Person

Person (Lat. persona, 'a mask') came to be applied to the person wearing the mask, and thus to mean a personage, an individual, a numerically distinct being. In theology there is a special use of the word for the three Persons of the Trinity (q.v.). The name Persona, Person, was first applied to the Trinity by the Latins; the corresponding Greek word, Prosōpon, being of later use. The earlier Greek Fathers used the word Hypostasis, 'substance,' where the Latins used Persona, and considerable controversy for a time grew out of this diverse use; after the condemnation of the Sabellian heresy, and still more after the Council of Nicea, all ambiguity of words being at an end, the controversy turned upon the substance of the doctrine, in the form of the Arian controversy. See ARIUS.