Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.20

We cannot know God by measuring his magnitude, for it is impossible to measure the Father; but we are led to God through his love, which works by his Word. As we obey him, we always learn how great God is, and that he himself is the one who establishes, chooses, and adorns all things, doing so in a way that relates to us. Consequently, we have been formed together with everything he contains. This is precisely what Scripture declares: "God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7). Therefore, angels did not make us, nor did they form us, nor could angels fashion the image of God, nor could any other power remote from the Father — only the Word of the Lord could do so. God did not need such helpers to accomplish what he had predetermined, as if he lacked his own hands. The Word and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, are always present with him; through them and in them he freely and willingly made all things, and to them he speaks, saying, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," himself drawing from his own being the substance of creatures, the pattern of his works, and the form of the world's ornaments.

Scripture has rightly proclaimed: "First of all, believe that there is one God, who established and consummated and made all things from what did not exist, so that all things might be; capable of all things, and not capable of being grasped by anyone." The prophet Malachi likewise says: "Is there not one God who established us? Is there not one Father of us all?" (Malachi 2:10). The Apostle confirms this: "There is one God, the Father, who is over all and in us all" (Ephesians 4:6). And the Lord himself declares: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father" — clearly by the one who made all things, for nothing has been taken away. Because of this, he is the Judge of the living and the dead, holding the key of David: "he will open, and no one will shut; he will shut, and no one will open." No one else could open the Father's book, whether in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, nor even see it — except the Lamb who was slain and redeemed us with his blood. He received all authority from the one who made all things by the Word and adorned them by Wisdom, when the Word became flesh, so that just as the Word of God held primacy in heaven, he might also hold primacy on earth, because he is the just man who committed no sin and in whose mouth no deceit was found. And he might hold primacy over the things under the earth, having become the firstborn of the dead, so that all things might see their King, as we have said before, and so that the paternal light might shine upon the flesh of the Lord, and its radiant glow might come to us from his flesh, and thus humanity might become incorruptible, wrapped in the Father's light.

We have demonstrated through many passages that the Word, that is, the Son, was always with the Father. And that Wisdom — that is, the Spirit — was with him before all creation, Solomon testifies: "God founded the earth by Wisdom; by his understanding the deeps burst forth, and the clouds dropped down dew." And again: "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth." And again: "When he established the heavens, I was there; when he made firm the fountains of the deep, when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man."

Therefore, there is one God who made and ordered all things by the Word and Wisdom; this is the Demiurge, who gave this world to the human race. According to his magnitude he is unknown to all who have been made by him — no one has plumbed his height, neither the ancients who have rested nor those who live now. But according to his love, he is always known through the one by whom he established all things: our Lord Jesus Christ. In the last times he became man among men, to join the end to the beginning. For this reason the prophets, receiving the prophetic gift from the same Word, foretold his coming in the flesh, through which the mingling and communion of God and man was accomplished according to the Father's good pleasure. From the beginning the Word of God had foretold that God would be seen by human beings, would converse with them on earth, and would be present with his creature, saving it, making himself perceptible to it, and liberating us from the hands of all who hate us — that is, from the spirit of all transgression — and making us serve him in holiness and justice all our days, so that humanity, having received the Spirit of God, might give glory to the Father.