IX.  And thus we see that God is not a body.  For no inspired teacher has yet asserted or admitted such a notion, nor has the sentence of our own Court allowed it.  Nothing then remains but to conceive of Him as incorporeal.  But this term Incorporeal, though granted, does not yet set before us—or contain within itself His Essence, any more than Unbegotten, or Unoriginate, or Unchanging, or Incorruptible, or any other predicate which is used concerning God or in reference to Him.  For what effect is produced upon His Being or Substance Petavius (De Trin. IV. ii. 7) notes that ὑπόστασις seems used here of the Essence and Nature common to the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. by His having no beginning, and being incapable of change or limitation?  Nay, the whole question of His Being is still left for the further consideration and exposition of him who truly has the mind of God and is advanced in contemplation.  For just as to say “It is a body,” or “It was begotten,” is not sufficient to present clearly to the mind the various objects of which these predicates are used, but you must also express the subject of which you use them, if you would present the object of your thought clearly and adequately (for every one of these predicates, corporeal, begotten, mortal, may be used of a man, or a cow, or a horse).  Just so he who is eagerly pursuing the nature of the Self-existent will not stop at saying what He is not, but must go on beyond what He is not, and say what He is; inasmuch as it is easier to take in some single point than to go on disowning point after point in endless detail, in order, both by the elimination of negatives and the assertion of positives to arrive at a comprehension of this subject.