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So then this one and only God is not Wordless. And possessing the
Word, He will have it not as without a subsistence, nor as having
had a beginning, nor as destined to cease to be. For there never was
a time when God was not Word: but He ever possesses His own Word,
begotten of Himself, not, as our word is, without a subsistence and
dissolving into air, but having a subsistence in Him and life and
perfection, not proceeding out of Himself but ever existing within
Himself. For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him? For
inasmuch as our nature is perishable and easily dissolved, our word is
also without subsistence. But since God is everlasting and perfect,
He will have His Word subsistent in Him, and everlasting trod
living, and possessed of all the attributes of the Begetter. For
just as our word, proceeding as it floes out of the mind, is neither
wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far
as it proceeds out of the mind it is different from it, while so far as
it reveals the mind, it is no longer absolutely diverse from the mind,
but being one in nature with the mind, it is yet to the subject diverse
from it), so in the same manner also the Word of Gods in its
independent subsistence is differentiated froth Him from Whom it
derives its subsistence: but inasmuch as it displays in itself the same
attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God. For
just as absolute perfection is contemplated in the Father, so also is
it contemplated in the Word that is begotten of Him.
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