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having suffered division, the whole is left imperfect and mutilated, as if the part were mutilated. 5.1.12 But indeed to use such an image and likeness in the case of the unbegotten nature of the God of all and of the generation of His only-begotten and firstborn would be the most impious of all things. 5.1.13 Therefore, the Son was not unbegotten in the Father from infinite and beginningless ages as one thing in another, being a part of Him which, having been later changed and emptied, came to be outside of Him; for this is now characteristic of change, and thus there would be two unbegotten beings, the one who projected and the one who was projected. And which state was better? Was it the one before the change, before the separation by projection? Therefore it is not possible to conceive of the Son from the Father as a part or a member, unbegottenly united always before, but afterwards separated and become apart from the whole. 5.1.14 For these things are unspeakable and manifestly impious, being characteristic of material bodies, but foreign to the incorporeal and immaterial nature. Therefore at the right moment one might fittingly here again utter the phrase "who shall declare his generation?", 5.1.15 since it is not without danger to go to the opposite extreme and simply thus declare the Son to be created out of nothing, like the rest of created things; for the generation of the Son is one thing, and the creation through the Son is another. 5.1.16 But just as the divine scripture at one time proclaims the Son "the firstborn of all creation," saying in His own person, "the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways," and at another time says that He is the offspring of the Father according to "and before all hills he begets me," 5.1.17 so it would be sound for us to follow this and to confess that He exists before all ages, being the creative Word of God, and is with the Father, and is the only-begotten Son of the God of all, and became minister and fellow-worker with the Father of the substantiation and ordering of all things. 5.1.18 For if then also something else unspeakable and 5.1.18 incomprehensible to us has been left in the nature of all things—and there are countless such things, such as are the things promised to the God-loving, "which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and have not entered into the heart of man," according to the holy apostle, much more beyond all thought, unspeakable and unnameable, inconceivable and unimaginable would be the things concerning the first generation of the only-begotten of God, we having nothing more to say and to think concerning him than "who shall declare his generation?" But if anyone, going beyond this, were led on by boldness to compare the utterly inconceivable with visible and corporeal examples, he might perhaps say that from the unbegotten nature of the Father and His inexpressible essence, like some fragrance and a ray of light, the Son subsisted from infinite ages, or rather before all ages, and having come into being is with and is always with the Father as the fragrance is with the ointment and the ray with the light; but not similarly to the examples in every way, as indeed has already been said before. 5.1.19 For inanimate bodies possess accident in their qualities; for the ray, being co-natural with the nature of the light and subsisting essentially with the light, could not subsist outside of that in which it is; but the Word of God is substantiated and subsists in Himself, and does not co-exist unbegottenly with the Father, but as only-begotten Son, alone before all ages begotten of the Father; and the fragrance, being a corporeal effluence of the subject and not in itself filling what is near it, apart from its first cause, is nonetheless itself also corporeal. 5.1.20 Therefore, the things concerning the first substantiation of our Savior will not be understood by us in this way. For neither is He substantiated from the unbegotten essence by some passion or division, nor does He co-subsist without beginning with the Father, since the one is unbegotten and the other begotten, and the one is Father and the other Son, and everyone would confess that the Father pre-exists and pre-subsists the Son. 5.1.21 And in this way he would be also an image of God, again in a way inexpressible and inconceivable to us, of the living God a living one and according to

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διαίρεσιν πεπονθότων, ἀτελὲς καὶ κολοβόν, ὡς ἂν τοῦ μέρους ἠκρωτηριασμένου, ἀπολέλειπται τὸ πᾶν. 5.1.12 ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ τὸ εἰκόνι τοιᾷδε καὶ ὁμοιώσει χρῆσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγενήτου φύσεως τοῦ τῶν ὅλων θεοῦ καὶ τῆς τοῦ μονογενοῦς αὐτοῦ καὶ πρωτοτόκου γενέσεως πάντων ἂν εἴη ἀσεβέστατον. 5.1.13 οὐ τοίνυν ὡς ἕτερον ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἐξ ἀπείρων καὶ ἀνάρχων αἰώνων ἦν ὁ υἱὸς ἀγένητος ἐν τῷ πατρί, μέρος ὢν αὐτοῦ ὃ μεταβληθὲν ὕστερον καὶ κενωθὲν ἐκτὸς αὐτοῦ γέγονεν· τροπῆς γὰρ ἤδη τοῦτο οἰκεῖον, καὶ δύο γ' ἂν οὕτως ἀγένητα εἶεν, τὸ προβεβληκὸς καὶ τὸ προβεβλημένον. καὶ τίς ἦν κατάστασις κρείττων; ἆρα ἡ πρὸ τῆς τροπῆς, πρὸ τῆς κατὰ τὴν προβολὴν διαστάσεως; οὔκουν ὡς μέρος ἢ μέλος, ἀγενήτως ἡνωμένον ἀεὶ πρότερον, ἔπειτα δὲ διαστὰν καὶ χωρὶς γενόμενον τοῦ ὅλου, τὸν υἱὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς οἷόν τε ἐπινοεῖν. 5.1.14 ἄρρητα γὰρ καὶ ἄντικρυς ἀσεβῆ ταῦτα, ὕλης μὲν ὄντα σωμάτων οἰκεῖα, τῆς δ' ἀσωμάτου καὶ ἀύλου φύσεως ἀλλότρια. ∆ιὸ κατὰ καιρὸν εἰκότως ἄν τις ἐνταῦθα πάλιν τὸ «τὴν γένεσιν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται» ἀναφθέγξαιτο ἄν, 5.1.15 ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὴν ἐναντίαν ἐλθεῖν οὐκ ἀκίνδυνον καὶ ἁπλῶς οὕτως ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων γενητὸν τὸν υἱὸν τοῖς λοιποῖς γενητοῖς ὁμοίως ἀποφήνασθαι· ἄλλη γὰρ υἱοῦ γένεσις καὶ ἄλλη ἡ διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ δημιουργία. 5.1.16 ἀλλὰ γὰρ ὥσπερ ἡ θεία γραφὴ τοτὲ μὲν «πρωτότοκον πάσης κτίσεως» τὸν υἱὸν ἀναγορεύει, ἐξ αὐτοῦ προσώπου τὸ «κύριος ἔκτισέν με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ» φάσκουσα, τοτὲ δὲ γέννημα τοῦ πατρὸς εἶναι λέγει κατὰ τὸ «πρὸ δὲ πάντων βουνῶν γεννᾷ με», 5.1.17 ταύτῃ καὶ ἡμῖν ἕπεσθαι ὑγιῶς ἂν ἔχοι καὶ τὸ πρὸ πάντων αἰώνων εἶναι, λόγον ὄντα θεοῦ δημιουργικόν, καὶ τῷ πατρὶ συνεῖναι, μονογενῆ τε υἱὸν εἶναι τοῦ τῶν ὅλων θεοῦ, ὑπουργόν τε καὶ συνεργὸν τῷ πατρὶ τῆς τῶν ὅλων οὐσιώσεώς τε καὶ διακοσμήσεως γεγενημένον ὁμολογεῖν. 5.1.18 εἰ γὰρ οὖν καὶ ἄλλο τι ἄρρητον καὶ 5.1.18 ἀκατάληπτον ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ τῶν ὅλων ἀπολέλειπται φύσει μυρία δὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα, ὁποῖα καὶ τὰ τοῖς θεοφιλέσιν ἐπηγγελμένα τυγχάνει, «ἃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδεν καὶ οὖς οὐκ ἤκουσεν καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη», κατὰ τὸν ἱερὸν ἀπόστολον, πολὺ πρότερον πάσης ἐννοίας ἐπέκεινα, ἄρρητα καὶ ἀκατονόμαστα, ἀνεπινόητά τε καὶ ἀνενθύμητα γένοιτο ἂν τὰ περὶ τῆς πρώτης τοῦ μονογενοῦς τοῦ θεοῦ γενέσεως, ἄλλο μηδὲν πλέον ἐχόντων ἡμῶν περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν τε καὶ νοεῖν ἢ «τὴν γενεὰν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται;» Εἰ δέ τις τούτου περαιτέρω χωρῶν τόλμῃ προαχθείη τὰ πάντη ἀπερινόητα ὁρατικοῖς καὶ σωματικοῖς παραβάλλειν ὑποδείγμασιν, τάχα ἂν εἴποι ἐκ τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς ἀγενήτου φύσεως καὶ τῆς ἀνεκφράστου οὐσίας ὥσπερ εὐωδίαν τινὰ καὶ φωτὸς αὐγὴν τὸν υἱὸν ἐξ ἀπείρων αἰώνων μᾶλλον δὲ πρὸ πάντων αἰώνων ὑποστῆναι, γενόμενόν τε συνεῖναι καὶ συγγενόμενον ἀεὶ τῷ πατρὶ ὡς τῷ μύρῳ τὸ εὐῶδες καὶ τῷ φωτὶ τὴν αὐγήν· ἀλλ' οὐ τοῖς ὑποδείγμασιν κατὰ πάντα τρόπον ὁμοίως, ὥσπερ οὖν ἤδη πρότερον εἴρηται. 5.1.19 τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄψυχα σώματα τὸ συμβεβηκὸς ἐν ποιότησι κέκτηνται· ἥ τε γὰρ αὐγή, σύμφυτος οὖσα τῇ τοῦ φωτὸς φύσει καὶ οὐσιωδῶς συνυπάρχουσα τῷ φωτί, οὐκ ἂν δύναιτο ἐκτὸς ὑφεστάναι τοῦ ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν· ὁ δέ γε τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος καθ' ἑαυτὸν οὐσίωταί τε καὶ ὑφέστηκεν, καὶ οὐκ ἀγενήτως συνυπάρχει τῷ πατρί, ἀλλ' ὡς μονογενὴς υἱὸς μόνος πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς γεγεννημένος· ἥ τε εὐωδία, ἀπορροή τις οὖσα σωματικὴ τοῦ ὑποκειμένου καὶ οὐ καθ' ἑαυτὴν ἐκτὸς τοῦ πρώτου αἰτίου τὸ πλησιάζον πληροῦσα, οὐδὲν ἧττον σωματικὴ οὖσα καὶ αὐτὴ τυγχάνει. 5.1.20 οὐ ταύτῃ οὖν ἡμῖν νοηθήσεται καὶ τὰ περὶ τῆς πρώτης οὐσιώσεως τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐξ οὐσίας τῆς ἀγενήτου κατά τι πάθος ἢ διαίρεσιν οὐσιωμένος, οὐδέ γε ἀνάρχως συνυφέστηκεν τῷ πατρί, ἐπεὶ ὁ μὲν ἀγέννητος ὁ δὲ γεννητός, καὶ ὁ μὲν πατὴρ ὁ δὲ υἱός, προϋπάρχειν δὲ καὶ προϋφεστάναι πατέρα υἱοῦ πᾶς ὅστις οὖν ἂν ὁμολογήσειεν. 5.1.21 εἴη δ' ἂν ταύτῃ καὶ εἰκὼν θεοῦ, ἀρρήτως πάλιν καὶ ἀνεπιλογίστως ἡμῖν, ζῶντος θεοῦ ζῶσά τις καὶ καθ'