129. These arguments, your Majesty, I have set forth, briefly and summarily, in the rough, rather than in any form of full explanation and exact order. If indeed the Arians regard them as imperfect and unfinished, I indeed confess that they are scarce even begun; if they think that there be any still to be brought forward, I allow that there be well-nigh all; for whereas the unbelievers are in uttermost need of arguments, the faithful have enough and to spare. Indeed, Peter’s single confession was abundant to warrant faith in Christ: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;” S. Matt. xvi. 16; Mark viii. 30. Cf. Peter’s other confession, S. John vi. 69, and Martha’s confession in S. John xi. 27. for it is enough to know His Divine Generation, without division or diminution, being neither derivation nor creation. “Without division or diminution,” i.e. the generation of the Son entails no division or partition of the Godhead, still less any diminution of it. The Father is none the less God. His Godhead loses nothing by His begetting His Eternal Son. Some manuscripts have “demutatam” instead of “deminutam” here—i.e. “changed” for “diminished.” Certainly the begetting of the Son can make no change whatever in the Being of the Father, for the Divine Generation is “from everlasting to everlasting,” and is necessarily implied in the very Fatherhood, the personal essence of the Father. Hurter quotes St. Hilary, De Trin. 6, 10. “The Church knows of no apportionment made to the Son, but knows Him as perfect God of perfect God, as One begotten of One, not shorn off from Him, but born: she knows the Nativity to entail no diminution of Him Who begets, nor weakness in Him Who is born.” The fact is a spiritual relation, metaphysical in the highest sense, transcending our intelligence, and only to be apprehended by faith, simply as a fact—as the ἀρχή, or principle, which is sufficient for us. The “how” we must wait to have revealed to us hereafter, if we shall ever be able to receive it.