Originally posted by RayK:
Apparently (and I am not sure of this at all and that is why I want to track it down) apparently what took place was a shift or further refinement of the word hypostasis. For four centuries of Greek philosophy (when the idea of God being a Trinity had not yet happened) the word was used to mean �person� and assumed person and substance to be the same thing. By the time of the first Council of Alexandria - the word hypostasis had also come to mean �nature� and another word became to mean person� and now one nature could have three persons.
Hypostaseos (nature) meaning the same as ousias (person?) for the four centuries.
Apparently two heresy of the time (Sabian and Semi-arian) continued to use the older meaning (where hypostasis and person were both thought of as one �substance�) resulting in three gods and three persons (divided) and because of these heresies some thought that Rome of doing the same thing - which prompted Saint Athanasius's to convince the Alexandria Council that the Western addition (from the father and the son) was used and understood properly in the Latin Church to correctly mean that the person of the holy sprit proceeds (as a person) from the one same nature that the father and son shared. Apparently Athansius won acceptance of the West�s filoque for use in the West (where it was understood properly) while the East preferred to not to use that wording in order to guard against Saian and Semi-arian interpretations.
So it appears that the Latin language had already made a difference between person and substance (or nature) while the Greek language was just coming to that. It also appears that the filoque originated in Spain and Rome was the last to accept it in the West.
[b]
I doubt whether it is really so.
Initially in Greek philosophy there was no concept of person at all. Correspondingly there was no word that would denote a person. An ancient Greek could say �soma� (that is body) speaking about a man or a woman, for instance �This is a soma (body) of my friend� (i.e. This is my friend). The Greek word �prosopon� (something that is able to look) simply implied a face. The word �psyche� (something cooled down) just meant a sole that was cut off the deity and embodied. As for the word �hypostasis�, it was in Greek nothing but stool, footstool or something like this. No wonder that the words �ousia� and �hypostasis� were synonyms and meant �nature� or �substance�, because your nature is what you are and you safely can rest on or lean against it like you can do on a stool.
Therefore, after the concept of person had been formulated in the Christian era the word �hypostasis� was artificially applied to it. It is true that originally the Trinity could be said to have �one hypostasis� (i.e. one nature), but you are mistaken speaking that �ousia� sometime meant person. It actually was �nature� the same.
Certainly, it is a misconception to think that in Latin the difference in definition of these two words emerged earlier then it did in Greek. All the philosophy concepts in Latin simply followed the Greek ones and sometimes were non-properly translated, there are piles of examples. So, by the time of the Filioque coming to the Creed the Greeks absolutely distinguished the �hypostasis� (person) and �ousia� (nature). That was why they opposed the Latin additional statement of the Creed because it seemed to change the ecclesiastically recognized doctrine about the Trinity.
Valerius
