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3 E.g. S. Basil and S. Gregory of Nyssa.
5 presbeu/ein is not commonly used in this sense, but there are classical instances of it (e.g. Aesch. Choeph., 488; Soph., Trach., 1065, and it occurs also in Plato), and this is the sense in which it is here rendered by Billius; but a V. L. of some Mss. gives the meaning, whose cause we are pleading, which is more frequent use of the word.
13 It would seem that S. Gregory commonly confused Marcion with Marcus, one of the leaders of the Gnostic School of Valentinus. In another place he speaks of the Aeons of Marcion and Valentinus, evidently meaning Marcus; for the system of Marcion is characterized by an entire absence of any theory of Emanations (Aeons). Similarly there is no trace in Marcion of this notion of a hermaphrodite Deity, but there is something very like it in the account of Marcus given by S. Irenaeus.
14 John xv. 26. "It did not fall within this Father's (Greg. Naz.) province to develop the doctrine of the Procession. He is content to shew that the Spirit was not Generated, seeing that according to Christ's own teaching He Proceeds from the Father. The question of His relation to the Son is alien to S. Gregory Nazianzen's purpose; nor does it seem to have once been raised in the great battle between Arianism and Catholicity which was fought out at Constantinople during Gregory's Episcopate" (Swete on the Procession, p. 107)).
16 Sabellius, who taught at Rome during the Pontificate of Callistus, was by far the most important heresiarch of his period, and his opinions by far the most dangerous. While strongly emphasizing the fundamental doctrine of the Divine Unity, ye also admitted in terms a Trinity, but his Trinity was not that of the Catnolic dogma, for he represented it as only a threefold manifestation of the one Divine Essence. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are in his view only temporary phaenomena, which fulfil their mission, and then return into the abstract Monad. Dr. Schaff (Hist. of the Church, Ante-Nicene Period, p. 582) gives the following concise account of his teaching:
"The unity of God, without distinction in itself, unfolds or extends itself in the course of the word's development in three different forms and periods of revelation, and after the completion of redemption returns into Unity. The Father reveals Himself in the giving of the Law or the Old Testament Economy (not in the creation also, which in his view precedes the Trinitarian revelation): the Son in the Incarnation; the Holy Ghost in inspiration; the revelation of the Son ends with the Ascension: that of the Spirit goes on in generation and sanctification. He illustrates the Trinitarian revelation by comparing the Father to the disc of the sun, the Son to its enlightening power, the Spirit to its warming influence. He is also said to have likened the Father to the body, the Son to the soul, the Holy Ghost to the spirit of man: but this is unworthy of his evident speculative discrimination. His view of the Logos too is peculiar. The Logos is not identical with the Son, but is the Monad itself in its transition to Triad; that is, God conceived as vital motion and creating principle; the Speaking God, as distinguished from the Silent God. Each Person (or Aspect- the word is ambiguous) is another Uttering; and the Three Persons together are only successive evolutions of the Logos, or world-ward aspect of the Divine Nature. As the Logos proceeded from God, so He at last returns into Him, and the process of Trinitarian development closes."
18 i.e. the Phoenix. Hdt., ii. 37.
23 "Similarly it is clear concerning the Angels, that they have a being incapable of change, so far as pertains to their nature, with a capacity of change as to choice, and of intelligence and affections and places, in their own manner" (S. Thomas Aq., Summa, I., x., 5).
26 Petavius praises this dictum, De Trin., IV., xiii., 9.
27 sunariqmei!tai, as when you say Three Gods, or Three Men, and the like, as you do when you reckon up things of the same sort. On the other hand, you must use the plural number in reckoning up things which differ in kind.
30 This is the famous passage of the Witnesses in 1 John v. 8. In some few later codices of the Vulgate are found the words which form verse 7 of our A.V. But neither verse 7 nor these words are to be found in any Greek Ms. earlier than the Fifteenth Century: nor are they quoted by any Greek Father, and by very few and late Latin ones. They have been thought to be cited by S. Cyprian in his work on the Unity of the Church; and this citation, if a fact, would be a most important one, as it would throw back their reception to an early date. But Tischendorf (Gk. Test.. Ed. viii., ad. loc.) gives reasons for believing that the quotation is only apparent, and is really of the last clause of verse 8.
31 i.e. Though the things referred to many differ essentially, yet if the name by which they are known is the same, one utterance of it with one numeral is enough to express a collection of them all.
36 Referring to the earthquake at the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai (Heb. xiii.), and to the prophesy of Haggai (ii. 6), with reference to the Incarnation. The third great earthquake is that of the end of the world (Heb. xii. 26).
40 Theology is here used in a restricted sense, as denoting simply the doctrine of the Deity of the Son or Logos. It is very frequently used in this limited sense; examples of which may readily be found in Gregory of Nyssa. Basil. Chrysostom, and others. A similar uses occurs in Orat. XXXVIII.. c. 8,, in which passage qeologi/a is contrasted with oi'konomi/a, the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity with that of the Incarnation.
41 Ps. lxxxiv. 7, and 2 Cor. iii. 18.
47 Perhaps S. Gregory Thaumaturgus is meant. He was born about A.D. 210. The date of his death is uncertain, but was probably not before 270. He was Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus. Amongst his works was an Exposition of the Faith, which he is said to have receive by direct revelation, and in it the words in the text were contained. S. Gregory in another Oration refers to the closing sentences as the substance of the Formula itself:
"There is nothing created or servile in the Trinity, nor anything superinduced, as though previously non-existing and introduced afterwards. Never therefore, was the Son wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son: but there is ever the same Trinity, unchangeable and unalterable"(Reynolds, in Dict. Biog.).
49 Luke i. 35; iii. 22: iv. 1.
53 Viz.: - where we are told that Blasphemy against Him hat never forgiveness.
54 As in the case of the Centurion Cornelius, Acts x. 9.
58 As before in the case of the Son. See above. Theol., iii. 18.
59 Elias Cretensis says that the Eye in this passage is not to be understood of the member of the body so called, but as the Eye or the centre of a spring, the point from which the water flows.