34.

For if in the case of these originate and irrational things offsprings are found which are not parts of the essences from which they are, nor subsist with passion, nor impair the essences of their originals, are they not mad again in seeking and conjecturing parts and passions in the instance of the immaterial and true God, and ascribing divisions to Him who is beyond passion and change, thereby to perplex the ears of the simple ¹ and to pervert them from the Truth? for who hears of a son but conceives of that which is proper to the father’s essence? who heard, in his first catechising ², that God has a Son and has made all things by His proper Word, but understood it in that sense in which we now mean it? who on the rise of this odious heresy of the Arians, was not at once startled at what he heard, as strange ³, and a second sowing, besides that Word which had been sown from the beginning? For what is sown in every soul from the beginning is that God has a Son, the Word, the Wisdom, the Power, that is, His Image and Radiance; from which it at once follows that He is always; that He is from the Father; that He is like; that He is the eternal offspring of His essence; and there is no idea involved in these of creature or work. But when the man who is an enemy, while men slept, made a second sowing ⁴, of ‘He is a creature,’ and ‘There was once when He was not,’ and ‘How can it be?’ thenceforth the wicked heresy of Christ’s enemies rose as tares, and forthwith, as bereft of every P. 367 right thought, they meddle ⁵ like robbers, and venture to say, ‘How can the Son always exist with the Father?’ for men come of men and are sons, after a time; and the father is thirty years old, when the son begins to be, being begotten; and in short of every son of man, it is true that he was not before his generation. And again they whisper, ‘How can the Son be Word, or the Word be God’s Image? for the word of men is composed of syllables ⁶, and only signifies the speaker’s will, and then is over ⁷ and is lost.’