| Emanation |
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The concept of emanation
is that all derived or secondary things proceed or flow from the
more primary. It is distinguished from the doctrine of creation
by its elimination of a definite will in the first cause, from
which all things are made to emanate according to natural laws
and without conscious volition. It differs from the theory of
formation at the hands of a supreme artisan who finds his matter
ready to his hand, in teaching that all things, whether actually
or only apparently material, flow from the primal principle.
Unlike evolution, again, which includes the entire principle of
the world, material and spiritual, in the process of development,
emanation holds to the immutability of the first principle as
to both quality and quantity, and also in the tendency of the
development evolution implying one which goes from less to more
perfect, while emanation involves a series of descending stages.
Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Greek Phases
In the Upanishads
of the Veda several passages which point, if obscurely, to this
doctrine. One frequently quoted passage asserts that "From
this Atman originated space, and from space the wind, and from
the wind the fire, and from fire water, and from water the earth,
and from the earth plants, and from plants food, and from food
the seed of man, and from the seed of man himself." This,
however, does not clearly assert an emanation, but merely marks
the stages of descent that separate man from the Atman. Attempts
have often been made to derive the Gnostic doctrine of emanation
from the Zoroastrian Avesta, but with doubtful success. Even if
we may assume another higher power antecedent to the two hostile
powers set forth in this dualistic system and comprising them
both, still the independence of these two, as well as of the angels
or half-divine beings who surround them, is not clearly asserted
as owing to their emanation from the primal principle. In the
ancient Egyptian religion, in which polytheism early appeared,
there is no question of either emanation or evolution. In Greek
philosophy emanations (aporrhoiai) occur at an early period, as
in Empedocles, who accounts for sensual perceptions as emanations
or effluxes proceeding from the objects perceived. Similarly
Democritus spoke of effluxes of atoms from the thing perceived,
by which images (eidola) are produced, which strike our senses.
But these views do not come under the general head of emanation,
since they do not touch the origin of the atoms. Nor does the
teaching of the Hylozoists, like Heraclitus, with his doctrine
of the transformation of all things into fire, and then of fire
into all other things. The same is true of the Stoics; some of
the later ones, like Marcus Aurelius, speak of the soul as an
aporrhoia of God, but this means a part of God, not an emanation
from an undiminished source. The first real mention of the doctrine
in Greek or Hellenistic philosophy is in the Wisdom of Solomon,
where wisdom is described as " the breath of the power of
God, and a pure influence (aporrhoia) flowing from the glory of
the Almighty." These and the following expressions may, indeed,
be poetical, not involving a personification of wisdom apart from
the Godhead; but the way in which wisdom is spoken of throughout
the book makes for the conception of an independent cosmic power
which is an efflux from the Godhead.
Philo and Early Christian Doctrine
The doctrine
of emanation is a little more explicit in Philo, though he does
not teach it clearly and consciously, still less purely and logically.
It assumes its most definite form for Greek philosophy in the
works of the Neoplatonists -- though their speculations are largely
derived from the Gnostic mythological systems of Basilides and
Valentinus, in which emanation played a prominent part. According
to Basilides, a whole series of eons emanated in successive stages
from the unbegotten Father; and the Valentinians spoke of the
primal essence as "throwing off " (proballein),
without diminution, that which was derived from it. In the Neoplatonist
system, the highest principle, the One, overflows without a conscious
act, merely by a law of its nature, losing nothing of its fullness
and this process has no end in time. It goes from more perfect
to less perfect, and the ineffable Unity is the source of all
plurality. The Nous (intellect), the first stage in the
process, thinks, and thus from it emanate the soul and the logos
(word). So the process goes on until the lowest stage is
reached in essenceless matter. The notion of emanation was frequently
used by the early Christian writers in the attempt to express
the relation of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father. The
idea is similarly used by Athenagoras, Origen, and Arnobius- Tertullian
even ventures to employ the Valentinian term probola for
the relation of the Son to the Father, while repudiating the separation
which Valentinus had taught between his eons. In the final establishment
of the Trinitarian doctrine the idea of emanation undoubtedly
played a part, as in the emphasis laid upon the Son's being "
begotten, not made " (Nicene Creed), and the " procession"
of the Holy Ghost; but the idea of descent to imperfection is
lacking.