Enhypostasia
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The state of the human nature of Jesus Christ being entirely dependent on, and not existing independently of, the divine nature of God as a whole (which is the hypostasis of the Holy Trinity comprising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit), or individual persons of the Trinity such as the Father and the Holy Spirit. no-plural
"The anhypostasia, impersonality, or, to speak more accurately, the enhypostasia, of the human nature of Christ. This is a difficult point, but a necessary link in the orthodox doctrine of the one God-Man; for otherwise we must have two persons in Christ, and, after the incarnation, a fourth person, and that a human, in the divine Trinity. The impersonality of Christ's human nature, however, is not to be taken as absolute, but relative, as the following considerations will show. […] The divine nature is therefore the root and basis of the personality of Christ. […] And the human nature of Christ had no independent personality of its own, besides the divine; it had no existence at all before the incarnation, but began with this act, and was so incorporated with the pre-existent Logos-personality as to find in this alone its own full self-consciousness, and to be permeated and controlled by it in every stage of its development."
Example
More examples"The anhypostasia, impersonality, or, to speak more accurately, the enhypostasia, of the human nature of Christ. This is a difficult point, but a necessary link in the orthodox doctrine of the one God-Man; for otherwise we must have two persons in Christ, and, after the incarnation, a fourth person, and that a human, in the divine Trinity. The impersonality of Christ's human nature, however, is not to be taken as absolute, but relative, as the following considerations will show. […] The divine nature is therefore the root and basis of the personality of Christ. […] And the human nature of Christ had no independent personality of its own, besides the divine; it had no existence at all before the incarnation, but began with this act, and was so incorporated with the pre-existent Logos-personality as to find in this alone its own full self-consciousness, and to be permeated and controlled by it in every stage of its development."
Etymology
Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin enhypostasia, from Ancient Greek ἐν (en, “in”) + ὑπόστασις (hupóstasis, “existence; essence; substance”) + -ία (-ía, suffix forming nouns). ὑπόστασις is in turn derived from ῠ̔πο- (hŭpo-, “below, under”) + στάσις (stásis, “standing”). Compare Ancient Greek ἐνυπόστατος (enupóstatos, “substantial”). The word is analysable as en- + hypostasis + -ia.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.