hypostasis

American  

[hahy-pos-tuh-sis, hi-] / haɪˈpɒs tə sɪs, hɪ- /

noun

hypostases plural

1. Metaphysics.

   1. something that stands under and supports; foundation.

   2. the underlying or essential part of anything as distinguished from attributes; substance, essence, or essential principle.

2. Theology.

   1. one of the three real and distinct substances in the one undivided substance or essence of God.

   2. a person of the Trinity.

   3. the one personality of Christ in which His two natures, human and divine, are united.

3. Medicine/Medical.

   1. the accumulation of blood or its solid components in parts of an organ or body due to poor circulation.

   2. such sedimentation, as in a test tube.

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hypostasis British  

/ haɪˈpɒstəsɪs, ˌhaɪpəˈstætɪk /

noun

1. metaphysics the essential nature of a substance as opposed to its attributes

2. Christianity

   1. any of the three persons of the Godhead, together constituting the Trinity

   2. the one person of Christ in which the divine and human natures are united

3. the accumulation of blood in an organ or part, under the influence of gravity as the result of poor circulation

4. another name for epistasis

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• hypostatic
  adjective
• hypostatically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• hypostases
  plural

Etymology

Origin of hypostasis

1580–90; < Late Latin < Greek hypóstasis that which settles at the bottom; substance, nature, essence, equivalent to hypo- hypo- + stásis standing, stasis

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hypostasis hypostases

This involved, of course, its hypostasis as the metaphysical reality of supreme importance.

From Creative Intelligence Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude by Bode, Boyd H.

Hence action and, in consequence, grace ordaining thereto, presuppose the hypostasis which operates.

From Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

In Plotinus it is the first stage in the unfoldment of the Godhead, and is a distinct hypostasis, though not a person.

From A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy by Husik, Isaac

Thus whether we say "man" or "God," the hypostasis of Divine and human nature is signified.

From Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

But the complete being with which it concurs is said to be a hypostasis or suppositum.

From Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

At the Council of Constantinople, 56 years later, church fathers responded to heresy by defining the divinity of the Holy Spirit and proclaiming that the three "persons," or hypostases, were coequal manifestations of one God.

From Time Magazine Archive

We are accordingly brought before the problem of how this one substance or essence stands to the several entities or hypostases known as faculties.

From Hegel's Philosophy of Mind by Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Maimonides, however, following his rationalistic method, declared them to be simply products of the imagination, the hypostases of figurative expressions which were not meant to be taken literally.

From Jewish Theology by Kohler, Kaufmann

And yet the most distinctive doctrine of Plotinus and the later Neo-Platonists among the Arabs, the series of emanating hypostases, Intellect, Universal Soul, Nature, Matter, and so on, is wanting in the "Hegyon ha-Nefesh."

From A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy by Husik, Isaac

So the divine persons are named supposita or "hypostases," but not as if there really existed any real "supposition" or "subjection."

From Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint