On the other hand he writes, “We worship the
Father of the Truth, and the Son who is the Truth, being in subsistence
(τῇ
ὑποστάσει)
two Contra Celsum,
viii. p. 386..” On this passage Bishop Bull
remarks: “The words ὑπόστασις and
οὐσία in ancient
times were variously used, at least by the Christians. That is to
say, sometimes ὑπόστασις was
taken by them for what we call οὐσία, and vice
versa, οὐσία for what we call
ὑπόστασις:
sometimes the ancients even before the Council of Nicæa used
ὑπόστασις
for what we now call ‘person’ or
‘subsistence Def. Fid. Nic.
II. c. 9, § 11.’.”
This Bishop Bull presently explains again as “an individual thing
subsisting by itself, which in rational beings is the same as
person.”