St. Ambrose has here rendered into Latin the anathema appended to the original Nicene Creed of 325 a.d. Notice “substance or οὐσία.” The original is substantia vel οὐσίᾳ. The closer Greek equivalent of substantia is ὑπόστασις (found in Heb. i. 3, and translated “person” in A.V.), whilst the Latin for οὐσία is essentia (“essence”). St. Ambrose appears to regard οὐσία as a proper equivalent of substantia, whence we may perhaps infer that he also identified οὐσία and ὑπόστασις in meaning. But some distinguished the two, using the term οὐσία in the sense of “essence” or “substance” (i.e., the Godhead) and ὑπόστασις in that of “person”—so that, according to them, there would be three “hypostases” in the unity of the Godhead.