Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/188

 and three persons,’ for the first used the word ‘hypostasis’ instead of πρόσωπος, persona, while the latter used it instead of οὐσία, substantia, essence.” (pp. 160 and 161.)

Farther on it says that if at first the words οὐσία, and υπόστασις were used differently, or rather, indifferently, in the sixth, seventh, and the following centuries the concept appears as generally accepted, that is hypostasis was used in reference to three, οὐσία to one. Thus, if I had the slightest hope of getting an explanation of what is to be understood by the word “person,” of that on the basis of which 1=3, I, after reading this exposition about the use of the words by the fathers, came to understand that such a definition (which is inevitably necessary for the comprehension of the Trinity) does not exist and cannot be; the fathers used words without ascribing any meaning to them, and so used them indiscriminately, now in one, and now in a contrary sense, and finally agreed not on the ideas, but on the words. The same is confirmed by what follows:

“But while the Orthodox teachers of the faith differed only in words, invariably professing one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in One, the heretics perverted—” (p. 162.)

That is, now without any farther explanation, One is equal to the Trinity, and the Trinity is equal to One. But the holy fathers professed:

“The heretics perverted the very idea of the dogma, some of them denying the trinity of persons in God, while others admitted three Gods.”

Again some say black, and others say white. Both are wrong, but we say, “Black is white, and white is black.” Why is it so? Why, because the church said so, that is, the tradition of those men who believe in that tradition. Here is the idea of the heretics who denied the Trinity:

“(a) Even during the life of the apostles: Simon the