“The evangelist Luke, when giving the genealogy according to the flesh of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and stepping up from the last to the first, begins with Joseph, saying that he was ‘the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat,’ and so by ascending brings his enumeration up to Adam; but when he has come to the top and said, that Seth ‘was the son of Adam, which was the son of God,’ then he stops this process. As, then, he has said that Adam was the son of God, we will ask these men, ‘But God, who is He the son of?’ Is it not obvious to every one’s intelligence that God is the son of no one? But to be the son of no one is to be without a cause, plainly; and to be without a cause is to be ungenerate. Now in the case of men, the being son of somebody is not the essence151    οὐκ ἦν οὐσία τὸ ἔκ τινος. This is Oehler’s reading from the mss.; no more, in the case of the Deity Who rules the world, is it possible to say that the being ungenerate is the essence.”

„Ὁ εὐαγγελιστής, φησί, Λουκᾶς τὴν κατὰ σάρκα γενεαλογίαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκτιθέμενος καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τελευταίων ἐπὶ τοὺς πρώτους ἀναποδίζων ἤρξατο μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰωσήφ, εἰπὼν δὲ τοῦτον τοῦ Ἠλεί, τὸν δὲ τοῦ Ματτὰθ καὶ οὕτω κατὰ ἀνάβασιν πρὸς τὸν Ἀδὰμ τὴν ἐξήγησιν ἐπαναγαγών, εἶτα ἐλθὼν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἄνω καὶ εἰπὼν ὅτι ὁ Σὴθ ἐκ τοῦ Ἀδάμ, ὁ δὲ Ἀδὰμ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐνταῦθα τῆς ἀναβάσεως ἔληξεν. ὥσπερ οὖν ἐκεῖνος εἶπεν ὅτι ὁ Ἀδὰμ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἡμεῖς ἑαυτοὺς ἐρωτήσωμεν ὁ δὲ θεὸς ἐκ τίνος; ἆρ' οὐχὶ πρόχειρόν ἐστι τῇ ἑκάστου διανοίᾳ ὅτι ἐξ οὐδενός; τὸ δὲ ἐξ οὐδενὸς τὸ ἄναρχόν ἐστι δηλονότι, τὸ δὲ ἄναρχον τὸ ἀγέννητον. ὡς οὖν ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὐκ ἦν οὐσία τὸ ἔκ τινος, οὕτως οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν ὅλων οὐσίαν ἔστιν εἰπεῖν τὸ ἀγέννητον.”