‘Person’ in Patristic and Medieval Christian Theology

By Scott M. Williams

Introduction
It is likely that Boethius (480-524ce) inaugurates, in Latin Christian theology, the consideration
of personhood as such. In the Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius Boethius gives a well-
known definition of personhood according to genus and difference(s): a person is an individual
substance of a rational nature.1 Personhood is predicated only of individual rational substances.2
This chapter situates Boethius in relation to significant Christian theologians before and after
him, and the way in which his definition of personhood is a particular answer to the question,
“Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but is one what?” Among Greek
(and Syriac) speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘hypostasis’. Among
Latin speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘persona’. It is Boethius’s
definition of ‘persona’ that inaugurates personhood as such in Latin speaking theology. Although
the Greek and Syriac theologians that I survey come close to a concept of personhood as a
distinct category, they do not have such a concept and did not need it for their theological
purposes. I show that Rusticus the Deacon is an early witness to this Latin theological invention,
and also show that for later Latin theologians, the rationality condition for personhood does very
little metaphysical work for their Trinitarian theology or Christology.
Further, this chapter surveys Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians’ answers to the
question, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, but each is one
what?” The same replies as above are typically given by Christian theologians. These two
theological questions frame the discussion about personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) and put a
boundary around what a satisfying account of personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) would be.
In contemporary philosophy, there is a lot of attention paid to the rationality condition for
personhood. But if we look at the text in which Boethius defines a person, we do not find any
precise criteria for it. In other texts, he says that a rational being is one compatible with (capable
of) thought and free choice of the will.3 What we find is that detailed discussion of personhood
shows up in theological questions about the Trinity and Incarnation, but not in e.g., applied
ethics.4 The intrusion of personhood into contemporary applied ethics with a focus on detailed
and disputed criteria for rationality as a condition for personhood seems to be a modern

1
Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” in Tractates, The Consolation of
Philosophy, ed. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester (London: Harvard University Press,
1997) 84, ln. 4-5: “personae est definitio, ‘naturae rationabilis individua substantia.”
2
Ibid., 84, ln. 47-49.
3
Cf. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. S.J. Tester (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1997), 390, ln. 1-14. See also, John of Damacsus, Expositio Fidei chapter 41,
ed. P.B. Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. 2, Patristische Texts und Studien
12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973), 98-99, ln. 2-27.
4
In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas discusses personhood in the context of the Trinity
and Incarnation but not e.g., in his treatise on human acts or treatise on law.

1
development. From a Patristic and Medieval Christian theology point of view, trying to find just
the right detailed criteria for rationality in order to define personhood is a wild goose chase.5
This chapter makes clear another contribution that Christian theology had for
personhood. Given the theological issues at play in developing a notion of personhood, Christian
theologians came to posit that e.g., an individual human is a person contingently (i.e. not
essentially), but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each a person
essentially. The contingency for created persons is not based on whether e.g., an individual
human has conscious acts (as might be the case for John Locke)6 but on the possibility of a
divine person’s assuming e.g., an individual human nature.
This sampling of Christian intellectual history spans over one thousand years. I make no
claim of being exhaustive. The chapter consists of six sections, where each section covers
significant historical conversation partners who together represent the sorts of things that
Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians where concerned with in theorizing about ‘persona’
or ‘hypostasis’.
1. Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa
2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum
3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of
Personhood
4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium and John of Damascus
5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor,
William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and
William of Ware
6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and
William of Ockham

1: Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa
In his Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius, Boethius, suggests that the Greek words ‘ousia’
and ‘hypostasis’ are relevant for our understanding how he wants to use the Latin word ‘persona’
(person). I start, then, with discussion of earlier Greek authors who developed uses of ‘ousia’ and
‘hypostasis’ that explain, in part, why Boethius thought they were relevant.
5
I discuss this in “Personhood, Ableism, and the Philosophy of Religion: Is Personhood an
Arbitrary Category?” Forthcoming in Breaking the Boundaries: New Frontiers in the Philosophy
of Religion, eds. Blake Hereth and Kevin Timpe.
6
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1975), 342-44. For discussion of modern Lockean personhood in
Trinitarian theology, see Scott M. Williams, “Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the
Trinity,” Faith and Philosophy, vol. 34, no. 3 (2017): 339-44, and ibid., “Indexicals and the
Trinity: Two Non-Social Models,” Journal of Analytic Theology, vol. 1, no. 1 (2013) 88-92.

2
 Basil of Caesarea (330-379ce) and Gregory of Nyssa (335-385ce) deserve some
prominence in the history of Christian thinking about ‘ousia’ and ‘hypostasis’ because of a way
in which they distinguish universals and individuals. To appreciate their contribution, however, it
is important to indicate two background factors: Origen’s Trinitarian theology and Christology,
and Porphyry’s analysis of universals and particulars.
Origen of Alexandria (185-254ce) has two contributions regarding ‘ousia’ and
‘hypostasis’. He says that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are each a
distinct hypostasis while they share, in some sense, the same ousia (often translated essentia in
Latin and essence in English).7 Ousia is the term for the substance-kind that a thing is. The
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same in kind, that is, they are each divine. Origen famously
identifies deity with the Father; the Son and Holy Spirit are divine in a derivative sense.8 The
Father eternally generates the Son such that the Son participates in the Father’s deity; likewise,
the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father such that the Holy Spirit participates in the
Father’s deity. Further, Origen contends that e.g., the Father and Son “are two things in respect
of their persons [ὅντα δύο τῇ ὑποστάσει πράγµατα], but one in unanimity, harmony and identity
of will.”9 What Origen set out for later theologians is the claim that the divine hypostases are the
same with regard to ousia but differ with regard to hypostasis, and that the divine persons are
united, in “unanimity, harmony and identity of will.” While these claims are instructive about
Origen’s views, they could be more precise. Later theologians make them more precise. Still,
other theologians like Athanasius and Jerome supposed that ousia and hypostasis were
synonymous.10 Origen’s second contribution is a modal suggestion, which I discuss in sections
four and six; namely, a created hypostasis is contingently and not essentially a hypostasis. The
contingency is based on whether an individual (rational) nature is assumed by, or depends on, a
divine hypostasis.
One way to interpret ousia is to hold a collectivist account. Porphyry (234-305ce) was a
well-known collectivist whose work, Isagoge (an introduction to Aristotle’s Categories), was
well-read in certain philosophical circles.11 On this view, a universal ousia is a collection of
particular things.12 A universal, e.g., humanity, is the collection of all particular humans. A
particular is a part of a whole that is a collection. So, Socrates is a human by virtue of being a
part of the human race; the human race is a whole made of parts such as Socrates, Plato, and
Alcibiades.

7
Cf. Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” 89.
8
Origen, Commentary on John, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1862), 109-10.
9
Origen, “On Prayer,” in Early Christian Doctrines, trans. J.N.D. Kelly (London: Adam &
Charles Black, 1968), 129.
10
For Athanasius references, cf. G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1969),
167. Also, cf. Jerome, Letter 15, in Early Latin Theology, ed. and trans. S. L. Greenslade
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 309-10.
11
Porphyry, Isagoge, trans. Paul V. Spade (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 6-7.
12
See Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” Vigiliae Christianae 56 (2002): 374-80,
and Johannes Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and
Theological Significance (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 85-86.

3
 What is vital to know is that Origen distinguished ousia and hypostasis and that there
were different ways to interpret these terms. If one goes with Porphyry, then we should say that
ousia is a collection. Some later Christian theologians accepted this view, but not all.
There are three letters ascribed to Basil of Caesarea, Letters 38, 214, and 236 in which he
discusses ousia and hypostasis in order to shed light on how best to understand the Trinity.
While some scholars contest the authorship of Letter 38 saying it was written by Gregory of
Nyssa, it does not make a difference for my purposes. What matters is that either Basil or
Gregory developed a different account of ousia and hypostasis than the one offered by the
collectivists like Porphyry, and doing so benefitted each of their theological aims. The basic
claim is that ousia (substance) and phusis (nature) are general terms taken in a distributive sense
and not in a collectivist sense, and that hypostasis is an individual term. Hypostasis is the term
for what is “special and peculiar” and what subsists, that is, what is the subject of a nature. Basil
indicates that individualizing characteristics include items like one’s name, one’s place, and
one’s mental qualities.13 (Sometimes these characteristics are called idiomata (ἰδιωµάτα).)14
Hypostasis not only names the “peculiar” notes, which we might call individuating
characteristics, but also what subsists or has a nature. Further, an ousia is one thing that cannot
be divided. Unlike Porphyry who posits that a universal nature is divided into particulars, in
Letter 38 Basil (or Gregory) posits that a universal nature, that is, the divine ousia, cannot be so
divided. Gregory of Nyssa affirms the indivisibility of ousia in other texts too.15 Further, an
ousia is an immanent universal - it exists only in a hypostasis.16
Basil and Gregory have a theological motivation to posit that ousia is indivisible. If the
divine persons’ have numerical unity of action (as Basil and Gregory believe), then they have
numerical unity of ousia. In Letter 38, Basil says “there is no interval” between the divine
hypostases.17 Elsewhere, Gregory says, “No postponement occurs, or is thought of, in the
movement of divine will from the Father through the Son to the Spirit. But deity is one of the
good names and thoughts, and not reasonably is the name to be used in the plural, since unity of
activity prevents a plural counting.”18 These theological claims have direct bearing on the topic
of personhood. Since Basil and Gregory posit that the divine hypostases have a numerical unity
13
Basil of Caesarea, “Letter 38,” in Saint Basil: The Letters, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), 200, 202.
14
Cf. Basil, “Letter 38,” 200.
15
Gregory of Nyssa, “Ad Ablabium Quod Non Sint Tres Dei,” in Gregorii Nysseni Opera
Dogmatica Minora, Vol. 3, part 1, ed. F. Mueller (Leiden: Brill, 1958), 40, ln. 24 – 41, ln. 12;
translated by William G. Rusch, “Gregory of Nyssa’s Concerning We Should Think of Saying
that There Are Not Three Gods to Ablabius,” in The Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1986), 151-52. Also, Gregory of Nyssa, “Ad Graecos (Ex Communibus
Notionibus),” in Gregorii Nysseni Opera Dogmatica Minora, Vol. 3, part 1, ed. F. Mueller
(Leiden: Brill, 1958), 20, ln. 20 – 23, ln. 3; translated by Daniel F. Stramara, Jr. in, “Gregory of
Nyssa, Ad Graecos ‘How It is That We Say There Are Three Persons In the Divinity But Do Not
Say There are Three Gods’ (To The Greeks: Concerning The Commonality of Concepts),” The
Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41, no. 4 (1996): 382-83.
16
See Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” 397-408.
17
Basil of Caesarea, “Letter 38,” 209.
18
Gregory of Nyssa, “Ad Ablabium,” 51, ln. 19 – 52, ln. 2. Translation by William G. Rusch,
“Concerning We Should Think of Saying That There Are Not Three Gods to Ablabius,” 157.

4
of action, it follows that what distinguishes them is not their shared actions.19 Rather, the
“peculiar notes” for the divine hypostases are ‘being ungenerated’ for the Father, ‘being
generated’ for the Son, and ‘proceeding’ for the Holy Spirit. A hypostasis is constituted
explanatorily prior to his or her activities, e.g., thoughts and volitions. A (rational) hypostasis can
have (rational) actions, but the (rational) actions are not what constitute it as a (rational)
hypostasis.
A contemporary commentator on Basil’s Letter 38, Johannes Zachhuber, claims that we
find in it two theories of a universal, a collectivist universal with the term phusis and an
immanent universal with the term ousia. While Zachhuber’s discussion of Letter 38 is
informative and makes several astute observations, it is ultimately unpersuasive. Another
commentator, Richard Cross, has argued persuasively against Zachhuber that at least in Gregory
of Nyssa (whom Zachhuber thinks wrote Letter 38) the terms ousia and phusis are synonymous
or at least they ought not to be interpreted as an immanent universal for ousia and as a collection
of particulars for phusis. Cross cites a passage from Letter 38 in which the author denies that
there is anything that “could really partition (καταµερίζειν)” the divine nature.20
In Letters 38, 214, and 236 Basil says that the divine ousia is a universal and the divine
hypostases are individuals. If Cross is right, as I believe he is, then for Basil (and Gregory) the
divine ousia is indivisible. Elsewhere Gregory of Nyssa says that a prosopon (πρόσωπον) is a
‘peculiar substance’, that is, an indivisible or atomic (ἄτοµον) substance.21 (Some later
theologians, e.g., Rusticus the Deacon and Leontius of Byzantium, deny that a hypostasis is
identical to an individual (rational) substance because of their analysis of the Incarnation.) What
makes an individual substance ‘individual’ is the unique collection of an immanent universal and
‘peculiar’ characteristics. While Basil (or Gregory – the ‘or’ is inclusive) rejects a collectivist
account of ousia, he retains a collectivist account of a hypostasis.22
A collective account of a hypostasis is different than a particular account of a hypostasis.
The former posits an immanent universal plus ‘peculiar’ characteristics. Call this an immanent
realist account of universals. The latter denies immanent universals and affirms that a nature’s
being a particular is basic or primitive. Call this a nominalist or conceptualist account of
universals. On this view, there are no really shared natures; e.g., Peter and Paul each has his own
particular nature. We find a conceptualist account later in John Philoponus.23 Given these

19
Cf. Lewis Ayres, “On Not Three People: The Fundamental Themes of Gregory of Nyssa’s
Trinitarian Theology As Seen in To Ablabius: On Not Three Gods,” Modern Theology, 18, no. 4
(October 2002): 455-63.
20
Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” 390-91.
21
Gregory of Nyssa, “Ad Graecos,” 23, ln. 4-13; cited in Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on
Universals,” 406. This tells against Zachhuber’s claim that the Cappadocians reject “individual
natures” (i.e. the conjunction of an immanent universal and “peculiar notes”) – what Gregory
rejects are “particular natures.” Cf. Johannes Zachhuber, “Individuality and the Theological
Debate about ‘Hypostasis’,” in Individuality in Late Antiquity, ed. Alexis Torrance and Johannes
Zachhuber (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 105.
22
Cf. Lucian Tercescu, Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 57.
23
Cf. Richard Cross, “Leontius of Byzantium,” 251-53.

5
different metaphysical theories of hypostasis, when ‘hypostasis’ is used to refer to a rational
being, it follows that we have different metaphysical accounts of personhood.
Was a Cappodocian distinction between ousia and hypostasis well-known or influential?
There is some reason to think so. The third ecumenical Christian council of Ephesus in 431ce
and subsequent ecumenical councils use the term ‘hypostasis’ (and ‘prosopon’) to refer to e.g.,
God the Son.24 This may suggest that the Cappadocian stipulation that these terms are relevant
for Christian theology was recognized in ecumenical Christian creeds and so were authoritative
and widely known (even if there was lack of agreement on the metaphysical details regarding
hypostasis). In later authors, e.g., Severus of Antioch and Leontius of Byzantium, we find
quotations of Basil and Gregory that support the use of ‘hypostasis’ and ‘ousia’ for theorizing
about the Trinity and the Incarnation. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are
each a hypostasis but they are one ousia. Jesus of Nazareth is one hypostasis who (essentially)
has the one divine ousia and (contingently) has a human nature.
There is one last thing to observe about Gregory regarding the term ‘hypostasis’. He uses
the term to refer to rational (λογικός) beings and to non-rational (ἄλογος) beings, e.g., God the
Father, individual humans, and individual horses.25 The closest he comes to having a term that
denotes a person as such is when he uses either ‘hypostasis’ (or ‘prosopon’) to refer to an
individual divine being, an individual angel, or an individual human.26 (It is only with such
referents that English translators render hypostasis or prosopon into English as ‘person’. This
may, wrongly, give the impression to English readers that Gregory has a concept of personhood.)
Gregory does not have a unique term for an individual of a rational nature. Later, Boethius
ignores (or is unaware of) this claim and asserts that the Greeks use hypostasis only to refer to
individuals of a rational nature, but Leontius of Byzantium (a contemporary of Boethius) echoes
Gregory in claiming that hypostasis is predicated of “this horse, this ox, and this man […].”27

2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum

In 553ce emperor Justinian called for the fifth ecumenical council in Constantinople.28 What
prompted the council were disagreements about the best articulation of the incarnation. Some
theologians, called ‘miaphysites’, contended that Cyril of Alexandria’s (378-444ce) saying, “one

24
Cf. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume 1: Nicaea to Lateran V, ed. Norman P.
Tanner, SF (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 55, ln. 11-14; 85, ln. 37-43;
114, ln. 1-9; 116, ln. 1-10; 128, ln. 1-4; 133, ln. 39-41; 136, ln. 30.
25
Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, “Ad Graecos,” 29, ln. 11-20. Also, cf. Daniel F. Stramara, Jr., “Gregory
of Nyssa, Ad Graecos,” 388.
26
Thanks to Johannes Zachhuber for pushing me on this point and to Beau Branson for
discussion on this. Lucian Turcescu argues that Gregory of Nyssa has a notion of ‘person’, but it
seems much more likely that what Turcescu is talking about is when ‘hypostasis’ is used to refer
to e.g., God the Father, an angel, or a human. Cf. Lucian Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa and the
Concept of Divine Persons, 115-18.
27
Cf. Leontius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” in Leontius of Byzantium: Complete Works, ed. Brian
Daley, SJ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 276, ln. 15 -16. Translation is mine.
28
Cf. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume 1, 105-06.

6
incarnate nature of the divine Logos” (ἡ µία φύσις τοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωµένη) should guide our
understanding of the incarnation. Other theologians, called chalcedonians (those in agreement
with the council of Chalcedon in 451ce), said this phrase is misleading but when properly
understood it does not have the consequences that miaphysites claimed it had.29 In what follows I
survey three miaphysite theologians in order to see how they conceptualize a hypostasis in the
context of theorizing about the Incarnation and the Trinity.
Severus of Antioch (465-538ce), while not the first miaphysite, was an early champion of
the position and was taken later as a figurehead for miaphysitism. In his exchange with Sergius
the monophysite, Severus strongly agrees with the phrase from Cyril of Alexandria, “one nature
of God the Word [...] incarnate.”30 He concedes with Cyril that in Christ there are two definitions
or accounts that apply to Christ (which the monophysite denies), a definition for divinity and
another for humanity. Nonetheless, Severus denies that there are two natures “in” Christ.
In his dispute with John the Grammarian, Severus reasons as follows. ‘Nature’ (φύσις;
phusis) should be taken both as descriptive of what kind of thing something is, and also as a
particular nature in the sense of a part of a collective whole. If ‘nature’ refers to a particular
agent and Christ is a particular agent, then it would be wrong to infer that Christ has two natures.
Instead, Severus infers that Christ has one composite nature.
For how can those things which subsist individually and separately, and exist in duality,
be combined into one hypostasis? Now that which subsists as one entity as a result of
being compounded without change from things differing from each other in kind and in
substance [...] exists indeed in one hypostasis [...]. […] For the reckoning of the union
turns aside and restrains the power of the separateness, such that the two may no longer
be two, but one entity in an inexpressible manner is perfectly formed in composition
through the two of them.31
Severus indicates that there is only one entity in Christ after the union. If a hypostasis is
equivalent to a particular nature and a hypostasis is what exists, then Christ’s composite nature
exists but his human nature as such does not exist. There is no thing, i.e. human nature or a
human nature, that exists ‘in’ Christ and has its own numerical unity that is not identical to the
numerical unity of the divine hypostasis.32
Severus, following Basil of Caesarea, discusses the relation between a hypostasis and his
or her activities. Severus says, “he who acts is one thing, and activity is another, and another that
which was enacted, and these things are quite removed from each other.”33 Note that a hypostasis

29
Leontius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” 321-23.
30
Severus of Antioch, “Letter I of Severus,” in Christology After Chalcedon: Severus of Antioch
and Sergius the Monophysite, trans. Iain R. Torrance (Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1988),
147-48.
31
Severus of Antioch, “Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. II.22,” in Severus of Antioch, trans.
Pauline Allen and C.T.R. Hayward (London: Routledge, 2004), 86-87, emphasis mine.
32
Johannes Zachhuber says that Severus identifies particular nature with existence; cf. Johannes
Zachhuber “Individuality and the Theological Debate about ‘Hypostasis’,” 105-06. Also, cf.
Severus of Antioch, “Letter I of Severus,” 150-51.
33
Severus of Antioch, “Letter I of Severus,” 152.

7
is different than her activities.34 He then applies this to Christology. “[I]f each form or nature
does those things which are its own, those things are of a bastard partnership and of a
relationship of friendship [...].”35 In other words, if Christ’s humanity and divinity were
numerically distinct existing natures, then each would be a separate agent. For Severus,
numerically distinct entities entail separate entities. Consequently, if each is an agent, then Christ
is not really human but rather associated with a human hypostasis. But this is the position of
Nestorius, which was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431ce.36
John the Grammarian accuses Severus of supposing that “the substance of the divinity
exists divisibly, and that some of it is seen in the Father, some of it in the Son, and some of it in
the holy Spirit […].” John continues saying that he himself “ha[s] not reached such ungodliness
as to suppose that there is division or partition in the divine substance [...].”37 Severus replies by
more or less conceding to a collectivist account of ousia (substance),38 saying,
[...] we affirmed that the one substance is the three hypostases of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is of the one God, just as one might say that Peter and
Paul and John are one humanity. […] [S]ubstance is patient of division: for the division
of substance is what may be one of diverse substance out of hypostases […].39
Severus suggests that the divine ousia is (identical to or consists of?) the collection of divine
hypostases, and e.g., humanity is (identical to or consists of?) the collection of particular
humans. Severus also says,
For the Son is one of the hypostases which are based in the substance and are included in
the generic signification, whereas the substance and the generic signification (i.e. the
Godhead) is inclusive of the three hypostases of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with each
of the hypostases participating fully in the concept of the substance and being God.40
Saying that each person “participates fully” in the concept of the divine substance suggests that
the concept of the divine substance is predicable of each hypostasis. Nonetheless, the (extra-
mental) divine substance is (identical to or consists of?) the collection of hypostases. (This
analysis is akin to Porphyry’s collectivist theory of universals.)41 This collectivist account of the
divine ousia supports Severus’s theological view that “one of the Trinity became incarnate” and
that God the Son is not the whole divine substance but part of it.42 If God the Son were the whole
divine substance, then the Father and Holy Spirit would have become incarnate too. Still,
Severus is aware that this account of universals seems paradoxical. The concept of the divine

34
Ibid., 155.
35
Ibid., 154.
36
Cf. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume 1, 37-38.
37
Severus of Antioch, “Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. II.17,” in Severus of Antioch, trans.
Pauline Allen and C.T.R. Hayward (London: Routledge, 2004) 83.
38
Severus of Antioch, “Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. II.17,” 85.
39
Ibid., 85.
40
Severus of Antioch, Contra impium Grammaticum, II.17, cited in Peter of Callinicum,
Tractatus Contra Damianum, ed. R. Ebied, A. van Roey, and L.R. Wickham (ed. Turnhout:
Brepols Publishers, 2003), 254, 256, ln. 25-44.
41
Cf. Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” 377-78.
42
Severus of Antioch, “Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. II.17,” 83.

8
substance is predicated wholly of each hypostasis, but the divine substance itself is (identical to
or consists of?) all the divine hypostases. (Severus was likely influenced by a passage in Letter
38, “Do not marvel that we assert that the same thing is both joined and separated, and that, as
though speaking in riddles, we devise a strange and paradoxical sort of conjoined separation and
separated conjunction.”)43 Given his own perplexity, Severus is somewhat apophatic about the
Trinity.44
We might plausibly conjecture that Severus’s account of a hypostasis is a general theory
that applies to divine hypostases and to created hypostases. The foregoing suggests that for
Severus, a hypostasis is identical to an existing particular rational nature (whether a simple or a
composite nature) such that a hypostasis is a part of a collective whole.
John Philoponus (490-575ce) was a well-known philosopher who was also a miaphysite.
John agrees with Severus of Antioch that we ought to understand Christ’s nature to be a
composite nature that is a particular nature. There is only one being in Christ, namely his
composite nature.45 But John disagrees with Severus’s Trinitarian theology. On John’s view, all
natures are particular natures; all universals or collections are concepts in the mind. So, there is
no real collection to which all divine persons are identical. Rather, each divine person has their
(taken as a singular pronoun) own particular nature and talk of unity of ousia is conceptual and
not real. On John’s view, a hypostasis just is a particular nature.46 “For a nature cannot subsist on
its own, without being seen in an individual, and we have just shown that individual and
hypostasis are the same.”47 This is a complete rejection of Basil and Gregory’s ontology and
solution to the sameness and difference between divine hypostases. John’s ontology led him to
posit three particular divine natures,48 and this was interpreted as tri-theism by others, including
by other miaphysites.49
Peter of Callinicum (d. 591ce), a miaphysite and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church
from 581-591ce, rejects John Philoponus’s ontology of universals. He wrote against John’s
“polyousiast” or “polytheist” position in his Anti-Tritheist Dossier. Peter insists that we should
understand the divine persons as “divided in number, undivided in Godhead.”50 In rejecting
John’s view, he admonishes his reader to “anathematize all those who hold the one substance of

43
Cited in and discussed by Richard Cross, “Gregory of Nyssa on Universals,” 392: “[…] [T]he
claim that persons are divisible or indivisible is logically unrelated to the claim that the nature is
divisible or indivisible. The former asserts a relation (of separability or inseparability) between
the persons; the latter asserts the applicability or inapplicability of collective theories of
universals to the nature under discussion.”
44
Severus of Antioch, “Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. II.17,” 84-85.
45
Cf. Uwe Michael Lang, John Philoponus and the Controversies Over Chalcedon in the Sixth
Century: A Study and Translation of the Arbiter (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 178, 181, 216-17.
46
Ibid., 196-97, 217.
47
Ibid., 196.
48
Cf. Christophe Erismann, “John Philoponus on Individuality and Particularity,” in
Individuality in Latin Antiquity, ed. Alexis Forrance and Johannes Zachhuber (Ashgate:
Burlington, VT, 2014), 143-59.
49
See R.Y. Ebied, A. Van Roey, and L.R. Wickham, Peter of Callinicum: Anti-Tritheist Dossier
(Leuven: Department Orientalistiek, 1981), 20-33.
50
Ibid., 55.

9
the Godhead to be some common later factor and figment of the mind, and do not acknowledge
that it exists in thought and reality – i.e. in the proper sense and truly – in three consubstantial
hypostases […].”51 What is wrong with John’s position is that there is not a real whole that is
identical to the three divine hypostases. Without a real collection of particular hypostases, there
is no real unity. A hypostasis, then, requires being a member of a real collection. What John’s
position avoids, however, is the apparent paradox that Severus’s (and Peter’s) implies.52 Basil
and Gregory have an easier time with the apparent paradox because they posit a real immanent
universal that is shared distributively among divine hypostases.53

3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of
Personhood
Boethius famously defined a ‘persona’ as an individual substance of a rational nature. Some
editors and translators of Boethius’s Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius claimed that
“Boethius’s definition of persona was adopted by St. Thomas, and was regarded as classical by
the Schoolmen.”54 In what follows I argue that both claims are false. Aquinas did cite Boethius,
but interpreted his definition in ways developed by others in the 12th century.55 Further, many
theologians in the 12th and 13th centuries rejected Boethius’s definition because of theological
counter-examples. If ‘classic’ entails being widely accepted, then it is not classic even if widely
read and criticized. One critic has only recently attracted scholarly attention, namely Rusticus the
Deacon (fl. 553-564). In what follows I survey Boethius and Rusticus’s accounts of personhood.
It is important to understand the Catholic theological beliefs that seem to motivate
Boethius’s proposed definition. Chalcedonian Catholics believe that Christ “is equally [...] of two
natures and in two natures.”56 The phrase “of two natures” was accepted by several theological
parties, including the Eutychians, the miaphysites, and the chalcedonians. The phrase “in two
natures” was rejected by Eutychians and miaphysites, but accepted by chalcedonians and
Nestorians. Moreover, the Definition of Chalcedon, which was approved at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451ce, has it that Christ is one hypostasis and not two prosopa, “of two natures,”

51
Ibid., 55.
52
See the quotation from Letter 38 above at note 43.
53
See note 15 above for references to texts in which Gregory offers philosophical arguments for
his metaphysical position.
54
Cf. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester, in their edition of Boethius’s Tractates. The
Consolation of Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 84-85. Marilyn
McCord Adams recapitulates this in her treatment of scholastic Christology; cf. Christ and
Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 109.
55
Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I. q. 29, art. 1-2. Aquinas’s discussion is clearly
informed by 12th century theologians (i.e. Gilbert of Poitiers, William of Auxerre and Richard of
St. Victor) and reflects their criticisms of Boethius.
56
Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” 114, ln. 100-02.

10
and “in two natures.”57 How, then, should we understand the relation between Christ’s hypostasis
and these two natures?58
Boethius reports different meanings of the term ‘nature’ (natura) and then identifies the
one (or ones) that applies to the incarnation. Boethius denies that nature taken as “the principle
of movement per se and not accidental” applies to Christ’s human nature.59 It is noteworthy that
this conflicts with Pope Leo’s Tome, which was endorsed at the Council of Chalcedon, in which
Leo asserted that “the activity of each form is what is proper to it in communion with the other;
that is, the Word performs what belongs to the Word, and the flesh accomplishes what belongs to
the flesh.”60
Boethius finds the last meaning considered to be applicable, that is, “nature is the specific
difference that gives form to anything.”61 Here ‘nature’ is used to express the definition of the
substance-kind of a thing. Boethius concludes saying, “Thus, although nature is predicated or
defined in so many ways, both Catholics and Nestorius hold that there are in Christ two natures
according to our last definition, but the same differences cannot apply to God and man.”62
Boethius also says that ‘person’ is said of “a man, of God, of an angel” because each has
a living, rational nature.63 Boethius explicitly connects rationality with personhood; but Boethius
is speaking of a rational nature as a substance-kind and not of accidents, e.g., occurrent
cognitions or volitions. Like Basil, Severus, and others, he denies that personhood (or
hypostasis) is predicated of accidents.
Still, Boethius misrepresents what Greek theologians (like Gregory of Nyssa) said about
hypostasis. After defining ‘persona’ as an individual substance of a rational nature, Boethius
claims that
by this definition we Latins have described what the Greeks call hypostasis. […] [1] But
the Greeks far more clearly called the individual subsistence of a rational nature by the
name hypostasis, while we through want of appropriate words have kept the name handed
down to us, calling that persona which they call hypostasis; [2] but Greece with its richer
vocabulary gives the name hypostasis to the individual subsistence. […] [3] So ousia is
identical with essence, ousiosis with subsistence, hypostasis with substance, prosopon
with person. [4] But the reason why the Greeks do not use hypostasis of irrational
animals while we predicate the term substance of them is this: [5] this term has been
applied to things of higher value, in order that in some way what is more excellent might
be distinguished […].64
Claims [1] - [3] are misleading or contradictory because the term hypostasis is equivocal in [1]-
[3]. Is persona equivalent to hypostasis in claim [1], or to prosopon in claim [3], or to both?
(While ‘hypostasis’ and ‘prosopon’ may have been synonymous for some Greek authors,

57
Cf. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume 1, 86, ln. 33-37.
58
Cf. J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 330-43.
59
Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestoriius,” 80, ln. 40-42.
60
Cf. Decrees of the Councils, Volume 1, 79.
61
Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” 80, ln. 57-58.
62
Ibid., 80, ln. 58-63.
63
Ibid., 82, ln. 28, 84, ln. 29-37; 84, ln. 1-6.
64
Ibid., 84, ln. 5 – 86, ln. 7; 86, ln. 23 – 27; 90, ln. 71.

11
Boethius here suggests that they are not.) Claim [4] is false in light of e.g., Gregory of Nyssa’s
predicating hypostasis of horses, and Leontius of Byzantium’s predicating hypostasis of this
horse and this ox. Claim [5] asserts that persons have a superior standing over non-persons; this
view piggybacks on the great-chain-of-being tradition and adds the new category of personhood.
This new category gets adopted in much of later western theology and philosophy, especially in
ethics in which an individual human is not the same as a human person, and the difference has to
do with kinds of rational activities. It is noteworthy that the Boethius affirms that personhood is
predicated of an individual rational substance as such, and denies that personhood is predicated
of accidents.65
Boethius contends that Eutyches and Nestorius’s common mistake is in assuming that
for each (rational) substance-nature there is one person. Nestorius infers that if Christ has two
natures, divine and human, then there is a divine person and a human person. Eutyches, believing
that Christ is one person, infers that his human nature must have been swallowed up by the
divine nature such that in Christ there is one nature, the divine nature, and so one person.66 (This
is monophysitism.) Boethius’s view is that the divine person is the union of two natures.67
There are two interpretations of what Boethius believes explains the numerical unity of
Christ’s natures. The first is that the person’s numerical unity and entity makes true (or grounds)
the numerical unity of his human nature.68 A person is the subject of a nature69 such that the
subject’s existence and numerical unity explain the numerical unity of his nature(s). This
position is reminiscent of Severus of Antioch’s position to the extent that numerical unity is
made true by an existing hypostasis.
The second interpretation is based on another text in which Boethius supposes there are
particular forms, e.g., “Platonitas” for Plato.70 If Boethius assumes such an item in the Treatise
Against Eutyches and Nestorius, then the numerical unity of Christ’s human nature is not
explained by the union of the divine nature and human nature in a person, but by an individual
form, call it “Jesuity.” This interpretation is consistent with chalcedonians like Leontius of
Byzantium who claims that Christ’s individual humanity is numerically one and its numerical
unity is not explained by its hypostasis.
But Boethius does not mention particular forms in this treatise. The positive evidence
from the treatise favors the first interpretation. Given the Christological constraints of the
treatise, it makes sense that Boethius might explain the numerical unity of the human nature in
virtue of the person. Given Boethius’s disagreeing with Pope Leo regarding whether Christ’s
human nature is a per se principle of movement, his explaining the numerical unity of Christ’s
human nature in virtue of the person (akin to Severus), and his accepting that two natures are
“in” Christ (contra Severus), it seems that Boethius has a view between the chalcedonians and
the miaphysites.

65
Ibid., 82, ln. 13 – 18.
66
Ibid., 100-102.
67
Ibid., 96, ln. 62-67.
68
Ibid., 94, ln. 36-42.
69
Ibid., 90, ln. 79-86.
70
Cf. Claudio Moreschini, A Christian in Toga: Boethius: Interpreter of Antiquity and Christian
Theologian, (Bristol, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 56-57; also, Richard Cross, The
Medieval Christian Philosophers: An Introduction (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 59-60.

12
 About 50 years after Boethius wrote his Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,
Rusticus the Deacon (fl. 553-564ce) criticized Boethius’s definition of personhood in his
dialogue Against Acephalos (i.e. Severus). Rusticus argues that the definition that a person is an
individual substance of a rational nature is not theologically satisfactory because of counter-
examples. In the Trinity, for example, there is a singular divine nature, which is rational, but this
singular or individual nature is not a person. It is an individual substance that is rational nature,
but it is not a person. Indeed, there are three divine persons who share this singular divine
nature.71
In this disputation, the miaphysite opponent asserts that Christ has one composite nature72
and tries to show that it is wrong to suppose that Christ has an individual human nature because
then Christ would have assumed a human person. He first stipulates that “every individual nature
is a person” and infers that if Christ has an individual human nature then Christ would be two
persons.73 It is important to observe that this stipulation reflects Greek and Syriac authors’ use of
hypostasis and prosopon. Rusticus rejects this line of argument claiming that “there are many
individuals of a nature that are not also persons, for example [individuals] of inanimate natures
and irrational natures.”74 Rusticus accepts Boethius’s contention that ‘persona’ requires a rational
nature and is incompatible with non-rational natures. This bears witness to Boethius’s invention
of personhood as a distinct category.
The miaphysite opponent, holding that there is one composite nature in Christ, tries to
establish the same conclusion against Rusticus by accepting for the time being Rusticus’s
stipulation that personhood requires a rational nature. He argues that if we assume that “every
individual rational nature is a person”75 and if Christ is one person, then Christ has just one
nature. But given that Christ is divine and human, his nature is a composite nature - composed of
the divine nature and human nature. Note that the definition suggested by the miaphysite is the
same as or similar to Boethius’s definition.
Rusticus disagrees saying that there are two complete natures in Christ but there is just
one person. The number of natures does not equate to the number of persons. Rusticus concedes
that Christ’s human nature is an individual. As U.M. Lang reports, Rusticus “follows the classic
distinction made in Gregory of Nazianzen’s First Letter to Cledonius: Christ is unus, but not
unum; we speak of aliud et aliud, but not alius et alius. Thus Christ is one person or hypostasis
which is seen in two natures, divinity and humanity.”76 There is one (“unus”) person who has

71
Rusticus the Deacon, Contra Acephalos, ed. Sara Petri (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2013),
40, ln. 1234-40.
72
Ibid., 6, ln 11-21
73
Ibid., 39, ln. 1212-15: “Omnis natura indiuidua persona est; si igitur humana Christi natura
indiuidua est, erit igitur <persona>; [***] non insubsistens Verbum; duae uero naturae ; duae
igitur personae Christi.”
74
Ibid., 39, ln. 1216-1217, 1221-1223: “Multae indiuiduae sunt naturae, quae non sunt etiam
personae, sicut inanimatorum et irrationalbilium. […] verumtamen et arbores et surculos et
herbas et lapides et alia inanimata indiuiduas quidem solemus uocare naturas, non uero et
personas.”
75
Ibid., 40, ln. 1226: “omnis indiuidua et rationalis natura persona est.”
76
U.M. Lang, “Christological Themes in Rusticus Diaconus’ Contra Acephalos disputatio,”
Studia Patristica vol. 38 (2001) 432. Lang refers to Rusticus, Contra Acephalos, 16, ln. 368-73.

13
one divinity (“unum”) and one humanity (“unum”). Rusticus takes “unus” to imply an
independent subject and “unum” to imply a nature (with its own numerical unity) of an ultimate
subject.77 The individual human nature is real (and not just a mental construct), and it exists,
albeit its existence is not “segregated” or separate or independent. Instead, the existing human
nature subsists in the God the Son.78 At this point the miaphysite opponent asks for clarification:
if Christ weren’t united to the complete, individual, human nature, would it be a person?
Rusticus appeals to his account of subsistence: subsistence is the foundation or ultimate subject
of a nature.79 The fact that the individual human nature is assumed by a divine person blocks its
existence from being ‘segregated’, or separate, or independent. Being ‘segregated’ or separate
entails different ultimate subjects or foundations. If Christ were to give up the assumed
individual human nature, it would be a human person because it would be an ultimate subject.
(There is an ambiguity when theologians claim that a person is an ‘ultimate subject’ of a
(rational) nature. The claim about being an ‘ultimate subject’ can be interpreted either as a
metaphysical claim or as a linguistic claim. It seems that Rusticus takes it as a metaphysical
claim. Given space constraints, I do not try to determine which is in fact the right interpretation
for Rusticus and others in this chapter.)80
Boethius discusses subsistence too. But for him the term indicates “what does not require
accidents in order to be,”81 which includes genera, species, and individuals. A substrate is what
gets characterized by accidents. An individual substance both subsists and is a substrate. But
Rusticus interprets subsistence differently. Whereas Boethius takes an individual substance to
subsist by definition (i.e. necessarily), Rusticus suggests that a creaturely individual substance
subsists only contingently. This is a significant modal posit about personhood. If an individual
human substance is assumed by a divine person, then it does not as such subsist. For Rusticus,
personhood requires subsistence, which is equivalent with being the foundation or ultimate
subject of an individual rational nature. (I will return to this modal posit and Origen’s relation to
it.) Lastly, it should be noted that Rusticus does not criticize the rationality condition for
‘persona’ and believes it relevant for the Christological debate. But the miaphysite opponent
seems frustrated by needing to draw a distinction between rational and non-rational natures in
order to discuss one or two persona (hypostasis) in Christ; stipulating that personhood entails
rationality seems irrelevant to the Christological debate. We find that later neo-chalcedonians
agree (e.g., Gilbert of Poitiers, William of Ockham); the inclusion of rationality in this debate
about personhood is not relevant. It is no surprise, then, that we find no detailed discussion of the
criteria for rationality in this context.

77
Rusticus the Deacon, Contra Acephalos, 16-18, ln. 376-476.
78
Ibid., 92, ln. 3060-66.
79
Ibid., 96, ln. 3212 - 98, ln. 3302.
80
Thanks to Richard Cross for pressing me on this point. Cf. John Behr, The Formation of
Christian Theology, volume 2: The Nicene Faith, Part One, True God of True God (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 227-228. Also, cf. Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of
the Incarnation, 183-229.
81
Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” 88, ln. 45-46.

14
4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium
Leontius of Byzantium (485-543ce) was a rough contemporary of Boethius and was a pro-
chalcedonian theologian who wrote several treatises in Christology. One of these was against
Nestorius and Eutyches and another against Severus of Antioch. In the latter, called Epilyseis,
Leontius raises several objections against Severus.
First, Leontius objects to the miaphysite claim that the two natures in Christ are really
just two different concepts that we can have about Christ. If we accept this conceptualist move,
then Christ is not really divine and human, but only so in our minds.82 But Christ really is divine
and human, so the natures are not merely different concepts but rather are real things in Christ.
(Rusticus makes the same objection against Severus.)83 Leontius may be interpreted as accusing
Severus of metaphysical cheating, that is, positing that ‘Christ is human’ without identifying a
distinct truth-maker for it.
Second, Leontius denies that a hypostasis just is an individual (or particular) nature. For
Leontius, as I understand him, universal accidents (e.g., “shape, color, size, time, place, parents,
upbringing, way of life, and all that goes with them”)84 individuate a universal nature (e.g.,
humanity) such that an ‘individual nature’ is the conjunction of universal accidents and a
universal nature.85 An individual nature is not just a hypostasis because “hypostasis does not
simply or even primarily signify that which is complete, but that which exists for itself, and
secondly that which is complete; while the nature signifies what never exists for itself, but most
properly that which is [formally] complete.”86 In effect, Leontius’s distinguishing a hypostasis
and an individual nature not only is a rejection of the miaphysite contention that the numerical
unity of a hypostasis grounds and explains the numerical unity of the nature (for, Leontius posits
different identity conditions for these), but also a Cappadocian identification of individual nature
with hypostasis. Leontius claims that a hypostasis is “what exists for itself” and that it is a
necessary condition of the existence of an individual nature; an individual nature only exists in a
hypostasis.
Third, Leontius chides his miaphysite interlocutor for stipulating that “number …
cause[s] division.”87 If something’s numerical unity causes its division or separateness from
others, then implausible things follow.
[...] If number wholly separates what is numbered, not only the number of natures
separates the natures, but the number of characteristics will also separate them
completely; how, then, are those who speak of two characteristics not themselves also
open to the charge of division.88

82
Leontiius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” 289-91.
83
Rusticus the Deacon, Contra Acephalos, 92, ln. 3071-73.
84
Leontius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” 309.
85
See Richard Cross, “Individual Natures in the Christology of Leontiius of Byzantium,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 10, no. 2 (2002): 251-260.
86
Leontius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” 309.
87
Ibid., 317.
88
Ibid., 317-19.

15
Severus’s stipulation entails that there are no unions between any things; there is no ultimate
subject characterized by numerically distinct properties or characteristics. But surely a hypostasis
or separate entity has several numerically distinct characteristics, e.g., one’s height is
numerically one thing and one’s weight is numerically another thing. Both numbered things
(height and weight) characterize the same hypostasis. Thus, numerically distinct entities do not
entail separate entities (i.e. distinct ultimate subjects).
Leontius then offers an argument from authority and a dialectical challenge. He quotes
Gregory of Nazianzus’s First Letter to Cledonius to the effect that if miaphysites and
chalcedonians accept that there are “three hypostases and one nature in speaking of God, why do
we not grant two natures and one hypostasis in the Incarnation of the Savior?”89 If the miaphysite
accepts that the number of divine hypostases does not cause separate divine natures, why not
accept that the number of Christ’s natures does not cause separate hypostases?
In sum, Leontius clarifies the notion of a hypostasis with several arguments that conclude
that an individual nature (ἄτοµον) is not the same as a hypostasis. This is a revision of Basil and
Gregory of Nyssa’s proposal. Something more is required for hypostasis than being an individual
nature. What is required is “that which exists for itself,” which entails that it is complete and not
a part of something else that exists for itself.
Leontius is explicit that this extra-factor required for a hypostasis is modal. (This is
reminiscent of Rusticus.) To grasp this, we need to consider Origen again. Origen claimed that
before the Incarnation that Christ’s human soul existed and exercised excellent free choices. On
the basis of these excellent free choices, God the Son chose to become united with this human
soul and then a human body.90 On such a view, it looks like Origen is saying that God the Son
became united with an individual human soul that was a hypostasis, but no longer is a created
hypostasis when united with God the Son. Given worries about Nestorianism, many theologians
denied that there ever was a time when Christ’s human nature existed separate from God the
Son.91 Leontius, however, claimed that Christ’s individual human nature never in fact existed
without union with God the Son, but argued that it was possible for God the Son to have
assumed a “fully formed man.” Whether it is factually the case that Christ’s humanity existed
before the Incarnation is irrelevant from a modal ontological point of view. If Christ were to
assume an individual human nature, then de facto that individual human nature would no longer
be a human hypostasis (and so Nestorianism would be false). Of course, Leontius of Byzantium
(and others) disagreed with Origen’s de facto claim about Christ’s soul pre-existing its
assumption by a divine person, but agreed with the modal suggestion. “We reject the prior
formation [of Jesus the man], then, not because it was impossible, but because it was not fitting
that the humanity of the Lord should once have been alone and without his divinity.”92 Call this
“Origen’s Modal Posit” [=OMP]: an individual human that is a hypostasis is a hypostasis
contingently because a divine person can assume any individual human nature. Rusticus says that
it is ‘subsistence’ that is required for personhood; Leontius says that it is “what exists for itself”

89
Ibid., 319.
90
Origen, On First Principles, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1857), 209-13. [Trans. G.W. Butterworth
(Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1973), 108-15.]
91
E.g., Severus of Antioch, “Ad Nephalium, Or. II,” in Severus of Antioch, trans. Pauline Allen
and C.T.R. Hayward (London: Routledge, 2004), 65.
92
Leontius of Byzantium, “Epilyseis,” 307.

16
that is required for hypostasis. Scholastic theologians in the 12th and 13th centuries discussed
OMP and debated what is required for subsistence; but whatever it is, they all agreed that it
requires de facto non-assumption by a divine person.

5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor, William of

Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ware
Gilbert of Poitiers (1085/90-1154ce), commenting on Boethius’s Treatise Against Eutyches and
Nestorius, objects that Boethius’s definition of a person does not explicitly say that a person is
not a part of anything else.93 (This is similar to Leontius’s saying that a hypostasis is complete
and not part of anything else that exists in itself.94) Moreover, Gilbert suggests that the
stipulation about ‘rationality’ for personhood is just a matter of philosophical use; John
Marenbon comments saying that it “is just an arbitrary distinction […].”95 In other words,
‘rationality’ does not do much metaphysical work in his theorizing about personhood. If one
were to stipulate detailed criteria for rationality it would be an arbitrary stipulation. (In the
introduction, I described this as a wild goose chase.)
Richard of St. Victor (1110-1173ce) also objects to Boethius’s definition of a person.
Richard appeals to the singular rational divine nature as a counterexample. In turn, he offers a
correction: a person is an incommunicable existence of a rational nature.96 Something
‘incommunicable’ cannot possibly be shared with any other. (Richard’s putting
‘incommunicable’ in the definition of a person shows up later in Locke’s description of a person
as an “incommunicable consciousness.”) Richard analyzes ‘existence’ as ‘ex’ and ‘sistere’, that
is, to stand out or be from someone or something. So, an incommunicable existence is an
incommunicable origin that sets one apart from all else. Despite the criticism, Richard retains
Boethius’s (and Rusticus’s) stipulation that personhood applies only to divine persons, angels,
and humans, and that personhood requires rationality.97
Richard claims that the Holy Spirit gave to the Latin west the term and notion of a person
for better articulating the Trinity.98 This suggests he perceived that ‘personhood’ as such is a
Latin notion and is not found among Greek (and Syrian) speaking Christian theologians. This
supports my observation that ‘personhood’ as such is a Latin invention.
William of Auxerre (1150-1231ce), writing in the 1220s, develops Richard’s definition.
He posits three conditions. The first is that a person is numerically one or singular thing and not

93
Cf. John Marenbon, “Gilbert of Poitiers,” in A History of Twelfth-Century Western
Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 345-48.
94
Cf. Boethius, “Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius,” 90, ln. 79-86.
95
Gilbert of Poitiers, “De Trinitate,” in The Commentaries on Boethius, ed. Nikolaus M. Häring,
S.A.C. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1966), 146, ln. 19-23. John Marenbon,
“Gilbert of Poitiers,” 346.
96
Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate, ed. Jean Ribaillier (Paris: J. Vrin, 1958), 186-190.
97
Ibid., 176-77, 185-87.
98
Ibid., 167-168.

17
a universal, and the second is that a person cannot be a part of some composite whole. The third
criterion is “the distinction of dignity, which is in Socrates from the fact that this humanity is not
mixed with a higher form in him. […] But the last distinction is not in Jesus as Jesus, because
‘Jesuity’ is joined to a higher form in the Son of God, and thus is not distinguished from
something higher.”99 The third condition is a formulation of OMP: subsistence is factually not
depending on a divine person; subsistence for creatures is a negative condition.
The first condition fits with what Rusticus and Leontius said about numerical unity; that
is, a person must have an individual nature. The second condition contradicts Severus of Antioch
and Peter of Callinicum’s contention that a hypostasis is a part of a whole that is the collection of
all particulars of the same substance-kind. The third condition caused some confusion for
William’s readers. The dignity condition was interpreted by (e.g.,) Alexander of Hales (1185-
1245ce) and Bonaventure (1217-1274ce) to indicate that personhood requires rationality that is
not subordinated to, or assumed by, some higher form. Alexander and Bonaventure each suggest
that if an individual human is a human person, then this human has a rationality that is not in fact
ontologically subordinated to another.100 Whereas previous theologians focused on
distinguishing universals and hypostases, albeit universals or individuals of some rational nature,
Alexander and Bonaventure stipulate that rationality is a noble property of an individual human.
This misreading of William led to a focus on a person as a rational being that exists per se.
However, William’s intention was to indicate the dignity of per se being, that is, factually not
being assumed by, or dependent on, a divine person.
Rusticus argued that an individual substance of a rational nature is not a person because
something else is required, namely what he called subsistence. The subsistence condition for
personhood was debated among scholastics. Above I indicated William of Auxerre and others’
view that subsistence is a negative condition: factually not being assumed by a divine person.
But other scholastics disagreed. Thomas Aquinas likely held that subsistence is actual
existence.101 (Note that Severus of Antioch also holds that actual existence is what is required for
a hypostasis.) However, some interpreters of Aquinas argue that he identifies subsistence with
being a complete whole, and other interpreters that he identifies subsistence with a negative
condition.102 William of Ware held that subsistence is a certain sort of relation or relative mode
that an individual nature has toward God.103

99
Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
243.
100
Cf. Walter H. Principe, CSB, The Theology of the Hypostatic Union in the Early Thirteenth
Century, volume 2: Alexander of Hales’ Theology of the Hypostatic Union (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1967), 115-26; and, cf. Bonaventure, In Sent. 3.5.2.2 ad 1 (iii),
113h.
101
Cf. Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 246-256.
102
Cf. Othmar Schweizer, Person und Hypostatische Union bei Thomas von Aquin (Fribourg:
Universitatsverlag, 1957); also, John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of
Fontaines: A Study in Late Thirteenth-Century Philosophy (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1981), 229-32.
103
For discussion and references, see Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 273-
284.

18
 What is relevant for my purposes here is to point out two things. First, ‘subsistence’ was
believed to be necessary for personhood, and whatever it is, an adequate articulation of it
requires a metaphysical (as opposed to a psychological) formulation. Second, debate on
subsistence was discussed within the framework of the theology of the Incarnation: how is it that
God the Son assumes an individual human nature that is not itself a human person? Whatever
‘subsistence’ is, it will explain why God the Son does not assume a human person but does
assume an individual human nature.

6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus and William of
Ockham
Henry of Ghent (1217-1293ce) takes the (mis)reading of William of Auxerre’s third condition
for personhood further. Henry claims that we should ascribe personhood to God because
personhood is a pure perfection (it is better to be a person than not to be a person). Henry
analyzes personhood by saying that it requires incommunicability, and a rational or intellectual
nature, and that each is a pure perfection. Given that these are conditions for personhood, it
follows that it is better to be a person than not to be a person. Henry’s ascribing nobility to
‘rationality’ is consistent with Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure, but takes it a step further
saying this noble attribute is a pure perfection. A consequence of this position is that Henry
draws a line between persons and non-persons such that the former is intrinsically better than the
latter. Moreover, for Henry all human persons are equally ‘rational’ in one sense because they
are specifically the same rational substance. But with regard to rational acts (i.e. occurrences of
thought and volition) humans are more, or less, apt to be rational depending on their own bodily
conditions, imagination, and sensory powers.104 Still, personhood as such is predicated of a
substance and not of accidents.
Peter John Olivi (1247/8-1298ce) takes the perfection claim even further arguing that a
human person with the use of reason and especially free choice of the will is better than one
without the use of reason and free choice of the will.105 For, the former but not the latter can e.g.,
give a gratuitous gift of friendship to another person, whom Olivi calls an “alter ego.”106 Without
free choice of the will, a human would be an “intellectual beast.”107
For Henry, a person is an incommunicable substance of an intellectual nature.108 He
contends that we have the same concept of personhood for all persons, whether divine or created.
This is striking because Henry claims that the sameness here is univocity (although the relevant
concept here is a second intention that refers to other concepts and not directly to things), and not

104
Henry of Ghent, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae) 2.5, ed. G.A. Wilson (Leuven: Leuven
University Press, 2005), 224-228.
105
Peter John Olivi, Quaestiones In Secundum Librum Sententiarum, ed. Bernardus Jansen, S.J.,
(Quaracchi, 1922), 317.
106
Ibid., 320.
107
Ibid., 338.
108
Henry of Ghent, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae) 53.5, ed. G.A. Wilson and G. J. Etzkorn
(Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014), 57, ln. 338-48.

19
by analogy.109 For Henry, we can predicate “is a person” (which is a second intention) of our
(first intention) concept of (e.g.,) God the Father, and we can predicate the very same of (e.g.,)
our (first intention) concept of Mary. Henry gives four necessary conditions that are jointly
sufficient for a second intention concept to be univocal in such a case. First, the concept does not
require real sameness in the ontologically diverse referents (e.g., God the Father and Mary are
ontologically diverse). Second, the concept remains the same no matter its reference in an
utterance. Third, there must be something in the referents that makes true the utterance. Fourth,
the concept’s reference is indifferent, that is, it is polyadic.110
Duns Scotus (1265/6-1308ce) is a synthesizer of the tradition and his account of
personhood is elegant. He takes Richard of St. Victor’s and Henry of Ghent’s corrections to be
an improvement over Boethius, but holds that the notion of ‘incommunicable’ requires a more
fine-grained analysis. What is needed is a distinction between types of communicability and
incommunicability. Something can be communicable either by identity (ut quod), or by division
(ut quo), or by information (ut quo). The first, communicable by identity, requires that something
be numerically the same in any of its exemplifications. The second, communicable by division,
requires that something be numerically divided in any of its instances (e.g., a common substance-
nature is divided in its exemplifications). The third, communicable by information, requires that
something inform a subject (e.g., a form characterizes matter). Scotus takes the divine nature to
be communicable by identity (but not by division or information); e.g., God the Father
communicates the divine nature to the Son such that the Father shares numerically the same
divine nature with the Son. But every creaturely common nature is communicable by division or
information. For example, Socrates’s human nature is divided (i.e. separate) from Plato’s human
nature even though they are instances of specifically the same nature; Socrates’s human form
informs (i.e. characterizes) matter. Moreover, incommunicability is the negation of
communicability; so, something might be incommunicable by identity, by division, or by
information.
Duns Scotus claims that a divine person is incommunicable by identity, by division, and
by information.111 Divine persons are necessarily incommunicable in all of these ways because
each divine person has a positive attribute that blocks communicability; e.g. God the Son is
(essentially) generated. This attribute makes it impossible for God the Son to be assumed by any
other person or become a part of anything else. But if e.g., an individual human is a person, then
the individual human is a person contingently. That is, an individual human nature has an
aptitude for subsistence but its subsistence is prevented if a divine person assumes the individual
human nature.112 A created person is an individual rational substance that is incommunicable by
division and is factually not communicated by identity to a divine person. Call this Scotus’s
clarification of OMP.

109
Henry of Ghent, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae) 53.3, 32, ln. 156 – 33, 169.
110
Henry of Ghent, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae) 53.3, 25-35; and, Summa (Quaestiones
ordinariae) 53.5, 60-62.
111
John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio 3.1.1, n. 9-10, vol. 7, ed. L. Wadding (Lyon, 1639), 15-16.
112
Cf. Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 163. Also, Marilyn
McCord Adams, “What is Metaphysically Special about Supposits? Some Medieval Variations
on Aristotelian Substance,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes,
vol. 79 (2005) 15-52.

20
 Given his analysis of communicability and incommunicability, Scotus holds that the term
‘person’ is not used univocally for divine persons and for created persons.113 For, divine persons
are persons necessarily and individual rational natures (e.g., an individual human nature) are
persons contingently. Against Henry, then, we do not have the same concept of personhood for
all persons.
William of Ockham (1287-1347ce) summarizes a neo-chalcedonian tradition regarding
personhood. In the Latin tradition, the term “suppositum” stands for that which subsists (so it is
akin to hypostasis). In his Fourth Quodlibet, question 7, he asks, “Can a human suppositum be
assumed by the Word (i.e. God the Son)?” He answers as follows.
I claim that a suppositum is (i) a complete being, (ii) incommunicable by identity, (iii)
not naturally apt to inhere in anything, and (iv) not supported by anything. The first
condition rules out all parts, both essential parts and integral parts, since neither kind of
part is a complete being. The second condition excludes the divine essence, which, even
though it is a complete being, is nonetheless not a suppositum because it is
communicable by identity to the divine persons. For a suppositum is incommunicable by
identity. The third condition rules out all accidents, whether they inhere in anything or
not. The fourth condition rules out the nature assumed by the Word, since that nature is
supported by him.114
All that need be added to what Ockham says, for personhood, is that the suppositum or
hypostasis in question has a rational nature.115 But note that Ockham himself does not add it.
(Elsewhere, Ockham says that a person “is an intellectual supposit.”)116 For Ockham (just as for
others), Boethius’s rationality condition for personhood was not needed for the metaphysics of
the incarnation. What was needed was a notion of a suppositum (that is taken to be logically
equivalent to a hypostasis). In other words, what was needed and was used was Rusticus’s
stipulations that subsistence is not the same as an individual substance and that subsistence is
required for personhood.
I conclude with the observation that Boethius’s rationality condition for personhood was
perceived by many Latin theologians as more or less irrelevant for their shared theology. It is no
surprise, then, that there is relatively little discussion about what ‘rationality’ amounts to with
regard to personhood in these theological contexts other than general statements about
intellectual capability and free will. While some Latin theologians briefly discuss the rationality
condition for personhood (e.g., Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent), what does the metaphysical
work in an account of personhood are individual substance, subsistence, and metaphysical
incommunicability. It may be surprising that personhood as such is not found in the Greek or

113
John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio 3.1.1, n. 10.
114
William of Ockham, Quodlibetal Questions, 4.7, trans. Alfred Freddoso and Francis E. Kelley
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 272-73.
115
Cf. Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 31-32.
116
For discussion and references, cf. Marilyn McCord Adams, “What is Metaphysically Special
about Supposits? Some Medieval Variations on Aristotelian Substance,” 36-39.

21
Syriac Christian theologians that I surveyed. But this may be so only because the word ‘person’
in English is so popular and often used to translate Greek (and Syriac) theological texts.117

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