[ Monogenes ]

 THE Arians had a difficulty as to the meaning, in their theology, of the word [ monogenes ]. Eunomius decided that it meant, not [ monos gennetheis ], but [ gennetheis para monou ]. And of the first Arians also Athan. apparently reports that they considered the Son Only-begotten because He [ monos ] was brought into being by God [ monos ]. Decr. § 7. The Macrostich Confession in like manner interprets [ monogenes ] by [ monos ] and [ monos ], Syn. § 26, (supr. vol. i. p. 107,) i.e. the only one of the creatures who was named "Son," and the Son of one Father (with Eunomius above), in opposition to the [ probole ] of the Gnostics. (vid. Acacius in Epiph. Hær. p. 839.) Naz., however, explains [ monos ] by [ ouch hos ta somata ]. Orat. 25. 16. vid. the Eusebian distinction between [ homoousios ] and [ homoiousios ], Soz. iii. 18, in art. [ homoousios ] infr. It seems, however, that Basil and Gregory Nyssen, (if I understand Petav. rightly, Trin. vii. 11, § 3,) consider [ monogenes ] to include [ hypo monou ], as if in contrast to the Holy Spirit, whose procession is not from the Father only, or again not a gennesis .

 If it be asked, what the distinctive words are which are incommunicably the Son's, since so many of His names are given also to the creature, it is obvious to answer, and [ idios huios ] and [ monogenes ], which are in Scripture, and the symbols "of the substance," and "one in substance," used by the Council; and this is the value of the Council's phrases, that, while they guard the Son's divinity, they allow full scope, without risk of trenching on it, to the Catholic doctrine of the fulness of the Christian privileges. vid. art. Son . For [ Agapetos ], vid. Matt. iii. in Scripture Passages .