66. But if you will constrain me to the rule of human generation, that you may be allowed to say that the Father existed before the Son, then consider whether instances, taken from the generation of earthly creatures, are suitable to show forth the Divine Generation. The analogy, as made by the Arians, certainly was open to St. Ambrose’s censure. We should remember, however, that a man is not properly a father until his child is born. If we speak according to what is customary amongst men, you cannot deny that, in man, the changes in the father’s existence happen before those in the son’s. The father is the first to grow, to enter old age, to grieve, to weep. If, then, the son is after him in time, he is older in experience than the son. If the child comes to be born, the parent escapes not the shame of begetting. St. Ambrose perhaps thought that the curse laid upon human conception and birth (Gen. iii. 16) displayed itself as well in the initial as in the final stages.