5. In the earlier books, then, while maintaining the profession of a faith, I trust, sincere, and a truth uncorrupted, we arranged the method of our answer throughout, so that (though such are our limitations, that human language can never be safe from exception) no one could contradict us without an open profession of godlessness. For so completely have we demonstrated the true meaning of those texts which they cunningly filch from the Gospels and appropriate for their own teaching, that if any one denies it, he cannot escape on the plea of ignorance, but is condemned out of his own mouth of godlessness. Further, we have, according to the gift of the Holy Ghost, so cautiously proceeded throughout in our proof of the faith, that no charge could possibly be trumped up against us. For it is their way to fill the ears of the unwary with declarations that we deny the birth of Christ592    i.e. The generation of the second Person from the first Person of the Trinity., when we preach the unity of the Godhead; and they say that by the text, I and the Father are one593    St. John x. 30., we confess that God is solitary: thus, according to them, we say that the Unbegotten God descended into the Virgin, and was born man, and that He refers594    Supply, ‘referat.’ the opening word ‘I’ to the dispensation of His flesh, but adds to it the proof of His divinity, And the Father, as being the Father of Himself as man; and further, that, consisting of two Persons, human and divine, He said of Himself, We are one595    The Arians accused the Catholics of a Sabellian denial of the Trinity and a Patripassian view of the Incarnation, i.e. that the unborn God became man..

5. Quam caute se gesserit superioribus libris. Solemnes Arianorum calumniae in Catholicos.---Superioribus igitur libellis sincerae, ut arbitror, fidei et incontaminatae veritatis professionem tenentes, quamquam secundum humanae naturae consuetudinem nullus sermo non sit obnoxius contradictioni, eam 0346D tamen nos arbitror totius responsionis nostrae moderatos esse rationem, ut contradicere quisquam nisi 0347A cum impietatis professione non possit. Eorum enim dictorum, quae secundum falsiloquii sui artem ex Evangeliis haeretici praesumunt, ita demonstrata veritas est, ut jam in contradictione ignorantiam 324 excusare non liceat, sed irreligiositatem necesse sit confiteri. Eam quoque nunc, secundum sancti Spiritus donum, temperavimus totius fidei demonstrationem, ut ne quid ementiri saltem adversum nos criminis possent. Solent enim ita de nobis implere aures ignorantium, ut nos asserant negare nativitatem, cum unitatem divinitatis praedicamus: et dicant solitarium a nobis per hoc, Ego et Patrem unum sumus (Joan. X, 30), significari Deum: ut innascibilis Deus descendens in Virginem homo natus sit, qui ad dispensationem carnis id quod ita coeperit, Ego,0347B ad divinitatis suae vero demonstrationem subjecerit, et Pater, tamquam hujus hominis sui pater esset; ex duobus vero consistens, homine scilicet et Deo, de se locutus sit, unum sumus.