Finally, how could the expression, “All things were made by Him,” be true? For if there is an age older than He, how can that which was before Him have been made by Him? See ye to what daring the argument has carried them, when once the truth has been unsettled? Why did not the Evangelist say, that He was made from things that were not, as Paul declares of all things, when he says, “Who calleth those things which be not as though they were”; but says, “Was in the beginning”? ( Rom. iv. 17.) This is contrary to that; and with good reason. For God neither is made, nor has anything older; these are words of the Greeks. Tell me this too: Would you not say, that the Creator beyond all comparison excels His works? Yet since that which is from things that were not is similar to them, where is the superiority not admitting of comparison? And what mean the expressions, “I am the first and I am the last” ( Is. xliv. 6 ); and, “before Me was no other God formed”? ( Is. xliii. 10.) For if the Son be not of the same Essence, there is another God; and if He be not Co-eternal, He is after Him; and if He did not proceed from His Essence, clear it is that He was made. But if they assert, that these things were said to distinguish Him from idols, why do they not allow that it is to distinguish Him from idols that he says, “the Only True God”? ( John xvii. 3.) Besides, if this was said to distinguish Him from idols, how would you interpret the whole sentence? “After Me,” He says, “is no other God.” In saying this, He does not exclude the Son, but that “After Me there is no idol God,” not that “there is no Son.” Allowed, says he; what then? and the expression, “Before Me was no other God formed,” will you so understand, as that no idol God indeed was formed before Him, but yet a Son was formed before Him? What evil spirit would assert this? I do not suppose that even Satan himself would do so.