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Glossary of Terms GLOSSARY OF TERMS Agnus-the image of a lamb as symbolically representing Christ. The fuller Latin locution is, A gnus Dei, which translates, Lamb of God. Analogies of the Trinity-similarities or likenesses to the Trinity drawn from various areas of experience or from the created world. Augustine is famous for his many analogies drawn to the Trinity in his, De Trinitate. Apophatic-a negative (apophasis) approach to knowing (agnosia) begins when one recognizes that God is a mystery. It is contrasted by Pseudo­ Dionysius the Areopagite (c.500) with the cataphatic theology of affirmation involving rational understanding. Arianism-the doctrine of Arius, an Alexandrian of the 4th century, who taught that Jesus was not of the same substance as God, but only the best of created beings. Cambridge Platonism-scholars at Cambridge University who defended their Christian beliefs about the Trinity and Incarnation in response to atheists and deists. They included Benjamin Whichote, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, John Smith, Peter Sterry, and Nathaniel Culverwell. John Norris and Joseph Glanville were Oxonian scholars later added to this list. Cataphatic-see apophatic. Cappadocians/Cappadocianism-the tradition championed by three brilliant leaders of philosophical Christian orthodoxy in the later 41h century, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. Their influence led to the defeat of Arianism (see Arianism) at the Council of Constantinople of 381 A.D. Chalcedonian Councii/Chalcedonianism-The Church Council of 451 A.D. which formulated and defended the view which affirms that the two natures of Christ (human and divine) are without confusion, without change, without division and without separation. Christology-The doctrine of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity for Christian faith. Circumincession-the word denotes the mutual immanence of the three persons of the Trinity, their reciprocal interiority, and their unceasing vital presence to each other. It is a spelling out of the perichoretic relation that holds among the members of the Trinity (see perichoresis). Circuminsession-stresses the abiding/continuing reality of the dynamic circulation of the members of the Trinity. It is a fleshing out of the perichoretic relation in an abiding way (see perichoresis). 239 240 GLOSSARY OF TERMS Communicatio idiomatum-the doctrine that the human and divine attributes are predicable of the same individual. Consubstantiality-sharing in a substance with, as for example the Son is viewed as sharing with the Father. Councils, the Seven-Nicea I (325 A.D.), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople ll (553), Constantinople ill (681), Nicea ll (787). The Seven Councils of the Orthodox Church (according to the historical reckoning of Orthodoxy) mark off the main set of doctrinal beliefs of Orthodoxy. Count noun-individual things (substances) belong to kinds. (They may be, for example, tables, or persons, or planets). A count noun is a word such as "table," "person," "planet," so called because it enables us to count members of the kind and say that there are (for example) ten tables, or nine planets. By contrast, stuff such as water or air or gold is not an individual substance (although a substance may be made out of it) and so one cannot count water, only pints of water or bottles containing water. Words such as "water," "air," and "gold," are mass nouns. Deism-a term which was equivalent in meaning to theism before the 1700s, but later in the 17th and 181h centuries came to mean the view that God creates the world and lets it develop on its own. British representatives incuded: Anthony Collins, John Tolland, Herbert of Cherbury, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Chubb. On the Continenent Voltaire and Reimarus were representatives. In America the list included Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer. Economic Trinity-the view which distinguishes between the different persons of the Trinity by their different roles in respect to Creation and Redemption, but which also involves the further claim that this picture of roles provides no access to or knowledge of the eternal nature of God. Filioque-an expression which translates the phrase, "and the Son," which was inserted in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed after the words "proceeds from the Father," to convey the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and the Son. This addition crept into the Creed in the Western Church without receiving any approval of any council recognized by the Orthodox Church. Hesychasm-Hesychasts claimed that in their prayer of silence they had direct access to God described in a negative rather than positive way. The propriety of this kind of prayer (with the details of the way in which it was practiced), was the subject of great controversy in the Orthodox Church in the middle of the 14th Century. GLOSSARY OF TERMS 241 Homoousion-of one substance, a term used in the Nicene Creed to express the relation between the Father and the Son as one that involves a sharing of one substance, originally designed to rule out Arianism. Hypostasis/hypostatic-literally, substance, carrying the meaning, having objective reality, as opposed to involving illusion. In early Christian thought, it is used to denote a reality, a substantive reality. Earlier, it wasn't distinguished from ousia (substance), but in the middle of the 4th century A.D., it was contrasted with ousia, and had the meaning, individual reality, especially in Trinitarian and Christological contexts. Icon-a picture of God, Christ, or the saints, used to convey doctrine, and an object of veneration in the Orthodox tradition. Identity of indiscernibles-the principle that, if a and b have all their properties in common, then they are the same thing. This can be spelled out in different ways according to what counts as a property. Kenoticlkenosis-the emptying of certain divine properties in the condescension contemplated in the Incarnation and alluded to in Philippians 2, 5-7. There, Christ is spoken of as having "emptied himself." lAtin Trinity-a view of the Trinity which emphasizes the unity of the Persons forming one Godhead, and rejects the social metaphor of persons dwelling together as a unitary society in loving community. Mass term/mass nouns-see count nouns. Missio dei-the chief agent behind missions is the Trinitarian God, and humans derive their missionary task from God by his permission and commission. Modalism-the view that the Persons of the Trinity are only modes of a unitary God, not distinct persons or substances. Monotheism-the view that there is only one God, in contrast to polytheism, the view that there is more than one God, perhaps many. Neo-Nicene-a new slant on Nicenism, see Nicene. Nicene-the Council of Nicaea of 325 A.D. primarily focused on Arianism and its refutation. It is this creedal statement which includes the term, homoousios, one substance, stressing that the Son is of one substance with the Father, and hence is divine. Orthodoxy-has at least two meanings: (1) orthodox in the sense that a teaching conforms to a correct understanding of the Scriptures; (2) Orthodox as a name for the Eastern Church, that branch of the church which gradually separated off from what became the Roman Catholic Church in the 11th Century. (In this latter sense, the word is often written with a capital 0). Patriarchate(s/Patriarch( s) )-a self-governing ( autocephalous) church group in the Orthodox faith, of which there are four ancient Patriarchates, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and nine 242 GLOSSARY OF TERMS additional ones, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Albania, and five which do not possess full independence, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Sinai, Finland, Japan and China. A Patriarch is the head of a Patriarchate. Perichoresis-has two meanings: (1) perichoresis fuseon, the interpenetration of the two natures of Christ, human and divine; (2) perichoresis upostaton, the interpenetration of the Persons of the Trinity. Literally, perichoresis means, rotation, or, to go around. It is a term that gained currency among the Scholastics, and regarding the Trinity, signifies the close, intimate loving exchange that is shared by the Members of the Trinity. Persona-person, the equivalent in Latin patristic theology of the Greek term, prosopon, literally, face. Philokalia-the collection of 4th-15 1h Century texts compiled jointly by St. Nicodemos of Mount Athos (1748-1809) and St. Marios of Corinth and was first pubished in 1782. Pneumatalogical-having to do with the spirit, or more especially, the Holy Spirit. Pneumatomachi-heretics of the 4th century who denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. Powers-also energies, manifestations of God in the physical universe. Prosopon-literally, face, countenance, and having the meaning in the context of discourses on the Trinity of an individual person. Relative identity-an account of identity according to which things (substances) are not simply the same or not the same as each other, but may be the same such-and-such but not the same so-and-so. For example, on this account, a famous monument (Cleopatra's Needle, made of stone) may be the same monument as a later one on the same site made of bronze, but not the same lump of stone which was removed from the site and placed somewhere else. In other words, whether one object is the same as another object has no definite answer until we specify the kind of object involved. Rus'-Russia, Russian. Sabellianism-the view of Sabellius, and an alternative term for Modalism, which is a form of Monarchianism, a movement of the 2"d and 3rd centuries, which attempted to safeguard the unity of the Godhead, but failed to do justice to the independent subsistence of the Son.
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