55 v. l. The Form of God, which would refer to the occasion cited below. The reading is grammatically easier, as an accusative is required; but in that case we might have expected the wrestling with the Angel to have been mentioned first, as the name Penuel was given by Jacob on the day following the night in which he wrestled, and received his own change of name. The Benedictines, while retaining House in text and version, express a preference for Form, because the subject of the argument is the Vision of God.
56 1 Kgs. xix. 11, 12. LXX. has a Sound of a Light breeze.
62 v. l. Orders, i.e. of angles.
63 This is a quotation from the LX.. of Jer. xxiii. 18, where for u 9posth/mati Aqula has a'porrh/tw and Symmachus o 9mili/a, (according to Trommius). u 9po/sthma properly means a Station of troops, and such is the meaning in the other two places where the word occurs in the LXX., viz.: - 2Sam. xxiii. 14, and 1 Chron. xi. 16. The Hebrew word which it represents in this passage is one of frequent use, and means "a Council," or, in a sense derived from this, Familiar Intercourse. In Job xv. 8 it is rendered in A.V. The Secret of God, where the LXX.. has su/ntagua. The Vulgate in both cases has Concilium Dei; the Benedictines however render it Substance. A.V.. has Counsel, and in marg. Secret; while R.V. reads Council, with no marginal alternative.
69 S. John xxi. 25. By a curious slip of the tongue S. Gregory here attributes to the Baptist words of the Evangelist.
70 cf. Petav. de Deo, iii., c. 7.
76 v. l. And how the soul is carried round.
78 Gregory is not here speaking of the immorality of the individual soul, but of that of the Race, which it shares with other animals, and which is effected by continual succession.
79 The Benedictines here insert Some well protected: but it is their own conjecture, and is not found in the Manuscripts.
81 The allusion is to a group made by Daedalus for Ariadne, representing a chorus of youths and maidens, which seemed to be moving in musical rhythm. It is described by Homer (Il., xviii., 592 sqq.).
2 Billius and others here read Authority, which is not supported by the best Mss., or by the context.
3 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 selfconsciousness 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.
4 gproboleu\j-probolh; 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 probolh; 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. 560. Origen did not admit it. Later when this danger was past, the word came into use again as the equivalent of e'kpo/reuoij, 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.
5 The expression is from Plato.
6 Elias explains this to refer to the fact that children leave and are left by parents; or else to the death of either one or the other.
9 This is the Arian dilemma, "Did the Son exist before he was begotten?"
11 cf. Petavius De Trin., V. ii., 2.
12 The Manichaeans, who believed in two eternal principles of good and evil, light and darkness, held that darkness too was unbegotten (Elias).
13 Because "Son" implies "begotten" But (ex hyp.) "Unbegotten" is synonymous with "God."
15 The Benedictines here translate lo/yw by "Scripture," on the ground that Reason is not competent to assert the Divinity of the Word.
16 Or as the schoolmen say the fallacy is, A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, one of the many forms of Undistributed Middle Term. Petavius, however (De Trin.. II., v., 12), pronounces the argument of this section unsatisfactory.