PERSONA. — Indicates the dignity of the subsistent spiritual nature: “Persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura, scilicet subsistens in rationali natura” (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 29, a. 3). In Greek, as Boethius recalls, it was the “mask” that actors wore on their faces (πρόσωπον) when representing stage characters; the Latin term p. “dicta est a personando, quia concavitate ipsa maior necesse est ut volvatur sonus” (Boethius, De duabus naturis, chap. 3: PL 64, 1344). Traditional in Latin theology is Boethius’s definition: “P. est rationalis naturae individua substantia” (PL 64, 1343). Less well known is the other definition recalled by St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 29, a. 3 ad 2): “P. est hypostasis proprietate distincta ad dignitatem pertinente,” which belongs to Alan of Lille ([v.]; cf. Theologicae regulae, § 32: PL 210, 637). Since hypostasis (v.) is the complete individual nature, p. is the rational hypostasis: “Ideo omne individuum rationalis naturae dicitur persona” (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 29, a. 3 ad 2). In the strict sense, therefore, from the metaphysical point of view, p. adds to hypostasis only the qualification of the honor proper to rational nature, and not a new constitutive ontological principle (cf. ibid., ad 1). The concept of p., therefore, in its metaphysical content coincides with that of hypostasis or subsistence (hoc aliquid, 1682 71; Aristotle, Met., VII, 13, 1038 b 24), and is distinguished from “nature” (v.), both universal and individual, inasmuch as the latter in creatures is indeed the fundamental constituent of beings, but is not yet subsistent in itself: in order to subsist, singular nature requires accidents and the act of being.
Thus human nature in Christ is indeed singular, but is not p., precisely because it is assumed and subsists in the divine p. of the Word; whereas in the Holy Trinity (v.) the one and identical nature subsists in three divine Persons, who are distinguished through the opposition of relations. The heresies and controversies concerning the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation originated in the uncertain determination of the meaning of and the respective relations among “nature,” “substance,” “hypostasis,” and p., also because the Greek terms do not always have an adequate correspondence in the Latin language, according to the wise admonition of St. Thomas (cf. Contra errores Graecorum, Proemium).
Only with Christianity, freedom (v.) to man, that is, the ultimate end (v.) and therefore full responsibility for his actions, does the concept of p. attain its final requirement: the “dominion” that the spirit exercises over bodies (Sum. Theol., 1°, q. 39, a. 1). In the Greek world, man is subject to the laws of “fate” (εὐμικέτης) and “necessity” (ἀνάγνη), which even the gods cannot alter: “providence” (πρόνοια), to which the later Greek philosophy resorts (Stoics, Neoplatonists), does necessity (v.), but merely carries out the plan of each person’s destiny (cf. W. Chase Greene, Moira, Fate, Good and Evil in Greek thought, Cambridge 1944, pp. 313, 378).
Some among the neo-Scholastics have sought to introduce a individual (v.) and p., insofar as the individual concerns the material aspect of the single person with his animal and egoistic instincts, whereas p. expresses the higher life in the relationship that the individual has toward God and society (Maritain, Garrigou-Lagrange, Gillet, Delos). Nevertheless, on the metaphysical plane, the unity of the being and the principle characteristic of Thomism must remain firm: the same spiritual soul, as the substantial form of the body, is the source in man of every act and perfection, not only in the intellectual sphere but also in the sensory and biological spheres (Q. de anima, a. 11, c.). It is only from the functional, not the strictly ontological, point of view that the human soul transcends the body (Q. de spirit. creat., a. 2 ad 2); and in this sense St. Thomas maintains, Platonism (v.), that human perfection requires the body, and therefore that corporeal individuality has constitutive and positive value (loc. cit., a. 2, ad 5).
This ontological distinction and opposition between individual and p., however, receives the approval of transcendental idealism, especially of the Hegelian variety. According to it, the “individual” is the immediacy of appearance, which must “vanish” or “remove itself,” through mediation, into the absolute personality of the Idea or universal Spirit: for Hegel, the individual is a “form of evil” (cf. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 139: ed. E. Gans, Berlin 1840, pp. 179 ff.). The sole p., subject of rights, is the State. existentialism (v.) has the precise aim of recovering the notion of p. as a spiritual individual, the primary subject of freedom, against idealist nullification: KIERKEGAARD, SOEREN AABYE (v.) in particular, the “individual” is the “Christian category par excellence, with which the cause of Christianity stands or falls” (cf. Diario, Italian trans., I, Brescia 1948, pp. 343, 392 ff.). The dialectic of p., understood as communication in the “I–Thou” relation, is also present in Feuerbach’s anti-Hegelian polemic (cf. Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft, 62: “Die wahre Dialektik ist kein Monolog... sie ist ein Dialog zwischen Ich und Du”; ed. Bohlin-Jodl, II, Stuttgart 1904, p. 319), but it was developed particularly in a phenomenological sense by Max Scheler (Natur und Wesen der Sympathie, 5th ed., Frankfurt a. M. 1948, especially pp. 252 ff.) and in a theological sense by M. Buber (Ich und Du, in Dialogisches Leben, Zurich 1947, pp. 13 ff.). personalism (v.) of E. Mounier (v.), p. is characterized by the transcendence that it exercises over its “empirical conditions” and by the subjection that, as a creature, it owes to God as the infinite reality that transcends it (E. Mounier, Liberté sous conditions, Paris 1946, pp. 66 ff.).
In left-wing or neutral existentialism, by contrast, the ontological dimension of p. is bent toward a general orientation to “being itself” (Sein selbst: Heidegger) or toward “the all-encompassing” (Das Umgreifende: Jaspers), or is simply shattered in the antithesis between “the subject” and “the other” (en soi e pour soi, autrui: Sartre): in this way existentialism renounces its most substantial metaphysical claim against idealism (cf. F. J. von Rintelen, Philosophie der Endlichkeit, Meinsheim-Glan 1951, p. 416).
The meaning and structure of the problems of spiritual life, ethics, and politics depend on the notion of p.; consequently, this notion is not so much a point of arrival for philosophical reflection as the criterion and necessary point of reference according to which every philosophy tests its validity.
BIBLI: L. Schütz, s. v., in Thomas Lexikon, 2° ed., Paderborn 1895, p. 202 sgg.; W. Stern, Person und Sache, 3 voll., Lippia 1906-24; A. Trendelenburg, Zur Geschichte des Wortes Person, in Kant-Studien, 13 (1908), p. 1 sgg.; A. Rupp, Begriff und Problem der Persönlichkeit, ibid., 16 (1911), p. 258 sgg.; R. Hirzel, Die Person, Begriff und Name derselben im Altertum, Monaco 1914; H. Rheinfelder, Das Wort Person, Geschichte seiner Bedeutungen, Halle 1928; R. Eisler, Wörter, d. philos. Begriffe, II, 4° ed., Berlino 1929, p. 393 sgg.; Fr. Altheim, Persons, in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Berlino 1929, p. 35 sgg.; N. Hartmann, Das Problem der geistigen Seine, Berlino e Lippia 1933, p. 141 sgg.; P. Descous e collaboratori, Autour de la personne humaine (Archives de philosophie, 15, 11), Parigi 1938; Th. Steinbüchel, Die philosophische Grundlegung der hath. Sittenlehre, Düsseldorf 1938, p. 337 sgg.; C. H. Ratschov, Die Einheit der Person, Halle 1938; Fr. Tillman, Die Idee der Nachfolge Christi, 3° ed., Düsseldorf 1949, p. 57 sgg.; N. Hartmann, Ethik, 3° ed., Berlino 1949, specialmente 227 sgg.; O. Derini, La persona, Su esencia, su vida y su mundo, La Plata 1950; L. Paryson, Esistenza e p., Torino 1950; L. Stefanini, Metafisica della p., Padova 1950, Cornelio Fabro