Leaving Athanasius, we have the following evidence concerning the history of the word hupostasis. S. Jerome says, "The whole school of secular learning understanding nothing else by hypostasis than usia, essence," Ep. xv. 4, where, speaking of the Three Hypostases he uses the strong language, "If you desire it, then be a new faith framed after the Nicene, and let the orthodox confess in terms like the Arian."
In like manner, Basil of Ancyra, George, and the other Semi-arians, say distinctly, "This hypostasis our Fathers called essence," ousia. Epiph. Hær. 74. 12. fin.; in accordance with which is the unauthorized addition to the Sardican Epistle, "hupostasin, hen autoi hoi hairetikoi ousian prosagoreuousi." Theod. H. E. ii. 6.
If it be said that Jerome from his Roman connection, and Basil and George as Semi-arians, would be led by their respective theologies for distinct reasons thus to speak, it is true, and may have led them to too broad a statement of the fact; but then on the other hand it was in accordance also with the theology of S. Basil, so strenuous a defender of the formula of the Three Hypostases, to suppose that the Nicene Fathers meant to distinguish hupostasis from ousia in their anathema.
Again, Socrates informs us that, though there was some dispute about hypostasis at Alexandria shortly before the Nicene Council, yet the Council itself "devoted not a word to the question," H. E. iii. 7.; which hardly consists with its having intended to rule that ex heteras hupostaseos was distinct from ex heteras ousias.
And in like manner the Council of Alexandria, a.d. 362, in deciding that the sense of Hypostasis was an open question, not only from the very nature of the case goes on the supposition that the Nicene Council had not closed it, but says so in words again and again in its Synodal Letter. If the Nicene Council had already used "hypostasis" in its present sense, what remained to Athanasius at Alexandria but to submit to it?
Indeed the history of this Council is perhaps the strongest argument against the supposed discrimination of the two terms by the Council of Nicæa. Bull can only meet it by considering that an innovation upon the "veterem vocabuli usum" began at the date of the Council of Sardica, though Socrates mentions the dispute as existing at Alexandria before the Nicene Council, H. E. iii. 4. 5. while the supposititious confession of Sardica professes to have received the doctrine of the one hypostasis by tradition as Catholic.
Nor is the use of the word in earlier times inconsistent with these testimonies; though it occurs so seldom, in spite of its being a word of S. Paul [i.e. Heb. i. 3], that testimony is our principal evidence. Socrates' remarks deserve to be quoted; "Those among the Greeks who have treated of the Greek philosophy, have defined essence, ousia, in many ways, but they had made no mention at all of hypostasis. Irenæus the Grammarian, in his alphabetical Atticist, even calls the term barbarous; because it is not used by any of the ancients, and if anywhere found, it does not mean what it is now taken for. Thus in the Phoenix of Sophocles it means an ambush;' but in Menander, preserves,' as if one were to call the wine-lees in a cask hypostasis.' However it must be observed, that, in spite of the old philosophers being silent about the term, the more modern continually use it for essence, ousias, H. E. iii. 7. The word principally occurs in Origen among Ante-Nicene writers, and he, it must be confessed uses it, as far as the context decides its sense, to mean subsistence or person. In other words, it was the word of a certain school in the Church, which afterwards was accepted by the Church; but this proves nothing about the sense in which it was used at Nicæa. The three Hypostases are spoken of by Origen, his pupil Dionysius, as afterwards by Eusebius of Cæsarea (though he may notwithstanding have considered hypostasis synonymous with essence), and Athanasius (Origen in Joan. ii. 6. Dionys. ap. Basil de Sp. S. n. 72. Euseb. ap. Socr. i. 23. Athan. in Illud Omnia, &c. 6); and the Two Hypostases of the Father and the Son, by Origen, Ammonius, and Alexander (Origen c. Cels. viii. 2. Ammon. ap. Caten. in Joan. x. 30. Alex. ap. Theod. i. 3. p. 740). As to the passage in which two hypostases are spoken of in Dionysius' letter to Paul of Samosata, that letter certainly is not genuine, as might be shewn on a fitting occasion, though it is acknowledged by very great authorities.
I confess that to my mind there is an antecedent probability that the view which has here been followed is correct. Judging by the general history of doctrine, one should not expect that the formal ecclesiastical meaning of the word should have obtained everywhere so early. Nothing is more certain than that the doctrines themselves of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation were developed, or, to speak more definitely, that the propositions containing them were acknowledged, from the earliest times; but the particular terms which now belong to them are most uniformly of a later date. Ideas were brought out, but technical phrases did not obtain. Not that these phrases did not exist, but either not as technical, or in use in a particular School or Church, or with a particular writer, or as hapax legomena, as words discussed, nay resisted, perhaps used by some local Council, and then at length accepted generally from their obvious propriety. Thus the words of the Schools pass into the service of the Catholic Church. Instead then of the word hupostasis being, as Maran says, received in the East "summo consensu," from the date of Noetus or at least Sabellius, or of Bull's opinion "apud Catholicos Dionysii ætate ratum et fixum illud fuisse, tres esse in divinis hypostases," I would consider that the present use of the word was in the first instance Alexandrian, and that it was little more than Alexandrian till the middle of the fourth century.
Lastly, it comes to be considered how the two words are to be accounted for in the Creed, if they have not distinct senses. Coustant supposes that ex ousias was added to explain ex hupostaseos, lest the latter should be taken in a Sabellian sense. On which we may perhaps remark besides, that the reason why hupostasis was selected as the principal term was, that it was agreeable to the Westerns as well as admitted by the Orientals. Thus, by way of contrast, we find the Second General Council, at which there were no Latins, speaking of Three Hypostases, and Pope Damasus and the Roman Council speaking a few years sooner of the Holy Ghost as of the same hypostasis and usia with the Father and the Son. Theod. H. E. ii. 17. Many things go to make this probable. For instance, Coustant acutely points out, though Maran and the President of Magdalen [Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. 383] dissent, that this probably was a point of dispute between the two Dionysii; the Bishop of Alexandria asserting, as we know he did assert, Three Hypostases, the Bishop of Rome protesting in reply against "Three partitive Hypostases," as involving tritheism, and his namesake rejoining, "If because there are Three Hypostases, any say that they are partitive, three there are, though they like it not." Again, the influence of the West shews itself in the language of Athanasius, who, contrary to the custom of his Church, of Origen, Dionysius, and his own immediate patron and master Alexander, so varies his own use of the word, as to make his writings almost an example of that freedom which he vindicated in the Council of Alexandria. Again, when Hosius went to Alexandria before the Nicene Council, and a dispute arose with reference to Sabellianism about the words hupostasis and ousia, what is this too, but the collision of East and West? It should be remembered moreover that Hosius presided at Nicæa, a Latin in an Eastern city; and again at Sardica, where, though the decree in favour of the One Hypostasis was not passed, it seems clear from the history that he was resisting persons with whom in great measure he agreed. Further, the same consideration accounts for the omission of the ex ousias from the Confession of Mark and the two which follow, on which Bull relies in proof that the Semi-arians rejected this formula. These three Semi-arian Creeds, and these only, were addressed to the Latins, and therefore their compilers naturally select that synonym which was most pleasing to them, as the means of securing a hearing; just as Athanasius on the other hand in his de Decretis, writing to the Greeks, omits hupostaseos and writes ousias.
[427] [This excursus supports the view taken above, Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) b; the student should supplement Newman's discussion by Zahn Marcellus and Harnack Dogmengesch. as quoted at the head of that section of the Prolegg. The word Semi-arian' is used in a somewhat inexact sense in this excursus, see Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) c, and §8 (2) c.]