“was caught up even unto the third heaven, and that he heard unspeakable words;”3580 how 461 much more unspeakable is He, who showed such things, which could not be spoken by him to whom they were shown? So then, brethren, it were better if we could keep silence, and say, “This the faith contains; so we believe; thou art not able to receive it, thou art but a babe; thou must patiently endure till thy wings be grown, lest when thou wouldest fly without wings, it should not be the free3581 course of liberty, but the fall of temerity.” What do they say against this? “O if he had anything to say, he would say it to me. This is the mere excuse of one who is at fault. He is overcome by the truth, who does not choose to answer.” He to whom this is said, if he make no answer, though he be not conquered in himself is yet conquered in the wavering brethren. For the weak brethren hear it, and they think that there is really nothing to be said; and perhaps they think right that there is nothing to be said, yet not that there is nothing to be felt. For a man can express nothing which he cannot also feel; but he may feel something which he cannot express. 8. Nevertheless, saving the unspeakableness of that Sovereign Majesty, lest when we shall have produced certain similitudes against them, any one should think that we have by them arrived at that which cannot be expressed or conceived by babes (and if it can be at all even by the more advanced, it can only be in part, only in a riddle, only “through a glass;” but not as yet, “face to face”3582), let us too produce certain similitudes against them, whereby they may be refuted, not “it” comprehended. For when we say that it may very possibly happen, that it may be understood, that He may both be born, and yet Coeternal with Him of whom He was born, in order to refute this, and prove it as it were to be false, they bring forth similitudes against us. From whence? From the creatures, and they say to us, “Every man of course was before he begat a son, he is greater in age than his son; and so a horse was before he begat his foal, and a sheep, and the other animals.” Thus do they bring simil- itudes from the creatures. 9. What! must we labour too, that we may find resemblances of those things which we are establishing? And what if I should not find any, might I not rightly say, “The Nativity of the Creator hath, it may be, no resemblance of itself among the creatures? For as far as He surpasseth the things which are here, in that He is there, so far doth He surpass the things which are born here, in that He was born there. All things here have their being from God; and yet what is to be compared with God? So all things which are born here, are born by His agency. And so perhaps there is no resemblance of His Nativity found, as there is none found whether of His Substance, Unchangeableness, Divinity, Majesty. For what can be found here like these? If then it chance that no resemblance of His Nativity either be found, 3580 2 Cor. xii. 4. 3581 Aura. 3582 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 958 On the words of the Gospel, John i. 1, ‘In the beginning was the word, and…