Lesson VI: Rome and Her Fathers

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

Introduction

We have been looking at the 1^st century heresy of Christian Gnosticism. We have also made the bold claim that this ancient error is still affecting the Church today. In fact, we have gone so far as to say that it is part of the reason why the Church cannot get out of the mess in which She presently finds Herself. In Lesson V, we outlined the historical origins of Gnosticism and its central tenant: salvation means to escape the material world by means of ‘special’ knowledge. Gnosticism is not so much a dualistic philosophy as it is a doctrine of hatred for the material world. This doctrine damages the Church because it seeks to establish itself as its own tradition- a kind of synthetic orthodoxy that negates the need to develop an authentic Christian mind. However, we have not as yet explained what Gnosticism actually did and how the Church overcame its early influence.

What Gnosticism did

Gnosticism was most certainly a threat to the life of the early Church. With so much of Christian doctrine yet to be correctly understood and properly defined, there was a real possibility that errors and false teachings could derail the early Church and distort the truth She was founded to proclaim. But how did Gnosticism prove to be such a formidable and elusive foe?

A central tenant of Catholic Tradition is that right doctrine entails right action: the truths that Christ Himself revealed contain within them those actions necessary for a holy life. However, in order to know what those actions are, requires a process that takes time. I do not, upon discovering the truths of the Catholic faith, know exactly what to do in order to live them out. There is an interval between discovering right doctrine and practicing right action. Even after many years of trying to live a Catholic life, I still do not know automatically what choices to make and what actions to pursue. It is easier to understand the Church’s teaching on Christ’s two natures than it is to understand exactly what that truth means for the moral life. What one should know about the Catholic faith can be contained within the Catechism; what one must do in order to live a Catholic life, is the work of an actual lifetime. That same interval, from knowledge to action, is a recurrent factor in the life of the Church.

This process- the interval from knowledge to action; from truth to virtue; from Catholic orthodoxy to Christian holiness- is necessary to the Church’s Tradition. For how we receive that wisdom is dependent upon how we live into it; and how we live it out is part of how we hand it on. Christian Tradition is not simply a ‘body of special knowledge’ which the Gnostics attempted to turn it into; rather Tradition is Revealed Truth that is received when we translate it into the actions of a holy life. Part of the inner dynamism of Catholic Tradition is that it contains within it, in germe (in seed form), the blueprint for holy action. What is contained in holy Tradition is the tangible expression of a truth: God is love; not knowledge. And the truths He reveals are means to loving Him in return. The Lord God, when He reveals Divine Truth, just does not give us the facts about God, He is teaching us a way to love Him (1 Jn 4:7-21). His truth is not merely knowledge about Him, it is a way back to Him. The interval between reception of knowledge and the living of virtue is what permits a truly Christian life to be free, for that truth both enlightens the intellect and informs the will. Yet, this movement from holy truth to holy action, is still a point of transition and thus can be exploited. The question remains, how did Gnosticism prove to be so effective in exploiting this feature of Catholic life?

Intuition and Gnostic error

Gnosticism is a doctrine that in rejecting the material world rejects the idea that God has come into the world as one like us. All heresy in some form or other rejects the coming of Christ in the flesh (2 Jn 1:7). And Gnosticism is the mother of that error. The many iterations of how it rejects the world and the coming of Christ are difficult to categorise. Some gnostic doctrines are somewhat impenetrable and hard to decipher, others are just outright rejections of the Incarnation. The reason why Gnosticism proved so effective, is because one aspect of Gnostic doctrine seems to be immediately and intuitively true: all suffering in the world stems from physical causes and material reality. If I am injured or sick- I am injured or sick in my body. If I suffer the effects of plague, war or crime I seem to always suffer them in some physical way in my flesh. And if I face the ultimate human suffering- it is because I have lost someone I love, whose death occurs in his body. It would seem that Gnosticism’s most basic doctrine- the need to flee the material world as a way of escaping suffering- is a truth that is undeniable. In so far as it impacts Christianity, the very teachings of the Lord seem to underpin its most fundamental point: Except a man be born… of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5). To which then St Paul adds: For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would (Gal 5:17). It would appear that not only is this truth immediately intuitable, it seems like Christianity itself is revealing it.

The first consequence of such “insight” is the denial of the incarnation of Christ in the flesh and the resultant denial of the bodily resurrection. If the material world is corrupt and the cause of pain, suffering and evil in the world, then the idea of both the bodily incarnation and the bodily resurrection seemed equally untenable. In fact, both doctrines seemed to be contrary to the very truth of Christianity. Gnosticism was a rather loose confederacy of likeminded thinkers who shared a central idea but who possessed no real means of centrally developing that idea- they were a rival tradition with no actual authority. They were in effect a pastoral council. Hence gnostic sects were numerous and varied- every local church seemed to have one.

Central to most gnostic sects was some form of denial of the incarnation and the bodily resurrection. Those denials are really the one denial: if Christ did not come in the flesh, then He did not return in the flesh either. (For reference, I will refer to this as: the denial of the flesh.) Sometimes that denial was quite complex- such as the account contained in the apocryphal gospel of Peter where the Lord appears to be a number of distinct beings, one in the flesh, another in the spirit etc. Or it could be quite subtle, as in the Valentinians, who believed that the bodily resurrection was really a spiritual thing that had both happened and was already happening as the brethren proceeded along the path of enlightenment. Either way, it was a denial of Christian truth based on spontaneous human experience and ‘supported’ by Christian revelation. However, Gnosticism’s real threat was not simply its denial of one or more Christian truths, rather the danger was that it attempted to establish itself as an alternative tradition with its own moral consequences. Gnosticism would not only have its own orthodoxy- it would have its own moral life too.

Gnosticism’s moral code

One of the key consequences of the doctrine of Christian Gnosticism was that it did not matter what Christ did, it only mattered what Christ taught. If salvation consists in ‘special knowledge’, then action is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it does not matter whether Christ died or whether He rose from the dead- what mattered was the knowledge that He imparted that would free us of material life and its consequences. This ‘moral code’ that knowledge mattered more than action, is an upending of Christian orthodoxy. The enduring legacy of this doctrine was both the destruction of the Christian will and a complete distortion of the Christian understanding of the human body. If salvation is knowledge and action is irrelevant, then what is done in and what eventually happens to the human body is inconsequential. The denial of the sacrality of the human body had dramatic consequences for both Catholic living and Catholic theology.

There are three consequences of the denial of the flesh for Catholic Tradition:

The first consequence is the denial of the unity of Christ’s two natures. As we have said, all heresies in some form or other deny the coming of Christ in the flesh. This denial rejects the unity of Christ’s person- that He existed as both perfect God and perfect man. This rejection is at the heart of the errors of Arianism, Docetism, Sabellianism etc..[1] All of the most prominent Christological heresies deny His coming in the flesh and thus reject the unity of Christ’s two natures. This in effect denies the personhood of Christ.

The second consequence of the denial of the flesh is the denial of the unity of the human person. If Christ was not a unity of flesh and divinity, then whatever forms of ‘flesh; and ‘spirit’ exist in the human person, they did not exist as a unity. The need to escape from the world, meant the need to escape from the body. Thus, anyone seeking knowledge had to in some form or other to reject his physical life. Thus, the person was not seen a unity of body and soul, but a duality of principles in conflict with each other.

The third consequence is a denial of the Church’s sacramental life. The denial of the sacraments is a consequence of the rejection of the moral life. If Christ did not come in the flesh, and salvation was a way to escape the flesh- then there is no point in acting well in the flesh. The practice of Christian charity, works of mercy and virtue were all as pointless as the idea of the resurrection. If then there is no point to the things of the flesh, then those material signs of invisible grace are completely unnecessary for salvation; for no spiritual advantage can be derived from material realities. In particular, the denial of the flesh clearly negates the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist: If Christ did not come in the flesh- then He certainly did not remain under the form of bread.

St Irenaeus and the Church’s counter offensive

The most formidable thinker to resist this doctrine was Irenaeus (130-202). His writing, Adversus Haereses[2] (Against the Heresies) is his stance against the various gnostic interpretations of orthodox Christianity[3], especially the Marcionites[4] and the followers of Valentinus[5]. As bishop, Irenaeus felt compelled to defend the orthodox faith and to protect his people from its errors. He argued that orthodox Christianity has its origins in the faith that was passed on to him from the apostles who had known Jesus personally; whereas the Gnostics were falsifying the Apostolic Tradition.[6] While the Gnostics offered salvation through secret knowledge available only to a few, Irenaeus contended that the true doctrines of the Christian faith are universally taught by bishops across the (Christian) world.[7]

The central argument of Irenaeus’s defence was the goodness of the body. While the Gnostics viewed the flesh as the seat of suffering and error, Irenaeus repeated the biblical idea that material creation is good and ultimately destined for glorification. The most quoted verse in Irenaeus’s text is from Paul: Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption (1 Cor 15:50). The Valentinians used this verse to argue for their own understanding that ‘resurrection’ was a purely spiritual phenomenon, while Irenaeus insisted that Christians would be raised from the dead in glorified bodies of flesh. Irenaeus taught that the flesh and not just the spirit of man (the soul) is destined for glory- the whole person has been redeemed and will ultimately be saved (or damned) because ultimately all of creation participates in God’s goodness; therefore, both flesh and spirit must participate in the goodness of God’s redemption.

Arguably the Church’s greatest philosophical contribution

Irenaeus’s formidable defence and ultimate success over the gnostic error had profound effects on Catholic philosophy and theology. The most important of which was the impetus for the creation and development of the philosophical category of person. We take the idea of person– both human and divine- as a given. It is so much a part of Western thought that we do not even stop to consider that it was developed within the context of explicit Christian theology and philosophy. If we did not have the Church- the West would not have the concept of person. It is the concept of ‘person’ that separates Western philosophy from all other schools of thought. It is the foundation of Western anthropology, jurisprudence, and political theory.

The remote origins of the concept person lie in Greek theatre. The πρόσωπον (prosōpon) was a mask worn by actors in a play. Actors in Greek plays wore specific physical masks on stage in order to reveal their characters and emotional states to the audience.[8] St. Paul uses the term when speaking of our direct experience of the face (prosōpon) of Christ: For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). The English word person is derived from the Latin word persona[9], which ancient meaning is identical to the Greek prosōpon.[10] The usage of the word dates back to the beginnings of Latin civilization,[11] with the Latin word derived from the Etruscan word phersu.[12] Its definition changed during the latter Roman period to indicate a character of a theatrical performance or court of law.[13] It had become clear over time that different individuals could assume the same role and that the legal attributes that attached to that role, such as rights, powers, and duties followed the role and not the individual. The legal idea was a development of the theatrical notion- that just as actors could play different roles in the same play, so too could legal ‘actors’ assume different roles, each with its own legal attributes within the same court appearance (e.g., a defendant could be both a witness and a cross-claimant). We will return to these ideas when we examine the influence of the Church’s Tradition on Western jurisprudence and the Common Law.

Although Irenaeus did not use the philosophical term person, his insistence on the unity of body and soul not merely as an amalgam but as an identity, set the course for the Church’s thinking that would be aided by the unfolding of the Church’s history. From about the time of Irenaeus, the Church faced a number of external persecutions which affected Her philosophy and theology. There were persecutions under the emperors Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Septimius Severus (193-211), Maximinus (Thrax- 235-238), as well as Decius (249-251) and Valerian (253-260); and then others by Aurelian (270-275), Diocletian (284-305) and Maximian (286-305). The persecutions were officially ended by the Edict of Milan issued by Emperor Constantine (306-337) in February 313.

The effects of these persecutions on the Church’s Tradition and culture were manifold. We imagine that this period of persecution had the effect of limiting the Church’s philosophy and theology. That because there could be no real public engagement with Christianity, this left the Church intellectually impoverished. Although the development of the cathedral schools, universities and great centres of Christian learning were still several centuries away, the effects of this period made an indelible impact on the formation of the Christian mind. First of which, was an understanding of the body in terms of Christian holiness. The martyrs were more than a story to be told, they were men and women to be imitated. Martyrdom became a privileged way of following Christ. But this idea had the added effect of teaching the early Church, that if martyrdom was a glorious price to pay- it was always paid in the body. There could be no martyrdom, no way of offering oneself to the Lord as a sacrifice without the flesh God had created. To deny the flesh and to glory in martyrdom was a compete contradiction. This reality served more than any other to undermine the central tenant of first century Gnosticism- the denial of the flesh. If the first principle of Christian Gnosticism was the denial of the flesh- then a first principle of Christian orthodoxy was its affirmation. This set the Church on a philosophical trajectory towards a complete vision of the human person as a unity of body and soul that would be developed over the next several centuries. This philosophical odyssey would ultimately climax in the work of Aquinas, who would give us the language and tools necessary to make sense of such an idea. However, like much of Catholic theology, this idea had to be worked out against the backdrop of much error. The effects of gnostic dualism lived on in the great Christological heresies of the third and fourth centuries which had to be overcome.

A Different Flavour of Gnosticism

The first spill over of Christian Gnosticism into other areas of Christian theology was caused by erroneous attempts at accounting for the suffering of Christ which tried to preserve the perfection and unity of God. The first of these errors was the controversy of Modalistic Monarchianism that arose some time at the end of the 2^nd century and beginning of the 3^rd. The term was derived from the Greek meaning one rule. Those who subscribed to this doctrine were concerned with upholding the oneness of God (Deut 6:4)- the ‘monarchy’ of the Father. During this period, Christian theologians were attempting to clarify the relationship between God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Concerned with defending the absolute unity of God, modalists such as Noetus[14], Praxeas[15], and Sabellius[16] explained the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as the one God revealing Himself in different ways or ‘modes’. Thus, the Father was the origin and the Son and Holy Ghost were mere emanations of the Father- not distinct, as we will later refer to them, persons. The modalists were using the term prosōpon according to its original and theatrical meaning- different expressions of the one reality. Modalism is a false doctrine about God because it did not possess the philosophical categories necessary in order to account for both unity and multiplicity in the Godhead.

St. Athanasius

The First Council of Nicaea (325) did not resolve this issue entirely. Convoked to address an idea of an inverse extreme- Arianism- which attempted to save the immutability of God from the contamination of Christ’s suffering by insisting that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost each possessed distinct and different natures. Arianism was the doctrine that Christ did not possess the Divine nature, but was rather an eternal creation of the Father. We owe to the Council of Nicaea, and in particular to St Athanasius, the correct definition and application of the term: ὁμοούσιος (homoousios)[17], in order to clarify the ontology of Christ. The effect of this teaching was that Christ the Son possessed the same ousia or nature as the Father.[18] Thus what was common to God the Father and to God the Son (and by extension to the Holy Ghost) was the sharing of the same divine nature or substance. This was an essential step along the path of progress to the proper formulation of the Christian idea of person.

The Three Cappadocians

However, even though the doctrine of a shared divine nature settled the question of Divine unity in the Godhead, there was still needed some doctrine that accounted for Divine multiplicity- God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are one God, they are not three Gods and nor are the same God in multiple emanations. This was still yet to be adequately explained. It will not be until the arrival of the Cappadocian Fathers[19] that the term person will begin to assume a recognisable philosophical form. The Cappadocians had the express intention of demonstrating that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals. They made key contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and gave fierce rebuttal to both Arianism and Apollinarianism.[20] Subsequent to the First Council of Nicaea, Arianism did not simply disappear. The Council had asserted that the Son was of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father; while the semi-Arians continued to teach that the Son is of like substance with the Father (homoiousios)[21]. In order to counter the Semi-Arian argument, the Fathers made a most precious contribution to both Christian theology and philosophy that had even been left unresolved in the philosophy of both Plato and Aristotle.

What is left unresolved in both Aristotle and Plato is whether there is a real distinction between οὐσία (essence or nature) and ὑπόστασις (literally: “that which stands under”- subject or individual) or suppositum in Latin. Neither philosopher had adequately accounted for both unity and multiplicity within a given species. The main problem is that if many beings share the same nature, what is it that distinguishes those beings one from another? This applies to all things, not just God. For example, a horse and another horse share the same nature- ‘horse-ness’ or what it means to be a horse. The two animals are identically horses- they each have the same amount of horse-ness within them; but they are not identical horses- they are two distinct things. If two horses share the same nature- what then makes them two distinct animals? If it is their material nature- their flesh- then this does not account for the fact that they are two different animals with distinct temperaments and identities. How does different matter- flesh- create different individuals? The material distinction between individuals accounts for their numerical multiplicity- the fact that they are really two distinct physical things. It does not account for why they are different from one another. This becomes even more obviously problematic when it comes to two individual human beings. The fact that Peter and Paul share the same nature but differ only in matter is deeply philosophically problematic. The material and physical differences- different height and weight for example, do not account for the differences in their character, inclinations, proclivities and internal dispositions. Neither Plato nor Aristotle actually accounted for how different individuals of the same species are differentiated as individual beyond their instantiation in matter. The problem is: why are Peter and Paul, both of whom are identically men, so different one from the other? It cannot be that one is 180cm tall and the other is only 160cm. The Greeks could account for why two members of the same species shared a like nature, e.g., why there could be two men or two horses; but they could never adequately explain why two individuals were clearly different from one another.

The Cappadocian Fathers  are traditionally credited for being the first to make a clear distinction between ousia (nature) and hypostasis (individual), particularly St. Basil in his letters 214 (375 AD)[22] and 236 (376 AD).[23] With the introduction of this distinction into Christian theology, an account of the unity and multiplicity in the Godhead could be given with reference to philosophical categories that shed some light on the mystery. It also allowed for a clear comprehension of the distinction between a thing as an individual; and a thing’s nature as a shared reality with other individuals of the same species. Christian philosophy created for the world those categories that accounted for a multiplicity of things which shared the same nature. Thus, in God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost shared the same οὐσία (nature); whilst at the same time being distinct ὑπόστασις (individuals). Thus, what was common or shared in the Godhead was the divine nature, but what was distinct was their three hypostases: One Nature, Three hypostases. This language better allowed the Church to account for where the true faith differed from the errors that were undermining it. The modalists posited that there was one hypostasis in God that possessed the same nature, hence one God in three emanations; whereas the Arians posited that were three hypostases in God each of whom possessed three different natures. The Church could condemn those errors with clear theological categories and now possessed the language necessary to further develop its concept of person.

Conclusion

Even after the contribution of the Cappadocians, there were still differences to be worked out. The theological battle did not concluded with them- they did however shape its direction for the next several centuries. For example, it would seem from their writings that the Cappadocians did not yet understand God as one undivided ousia (substance). They argue in their letters that the Father, Son, and Spirit have exactly the same type of substance, but each has His own substance. This difficulty will not be finally resolved until Aquinas. However, the next step in the development of the idea of the person comes with the contribution of the mighty Augustine. He is the first Catholic theologian to introduce into the West this new understanding of God as one nature and three hypostases by translating the Greek prosopon into the Latin word persona but with the distinction of defining it as a hypostasis (individual) and not as a mere appearance. Augustine introduces into the Latin World for the first time the idea that a person is an individual- a thing in its own right. From his writings we will learn how the Church and Her Tradition became the driving force for the creation of the marvel we call Western Civilisation. In our next lesson, we will dedicate much time to the great Augustine who is both the greatest theologian of the Latin Fathers and a founding father of Western Civilisation. To study Augustine is to study an ocean. And next month- we begin to swim.

[1] Please see Lesson V for an explanation of each one.

[2] Against Heresies (Ancient Greek: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, “On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis”), referred to by its Latin title Adversus Haereses was written in Greek by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lugdunum (now Lyon in France). It can be dated between 174 and 189 AD, as the list of the Bishops of Rome includes Eleutherius, but not his successor Victor. The earliest manuscript fragment of Against Heresies (P. Oxy. 405), dates to around 200 AD. Only fragments of the original text in ancient Greek remain today, but many complete copies in Latin, the dates of writing of which remain unknown, still survive. Books IV and V exist in their entirety in a literal version in Armenian.

[3] Great Christian Thinkers: From the Early Church Through the Middle Ages. Fortress Press. 2011. p. 12.

[4] Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system that originated with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around 144 AD.

[5] Valentinus (Greek: Οὐαλεντῖνος; c. 100 – c. 180 CE) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen.

[6] Early Christian Fathers, Richardson, C. (1995). Touchstone. p. 343.

[7] The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation, Kotsko, A. (2010). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 71.

[8] Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450–680 A.D. Meyendorff, John (1989). Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

[9] Latin etymologists explain that persona comes from per-sonare as “the mask through which (per) resounds the voice (of the actor).” Category of the Person Mouss, Marcel (1985). Cambridge University Press. p. 14.

[10] Analytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, and Jung, Volume 1: The Development of the Personality. Bishop, Paul (July 30, 2007). Taylor & Francis. pp. 157–158.

[11] The Category of the person: anthropology, philosophy, history. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press. 1985.

[12] “The Etruscan Phersu – phersuminiatures“

[13] Introduction: Legal Bodies: Corpus/Persona/Communitas. Horsman, Yasco; Korsten, Frans-Willem (2016-09-01). Law & Literature. 28 (3): 277–285.

[14] Noetus (Νοητός) was a priest of the church of Asia Minor about AD 230. He was a native of Smyrna, where (or perhaps in Ephesus) he became a prominent representative of modalistic monarchianism or patripassianism.

[15] Praxeas (Πραξέας) lived during the end of the 2nd century/beginning of the 3rd century in Asia Minor. He believed in the unity of the Godhead and vehemently disagreed with any attempt at division of the personalities or personages of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Christian Church. He was opposed by Tertullian in his tract Adversus Praxean (Against Praxeas)

[16] Sabellius was a third-century priest and theologian who most likely taught in Rome, but may have been a North African from Libya. Basil and others call him a Libyan from Pentapolis, but this seems to rest on the fact that Pentapolis was a place where his teachings thrived, according to Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 260). What is known of Sabellius is drawn mostly from the polemical writings of his opponents. He taught that God was single and indivisible, with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three modes or manifestations of one divine Person.

[17] In Latin, which is lacking a present participle of the verb ‘to be’, two main corresponding variants occurred. Since the Aristotelian term ousia was commonly translated in Latin as essentia (essence) or substantia (substance), the Greek term homoousios was consequently translated into Latin as consubstantialis, hence the English term consubstantial.

[18] Ironically, it appears that we owe the invention of the term homoousios to Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης) who was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who taught from 117 to 138 AD. The gnostic use of the term was completely different, in that they supposed that it was the nature of God to create things similar to himself. Thus, for them, a true homoousios was an emanation- same substance meant same individual.

[19] The Cappadocian Fathers were a trio of Byzantine Christian prelates, theologians and monks who helped shape both early Christianity and the monastic tradition: Basil the Great (330–379) was Bishop of Caesarea; Basil’s younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) was Bishop of Nyssa; and a close friend, Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390), became Patriarch of Constantinople. The Cappadocia region, in modern-day Turkey, was an early site of Christian activity.

[20] Apollinarism or Apollinarianism is a Christological position proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea that argues that Jesus had a human body and sensitive human soul, but a divine mind and not a human rational mind, the Divine Logos taking the place of the latter. It was deemed heretical by the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and virtually died out within the following decades

[21] Some theologians, collectively known as the semi-Arians, opposed St Athanasius and argued for the term ὁμοιούσιος (homoioúsios) or an alternative uncontracted form ὁμοιοούσιος (homoiooúsios); from ὅμοιος (hómoios “similar”), rather than ὁμός (homós “same”) in order to emphasize distinctions among the three persons in the Godhead.

[22] “St Basil the Great, Letters – Third Part – Full text, in English – 1”. www.elpenor.org.

[23] Ibid. – 39″. www.elpenor.org.