4.  The non-identity of hypostasis and ousia is, I take it, suggested even by our western brethren, where, from a suspicion of the inadequacy of their own language, they have given the word ousia in the Greek, to the end that any possible difference of meaning might be preserved in the clear and unconfounded distinction of terms.  If you ask me to state shortly my own view, I shall state that ousia has the same relation to hypostasis as the common has to the particular.  Every one of us both shares in existence by the common term of essence (ousia) and by his own properties is such an one and such an one.  In the same manner, in the matter in question, the term ousia is common, like goodness, or Godhead, or any similar attribute; while hypostasis is contemplated in the special property of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the power to sanctify.  If then they describe the Persons as being without hypostasis, ἀνυπόστατα the statement is per se absurd; but if they concede that the Persons exist in real hypostasis, as they acknowledge, let them so reckon them that the principle of the homoousion may be preserved in the unity of the Godhead, and that the doctrine preached may be the recognition of true religion, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the perfect and complete hypostasis of each of the Persons named.  Nevertheless, there is one point which I should like to have pressed on your excellency, that you and all who like you care for the truth, and honour the combatant in the cause of true religion, ought to wait for the lead to be taken in bringing about this union and peace by the foremost authorities in the Church, whom I count as pillars and foundations of the truth and of the Church, and reverence all the more because they have been sent away for punishment, and have been exiled far from home.  Keep yourself, I implore you, clear of prejudice, that in you, whom God has given me as a staff and support in all things, I may be able to find rest. On the point treated of in this letter, cf. note on p. 5 and Letter xxxviii. p. 137.  But in the De S.S. cap. 38 (p. 23) St. Basil himself repudiates the assertion of three “original hypostases,” when he is apparently using ὑπόστασις in the Nicene sense.