A dictionary definition of Person is:
[from Middle English persone, from Old French, from Latin persona, literally an actor’s face mask, hence a character, person, probably from Etruscan phersu, a mask]
1. A human being, especially as distinguished from a thing or lower animal; individual man, woman, or child.
2. [Chiefly British] an individual regarded slightingly, as one of a lower status.
3. a) a living human body. b) bodily form or appearance [to be neat about one’s person].
4. personality; self; being.
5. Grammar: a) division into three sets of pronouns and, in most languages, corresponding verb forms. the use of which indicates and is determined by the identity of the subject.
b) any of these sets.
6. [Archaic] a role in a play; character
7. Law: any individual or incorporate group having certain legal rights and responsibilities
8. Theology: any of the three modes of being (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) in the Trinity
A dictionary definition of (Latin) Persona is:
[a mask, especially as worn by actors in Greek and Roman drama]
1. role, part, character, person represented by an actor
2. in general: the part which anyone plays
3. a personality, individuality, character
In Greek and Roman drama, the same actor could play more than one role (provided that the roles did not require being on the stage at the same time) using different facial masks and clothing—and, of course, speaking with a different voice.
There was an old custom of placing at the beginning of the text of a play a “Dramatis Personae,” a descriptive list of the characters in the play, not of the players themselves.
All this has something to do with how we understand the blessed Trinity, often described, as “one God in three divine persons.”
The way this sounds in contemporary language is very different from how it would have sounded many long centuries ago.
Should Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be more understood in the relatively modern sense of the word as distinct and separate individual persons?
Or, should they be more understood, from the long ago meaning of “person,” as referring to three different masks, aspects, roles of the same player?
Actually, it’s not an either-or situation; it’s more like a blend of both these and other understandings as they have evolved over the centuries.
Sometimes we refer to things like this as a “mystery”—not in the sense of a modern “Who-done-it?” but more as something that we somewhat, but not fully, understand.
In that, we’re a lot like the description that Shakespeare put into the mouth of Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.”
In the great drama of creation and existence, you could say that we are somewhat old-fashioned in that we are clearer about the Dramatis Personae, the descriptive list of all the characters in the play of life, then we are about the players themselves.
Anyway, we don’t have to know everything —and that exceeds our abilities in any case. But we do know for sure about the love of God for each of us and the work of God for our salvation!
6 August 2023