To sum up, then. We have in Greek four terms, οὐσία, ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον, φύσις, and in Latin three,substantia,persona,natura, the two series not being actually parallel even to the extent to which they are so in appearance. Times have changed since Tertullian’s[588]loose and vague usage caused no remark; when Jerome, thinking as a Latin, hesitates to speak of τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις, by which he understoodtres substantias, and complains that he is looked upon as a heretic in the East in consequence. There is a remarkable saying of Athanasius which is capable of a wider application than he gave it: it runsas follows:[589]“They seemed to be ignorant of the fact that when we deal with words that require some training to understand them, different people may take them in senses not only differing but absolutely opposed to each other.”[590]Thus there was an indisposition to accept οὐσία. The phrase was not understanded of the people.[591]A reaction took place against the multiplicity of terms; but the simple and unstudied language of the childhood of Christianity, with its awe-struck sense of the ineffable nature of God, was but a fading memory, and on the other hand the tendency to trust in and insist upon the results of speculation was strong. Once indeed the Catholic doctrine was formulated, then, though not till then, the majority began to deprecate investigations as to the nature of God.
But I do not propose to dwell upon the sad and weary history of the way in which for more than a century these metaphysical distinctions formed the watchwords of political as well as of ecclesiastical parties—of the strife and murder, the devastation of fair fields, the flame and sword, therewith connected. For all this, Greek philosophy was not responsible. These evils mostly came from that which has been a permanently disastrous fact in Christian history, the interference of the State, which gave the decrees of Councils that sanction which elevatedthe resolutions of the majority upon the deepest subjects of human speculation to the factitious rank of laws which must be accepted on pain of forfeiture, banishment or death.
Philosophy branched off from theology. It became its handmaid and its rival. It postulated doctrines instead of investigating them. It had to show their reasonableness or to find reasons for them. And for ages afterwards philosophy was dead. I feel as strongly as you can feel the weariness of the discussions to which I have tried to direct your attention. But it is only by seeing how minute and how purely speculative they are, that we can properly estimate their place in Christian theology. Whether we do or do not accept the conclusions in which the greater part of the Christian world ultimately acquiesced, we must at least recognize that they rest upon large assumptions. Three may be indicated which are all due to the influence of Greek philosophy.[592]
(1) It is assumed that metaphysical distinctions are important.
I am far from saying that they are not: but it is not less important to recognize that much of what we believe rests upon this assumption that they are. There is otherwise no justification whatever for drawing men’s thoughts away from the positive knowledge which we may gain both of ourselves and of the world around us, to contemplate, even at far distance, the conception of Essence.
(2) The second is the assumption that these metaphysical distinctions which we make in our minds correspond to realities in the world around us, or in God who is beyond the world and within it.
Again, I am far from saying that they do not; but it is at least important for us to recognize the fact that, in speaking of the essence of either the world or God, we are assuming the existence of something corresponding to our conception of essence in the one or the other.[593]
(3) The third assumption is that the idea of perfection which we transfer from ourselves to God, really corresponds to the nature of His being.
It is assumed that rest is better than motion, that passionlessness is better than feeling, that changelessness is better than change. We know these things of ourselves: we cannot know them of One who is unlike ourselves, who has no body that can be tired, who has noimperfection that can miss its aim, with whom unhindered movement may conceivably be perfect life.
I have spoken of these assumptions because, although it would be difficult to over-estimate the importance of the conceptions by which Greek thought lifted men from the conception of God as a Being with human form and human passions, to the lofty height on which they can feel around them an awful and infinite Presence, the time may have come when—in face of the large knowledge of His ways which has come to us through both thought and research—we may be destined to transcend the assumptions of Greek speculation by new assumptions, which will lead us at once to a diviner knowledge and the sense of a diviner life.[594]