§ 130. THE NICENE DOCTRINE OF THE TEtNTTY. 67S
«3. Eacb divine person has his. property, as it were a char acteristic individuality, expressed by tlie Greek word lht6ri]<;,^ and the Laim pi'oprietas.'' This is not to be confounded with attribute ; for the divine attributes, eternity, omnipresence., omnipotence, wisdom, holiness, love, etc., are inherent in the divine essence, and are the common possession of all the divine hypostases. The idiotes, on the contrary, is a peculiarity of the hypostasis, and therefore cannot be communicated or trans ferred from one to another.
To the first person fatherhood, or the being unbegotLen,' ia ascribed as his property ; to the second, sonship, or the being begotten;^ to the Holy Ghost, procession.^ In other words: The Father is nnbegotten, but begetting ; the Son is uncreated, but begotten ; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father (and, according to tlie Latin doctrine, also from tlie Son). But these distinctions relate, as we have said, only to the hypostases, and have no force with respect to the divine essence which is the same in all, and neither begets nor is begotten, nor proceeds, nor is sent.
4. The divine persons are in one another, mutually interpenetrate, and form a perpetual intercommunicatian and
by Augustine, and has more recently been pursued bj Sartorius, J. Miiller, J. P. Lange, Martensen, Liebner, Schoberlein, and others. It is suggested by the moral essence of God, which is love, the relation of the Father to the Son, and the " fellowship " of the Holy Ghost, and it undoubtedly contains a deep element of truth ; but, strictly taken, it yields only two different personalities and an impersonal rela- 1 Hon, thus proving too much for the Father and the Son, and too little for the Holy Spirit.
* Also jSioj/. Gregory of Nyssa calls these characteristic distinctions yvupiaTiiia\ loioTTires, peculiar marks of recognition. The terms jSjottjs and virdaTaots were sometimes used synonymously. The word iSiottj?, fem. (from Wios), peculiarity, is of course not to be confounded with iSicuTij^, masc, which likewise comes from ifSios, but means a private man, then layman, then an imbecile, idiot.
' Proprietas personalis ; also character hypostaticus.
* 'Ayevj/rj JiK, paternitas.
* Ttvvoala, yfvvrjffis, ffeneratio, Jiliatio.
* ^EKTropevaii, processio ; also iKirefirpn, missio ; both from John xv. 15 (ttc/u^o . . iKTTupevfTat) and similar passages, which relate, however, not to the eternal
trinity of constitution, but to the historical trinity of manifestation. Gregory Nazi* 'AUzen says: "iSioi' irarphi fiiv rj o-yeyKriffio, uiov Se r] ytwriiris, npiiuaros 5* i
fKTrt/iJi^fltS.
G80 ■miRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
uwtion within the divine essence ; as the Lord says: " I am iu the Father, and the Father in me;" and "the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." ' This perfect indwellini,' aud vital communion was afterwards designated (by John of Damascus and the scholastics) by such terms as eVi/Tra/j^t?, •rr€pty(jopT]ai<i^^ inexiste7itia, immanentia, inhabitatio, circidati: permeatio^ hitercommunio^ circumincesaio.^
5. Tlie Nicene doctrine already contains, in substance, a distinction between two trinities : an immanent trinit}'' of con- Btitution,* which existed from eternity, and an economic trinity of manifestation ; ^ though this distinction did not receive formal expression till a much later period. For the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit are, according to the doctrine, an eternal process. The jjcrceptions and practical wants of the Christian mind start, strictly speaking, with the trinity of revelation in the threefold, progressive work of the creation, the redemption, and the preservation of tlie
' John xiv. 10: 'O 5e irarrip b iv eixol jue'i'aif, avrhs Trotei Tci ipya.\ V. 11 : *E7ctf iv rw irarpi, Kal 6 irarrip eV inol. This also refers, strictly, not to the eternal relation, but to the indwelling of the Father in the historical, incarnate Christ.
' From nepix<^pf<^ (with els), to circulate, go about, progredi, ambulare. Comp. Pctavius, De trinit., lib. iv. c. 16 (torn. ii. p. 453 sqq.), and De incarnatione, lib. iv. c. 14 (torn. iv. p. 473 sqq.). The thing itself is clearly taught even by the Nicene fathers, especially by Athanasius in his third Oration against the Arians, c. 3 sqq., and elsewhere, with reference to the relation of the Son to the Father, although be never, so far as I know, used the word irfpixi^pticns. Gregory Nazianzcn uses the verb Trepix<^p('iv (not the noun) of the vital interpenetration of the two natures in Christ. Gibbon, in his contemptuous accout\t of the Nicene controversy (chapter xxi.) calls the Trfpix'^p^jo'ir or circumincessio "the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss," but takes no pains even to explain this idea. The old Protestant theologians defined the ■K(pix<op-r)(Tis aa "immanentia, h. e. inexistentia mutua et singularissima, intima et perfectissima inhabitatio unius personae in alia." Comp. Job. Gerhard, Loci theologici, torn. L p. 197 (ed. Cotta).
' Fiom incedo, denoting the perpetual internal motion of the Trinity, the circurafusio or mutua commeatio, et communicatio personarum inter se. Pctavius (in the 3d and -Ith vol. 1. c), Cudworth (Intellectual System of the Universe, vol. ii. p. 4;>-i, eti. of Harrison, Lond. 1845), and others use instead of this, cirenminsesdo, froa Mdeo, which rather expresses the repose of the persons in one another, the inexiBteniia or mutua existentia personarum. This would correspond to the Greek iri »af'{ii rather than to Trfpix<^pv<^^^-
* Ad intra, rpdiros uirapftaij.
^ Ad extra, rpdiroc airoKoXv^t/fus.