HYPOSTASIS

hypostasis, 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 [greek: ousia]. 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 [greek: ex heteras hypostaseos e ousias]. alongside, however, of this persistent interchange there was a desire to distinguish between the terms, and to confine [greek: hypostasis] 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 [greek: ousia] as "the common undifferentiated substance of deity," and [greek: hypostasis] as "deity existing in a personal mode, the substance of deity with certain special properties" ([greek: ousia meta tinon idiomaton]). at the council of alexandria in 362 the phrase [greek: treis hypostaseis] was permitted, and the work of this council was supplemented by basil, gregory of nazianzus and gregory of nyssa in the formula [greek: mia ousia, treis hypostaseis] or [greek: mia ousia en trisin hypostasesin]. the results arrived at by 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.