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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Pseudo Dionysius, Scholastic, and Mystic Doctrine
A common misunderstanding regards Dionysius the Areopagite as of
importance in the history of the doctrine of emanation. He does teach
an efflux from God; but the heavenly hierarchy, with its various
grades of perfection, does not arise by an emanation of one from the
other; all have their origin directly from God, or the Highest Good.
Erigena, referring much of his doctrine to Dionysius, makes use of a
kind of creation which resembles the Neoplatonist emanation. His world
ofcausoe primordiales is eternal, though not with God's eternity, but
eternally created by or proceeding from God. Creation is a process
through these to the visible and invisible creatures; it too is
eternal; God is in the creation, and the creation in God. From Erigena
the custom passed over to scholasticism of considering creation as a
sort of emanation; but in the passage of Thomas Aquinas most
frequently quoted in this connection (I., qu. xlv., art. 1) the
specific character of emanation is so weakened as to be perceptible
only in the fact that he does not draw a sharp dividing line between
God and his powers and the world. In the mystics, despite their
connection with scholasticism, the doctrine of emanation can scarcely
be discovered in its pure form. But in the Jewish Cabala the
emanationistic origin of the world is distinctly taught; the
connection with Christian Gnosticism, with the Neoplatonists, and with
Dionysius is evident. With the founders of modern metaphysics,
Descartes and Spinoza, emanation plays no prominent part; but the
logicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries make use of the
term causa emanative in contradistinction to causa activa. It is also
found in Leibniz's conception of the relation between God and single
monads; God is the primal unity, the monas primitive, which produces
the created and derived monads.
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