The Patristic Notion of Person and Its Importance for Modern Culture

Abstract

The notion of Person was one of the novelties brought by Christianity. This notion played a central role in the formulation of a new understanding of man, but first and foremost, of a new understanding of God. The consequences of this new description of God and man are really extraordinary for the formation of modern mentality. If the origin of the notion comes from patristic times, a careful investigation into how it was constituted and shaped within this horizon offers us the grounds to better understand our relation with self, otherness, and God. But the indistinct superposition of some significations of this notion, which come from different ages and perspectives, has led to its rather imprecise and sometimes improper use. It is important today to clarify the notions of person that have been accepted thus far and there is a very interesting notion of person in the Byzantine and the post-Byzantine tradition (of what we call now the Eastern European region). To consider the human mode of existence as a type of reality, means to consider the person not as an aggregate of different parts (body-soul, etc.) but something distinct, and distinct from any other kind of existence. This understanding can provide interesting answers to the contemporary questions about the description and the understanding of God, or about the status and the meaning of human existence.