Preface.

and I judged that a son must indeed be equal in essence Wesen: the fundamental nature or substance of a thing; in this context, the "ousia" or divine substance shared by the Trinity to his father; nevertheless, I could not well conceive how it should come about that the Son should be co-eternal with the Father, because in my ignorance I wanted to compare the divine essence absolutely with created beings. But in a short time, I noticed that every birth has its own manner and time, and that therefore the divine birth original: "göttliche Gebuhrt"; in theological terms, this refers to the "eternal generation" of the Son by the Father, a process occurring outside of time must also have its own manner and must occur without time in pure eternity.

Since my doubt was now removed, I immediately wished for an opportunity to communicate this to others, in the hope that it might yet serve one person or another. However, it had to remain as mere thoughts, partly because I did not find myself capable of writing, and partly because I first had to learn whether these thoughts on the divine birth were not as old to other people as they were new to me; for I afterwards discovered that people generally—if not in every specific detail, then at least as a whole—argued in that manner.

But when I had the opportunity in a large city to learn the differing opinions of people in matters of religion during conversation original: "Conversation"; here referring to the social and intellectual discourse among the educated classes, and often noticed with dismay that they were Socinian Socinianism: a rationalist school of thought that rejected the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, viewing Him instead as a remarkable but human prophet in their thinking, I felt a longing to fully investigate the matter and to demonstrate the truth thoroughly. In this, I was to some