s were designated by the Latins with the term
_persona_ and by the Greeks with [Greek: prosopa]. But the Greeks
far more clearly gave to the individual subsistence of a rational nature
the name [Greek: hupostasis] while we through want of appropriate words
have kept a borrowed term, calling that _persona_ which they call
[Greek: hupostasis]; but Greece with its richer vocabulary gives the
name [Greek: hupostasis] to the individual subsistence. And, if I may
use Greek in dealing with matters which were first mooted by Greeks
before they came to be interpreted in Latin: [Greek: hai ousiai en men
tois katholou einai dunantai. en de tois atomois kai kata meros monois
huphistantai], that is: essences indeed can have potential existence in
universals, but they have particular substantial existence in
particulars alone. For it is from particulars that all our comprehension
of universals is taken. Wherefore since subsistences are present in
universals but acquire substance in particulars they rightly gave the
name [Greek: hupostasis] to subsistences which acquired substance
through the medium of particulars. For to no one using his eyes with any
care or penetration will subsistence and substance appear identical.

For our equivalents of the Greek terms [Greek: ousiosis ousiosthai] are
respectively _subsistentia_ and _subsistere_, while their
[Greek: hupostasis huphistasthai] are represented by our
_substantia_ and _substare_. For a thing has subsistence when
it does not require accidents in order to be, but that thing has
substance which supplies to other things, accidents to wit, a substrate
enabling them to be; for it "substands" those things so long as it is
subjected to accidents. Thus genera and species have only subsistence,
for accidents do not attach to genera and species. But particulars have
not only subsistence but substance, for they, no more than generals,
depend on accidents for their Being; for they are already provided with
their proper and specific differences and they enable accidents to be by
supplying them with a substrate. Wherefore _esse_ and
_subsistere_ represent [Greek: einai] and [Greek: ousiosthai],
while _substare_ represents [Greek: huphistasthai]. For Greece is
not, as Marcus Tullius[62] playfully says, short of words, but provides
exact equivalents for _essentia, subsistentia, substantia_ and
_persona_--[Greek: ousia] for _essent