But Monarchy is that which we hold in
honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one
Person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come
into a condition of plurality; Billius and
others here read Authority, which is not supported by the best
mss., or by the context. but one which is
made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind, and an identity of
motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity—a thing which
is impossible to the created nature—so that though numerically
distinct there is no severance of Essence. Therefore
Unity Elias explains this to
mean that of old men knew only One Person in the Godhead: and
until the Incarnation this knowledge was sufficient; but from that time
forward they acknowledged a Second Person, and through Him a Third
also, the Holy Ghost. But this explanation falls far short of
Gregory’s meaning, which certainly is that the movement of
self-consciousness in God from all Eternity made the Generation of the
Son, and the Procession of the Holy Ghost, a necessity. All is
objective in God. cf. Petav. de Deo, II., viii., 16; also, Greg.
Naz., Or. xxiii. 5. having from all eternity arrived by motion
at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by
Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and the
Emitter; προβολεὺς-προβολὴ
was a term used by the Gnostics to describe the Emanations by which the
distance between the Finite and the Infinite was according to them
bridged over; and on this account it fell under suspicion, and was
rejected by both Arius and Athanasius. Tertullian used it with an
explanation which is satisfactory as regards the προβολὴ of the Son;
but when he comes to apply it to the Procession of the Holy Ghost he
uses an illustration which is in almost the very words rejected by
Gregory (c. Prax., 7, 8. See Swete, p. 56). Origen did not
admit it. Later when this danger was past, the word came into use
again as the equivalent of ἐκπόρευσις,
at first with reserve and explanations in the text, but later on as an
accepted term. See Swete ,“On The Doctrine Of The Holy
Spirit,” p. 36. without passion of
course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal
manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Ghost the Emission;
for I know not how this could be expressed in terms altogether
excluding visible things. For we shall not venture to speak of
“an overflow of goodness,” as one of the Greek Philosophers
dared to say, as if it were a bowl overflowing, and this in plain words
in his Discourse on the First and Second Causes. The expression is from
Plato. Let us not ever look on this
Generation as involuntary, like some natural overflow, hard to be
retained, and by no means befitting our conception of Deity.
Therefore let us confine ourselves within our limits, and speak of the
Unbegotten and the Begotten and That which proceeds from the Father, as
somewhere God the Word Himself saith.