Hence we call Him Only-begotten Son, and the Firstborn Word of God, Who is the same as this Wisdom. In what sense we say that He is the Begotten of God would require a special study, for we do not understand this unspeakable generation of His as involving a projection, a separation, a division, a diminution, a scission, or anything (c) at all which is involved in human generation. For it is not lawful to compare His unspeakable and unnameable generation and coming into being with these things in the world of begotten things, nor to liken Him to anything transitory and mortal, since it is impious to say that in the way in which animals are produced on earth, as an essence coming from an essence by change and division, divided and separated, the Son came forth out of the Father. For the Divine is without parts, and indivisible, not to be cut, or (d) divided, or extended, or diminished, or contracted, It cannot become greater, or worse or better than Itself, nor has it within Itself anything different from Itself that it could send forth. For everything that is in anything is either in it as (1) accident, as white is in a body, or (2) as a thing in something different from it, as a child is in the womb of its mother, or (3) as the part is in the whole, as the hand, foot and finger exist in the body, being parts of the whole body, and if either of them undergo any maiming or cutting or division, the whole of the body is rendered useless and mutilated, as a part of it has been cut off. But surely it (214) would be very impious to employ a figure and comparison of this kind in the case of the Unbegotten nature of the God of the Universe, and of the generation of His Only-begotten and Firstborn (Son).