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Asking Merriam Webster's Dictionary

Here is what Webster's has to say about the etymology of the noun person:

Middle English, from Old French persone, from Latin persona actor's mask, character in a play, person, probably from Etruscan phersu mask, from Greek prosOpa, plural of prosOpon face, mask

Trinity

by Traute Klein, biogardener

The English language has a problem when it comes to the nature of God, because of the phrase "the three persons of the Trinity." To understand how that relates to one God rather than three, we have to look at the original meaning of the word "person."

Trinity? That's Three!

The misunderstandings of the concept of "Trinity" is unique to the English language because of the use of the phrase "the three persons of the Trinity." Other languages do not have this problem. In German, for example, we say "Dreieinigkeit," literally "Three Oneness" without ever using the word "person" at all. In English, too, we refer to the "Triune God." So what is the problem?

The word "person" comes to the English via the Latin word "persona" which means "mask." It later came to mean the role an actor plays on the stage. I learned this from my junior high Latin teacher in Germany whose surname happened to be "Person."

He explained to us the original meaning of his name "Person" like this. The word does not refer to an individual but to the mask which an actor in a Greek drama holds in front of his face as he acts out a certain role. When he changes roles in the play, he holds a different mask. It is this mask which is called "person." In the same way, the three persons of the trinity are the three masks which the one God wears as he manifests himself to mankind, Spirit, Father, and Son.

Seeing that this God has created us in his image, he has also created us in three persons, i.e. with three manifestations, but as one unique being: Spirit, Soul, Body, and the Bible refers to them in that order rather than in the reverse which psychologists prefer to talk about. No one appears to have a problem understanding the part of the human trichotomy, so why the problem understanding God?

Gradually, the word "person" came to mean not the mask but the being behind the mask, and that is where we run into a problem. In modern English, the three persons of the Trinity seem to refer to three beings rather than to three manifestations of one being.

A Children's Story

On a Trinity Sunday several years ago, I taught the concept of "Trinity" in a children's story in an Anglican church, and no one had any more problems understanding it after the lesson. Years later, people still tell me how much they appreciated that lesson.

I had made several masks on sticks to hold in front of my face as I was telling the story, because that is what Greek actors used to do. They would hold a different mask for every role which they played in a drama. The children realized that the "person" was still good old Traute, and not the mask, just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are still the same old God rather than three gods.

Triunity. That's One!

And the adults understood as well.

Challenge to You

If you don't believe what I have explained here, go to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and check the etymology of the word "person." I have also copied it for you at the bottom of the left column of this page.

P.S.

In case you have not noticed it yourself, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible.