ἐν τοῦς γενητοῖς, as in the Bodleian ms. The Benedictine text adopts the common reading γεννητοις, with the note, “Sed discrimen illud parvi momenti.” If St. Basil wrote γεννητοῖς, he used it in the looser sense of mortal: in its strict sense of “begotten” it would be singularly out of place here, as the antithesis of the reference to the Son, who is γεννητός, would be spoilt. In the terminology of theology, so far from being “parvi momenti,” the distinction is vital. In the earlier Greek philosophy ἀγένητος and ἀγέννητος are both used as nearly synonymous to express unoriginate eternal. cf. Plat., Phæd. 245 D., ἀρχὴ δὲ ἀγένητόν, with Plat., Tim. 52 A., Τουτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων ὁμολογητέον ἓν μὲν εἶναι τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ εἶδος ἔχον ἀγέννητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρον. And the earliest patristic use similarly meant by γεννητός and ἀγέννητος created and uncreated, as in Ign., Ad Eph. vii., where our Lord is called γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος, ἐν ἀνθρ ?πω Θεὸς, ἐν θανάτῳ ζωὴ ἀληθινή. cf. Bp. Lightfoot’s note. But “such language is not in accordance with later theological definitions, which carefully distinguished between γενητός and γεννητός, between ἀγένητος and ἀγέννητος; so that γενητός, ἀγένητος, respectively denied and affirmed the eternal existence, being equivalent to κτιστός, ἄκτιστος, while γεννητός, ἀγέννητος described certain ontological relations, whether in time or in eternity. In the later theological language, therefore, the Son was γεννητός even in His Godhead. See esp. Joann. Damasc., De Fid. Orth. i. 8 (I. p. 135, Lequin), χρὴ γὰρ εἰδέναι ὅτι τὸ ἀγένητον, διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς ν γραφόμενον, τὸ ἄκτιστον ἢ τὸ μὴ γενόμενον σημαίνει, τὸ δὲ ἀγέννητον, διὰ τῶν δύο νν γραφόμενον, δηλοῖ τὸ μὴ γεννηθέν; whence he draws the conclusion that μόνος ὁ πατὴρ ἀγέννητος and μόνος ὁ υἱ& 232·ς γεννητός.” Bp. Lightfoot, Ap. Fathers, Pt. II. Vol. II. p. 90, where the history of the worlds is exhaustively discussed. At the time of the Arian controversy the Catholic disputants were chary of employing these terms, because of the base uses to which their opponents put them; so St. Basil, Contra Eunom. iv. protests against the Arian argument εἰ ἀγέννητος ὁ πατὴρ γεννητὸς δὲ ὁ υἱ& 232·ς, οὐ τῆς αὐτῆς οὐσιας. cf. Ath., De Syn. in this series, p. 475, and De Decretis, on Newman’s confusion of the terms, p. 149 and 169.