hypostasis was taken over for this purpose. Nevertheless the change was more than verbal. Basil treated the difference between ousia and hypostasis as equivalent to that between common and proper nouns, as between "man" and "Peter, Paul, John, or James."[1] When it was objected that the term homoousios implied a kind of division and distribution of a previously existing substance, Basil replied, "The idea might have some application to brass and coins made of it; but in the case of the Father and of the Son the substance of one is not older than that of the other, neither can it be conceived as superimposed on both."[2] We must remember that the orthodox Greek theologians were Platonic in their spirit and thought, so that to them the idea corresponding to a general term was a high reality. Nevertheless, language such as this reveals a growing tendency to emphasise the numerical distinction between the persons in the Trinity. Surely Harnack goes too far when he regards this as virtually the adoption of the Semi-Arian position,[3] for the firm adhesion to the unity of the substance (the ousia) seems to preclude that amazing conclusion. But undoubtedly some approach to it was made, perhaps in part owing to the fact that most of the Semi-Arians were coming over to the orthodox Church. The final result was that without any formal divergence of doctrine, while in the West the emphasis was always laid on the unity of the Godhead, in the East it came to be put more on the division of the persons.
Gregory Nazianzen was in some respects the opposite, or the complement, to his friend Basil in nature and disposition. An indefatigable student, retiring and unambitious, he would never have come out into a position of responsibility if this course had not been forced upon him, or at all events reluctantly accepted by him under a strong sense of duty. He was born in the year 325, or a little later, at Nazianzus in Cappadocia, where his father, the elder
