Nature Niceph. Call.,
Hist. xviii. 51, speaks of this Hymn and also the φῶς
ἱλαρόν as coming from the
Apostles themselves. The writer of the Life of Basil supposed to
be Amphilochius of Iconium, declares that the Trisagium was
recited by Basil at Nicæa. is regarded either
abstractly as a matter of pure thought ἢ ψιλῇ θεωρί&
139·
κατανοεῖται.
(for it has no independent existence): or commonly in all
subsistences of the same species as their bond of union, and is then
spoken of as nature viewed in species: or universally as the
same, but with the addition of accidents, in one subsistence, and is
spoken of as nature viewed in the individual, this being identical with
nature viewed in species This division is
absent in some copies and is not restored in the old translation, but
is not superfluous.. God the
Word Incarnate, therefore, did not assume the nature that is regarded
as an abstraction in pure thought (for this is not incarnation, but
only an imposture and a figment of incarnation), nor the nature viewed
in species (for He did not assume all the subsistences): but
the nature viewed in the individual, which is identical with that
viewed in species. For He took on Himself the elements of our
compound nature, and these not as having an independent existence or as
being originally an individual, and in this way assumed by Him, but as
existing in His own subsistence. For the subsistence of God the
Word in itself became the subsistence of the flesh, and accordingly
“the Word became flesh St. John i. 14.” clearly
without any change, and likewise the flesh became Word without
alteration, and God became man. For the Word is God, and man is
God, through having one and the same subsistence. And so it is
possible to speak of the same thing as being the nature of the Word and
the nature in the individual. For it signifies strictly and
exclusively neither the individual, that is, the subsistence, nor the
common nature of the subsistences, but the common nature as viewed and
presented in one of the subsistences.