VI.  Why should a man who is a hostile listener to such words be allowed to hear about the Generation of God, or his creation, or how God was made out of things which had no existence, or of section and analysis and division? The allusion is to the Arian and Eunomian habit of gossiping about the most sacred subjects in every sort of place or company or time, in order to promote their heresy.  Why do we make our accusers judges?  Why do we put swords into the hands of our enemies?  How, thinkest thou, or with what temper, will the arguments about such subjects be received by one who approves of adulteries, and corruption of children, and who worships the passions and cannot conceive of aught higher than the body…who till very lately set up gods for himself, and gods too who were noted for the vilest deeds?  Will it not first be from a material standpoint, shamefully and ignorantly, and in the sense to which he has been accustomed?  Will he not make thy Theology a defence for his own gods and passions?  For if we ourselves wantonly misuse these words, Such expressions as Generation and the like would certainly be understood in a material sense by the heathen; and so would place an unnecessary stumbling-block in the way of their conversion. it will be a long time before we shall persuade them to accept our philosophy.  And if they are in their own persons inventors of evil things, how should they refrain from grasping at such things when offered to them?  Such results come to us from mutual contest.  Such results follow to those who fight for the Word beyond what the Word approves; they are behaving like mad people, who set their own house on fire, or tear their own children, or disavow their own parents, taking them for strangers.