Consubstantiality

Consubstantiality, a term derived from consubstantialitas, denotes identity of substance or essence in spite of difference in aspect. It appears most commonly in its adjectival form, "consubstantial", from Latin consubstantialis, and its best-known use is in regard to an account, in Christian theology, of the relation between Jesus Christ and God the Father. The affirmation that Jesus Christ is "consubstantial with the Father" appears in the Nicene Creed. Greek was the language in which the Nicene Creed was originally enunciated. The word used was ὁμοούσιος (homoousios) and means "same substance." This may be contrasted with the term ὁμοιούσιος (homoiousios), meaning "of like substance " and, therefore, not the "same substance," as was proposed, for example, at a later church council at Seleucia in the year 359. The word "consubstantial", was used by the Council of Chalcedon (451) also to declare that Christ is "consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us in respect of the manhood". In contemporary Christian theology, the Holy Spirit is also described as consubstantial with the Father and Son. In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, the adjective "consubstantial" in the Nicene Creed is rendered by the phrase "being of one substance". The same phrase appeared already in the Book of Common Prayer (1549) and continues to be used, within "Order Two", in Common Worship, which within "Order One" gives the ecumenical English Language Liturgical Consultation version, "of one Being". The Eastern Orthodox Church use "of one essence". The Catholic Church, in its official translation of the Nicene Creed, keeps the term "consubstantial". In rhetoric, "consubstantiality", as defined by Kenneth Burke, is "a practice-related concept based on stylistic identifications and symbolic structures, which persuade and produce acceptance: an acting-together within, and defined by, a common context".