The term is a direct reflection of patristic usage, particularly that of Augustine and Hilary. The Protestant scholastics tend to refer to Boethius’s definition but also to recognize its limitation and to offer alternatives such as suppositum intelligens or suppositum intellectuale, a self-subsistent intelligence; quod proprie subsistit, that which properly or of itself subsists; or modus subsistendi, a mode of subsisting. This last term reflects the Protestant scholastic interest in patristic theology,
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