The following excerpts come from:
Gregory of Palamas (1296-1359), Apodictic
Treatises on the Procession of the Holy Spirit (trans. Christopher C.
Moody; Uncut Mountain Press, 2022)
Treatise One, 1:
For,
your justification—that, on account of those who claim that the Son would not
be equal to the Father if He were not also able to cause procession, you have
introduced this addition in an attempt to show the Son equal to the father—is not
reasonable at all. For then if some were to say that the Son must also possess
the power to beget, since if this does not belong to Him He is deprived of equality,
we would have to add this too, obeying the unwise, and in general to say that
the Father is not greater than the Son with respect to cause, lest we despise
the equality of the Son to the Father.
So,
then, you appear to propose this deceitfully in opposition to the evangelical
dogmas and statues, because whoever says that the Son is a cause of divinity
despises the Son, who clearly said in the Gospel, “My Father is greater than
Me.” He said the Father was greater than Him, not only as a human, but also as
God with respect to the cause of divinity. He did not say “God” but the “Father.”
For the Father is not greater than the Son because he is God—away with the irreverence—but
as the Cause of divinity, just as all the God-bearing Fathers interpreted to
us. Therefore, as it seems, you are contradicting these God-bearers and Christ,
the God of the God-bearers, who say that the Son is not equal to the father
with respect to the cause.
But
we acknowledge the quality of the Son with the Father according to nature and
also confess the greatness of the Father according to cause, which includes
both begetting and causing procession. Even for those who in the beginning
composed a defense of the con-naturality of the Son with the Father, which is
the same as saying equality of honor, this being the point of contention, the
Symbol of Faith without your addition was considered sufficient. (pp. 65, 67)
Treatise 2, 35:
But
by making connections and using the first cause as an excuse, they fabricate
each, saying that, just as there are times when the Father is said to be the only
true God although the Son is also a true and good God, in the same way is the
Father said to be the only Fount and cause of divinity, as being first; and so
there is no impediment for the Son being a cause of divinity as well. They do
not comprehend that by this they drag the Son and especially the Holy Spirit
down into being a creature. For, whenever we say that only the Father is the
true God, we are not differentiating the Uncreated from one another, neither
are we in that case simply separating the Father, but rather the only nature
contemplated in three hypostases, from created things. Accordingly, if this is
how we explain it and if the Father is the only cause of divinity as we speak
of Him that He is the only good one, the Holy Spirit, who even according to
them is not a cause of divinity, will be numbered with created things.
However,
for those whom there are times when only the Father is spoken of as the first
and as the initial cause, as if the Son were a joint cause as a sharer n those
things with the Father, there are not only cases when the Father is said to be “the
only true God” and “only creator” and “only Good One” and such titles, but
there are also times when only the Son could be said to be these things: and
not only the Son, but the Spirit as well. For, since this “only” separates the
uncreated nature from related beings, and since the uncreated nature is trihypostatic
and its entirety is indivisibly considered in each of the hypostases, with whichever
one of the three natural hypostases you call it, you are referring to the entire
trihypostatic nature. (p. 255)
