164. Yet what wonder if, as ye heretics would have
it, the Father is to be exalted above a Son Whose Godhead differs not a
whit from the common condition of mankind? If ye suppose the Son
to have been entitled the Vine with respect to His Godhead, then do ye
esteem Him not only as liable to corruption and subject to changes of
wind and weather, but even as partaking of manhood only, forasmuch as
the Vine and its branches are of one nature, so that the Son of God
appears, not to have taken upon Him our flesh, through the mystery of
Incarnation, but to have altogether sprung into being from the
flesh.