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7. When you hear
the word “Son,” you must not think of a nativity after the
flesh; but remember that it is spoken of an incorporeal substance, and
a simple and uncompounded nature. For if, as we said above, whether
when the understanding generates a word, or the mind sense, or light
brings forth brightness from itself, nothing of this sort is sought
for, or any manner of weakness and imperfection imagined in this kind
of generation, how much purer and more sacred ought to be our
conception of the Creator of all these!
But perhaps you say, “The
generation of which you speak is an unsubstantial generation. For light
does not produce substantial brightness, nor the understanding generate
a substantial word, but the Son of God, it is affirmed, was generated
substantially.” To this we reply, first, When in other things
examples or illustrations are used, the resemblance cannot hold in
every particular, but only in some one point for which the illustration
is employed. For instance, When it is said in the Gospel, “The
kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures
of meal,”3274
are we to
imagine that the kingdom of heaven is in all respects like leaven, so
that like leaven it is palpable and perishable so as to become sour and
unfit for use? Obviously the illustration was employed simply for this
object—to shew how, through the preaching of God’s word
which seems so small a thing, men’s minds could be imbued with
the leaven of faith. So likewise, when it is said, “The kingdom
of heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea, which draws in fishes
of every kind,”3275
are we to
suppose that the substance of the kingdom of heaven is likened in all
respects to the nature of twine of which a net is made, and to the
knots with which the meshes are tied? No; the sole object of the
comparison is to shew that, as a net brings fishes to the shore from
the depths of the sea, so by the preaching of the kingdom of heaven
men’s souls are liberated from the depth of the error of this
world. From whence it is evident that examples or illustrations do not
answer in every particular to the things which they are brought to
exemplify or illustrate. Otherwise, if they were the same in all
respects, they would no longer be called examples or illustrations, but
rather would be the things themselves.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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