Οὐκ ἔστι φύσις ἀνυπόστατος—said both Monophysites and Nestorians in setting forth their Christology. This was applied to the Trinity. But the orthodox too in so far as they were Aristotelians, shunned the platonic-which was also the juristicfiction of a úσig ȧVUTÓσTATOS, and this was bound to create difficulties in connection with their doctrine of the Trinity. The Theopaschian controversy is connected with this; see Chap. III.

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Trinity. But if ovcía or Quis be regarded as equivalent to SIGTIG then we have Unitarianism; while if on the other hand, in making this equation we start from the hypostasis, we have three gods. Both of these doctrines were taught amongst the Monophysites in the sixth century, or to put it more accurately, from about 530. In opposition to the Tritheists Johannes Damascenus, although he was himself strongly influenced by Aristotle and based his theology on the work of the Cappadocians, gave a Modalistic turn to the theological exposition of the dogma of the Trinity, and in so doing sought to get rid of the last remains of Subordinationism. It is true that he also grants that the Father is greater than the Son (de fide orthodox. I. 8) because He is the Principle of the Son, a view which Athanasius too, founding on John XIV. 28, had always maintained, but he nevertheless conceives of the being unbegotten (äysvvycía) in a still higher fashion than the Cappadocians had done-namely, as a mode of being of the same kind as the being begotten (yɛvycíα) and procession (¿xóρɛvois), and in order to put the unity of the Hypostases on a firm basis he not only emphasises much more strongly the "in one another” (¿v «λλýλ015) which had already been maintained before this, rejecting the Apollinarian analogy of human-substance and man, and teaching that each person is not less dependent on others than on himself, but he also uses the questionable formula that the difference between them exists only for thought (ŝTMwoiz), and that there exists between them a pervasion (TEρixpois) with

1 of the Monophysite Tritheists the most important are Askusnages, Johannes Philoponus against whom Leontius of Byzantium wrote "de sectis", and Peter of Kallinico. On the works of John, see the article in the Dict. of Christ. Biogr.; an important fragment in Joh. Damasc., de hær. 83 from the "Diætetes" of John. Here it may be plainly seen that Christology determined the form of John's doctrine of the Trinity, but that he sought to give out as Church doctrine his Aristotelian conception of the Hypostasis, viz., Nature reaching manifestation in an "individuum ", Nature itself existing only in the single substance, or in the Idea. From Leontius we gather that John spoke of τρɛïç pɛpıxaì ovcíaı and accepted the notion of an ovcía nový which, however, exists only in conception. This doctrine caused divisions amongst the Monophysites, and these led the Coptic patriarch Damian to emphasise so strongly the reality of the one substance, that he could be represented as a Tetradite, although at the same time he probably took away from the independence of the persons. Cf. the Art. "Tritheisticher Streit" by Gass in the R.-Encykl.

out, however, any blending (σvvaλ) and mixture (σúμúpois) (I. 8). In his case too this way of putting the dogma was determined by the Christological dogma.'

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In the Eastern Church the further development of the dogma of the Trinity beyond the limit reached by the Cappadocians had no appreciable result. It was too unimportant in itself, and, above all, it left untouched the point in connection with which the placing of the Father above the other Hypostases came most plainly to the front. John also (I. 8) taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. He further simply repeated the old statements that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, that He is the image of the Son as the latter is of the Father, and that He is the mediation between Father and Son, although in his day the doctrine of the Latins-the filioque-was already known in the East. The Easterns clung to the statements in support of which they alleged countless passages from the writings of the Fathers of the Fourth Century, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father through the Son. As against the Arians and Semi-Arians they emphasised the Spirit's independence of the Son, in so far as

1 See on this Bach, DG. des MA. I., pp. 53 ff., 67 ff. In the Tritheistic propositions and in the counter-movement we have the beginning of the mediaval controversy regarding Realism and Nominalism.

2 On the other hand the fact that the most distinguished teacher of the East propounded a doctrine of the Trinity which seems to be akin to that of Augustine was of importance for Western theology. We cannot assume that Augustine influenced John. Moreover, after this theologians were still to be found in the East who, perhaps under the influence of Mohammedanism, worked out the doctrine of the Trinity in a modalistic way. Thus in the eleventh century Elias of Nisibis in his book "On the proof of the truth of the Faith ", written against the Mohammedans, says (Horst, 1886, p. 1 f.); “Wisdom and Life are two attributes of God, which no one except Him possesses. For this reason Christians also say that He is three persons, i.e., possesses three essential attributes-namely, Essence, Wisdom which is His Word, and Life; He is, however, a single substance... 'Three persons' expresses the same as is expressed by the statement-the Almighty is God, wise, and living. The Essence is the Father, the Wisdom is the Son, the Life is the Holy Spirit." God is thus purely a single being. I am not able to say whether Elias is alone amongst the Nestorians in teaching this heterodox doctrine.

3 The addition" and rests in the Son" does not require to be taken account of; see Langen, Joh. v. Damaskus, p. 283 ff.

4 John expressly rejects the view (1. c.) that the Spirit is from the Son or that it has its maps from the Son (Hom. de Sabb. s.).