XI.  They do not however assert this, for these qualities are common also to other beings.  But God’s Essence is that which belongs to God alone, and is proper to Him.  But they, who consider matter and form to be unbegotten, would not allow that to be unbegotten is the property of God alone (for we must cast away even further the darkness of the Manichæans). The Manichæans, who believed in two eternal principles of good and evil, light and darkness, held that darkness too was unbegotten (Elias).  But suppose that it is the property of God alone.  What of Adam?  Was he not alone the direct creature of God?  Yes, you will say.  Was he then the only human being?  By no means.  And why, but because humanity does not consist in direct creation?  For that which is begotten is also human.  Just so neither is He Who is Unbegotten alone God, though He alone is Father.  But grant that He Who is Begotten is God; for He is of God, as you must allow, even though you cling to your Unbegotten.  Then how do you describe the Essence of God?  Not by declaring what it is, but by rejecting what it is not.  For your word signifies that He is not begotten; it does not present to you what is the real nature or condition of that which has no generation.  What then is the Essence of God?  It is for your infatuation to define this, since you are so anxious about His Generation too; but to us it will be a very great thing, if ever, even in the future, we learn this, when this darkness and dulness is done away for us, as He has promised Who cannot lie.  This then may be the thought and hope of those who are purifying themselves with a view to this.  Thus much we for our part will be bold to say, that if it is a great thing for the Father to be Unoriginate, it is no less a thing for the Son to have been Begotten of such a Father.  For not only would He share the glory of the Unoriginate, since he is of the Unoriginate, but he has the added glory of His Generation, a thing so great and august in the eyes of all those who are not altogether grovelling and material in mind.