But it is no uncommon thing for warm disputants to mistake and misrepresent each other; and that this was partly the case in the present controversy, is, I think, evident beyond dispute; Alexander describing the opinions of Arius, not as he held them himself, but according to the consequences he imagined to follow from them. Thus Arius asserted, “the Son hath a beginning, and is from none of the things that do exist;” not meaning that he was not from everlasting, before ever the creation, time, and ages had a being, or that he was created like other beings, or that like the rest of the creation he was mutable in his nature. Arius expressly declares the contrary, before his condemnation by the council of Nice, in his letter to Eusebius, his intimate friend, from whom he had no reason to conceal his most secret sentiments, and says,[85] “This is what we have and do profess, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any manner a part of the unbegotten God, nor from any part of the material world, but that by the will and council of the Father he existed before all times and ages, perfect God, the only begotten and unchangeable, and that therefore before he was begotten or formed he was not,” i. e. as he explains himself, “there never was a time when he was unbegotten.” His affirming therefore that the Son had a beginning, was only saying, that he was in the whole of his existence from the Father, as the origin and fountain of his being and deity, and not any denial of his being from before all times and ages; and his saying that he was no part of God, nor derived from things that do exist, was not denying his generation from God before all ages, or his being completely God himself, or his being produced after a more excellent manner than the creatures; but that as he was always from God, so he was different both from him, and all other beings, and a sort of middle nature between God and his creatures; whose beginning, as Eusebius of Nicomedia writes to Paulinus,[86] bishop of Tyre, was “not only inexplicable by words, but unconceivable by the understanding of men, and by all other beings superior to men, and who was formed after the most perfect likeness to the nature and power of God.” This is the strongest evidence that neither Arius nor his first friends put the Son upon a level with the creatures, but that they were in many respects of the same sentiments with those who condemned them. Thus Alexander declares the Son to be “before all ages.” Arius expressly says the same, that he was “before all times and ages.” Alexander, that “he was begotten, not out of nothing, but from the Father who was.” Arius, that “he was the begotten God, the Word from the Father.” Alexander says, “the Father, only, is unbegotten.” Arius, that “there never was a time when the Son was not begotten.” Alexander, that “the subsistence of the Son is inexplicable even by angels.” Eusebius, that “his beginning is