9. The manner of this birth is therefore a secret confined to the Two. If any one lays upon his personal incapacity his failure to solve the mystery, in spite of the certainty that Father and Son stand to Each Other in those relations, he will be still more pained at the ignorance to which I confess. I, too, am in the dark, yet I ask no questions. I look for comfort to the fact that Archangels share my ignorance, that Angels have not heard the explanation, and worlds do not contain it, that no prophet has espied it and no Apostle sought for it, that the Son Himself has not revealed it. Let such pitiful complaints cease. Whoever you are that search into these mysteries, I do not bid you resume your exploration of height and breadth and depth; I ask you rather to acquiesce patiently in your ignorance of the mode of Divine generation, seeing that you know not how His creatures come into existence. Answer me this one question:—Do your senses give you any evidence that you yourself were begotten? Can you explain the process by which you became a father? I do not ask whence you drew perception, how you obtained life, whence your reason comes, what is the nature of your senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing; the fact that we have the use of all these is the evidence that they exist. What I ask is:—How do you give them to your children? How do you ingraft the senses, lighten the eyes, implant the mind? Tell me, if you can. You have, then, powers which you do not understand, you impart gifts which you cannot comprehend. You are calmly indifferent to the mysteries of your own being, profanely impatient of ignorance concerning the mysteries of God’s.

9. Filii Dei generatio captum humanum superat.---Habent igitur nativitatis hujus uterque secretum. 0058A Et si quis forte intelligentiae suae imputabit, generationis hujus sacramentum non posse se consequi, cum tamen et Pater sit absolute intellectus et Filius; majore istud dolore a me audiet ignorari. Ego nescio, non requiro; et consolabor me tamen. Archangeli nesciunt, angeli non audierunt, saecula non tenent, propheta non sensit, apostolus non interrogavit, filius ipse non edidit. Cesset dolor querelarum. Non te, quisquis es qui haec requires, revoco in excelsum, 33 non in amplitudinem tendo, non deduco in profundum: nonne aequanimiter ignorabis Creatoris nativitatem, ignorans originem creaturae? Hoc saltem requiro, sentisne te genitum, et quae ex te generentur intelligis? Non quaero sensum unde hauseris, vitam unde sortitus sis, intelligentiam unde 0058B adeptus sis, quale est quod in te sit odor, sensus visus, auditus; certe nemo quod facit nescit: quaero unde ista iis quos generes indulgeas, qualiter sensum inseras, oculos accendas, cor affigas. Haec, si potes, enarra. Habes ergo quae nescis, et tribuis quae non intelligis: aequanimiter imperitus in tuis, insolenter in Dei rebus ignarus.