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interprets it as being above all temporal 1.1.638 significance. So what occasion is there for this mean-spirited question to be brought forward by our adversaries to the ruin of piety, which they put forward to us as an irrefutable argument for the establishment of their own δόγματος , asking 1.1.639 if He Who Is is begotten? To them one can boldly reply that He Who Is in the Unbegotten was begotten from Him, having the cause of His being from there (For “I,” He says, “live because of the Father”) but it is impossible to say when His beginning was. For since there is no intervening command or thought or temporal interval, by which the being of the Son is distinguished and separated from the Father, no point can be conceived from which the Only-Begotten, being parted from the life of the Father, appears from 1.1.640 some beginning of his own. If, then, there is no other beginning that presides over the Son’s life, but the pious account contemplates the Father alone without interval before the Son's hypostasis, and the Father is without beginning and unbegotten, as the testimony of our opponents also agrees, how does He who is contemplated in the one without beginning receive a beginning of being? 1.1.641 But how is the pious account harmed by agreeing to the words of our opponents, which they propose as absurd, saying, “if He Who Is was begotten”? For we are not saying this, that according to the sordid objection of Nicodemus to the Lord, in which he thought it was not possible for one who exists to enter a second birth, that in this way He Who Is receives generation, but that, having His own being dependent on Him who is eternal and without beginning, and ascending with one who meddles in things more ancient and anticipating what is beyond the mind’s meddling and being mingled with all the concepts concerning the Father, He neither begins to be nor is He unbegotten, but He both was begotten and was, confessing the generation from the Father by reason of cause, but by the eternity of His life not admitting that He ever was not. 1.1.642 But he who devises superfluous sophistries objects to what has been said and tears the substance of the Only-begotten from the Father’s nature, because one is begotten, and the other is unbegotten. And though there are so many names that are piously contemplated with respect to the divine nature, in which no variation is seen between the Father and the Son, with all of them applying equally to both, without mentioning any of the others by which their commonality is known, he clings only to the name of "unbegottenness." And not even of this does he accept the customary and conventional emphasis, but he innovates the concept of "the unbegotten," setting aside the common assumptions about this term. 1.1.643 What, then, is the cause of these things? For not without some great cause does he turn the argument away from the customary emphasis of the names and makes it strange by the alteration of the meaning of the terms. He knows precisely that if the use of the names were kept to custom, he would find no force for the overthrow of the sound doctrine, but if the terms were moved from their common and conventional meanings, through the evil use of the term he could easily work mischief with the doctrines. 1.1.644 For example (for let us proceed with the very terms being abused), if according to the common understanding of the doctrines he had accepted that God is called unbegotten because he has not been begotten, their entire machination of heresy would have collapsed, the sophism 1.1.645 concerning unbegottenness having been undermined. For if he were convinced by this line of reasoning, in the same way as nearly all who belong to the church of God, that just as the God over all is understood to be invisible, impassible, and incorporeal, so also unbegotten, agreeing that by each of the names that which in no way belongs to God is signified—not body, not passion, not color, not having being from a cause—if he had supposed these things to be so, their argument for unlikeness would have had no power, since in all other things that are contemplated concerning the God of the universe, even our opponents concede the likeness of the Only-begotten to the Father. 1.1.646 But lest this happen, of all

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πάσης χρονικῆς 1.1.638 σημασίας ὑπερκείμενον ἑρμηνεύει. ὥστε τίνα καιρὸν ἔχει τὴν μικροπρεπῆ ταύτην ἐρώτησιν ἐπὶ λύμῃ τῆς εὐσεβείας παρὰ τῶν ἐναντίων προφέρεσθαι, ἣν ὡς ἄμαχον ἡμῖν εἰς κατασκευὴν τοῦ οἰκείου προβάλλονται <δόγματος> διερω 1.1.639 τῶντες εἰ ὁ ὢν γεννᾶται; πρὸς οὓς ἔστιν εὐθαρσῶς ἀπο κρίνασθαι, ὅτι ὁ ἐν τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ ὢν ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐγεννήθη, τὴν μὲν αἰτίαν τοῦ εἶναι ἐκεῖθεν ἔχων (Ἐγὼ γάρ, φησί, ζῶ διὰ τὸν πατέρα) τὴν δ' ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν ὅτε. μὴ γὰρ ὄντος τοῦ μεσιτεύοντος προστάγματος ἢ διανοήματος ἢ χρονικοῦ διαστήματος, ᾧ διακρίνεται καὶ διαχωρίζεται τὸ εἶναι τοῦ υἱοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρός, οὐδὲν ἐπινοεῖται σημεῖον ἀφ' οὗ ὁ μονογενὴς τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς ζωῆς διαζευχθεὶς ἔκ 1.1.640 τινος ἰδιαζούσης ἀρχῆς ἀναφαίνεται. εἰ οὖν οὐδεμία ἐστὶν ἄλλη ἀρχή, ἥτις τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ζωῆς ἡγεμονεύει, ἀλλὰ μόνον τὸν πατέρα ὁ εὐσεβὴς λόγος τῆς ὑποστάσεως τοῦ υἱοῦ προ θεωρεῖ ἀδιαστάτως, ὁ πατὴρ δὲ ἄναρχος καὶ ἀγέννητος, καθὼς καὶ ἡ τῶν ὑπεναντίων συνομολογεῖ μαρτυρία, πῶς ἀρχὴν τοῦ εἶναι λαμβάνει ὁ τῷ ἀνάρχῳ ἐνθεωρούμενος; 1.1.641 τί δὲ βλάπτεται τῆς εὐσεβείας ὁ λόγος ἐκ τοῦ συντίθεσθαι ταῖς τῶν ἐναντίων φωναῖς, ἃς ὡς ἀτόπους προτείνονται λέ γοντες εἰ ὁ ὢν ἐγεννήθη; οὐδὲ γὰρ τοῦτό φαμεν, ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ῥυπαρὰν τοῦ Νικοδήμου πρὸς τὸν κύριον ἐπαπόρησιν, καθ' ἣν ᾤετο μὴ εἶναι δυνατὸν ἐκεῖνος εἰς δευτέραν γέν νησιν τὸν ὄντα ἐλθεῖν, οὕτως ὁ ὢν τὴν γέννησιν δέχεται, ἀλλ' ὅτι τοῦ ἀεὶ καὶ ἀνάρχως ὄντος ἐξημμένον ἑαυτοῦ τὸ εἶναι ἔχων καὶ τῷ τὰ πρεσβύτερα πολυπραγμονοῦντι συναν ιὼν καὶ εἰς τὸ ὑπερκείμενον τῆς πολυπραγμοσύνης τοῦ νοῦ προλαμβάνων καὶ πάσαις ταῖς περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐννοίαις συγκεκραμένος, οὔτε τοῦ εἶναι ἄρχεται οὔτε ἀγέννητός ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐγεννήθη καὶ ἦν, τῷ μὲν τῆς αἰτίας λόγῳ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς γέννησιν ὁμολογῶν, τῷ δὲ ἀϊδίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τὸ ποτὲ μὴ εἶναι οὐ προσιέμενος. 1.1.642 Ἀλλ' ἀντιβαίνει τοῖς εἰρημένοις ὁ τὰ περισσὰ σοφι ζόμενος καὶ διασχίζει τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς φύσεως τοῦ μονο γενοῦς τὴν οὐσίαν, διότι ὁ μὲν γεγέννηται, ὁ δὲ ἀγέννητός ἐστι· καὶ τοσούτων ὄντων τῶν ὀνομάτων τῶν εὐσεβῶς περι θεωρουμένων τῇ θείᾳ φύσει, ἐν οἷς οὐδεμία παραλλαγὴ τοῦ πατρὸς πρὸς τὸν υἱὸν καθορᾶται, πάντων δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἴσον ἀμφοτέροις ἐφαρμοζόντων, οὐδενὸς τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιμνη σθεὶς δι' ὧν τὸ κοινὸν γνωρίζεται, μόνῳ τῷ ὀνόματι τῆς ἀγεννησίας προσφύεται· καὶ οὐδὲ ταύτης τὴν συνήθη καὶ νενομισμένην ἔμφασιν δέχεται, ἀλλὰ καινοτομεῖ τοῦ ἀγεν νήτου τὴν ἔννοιαν, τὰς κοινὰς περὶ τῆς φωνῆς ταύτης ὑπο 1.1.643 λήψεις παραγραφόμενος. τί ποτ' οὖν ἐστι τούτων τὸ αἴτιον; οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄνευ μεγάλης τινὸς αἰτίας τῆς μὲν συνήθους τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐμφάσεως τὸν λόγον ἀφίστησι, ξενίζει δὲ τῇ παραλλαγῇ τῆς τῶν φωνῶν σημασίας. οἶδεν ἀκριβῶς ὅτι εἰ μὲν ἐπὶ τῆς συνηθείας φυλαχθείη τῶν ὀνομάτων ἡ χρῆσις, οὐδεμίαν ἰσχὺν εὑρήσει πρὸς ἀνατροπὴν τοῦ ὑγιαί νοντος δόγματος, εἰ δὲ τῶν κοινῶν καὶ νενομισμένων δια νοημάτων παρακινηθείη τὰ ῥήματα, τῇ περὶ τὴν φωνὴν κακοτροπίᾳ ῥᾳδίως δύνασθαι συγκακουργήσειν τὰ δόγματα. 1.1.644 οἷον (ἐπ' αὐτῶν γὰρ διέλθωμεν τῶν ἀδικουμένων ῥημάτων) εἰ κατὰ τὴν κοινὴν τῶν δογμάτων ὑπόληψιν διὰ τὸ μὴ γεγεννῆσθαι ἀγέννητον λέγεσθαι τὸν θεὸν κατεδέξατο, διέ πεσεν ἂν ὅλον αὐτοῖς τὸ μηχάνημα τῆς αἱρέσεως, ὑπο 1.1.645 σπασθέντος τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἀγεννησίαν σοφίσματος. εἰ γὰρ ἐπείσθη διὰ τῆς ἀκολουθίας ταύτης καθ' ὁμοιότητα πάν των σχεδὸν τῶν εἰς ἐκκλησίαν θεοῦ συντελούντων ὥσπερ ἀόρατον καὶ ἀπαθῆ καὶ ἀσώματον, οὕτω καὶ ἀγέννητον νοεῖσθαι τὸν ἐπὶ πάντων θεόν, δι' ἑκάστου τῶν ὀνομάτων τὸ μηδαμῶς προσὸν τῷ θεῷ σημαίνεσθαι συντιθέμενος, μὴ σῶμα μὴ πάθος μὴ χρῶμα μὴ τὸ ἐξ αἰτίας ἔχειν τὸ εἶναι, εἰ ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχειν ὑπέλαβεν, οὐδεμίαν ἔσχεν ἂν δύναμιν ὁ τῆς ἀνομοιότητος λόγος αὐτῶν, ἐν τοῖς λοιποῖς πᾶσιν, ὅσα περὶ τὸν τῶν ὅλων θεὸν θεωρεῖται, συγχωρούντων καὶ τῶν ἐναντίων τῷ μονογενεῖ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα τὸ ὅμοιον. 1.1.646 Ἀλλ' ἵνα μὴ τοῦτο γένηται, πάντων