It is apparently to this passage of Plato that Aristotle refers in describing the ambiguity of the word ousia [370] : "Now Ousia seems to belong most manifestly to bodies: wherefore animals and plants and their parts we say are ousiai, also natural bodies as fire and water and earth and all such things, and all either parts of these, or products either of parts or the whole, as the heaven and its parts, stars, moon, and sun. But whether these are the only ousiai or there are others also, or none of these but others of a different kind, is a matter for inquiry. Some think that the boundaries of bodies, as a surface, and a line and a point and a unit (monas), are ousiai, even more so than body and solid. Further, one class of persons thinks that besides things sensible there is no ousia, and another that there are many things, and these more enduring (aidia), as Plato thinks that the ideas (eide) and the mathematical elements are two kinds of ousia, and that the ousia of sensible bodies is a third."
In proceeding to define the term, Aristotle says that ousia is used in four senses if not more: the essential nature (to ti en einai), the universal (to katholon) the genus, and a fourth the subject (to hupokeimenon). Under, this fourth sense he proceeds to discuss the application of the term ousia to the matter, the form, and the resulting whole. Without going further we may see that the use of the word in philosophy was full of difficulty and ambiguity.
The ambiguity is thus expressed by Mr. Robertson [371] : "We may look at a concrete term as denoting either this or that individual simply (tode ti), or as expressing its nature, and so as common to more individuals than one. Now properly (protos) ousia is only appropriate to the former purpose. But it may be employed in a secondary sense to designate the latter, in this sense species and genera are deuterai ousiai, the wider class being less truly ousiai than the former." Perhaps the earliest use of ousia in Christian writings is in Justin M. [372] , where he describes the Logos as "having been begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission (apotomen), as if the ousia of the Father were divided, as all other things when divided and cut are no longer the same as before." His example was fire, from which other fires are kindled, while it remains undiminished and unchanged. According to Dr. Newman [373] , ousia here means "substance, or being."
In Clement of Alexandria [374] , ousia means a "nature" common to many, for he speaks of the Gnostic Demiurge as creating an irrational soul homoousion with the soul of the beasts;" and again as implanting in man "something co-essential (homoousion) with himself, inasmuch as he is invisible and incorporeal; his essence (ousian) he called "the breath of life," but the thing formed (morphothen) became "a living soul," which in the prophetic Scriptures he confesses himself to be. Again in §42 of the same Fragment, according to the Valentinians, "the body of Jesus is co-essential (homoousion) with the Church."
So Hippolytus [375] speaks of the Son Incarnate as being "at one and the same time Infinite God and finite Man, having the nature (ousian) of each in perfection:" and again, "There has been effected a certain inexpressible and irrefragable union of the two (the Godhead and the Manhood) into one subsistence (hupostasin)."
In Origen we find the two words ousia (essence, or substance) and hupostasis (individual subsistence) accurately distinguished. Quoting the description of Wisdom, as being the breath (atmis) of the power of God, and pure effluence (aporroia) from the glory of the Almighty, and radiance (apaugasma) of the Eternal Light [376] ," he says that "Wisdom proceeding from Him is generated of the very substance of God," and adds that "these comparisons most manifestly shew that there is community of substance between Father and Son. For an effluence appears to be homoousios, that is, of one substance with that body from which it is an effluence or vapour."
On the other hand he writes, "We worship the Father of the Truth, and the Son who is the Truth, being in subsistence (te hupostasei) two [377] ." On this passage Bishop Bull remarks: "The words hupostasis and ousia in ancient times were variously used, at least by the Christians. That is to say, sometimes hupostasis was taken by them for what we call ousia, and vice versa, ousia for what we call hupostasis: sometimes the ancients even before the Council of Nicæa used hupostasis for what we now call person' or subsistence [378] '." This Bishop Bull presently explains again as "an individual thing subsisting by itself, which in rational beings is the same as person."
For examples of these interchanges of meaning, we may notice that the Synod of Antioch (a.d. 269), in the Epistle addressed to Paul of Samosata before his deposition, speaking of the unity of Christ's Person, says that "He is one and the same in His ousia [379] ." On this passage Routh remarks that "The words ousia and phusis are sometimes employed by the ancients for a personal subsistence (persona subsistente), as is plainly testified by Photius."
In the earlier part [380] of the same Epistle the Son is described as "being before all ages, not in foreknowledge, but in essence and subsistence (en ousia kai hupostasei)."
The confusion arising from the uncertainty in the use of these two words is well illustrated in the account which Athanasius [381] himself gives of this same Synod of Antioch: "They who deposed the Samosatene, took Co-essential (homoousios) in a bodily sense, because Paul had attempted sophistry and said, Unless Christ has of man become God, it follows that He is Co-essential with the Father; and if so, of necessity there are three essences (ousiai), one the previous essence, and the other two from it;' and therefore guarding against this they said with good reason, that Christ was not Co-essential (homoousion)." Athanasius then explains on what grounds the Bishops at Nicæa "reasonably asserted on their part, that the Son was Co-essential." Athanasius himself states that, in giving this explanation of the rejection of ousion by the Bishops who condemned the Samosatene, he had not their Epistle before him [382] ; and his statement, that Paul used the term not to express his own view, but to refute that of the Bishops, is thought to be opposed to what Hilary says [383] , "Male homoousion Samosatenus confessus est: sed numquid melius Ariani negaverunt?"
That the statement of Athanasius himself is not free from difficulty is clear from the way in which so great a Theologian as Bishop Hefele endeavours to explain it: "Athanasius says that Paul argued in this way: If Christ is Omoousios with the Father, then three subsistences (ousiai) must be admitted--one first substance (the Father), and two more recent (the Son and the Spirit); that is to say, that the Divine Substance is separated into three parts [384] ." The logical subtlety of Paul was better understood by Basil the Great [385] : "For in truth they who met together about Paul of Samosata found fault with the phrase, as not being distinct; for they said that the word homoousios gave the idea of an ousia and of those derived from it, so that the title homoousion assigned the ousia separately to the subjects to which it was distributed: and this notion has some reason in the case of copper and the coins made from it; but in the case of God the Father, and God the Son, there is no substance conceived to be antecedent and superior to both: for to say and to think this surpasses all bounds of impiety."
The confusion arising from the uncertainty in the use of these words had been the cause of strife throughout the Christian Church for more than twenty years before the date of Cyril's Lectures; and though it was declared at the Council of Alexandria (362) to be but a controversy about words [386] , it had long been and long afterwards continued to be a fruitful cause of dissension between men who, when forced to explain their meaning, were found to be in substantial agreement. That Cyril abstained from introducing into his elementary teaching terms so provocative of dangerous controversy, is a reason for commendation, not for censure. But if it is alleged that he denied or doubted or failed to assert the essential Godhead of the Son, the suspicion is unfounded and easily refuted. To the many passages already quoted concerning the eternal generation of the Son, it will be enough to add one single sentence which ought to dispel all doubt of his orthodoxy. "The Only-begotten Son, together with the Holy Ghost, is partaker of the Godhead of the Father (tes theotetos tes Patrikes koinonos)." The word chosen by Cyril to express the Divine Essence (theotes) common to the three Persons of the Godhead is at least as appropriate as ousia.
If we now look at the particular errors mentioned in the Anathema of the Nicene Council, we shall find that every one of them is earnestly condemned by Cyril.
"Once He was not (En pote hote ouk en). This famous Arian formula is expressly rejected in Cat. xi. § 17: "Neither let us say, There was a time when the Son was not." The eternity of the Son is asserted again and again, in reference, for instance, to His generation [387] , His Priesthood [388] , and His throne [389] .
"Before His generation He was not" (prin gennethenai ouk en). Compare with this Cyril's repeated assertions that "the Son is eternally begotten, by an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation [390] ," "the Son of God before all ages, without beginning [391] ," that "time intervenes not in the generation of the Son from the Father [392] ."
"He came to be from nothing" (ex ouk onton egeneto). Cyril's language is emphatic: "As I have often said, He did not bring forth the Son from non-existence (ek tou me ontos) into being, nor take the non-existent into Sonship [393] ."
"That He is of other subsistence or essence" (ex heteras hupostaseos e ousias). It is certain that Cyril has given no countenance to the error or errors condemned in this clause, but is in entire agreement with the Council.
On the question whether upostasis and ousia have in this passage the same or different meanings, see Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. II. 9, 11, p. 314 (Oxf. Ed.). Athanasius expressly states that they are perfectly equivalent: "Subsistence (hupostasis) is essence (ousia), and means nothing else but very being, which Jeremiah calls existence (huparxis)." Basil distinguishes them, and is followed by Bishop Bull, whose opinion is controverted by Mr. Robertson in an Excursus on the meaning of the phrase, on p. 77 of his edition of Athanasius in this Series. The student who desires to pursue the subject may consult in addition to the works just named, and the authorities therein mentioned, Dr. Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century, especially chap. v. sect. i. 3, and Appendix, note iv., on "the terms ousia and hupostasis as used in the early Church;" Mr. Robertson's Prolegomena, ch. ii. § 3 (2) (b); and the Rev. H. A. Wilson's Prolegomena to Gregory of Nyssa, ch. iv., in this Series.
[331] Cat. vi. tit.
[332] vii. tit.; § 4.
[333] viii. tit.
[334] ix. tit.; § 4.
[335] x. tit.; vii. 4.
[336] xi. tit.; § 21.
[337] xii. tit.
[338] xiii. tit.
[339] xiv. tit., cf. § 27; xv. 3.
[340] xv. tit.; § 2.
[341] xvi. tit.; xviii. 3.
[342] xviii. 22.
[343] xviii. tit.; § 22.
[344] Cyril, Cat. iv. 9; xii. 3; Mystag. ii. 7.
[345] Preface, p. ix.
[346] Cat. iv. § 8.
[347] Cat. xvi. § 4. See the notes on this and the preceding passage.
[348] Cat. xi. § 16.
[349] Cat. xv. § 27, note 3.
[350] Athan. Contra Arian, Or. ii. § 31, 1: "For the Word of God is Framer and Maker, and He is the Father's Will. Cf. Or. iii. § 63 fin.
[351] Ib. Or. iii. § 11, 3: "Such then being the Son, therefore when the Son works, the Father is the Worker."
[352] There is, I believe, no extant list of signatures: "Whether the few Homoüsians and Hilary were among those who signed is not said" (Hefele, Councils, II. p. 264.)
[353] Athan. De Synod. c. 12.
[354] Ib. c. 41.
[355] Preface, p. 14.
[356] Contra Arianos, Or. i. 28.
[357] Cat. vii. § 5.
[358] Ib. xi. § 16.
[359] Ib. § 17.
[360] Ib. § 18.
[361] Athan. De Decretis, c. 20.
[362] Cat. xi. § 7.
[363] Ib. vii. 5: see note there.
[364] Ib. iv. 7.
[365] Ib.
[366] Ib. iv. § 8.
[367] Ib. xv. § 27.
[368] Zahn, Marcellus of Ancyra, as quoted by Hefele, Councils, II. p. 31, slightly abridged. See also Hefele, p. 186.
[369] Plato, Sophist. § 246. "The passage is quoted by Theodoret, Græcarum affectionem Curatio, ii. p. 732." (Heindorf.)