For if there is anything in the nature of the Universe left unexplained and inconceivable for us, and we know that there are many, such things as are promised to the godly — which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man—according to the holy apostle, much further beyond our conception, unexplained and unnamed, inconceivable and unimaginable must be that which concerned the generation of the Only-begotten of God, since we have nothing else to say or to think of Him, except, "Who shall declare his generation?" And if one, greatly (215) daring, were led to compare things in all ways inconceivable with visible and physical likenesses, one perchance might say that, like a fragrance or a ray of light, the Son underlay from infinite ages or rather before all ages the Father's Unbegotten Nature and ineffable Essence, and was one with Him, and was always united to the Father, as fragrance to an ointment and the ray to the light, but not (b) analogously in all senses to such likenesses, as was said before. For lifeless bodies hold their accidents in qualities; and the ray being of one origin with the nature of light, and being in essence the same as light, could not exist outside that in which it is. Whereas the Word of God has Its own essence and existence in Itself, and is not identical with the Father in being Unbegotten, but was begotten of the Father as His Only-begotten Son before all ages; while the fragrance being a kind of physical effluence of that from which it comes, and not filling the air around it by itself apart from its primary cause, is seen to be itself also a physical thing. We will not, then, conceive thus about the theory of our Saviour's coming-into-being. For neither was He brought into being from the Unbegotten Being by way of any event, or by division, nor was He eternally coexistent with the Father, since the One is Unbegotten and the other Begotten, and one is Father and the other Son. And all would agree that a father must exist before and precede his son. Thus also would the image of God be a kind of living image of the living God, in a mode once more that is beyond our words and reasoning, and existing in Itself immaterially and unembodied, and unmixed with anything opposite to Itself, but not such an image as we connote by the term, which differs in its essential substance and its species, but one which itself contains the whole of its species, and is like in its own essence to the Father, and so is seen to be the liveliest fragrance of the Father, in a mode once again beyond our words and reasoning. For everything that is true about Him could not be spoken in human words, and could not be reasoned with the reasoning of men according to strict logic. But the Scriptures give us such instruction as it is good for us to hear. Has not the holy apostle described himself and those like him as "a fragrance of Christ," by their participation in the Spirit of Christ; and is not the heavenly Bridegroom in the Canticles addressed as "Ointment poured forth"? Wherefore all things visible and invisible, embodied and unembodied, rational and irrational participating in that outpouring of Him in due proportion are thought worthy of His presence, and have their lot in the communion of the divine Word. Yes, the whole universe imparts a share of His divine breath to those whose rational perception is not maimed, so that bodies by nature earthy and corruptible give forth an immaterial and uncorrupted fragrance; for as the God of the Universe wells down from above, Who, being Father of the Only-begotten Word, Himself must be the first and chief and only true good begetting good, so taking the second place the Son draws His supplies from the primary and original Essence, Who also is alone called the fragrance of His Father's Essence by us who use the Scripture that teaches us concerning Him, that He is "a breath of the power of God, and a pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty, and a radiance of the everlasting light, and an unsullied mirror of the action of God, and an image of his goodness."