72. If the Divine Generation has been subject to
the limits of time,—if we suppose this, borrowing from the custom
of human generation, then it follows, further, that the Father bare the
Son in a bodily womb, and laboured under the burden whilst ten months
sped their courses. But how can generation, as it commonly takes
place, be brought about without the help of the other sex? You
see that the common order of generation was not the commencement, and
you think that the courses of generation, which are ruled by certain
necessities whereunto bodies are subject, have always prevailed.
You require the customary course, I ask for difference of sex:
you demand the supposition of time, I that of order: you enquire
into the end, I into the beginning. Now surely it is the end that
depends on the beginning, not the beginning on the end.