108. But neither had the Son of God any beginning, seeing that He already was at the beginning, nor shall He come to an end, Who is the Beginning and the End of the Universe; Rev. i. 8, 17; ii. 8; iii. 14; xxii. 13; Isa. xli. 4; xliv. 6; xlviii. 12. for being the Beginning, how could He take and receive that which He already had, “And,” we may add; “already was.”—St. Ambrose refers to St. John viii. 25, but the reference is only justifiable by means of a defective rendering of the Greek; unless we suppose our Saviour to be alluding to what the prophets had said of Himself as well as to His own statements. Cf. Bk. III. vii. 49. or how shall He come to an end, being Himself the End of all things, so that in that End we have an abiding-place without end? The Divine Generation is not an event occurring in the course of time, and within its limits, and therefore before it time is not, and in it time has no place.