By contrast, the Christians devised for themselves a creed and a code of law whose very wording is not transmitted from any prophet.

Fourteenth point:

They maintain, “By ‘the Father’ and ‘the Son’ we do not mean fatherhood and sonship that result from marital relations, and we curse anyone who ascribes to God the birth of a child from a consort.”

It may be replied:

The familiar term “birth” occurs only when there are two parents; it takes place through the separation of a portion from both, and it necessarily entails the coming-into-existence of the offspring—whether one is speaking of the birth of living creatures or of something else. Fire, for example, is produced between two flints: when one is struck against the other, a subtle particle emerges from them, turns into fire, and then falls upon the tinder.

Some people have broadened the use of the word “birth” to cover anything that originates from something, even when no part separates from it, such as the generation of rays from a flame or from the sun. Yet even here two factors are involved: first, the source from which the rays issue—the sun or the fire—and second, the receptive surface upon which the rays are reflected, that is, the opposing body in which the rays subsist.

As for something that arises from a single source alone, no instance is known in which it is called a “birth,” were such a thing even to exist; likewise, nothing inherent in a single entity is ever called its “child.”

When what subsists in a subject is one of its inseparable attributes, the matter is even further