‘Man,’ says S. Cyril, ‘inasmuch as he had a beginning of being, also has of necessity a beginning of begetting, as what is from him is a thing generate, but.…if God’s essence transcend time, or origin, or interval, His generation too will transcend these; nor does it deprive the Divine Nature of the power of generating, that it doth not this in time. For other than human is the manner of divine generation; and together with God’s existing is His generating implied, and the Son was in Him by generation, nor did His generation precede His existence, but He was always, and that by generation.’ Thesaur. v. p. 35.