4.  Again, I say, on hearing of a Son, understand it not merely in an improper sense, but as a Son in truth, a Son by nature, without beginning Athanasius (de Synodis, § 15) quotes a passage from the Thalia of Arius, in which he says:  “We praise Him as without beginning, because of Him who has a beginning:  and adore Him as eternal, because of Him who in time has come to be.  He who is without beginning made the Son a beginning of things created.” It is important, therefore, to notice the sense in which Cyril here calls the Son ἄναρχος.  The word has two meanings, which should be clearly distinguished, (i) unoriginate, (ii) without beginning in time.  The former referring to origin, or cause, can properly be applied to the One true God, or to God the Father only, as it is used by Clement of Alexandria (Protrept. cap. v. § 65:  τὸν πάντων ποιητὴν…ἀγνοοῦντες, τὸν ἄναρχον Θεόν.  [Strom. IV. cap. xxv. § 164:  ὁ Θεὸς δὲ ἄναρχος ἀρχὴ τῶν ὅλων παντελὴς ἀρχῆς ποιητικός].  [Stromat. V. cap. xiv. § 142:  ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀνάρχου].  Methodius (ob. 312 a.d. circ.) in a fragment (On things created, § 8, English Trans. Clark’s Ante-Nic. Libr.) comments thus on John i. 1–3:  “And so after the peculiar unbeginning beginning, who is the Father, He (the Word) is the beginning of other things, ‘by whom all things are made.’” In this sense Cyril has said (iv. 4) that God alone is “unbegotten, unoriginate:”  and in xi. 20 he explains this more fully,—“Suffer none to speak of a beginning of the Son in time (χῥονικὴν ἀρχήν), but as a timeless beginning acknowledge the Father.  For the Father is the beginning of the Son, timeless, incomprehensible, without beginning.”  From a confusion of the two meanings the word came to be improperly applied in the sense of “unoriginate” to the Son, and to the Spirit; and this improper usage is condemned in the 49th Apostolic Canon, which Hefele regards as amongst the most ancient Canons, and taken from the Apostolic Constitutions, vi. 11:  “If any Bishop or Presbyter shall baptize not according to our Lord’s ordinance into the Father, and Son, and Spirit, but into three Unoriginates, or three Sons, or three Paracletes let him be deposed.”  (ii.) Athanasius frequently calls the Son ἄναρχος in the sense of ‘timeless,’ as being the co-eternal brightness (ἀπαύγασμα) of the Eternal Light:  see de Sent. Dionys. §§ 15, 16, 22; “God is the Eternal Light, which never either began or shall cease:  accordingly the Brightness is ever before Him, and co-exists with Him, without beginning and ever-begotten (ἄναρχον καὶ ἀειγενές).”; not as having come out of bondage into a higher state of adoption εἰς προκοπὴν υἱοθεσίας.  Cf. § 2, note 4., but a Son eternally begotten by an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation.  And in like manner on hearing of the First-born Πρωτότοκον.  The word occurs in Heb. i. 6, which had been read in the Lesson before this Lecture.  The exact dogmatic sense of the word is carefully explained by Athanasius (c. Arian. Or. ii. 62):  “The same cannot be both Only-begotten and Firstborn, except in different relations;—that is, Only-begotten, because of His generation from the father, as has been said; and First-born, because of His condescension to the creation, and His making the many His brethren.”  See Mr. Robertson’s discussion of the word πρωτότοκος (Athan. p. 344, in this series), and Bp. Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. iii. 5–8)., think not that this is after the manner of men; for the first-born among men have other brothers also.  And it is somewhere written, Israel is My son, My first-born Ex. iv. 22..  But Israel is, as Reuben was, a first-born son rejected:  for Reuben went up to his father’s couch; and Israel cast his Father’s Son out of the vineyard, and crucified Him.