XII.  But, they say, if the Son is the Same as the Father in respect of Essence, then if the Father is unbegotten, the Son must be so likewise.  Quite so—if the Essence of God consists in being unbegotten; and so He would be a strange mixture, begottenly unbegotten.  If, however, the difference is outside the Essence, how can you be so certain in speaking of this?  Are you also your father’s father, so as in no respect to fall short of your father, since you are the same with him in essence?  Is it not evident that our enquiry into the Nature of the Essence of God, if we make it, will leave Personality absolutely unaffected?  But that Unbegotten is not a synonym of God is proved thus.  If it were so, it would be necessary that since God is a relative term, Unbegotten should be so likewise; or that since Unbegotten is an absolute term, so must God be.…God of no one.  For words which are absolutely identical are similarly applied.  But the word Unbegotten is not used relatively.  For to what is it relative?  And of what things is God the God?  Why, of all things.  How then can God and Unbegotten be identical terms?  And again, since Begotten and Unbegotten are contradictories, like possession and deprivation, it would follow that contradictory essences would co-exist, which is impossible. Because “Son” implies “begotten.”  But (ex hyp.) “Unbegotten” is synonymous with “God.”  Or again, since possessions are prior to deprivations, and the latter are destructive of the former, not only must the Essence of the Son be prior to that of the Father, but it must be destroyed by the Father, on your hypothesis.