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Bible Encyclopedias
Hypostasis
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or in theology, a term frequently occurring in the Trinitarian controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries. According to Irenaeus (i. 5, 4) it was introduced into theology by Gnostic writers, and in earliest ecclesiastical usage appears, as among the Stoics, to have been synonymous with ouvia. Thus Dionysius of Rome (cf. Routh, Rel. Sacr. iii. 373) condemns the attempt to sever the Godhead into three separate hypostases and three deities, and the Nicene Creed in the anathemas speaks of i ETEpas inr00-Tao-Ros ouvias. Alongside, however, of this persistent interchange there was a desire to distinguish between the terms, and to confine brew-Tao-Ls to the Divine persons. This tendency arose in Alexandria, and its progress may be seen in comparing the early and later writings of Athanasius. That writer, in view of the Arian trouble, felt that it was better to speak of ouaia as "the common undifferentiated substance of Deity," and uir66Ta6ts as "Deity existing in a personal mode, the substance of Deity with certain special properties" (ovvia µETb. Tcvcov 1SecopaTcov). At the council of Alexandria in 362 the phrase Tpas uwroo-T UTECs was permitted, and the work of this council was supplemented by Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa in the formula pia ouaia, Tpei roora i€ts or µla ou61a Ev Tplacv b rocrTavfan'. The results arrived at b y these Cappadocian fathers were stated in a later age by John of Damascus (De orth. fid. iii. 6), quoted in R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, ii. 257.
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Hypostasis'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/h/hypostasis.html. 1910.
