89. To Bernard and his Monks , , *

Anselm, by the grace of God archbishop, to the Lord Prior Bernard and the other brethren living in the monastery of St Alban, greeting and blessing.

The brethren sent to me by your affection reported that some doubt had arisen among you, and some discussion, because in the writings of the Catholic Fathers you sometimes find it said that in Christ God and man are united in one substance, and again sometimes, that two substances, the divine and the human, are one person in Christ. It may seem a contradiction that in one substance should be human nature and divine, so as to be one person, and two substances in the same person; but if it be rightly understood how they say one substance is in Christ more than one nature, or more than one substance one person, it will be seen that there is nothing contradictory there. For we believe in one God, and confess Him to be Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now when we say one God, we only say one and so we understand. But when we say Father and Son and Holy Ghost, we say and believe more; but we have the command of God that we ought to say God in the singular and not as more than one, as it is written: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." But of those three, that is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we find not in prophet, or apostle, or evangelist, that under one name they name them in the plural, whereby they would signify that plurality which we understand in them; they never say they are three persons, or three substances, or three almighties, or anything of this kind. From this want the Catholic Fathers when they spoke of those three, chose out all by which those three could be named plurally. The Greeks chose the name "substance," the Latins the name "person;" but wholly so as that what we understand by "person," that and no other do they understand by "substance." There fore as we say that in God there are three persons in one substance, so they say that there are three sub stances in one person, neither understanding nor believing anything different from what we do. Therefore since they have not names by which they could properly signify those three, as I said before, when the Greeks said there were three substances, but we said three persons, both gave to the two names as in reference to God that meaning which was most generally understood among them by that word, and which they could not really express by any word. Thus therefore as we say that there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost, and that in that wherein the Son of God is other than the Father, He is not other than the Virgin's Son, but is one and the same; He is a Per son other than the Father, and not other than the Son of the Virgin, but the same Person: so the Greeks say that the Word, which is the Son of God, is another substance than the Father, and not another than took man's nature. When therefore we find in the writings of Catholic Fathers that there are in Christ more natures than one, but one substance; and when again we find that there are more than one substance, but one person; we do not take the word "substance" in the same sense; but when we say "one substance," we under stand the same as by the word "person." But when we say there are in Him more than one substance, but one person, we mean by the word "substance '' the same as what we meant by the word "nature." On this account therefore, since the faith of Greeks and Latins is one and the same, they sometimes say "person," although the Latins rarely do this. But that the Greeks predicate in God one Person, three substances, is declared by St Augustine in his book "On the Trinity." I think I have sufficiently answered what you asked, my brethren, so far as I understand the question to be discussed among you, although much might have been said about Trinity and plurality, — how the Word is One with the Father and yet not One alone, and One alone with the human nature He took, and yet not One.