1. Etymology: history of the concept. The word “person” comes from the Latin persona, usually derived from the verb personare, “to sound through”, though this is not certain. In medieval philosophy it was sometimes said to come from per se una, which is certainly false. Modern philology links it with the Etruscan persu, a word found written beside a representation of two masked figures. It was used to translate the Greek πρόσωπον, face, first in the sense of the actor’s mask, which designated his role.

The theological and philosophical concept of perso…