05 — The Cappadocian Settlement

The heart of the collection. Two Greek words that had been near-synonyms were given stable and distinct meanings, and with that the Church could at last confess one God in three without conceding either tritheism or modalism. This section sets out the settlement itself, why it does not yield three gods, what its vocabulary does not mean — and who the three Fathers actually were, quarrels included.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Contents

File Description
ousia-and-hypostasis.md Nicaea’s own anathema treating the two words as synonyms; Basil’s assignment of ousia to the common and hypostasis to the particular, and the restriction of the distinguishing properties to relations of origin; the three distinct answers to the charge of tritheism, of which the analogy is the weakest and the monarchy of the Father the strongest; the argument against Eunomius that unbegottenness is a mode of existence and not the essence — the point on which Section 08 will turn; three cautions about what the vocabulary does not mean; and why the de Régnon “two approaches” formula is not to be repeated as fact
the-three-and-what-each-contributed.md Basil’s vocabulary, his reply to Eunomius, and his ecclesiastical labour; Gregory the Theologian’s Five Theological Orations and his refusal to explain what procession is; Gregory of Nyssa’s divine infinity and his argument from the single operation; St. Macrina, with an honest note on the fact that everything known of her comes through her brother’s pen; Amphilochius of Iconium; and three corrections to the tidy picture — they were not a school, they quarrelled seriously, and Basil died before the vindication

Why This Section Is the Spine

Everything before it is the problem and everything after it is application. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity as the Orthodox Church confesses it consists of five propositions settled here and at Constantinople two years after Basil’s death: that God is one in essence and three in hypostases; that the hypostases are distinguished by relations of origin and by nothing else; that the divine operation is single and undivided; that the Holy Spirit is fully God and is worshipped with the Father and the Son; and that the Father is the sole cause, so that the unity of God rests in a person and not in a nature.

The fifth of these has a section to itself, because it is the one on which the argument of Section 08 depends, and because it is the one most often reduced to a slogan.

See Also