A. The Objects for which that Council was convened.
The object for which the Council was called together was three-fold. (1.) To remedy the confusion which prevailed in the use of several important words employed in discussions on the doctrine of the Trinity. (2.) To condemn errors which had been adopted in different parts of the Church. (3.) To frame such a statement of the doctrine as would include all its Scriptural elements, and satisfy the religious convictions of the mass of believers. This was an exceedingly difficult task.
- Because the usus loquendi of certain important terms was not then determined. The word ὑπόστασις, for example, was used in two opposite senses. It was often taken, in its etymological sense, for substance, and is used by the Council itself as synonymous with οὐσία. But it had already begun to be used in the sense of person. As it expresses reality, as opposed to what is phenomenal or apparent, or mode of manifestation, it came to be universally used in the Greek Church, in the latter sense, as a safeguard against the idea of a mere modal Trinity. It will be admitted that great confusion must prevail, if one man should say there is only one ὑπόστασις in the Godhead, and another affirm that there are three, when both meant the same thing, the one using the word in the sense of substance, and the other in that of person.
In the Latin Church the same difficulty was experienced in the use of the words substantia and subsistentia. These words were often interchanged as equivalent, and both were used, sometimes in the sense of substance, and sometimes in that of suppositum. Usage finally determined the former to mean substance or essence, and the latter a mode in which substance exists, *i.e., suppositum.*According to established usage, therefore, there is one substance, and there are three subsistences in the Godhead.
To express the idea of a suppositum intelligens, or self-conscious agent, the Greeks first used the word πρόσωπον. But as that word properly means *the face, the aspect,*and as it was used by the Sabellians to express their doctrine of the threefold aspect under which the Godhead was revealed, it was rejected, and the word ὑπόστασις adopted. The Latin word persona (from per and sono) properly means a mask worn by an actor and through which he spoke; and then the role or character which the actor sustained. On this account the word had a struggle before it was adopted in the terminology of theology.
The celebrated term ὁμοούσιος, so long the subject of controversy, was not free from ambiguity. It expressed plainly enough sameness of substance, but whether that sameness was specific or numerical, the usage of the word left undecided. Porphyry is quoted as saying, that the souls of men and of irrational animals are ὁμοούσιοι, and Aristotle as saying that the stars are ὁμοούσιοι, and men and brutes are said to be ὁμοούσιοι as to their bodies; and in like manner angels, demons, and human souls, are said to be all ὁμοούσιοι. In this sense, Peter, James, and John are ὁμοούσιοι, as having the same nature in kind. On this account the use of the word was objected to, as admitting of a Tritheistic interpretation. The Council, however, determined the sense in which it was to be understood in their decisions, by saying that the Son was begotten ἐκ τῆς οὑσίας τοῦ πατρός, and by denying that He was created. As God is a spirit, and as we are spirits, we are said, in Scripture, to be like Him, and to be his children, to be of the same nature. But with regard to the Son it was declared that He was of the same numerical essence with the Father; He is truly God, possessing the same attributes and entitled to the same homage. Thus explained, the word became an insuperable barrier against the adoption of the Nicene Creed by any who denied the true divinity of the Son of God.
Difference of Opinion among the Members of the Council.
- A second difficulty with which the Council had to contend was diversity of opinion among its own members. All the conflicting views which had agitated the Church were there represented. The principal parties were, first, the Arians, who held, (1.) That the Son owed his existence to the will of the Father. (2.) That He was not eternal; but that there was a time when He was not. (3.) That He was created ἐξ οὐκ ὀντῶν, out of nothing, and was therefore κτίσμα καὶ ποίημα. (4.) That He was not immutable, but τρεπτὸς φύσει. (5.) That his preëminence consisted in the fact that He alone was created immediately by God, whereas all other creatures were created by the Son. (6.) He was not God of Himself, but was made God, ἐθεοποιήθη; that is, on account of his exalted nature, and the relation in which He stands to all other creatures, as Creator and Governor, He was entitled to divine worship.
One of the passages of Scripture on which the Arians principally relied was Prov. viii. 22, which in the Septuagint is rendered: ἔκτισέ με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ (He created me in the beginning of his ways). As Wisdom, there spoken of, was universally understood to be the Logos, and as the Septuagint was regarded as authoritative, this passage seemed to prove, beyond dispute, that the Logos or Son was created. The Orthodox were forced to explain away this passage by saying that κτίζειν was here to be taken in the sense of γεννᾶν, the word elsewhere used to express the relation between the Father and the Son. Ignorance, or neglect of the Hebrew, prevented their answering the argument of the Arians by showing that the word קָנָה, here rendered by the Septuagint ἔκτισε, means not only to establish, but to possess. The Vulgate, therefore, correetly renders the passage, “Dominus possidet me;” and the English version also reads, “The Lord possessed me.” The Arians proper constituted a small minority of the Council.