that the principles of Origen were inconsistent with the true divin- ity of Christ. It was not long, therefore, before Arius, another presbyter of Alexandria, openly maintained that the Son was not eternal, but was posterior to the Father ; that He was created not from the substance of God, but ck ovk ovtwi/, and therefore was not 6iMoovaLo<s with the Father. He admitted that the Son existed before any other creature, and that it was by Him God created the world. It is to be constantly remembered that these speculations were the business of the theologians. They neither expressed nor af- fected to express the mind of the Church. The great body of the people drew their faith, then, as now, immediately from the Scrip- tures and fi-om the services of the sanctuary. They were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. They addressed themselves to the Father as the creator of heaven and earth, and as their reconciled God and Father, and to Jesus Christ as their Redeemer, and to the Holy Ghost as their sanctifier and comforter. They loved, worshipped, and trusted the one as they did the others. This was the religious belief of the Church, which remained undisturbed by the speculations and controversies of the theologians, in their attempts to vindicate and explain the common faith. This state of confusion was, however, a great evil, and in order to bring the Church to an agreement as to the man- ner in which this fundamental doctrine of Christianity should be stated, the Emperor Constantino summoned the First Ecumenical Council, to meet at Nice, in Nicomedia, a. d. 325.
§ 4. The Church Doctrine as presented ly the Council of Nice. A. The Objects for which that Council was convened.
The object for which the Council was called together was three- fold. (1.) To I'emedy the confusion which prevailed in the use of several important words employed in discussions on the doctrine of tlie Trinity. (2.) To condemn errors which had been adopted in diffei'ent parts of the Church. (3.) To frame such a statement of the doctrine as would include all its Scriptural elements, and satisfy the religious convictions of the mass of believers. This was an exceedingly difficult task.
1. Because the usus loquendi of certain important terms was not then determined. The word wocrTacrt?, for example, was used in two opposite senses. It was often taken, in its etymological sense, for substance, and is used by the Council itself as synonymous with ovaCa. But it had already begun to be used in the sense of person.
454 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. VI. — The Trinitt
As it expresses reality, as opposed to what is phenomenal or ap- parent, or mode of manifestation, it came to be universally used in the Greek Church, in the latter sense, as a safeguard against the idea of a mere modal Trinity. It will be admitted that great con- fusion must prevail, if one man should say there is only one v-rroa- rao-ts in the Godhead, and another affirm that there are three, when both meant the same thing, the one using the word in the sense of substance, and the other in that of person.
In the Latin Church the same difficulty was experienced in the use of the Avords substantia and subsistentia. These words were often interchanged as equivalent, and both were used, sometimes in the sense of substance, and sometimes in that of snppositum. Usage finally determined the former to mean substance or essence, and the latter a mode in which substance exists, i. e., suppositum. According to established usage, therefore, there is one substance, and there are three subsistences in the Godhead.
To express the idea of a suppositum iritelligens, or self-conscious agent, the Greeks first used the word irpoataTrov. But as that word properly means the face^ the aspect, and as it was used by the Sabellians to express their doctrine of the threefold aspect under which the Godhead was revealed, it was rejected, and the word vTToo-Tao-is adopted. The Latin word persona (from per and sono^ properly means a mask worn by an actor and through Avhieh he spoke ; and then the role or character which the actor sustained. On this account the word had a struggle before it was adopted in the terminology of theology.
The celebrated term o/aoovo-ios, so long the subject of controversy, was not free from ambiguity. It expressed plainly enough same- ness of substance, but whether that sameness was specific or numer- ical, the usage of the word left undecided. Porphyry is quoted as saying, that the souls of men and of irrational animals are bfj-oova-ioL, and Aristotle as saying that the stars are 6/xoovo-toij and men and brutes are said to be ofMoovaioi as to their bodies ; and in like man- ner angels, demons, and human souls, are said to be all 6/xoowtot. In this sense, Peter, James, and John are o/Aooucrtot, as having the same nature in kind. On this account the use of the word was objected to, as admitting of a Tritheistic interpi-etation. The Council, how- ever, determined the sense in which it was to be understood in their decisions, by saying that the Son was begotten e/< t^s ova-La's Tou TTflTpo?, and by denying that He was created. As God is a spirit, and as we are spirits, we are said, in Scripture, to be like Him, and to be his children, to be of the same nature. But with