“I will endeavour to show that he who appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and who is called God, is different from the God that made all things,—numerically different, though not in will; for I say that he never did any thing but what that God who made all things, and above whom there is no god, willed that he should do and say.”[[475]]
Irenæus, A.D. 178.
“We hold the Rule of Truth, that there is one God Almighty, who created all things by his Logos.” ... “This is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and of Him it is that Paul declared, There is one God, even the Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.”[[476]]
Clemens Alexandrinus, A.D. 194.
“There is one unbegotten almighty Father, and one first begotten, by whom all things were, and without whom nothing was made. For one is truly God, who made the beginning of all things, meaning his first-begotten son.”[[477]]
Tertullian, A.D. 200.
“I do not speak of Gods and Lords; but I follow the Apostle; so that if the Father and the Son are to be named together, I call the Father God, and Jesus Christ Lord: though I can call Christ God when speaking of himself alone.” And he goes on to explain this by declaring, that a ray of the sun may, with sufficient propriety, be called the sun.[[478]]
Origen, A.D. 230.
“We may by this means solve the doubts which terrify many men, who pretend to great piety, and who are afraid of making two Gods, and, through this, fall into vain and impious opinions; denying that the nature of the Son is different from that of the Father, and who acknowledge that he is God in name only; or denying the divinity of the Son, and then maintaining that his nature and essence is different from that of the Father. For we must tell them that he who is God of himself, is The God, as the Saviour states in his prayer to the Father, ‘that they may know thee, The only true God;’ but that whosoever becomes divine by partaking of his divinity, cannot be styled The God, but a God, among whom especially is the first born of all creatures.”[[479]]