Sunday, November 04, 2007

Lewis Ayres on the Cappadocian Use of TROPOS hUPARXEWS

One of the most recent historical studies on the Trinity doctrine has this to say about the terminology TROPOS hUPARXEWS as it is utilized by the Cappadocians:

"In Chapter 8 I noted that in Basil the phrase TROPOS hUPARXEWS served
to identify not a metaphysically dense notion of personhood but merely
the mode of origination of the persons. In Gregory of Nyssa the phrase
is more frequently used, but with equal austerity of meaning (and
directly still only of Son and Spirit). What we know of the persons is
their modes of origination and the characteristics attributed to them
by Scripture--as long as all attributes are understood to be those of
the one simple Godhead" (Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An
Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
, Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004, page 359).

1 comment:

Duncan said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf0eMQpD3vk