Hypostasis

“ Bousset’s Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, Leipzig, 1907, c. 4, Der Urmensch.
[23] So the cryptogram in the Pistis Sophia professes to give “the word by which the Perfect Man is moved.” Forerunners, II, 188, n. 2.
[24] οὐσία: perhaps “essence” or “being.” It is the word for which hypostasis was later substituted according to Hatch. See his Hibbert Lectures, pp. 269 ff.
[25] So Miller, Cruice, and Schneidewin. I should be inclined to read φάος, “light,” as in the Naassene hymn at the end of this chapter. No Gnostic sect can have taught that the soul came from Chaos. ”

“ Was he, then, a Monophysite? No, because the Word of God has one nature proper to himself, one infinite divine nature. And that nature is incarnate, σεσαρκωμένη, made flesh, itself undestroyed—as we should say, assumes a human nature. St. Cyril means what we mean. Then, does hypostasis necessarily mean person? ”

“ Hence it can be applied to all three Persons of the Platonic Trinity, while Being could only be used of the second and third.—Each Hypostasis is a person, but a purely intellectual person. All three are one, like three mutually enfolding thoughts, and where one is there is the All in the fullness of its power. All are eternal, but the second is inferior to the first, because ‘begotten,’ and the third to the second, for the same reason. ”

“ There was the more reason for the growth of the distinction, because the term homoousios lent itself more readily to a Sabellian Christology. This was anticipated by Irenæus in his polemic against the Valentinian heresy of the emission of Æons. Ousiai, in the sense of genera and species, might be merely conceptions in the mind: the alternative was that of their having an existence of their own. [580] So that hypostasis came in certain schools [277] of thought to be the term for the substantia concreta, the individual, the οὐσία ἄτομος of Galen. ”

“ For this Platonic theory of “partaking,” see n. on I, p. 53 supra.
[125] So that the first work of the Mission of Jesus was the freeing of the whole universe—not only our earth—from the evil which had entered into it.
[126] ὑποστάτους οὐσίας; “underlying beings.” Here we have the two ideas of hypostasis, or “substance” in its etymological meaning, and “essence,” or “being,” side by side.
[127] ψυχικὴν οὐσίαν, i. e. the stuff of which the soul is made.
[128] Ps. cxi. 10; Prov. i. 7; ii. 10.
[129] That is Jehovah, the God of the Jews. Hebdomad as including the seven “planets.” ”

“ Grammar in Greek education, 28 ff. γραμματική, and γραμματιστική, 28 fin.; its elements, 29, 30. Guilds: see Associations. Hellenism characterized, 13, 14. Heresy, original use of term, 340, n. 3. Hippolytus, 6; his theory of creation, 203. History, its difficulties and rewards, 22-24. Homer in Greek thought, 51 ff.; in Christian theology, 69, 70. Homily, the, 109-113. Homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) shared senses of “ousia,” 272; first used of God by the Gnostics, 274; its ambiguity, 274-276. Hyparxis (ὕπαρξις) = “hypostasis,” 275, especially n. 2. Hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) , relation to “ousia,” 275 ”

“ Your practical man, poor wretch, will try to help this and that, and torment his soul with ways and means, and preventives and forestallings; your philosopher quietly says—It can't be helped. If it ought to be, it will be—if it is, it ought to be. We did not make the world, and we are not responsible for it.—There is the sum and substance of all true wisdom, and the epitome of all that has been said and written thereon from Philo the Jew to Hypatia the Gentile. By the way, here's Cyril coming down the steps of the Caesareum. ”

“ I never knelt to human being.'
'Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol there, if you will—but kneel!'
And, constrained by that glittering eye, Hypatia knelt before her.
'Have you faith? Have you desire? Will you submit? Will you obey? Self-will and pride see nothing, know nothing. If you do not give up yourself, neither God nor devil will care to approach. Do you submit?'
'I do! I do!' cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs loosening more and more every moment under that intolerable fascination. ”

“ Hypatia will be from this day alone with the Immortal Gods!'
'You will not leave me?' cried the old man, terrified.
'Never on earth!' answered she, bursting into real human tears, and throwing herself on his bosom. 'Never—never! father of my spirit as well as of my flesh!—the parent who has trained me, taught me, educated my soul from the cradle to use her wings!—the only human being who never misunderstood me—never thwarted me—never deceived me!'
'My priceless child! ”

“ For Spirit, as the Deity, is, he says, not any being different from the Logos, or the Logos from the Deity; therefore this one person, (according to Callistus,) is divided nominally, but substantially not so. He supposes this one Logos to be God, and affirms that there was in the case of the Word an incarnation. And he is disposed (to maintain) , that He who was seen in the flesh and was crucified [2] is Son, but that the Father it is who dwells in Him. Callistus thus at one time branches off into the opinion of Noetus, but at another into that of Theodotus, and holds no sure doctrine. ”

“ If that latter were her destiny, as Hypatia said, she should at least die fighting against it, defying it, cursing it! Better virtue with hell, than sin with heaven! And Hypatia had not even promised her a heaven. The resurrection of the flesh was too carnal a notion for her refined and lofty creed. And so, his four months' dream swept away in a moment, he hurried back to his chamber, with one fixed thought before him—the desert; a cell for Pelagia; another for himself. There they would repent, and pray, and mourn out life side by side, if perhaps God would have mercy upon their souls. ”

“ For if the flesh that was assumed became capable of working like works with the deity, it is evident that it also became God in essence in all wherein God is essentially known. And if the deity by the exinanition became susceptible of the same sufferings with the flesh, it is evident that it also became in essence flesh in all wherein flesh essentially can be known. For objects that act in like manner, [5] and work like works, and are altogether of like kind, and are susceptible of like suffering with each other, admit of no difference of nature ”

“ One word before we part. The same devil who tempted these old Egyptians tempts you. The same God who would have saved these old Egyptians if they had willed, will save you, if you will. Their sins are yours, their errors yours, their doom yours, their deliverance yours. There is nothing new under the sun. The thing which has been, it is that which shall be. Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone, whether at Hypatia or Pelagia, Miriam or Raphael, Cyril or Philammon. ”

“ For in the case of that which is in its nature infinite, and so incapable of being moved, movement would be conversion. [6] Wherefore also the Word of God being made truly man in our manner, yet without sin, and acting and enduring in man’s way such sinless things as are proper to our nature, and assuming the circumscription of the flesh of our nature on our behalf, sustained no conversion in that aspect in which He is one with the Father, being made in no respect one with the flesh through the exinanition. ”

“ The real wonder is that the other episcopal match-maker was Augustine of Hippo himself!’
‘Anything to bribe a convert,’ said Hypatia contemptuously.
‘I assure you, no. He informed me, and her also, openly and uncivilly enough, that he thought us very much to be pitied for so great a fall.... But as we neither of us seemed to have any call for the higher life of celibacy, he could not press it on us.... We should have trouble in the flesh. But if we married we had not sinned. ”

“ I quite agree that there are very great practical inconveniences of this kind in the new—I mean the Catholic faith; but the world is full of inconveniences. The wise man does not quarrel with his creed for being disagreeable, any more than he does with his finger for aching: he cannot help it, and must make the best of a bad matter. Only tell me how to keep the peace.’
‘And let philosophy be destroyed?’
‘That it never will be, as long as Hypatia lives to illuminate the earth; and, as far as I am concerned, I promise you a clear stage and—a great deal of favour ”

“ Six times in a life of sixty years had Plotinus risen to that height of mystic union, and known himself to be a part of God. Once had Porphyry attained the same glory. Hypatia, though often attempting, had never yet succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of a being external to herself; though practice, a firm will, and a powerful imagination, had long since made her an adept in producing, almost at will, that mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step to supernatural vision. ”

“ Did not you work the sum out once, Hypatia?'
'Sit down, my dear father, and eat. You have tasted no food yet this day.'
'What do I care for food! The inexpressible must be expressed, the work must be done if it cost me the squaring of the circle. How can he, whose sphere lies above the stars, stoop every moment to earth?
'Ay,' she answered, half bitterly, 'and would that we could live without food, and imitate perfectly the immortal gods. But while we are in this prison-house of matter, we must wear our chain; even wear it gracefully, if we have the good taste ”

“ It is hardly fair to expect an unbiassed answer in my presence.'
'Why so?' said Philammon. 'Why should I not tell you, as well as all the world, the fresh and wonderful field of thought which they have opened to me in a few short hours?'
'What then?' asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she knew what the answer would be. 'In what does my commentary differ from the original text of Apollonius, on which I have so faithfully based it?'
'Oh, as much as a living body differs from a dead one. Instead of mere dry disquisitions on the properties of lines and curves, I found a mine of poetry and theology. ”

“ Hypatia was silent.
'Now I have always had a sort of fancy that what we wanted, as the first predicate of our Absolute One, was that He was to be not merely an infinite God—whatever that meant, which I suspect we did not always see quite clearly—or an eternal one—or an omnipotent one—or even merely a one God at all; none of which predicates, I fear, did we understand more clearly than the first: but that he must be a righteous God:—or rather, as we used sometimes to say that He was to have no predicate—Righteousness itself. ”

“ In these things, however, which are thus set forth by us, we are at one. For there is one God in whom we must believe, but unoriginated, impassible, immortal, doing all things as He wills, in the way He wills, and when He wills. What, then, will this Noetus, who knows [47] nothing of the truth, dare to say to these things? And now, as Noetus has been confuted, let us turn to the exhibition of the truth itself, that we may establish the truth, against which all these mighty heresies [48] have arisen without being able to state anything to the purpose. ”

“ You are silent. Be so, Hypatia.... We have gone up too far into the abysses....
And so they both were silent for a while. And Raphael thought solemn thoughts about Victoria, and about ancient signs of Isaiah’s, which were to him none the less prophecies concerning The Man whom he had found, because he prayed and trusted that the same signs might be repeated to himself, and a child given to him also, as a token that, in spite of all his baseness, ‘God was with him.’
But he was a Jew, and a man: Hypatia was a Greek, and a woman—and for that matter, so were the men of her school. ”

“ You are too great a person, my dearest madam, in the eyes of these good folks to be allowed to absent yourself on such an occasion. If my little stratagem succeeds, it will be half owing to the fact of the people knowing that in crowning me, they crown Hypatia.... Come now—do you not see that as you must needs be present at their harmless scrap of mythology, taken from the authentic and undoubted histories of those very gods whose worship we intend to restore, you will consult your own comfort most in agreeing to it cheerfully, and in lending me your wisdom towards arranging it? ”

“ And (heresiarchs) admiring, as if unknown to the multitude, (this philosophy, and) following it, have framed heterodox doctrines devised by themselves.
Some indeed, then, attempt likewise to form the hebdomads from the medical [4] (art) , being astonished at the dissection of the brain, asserting that the substance of the universe and the power of procreation and the Godhead could be ascertained from the arrangement of the brain. For the brain, being the dominant portion of the entire body, reposes calm and unmoved, containing within itself the spirit. ”

“ What it is in the sight of Him unto whom all live for ever, is no concern of ours. May He whose mercy is over all His works, have mercy upon all, whether orthodox or unorthodox, Papist or Protestant, who, like Cyril, begin by lying for the cause of truth; and setting off upon that evil road, arrive surely, with the Scribes and Pharisees of old, sooner or later at their own place!
True, he and his monks had conquered; but Hypatia did not die unavenged. In the hour of that unrighteous victory, the Church of Alexandria received a deadly wound. ”