Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.6

As we discussed in our second book, God, the mastermind and creator of all things, brought into being a holy and incorruptible Spirit before He began His magnificent work of creating the world. This Spirit, whom God called His Son, was deemed worthy of the divine name - a distinction that set Him apart from the countless angels God would later create. The reason for this special status is clear: the Son possessed the same virtue and majesty as God the Father. The fact that the Son is the Son of the highest God, endowed with the greatest power, is a truth that emerges not only from the consistent testimony of the prophets but also from the writings of Trismegistus and the prophecies of the Sibyls. In his book, Logos Teleios, Hermes describes God as the Lord and maker of all things, who created a second, visible, and perceptible God - not because this second God perceives the world around Him, but because He makes the world perceptible to us. According to Hermes, God created this second God first and alone, and He was pleased with Him, seeing Him as full of all good things. As a result, God delighted in His Son and loved Him exceedingly, like a parent loves their child. The Erythraean Sibyl, in her song, predicts the coming of the Son of God, the leader and commander of all, describing Him as the all-nourishing creator who pours out His sweet Spirit to all and makes God the leader of all. She also writes that God gave another, the Son, to faithful people to reverence. Another Sibyl commands us to recognize the Son of God, saying, 'Know Him as God, the Son of God.' This Son of God, speaking through Solomon, the wisest king, who was filled with the divine Spirit, says, 'The Lord founded me in the beginning of His ways, in His works, before the century He established me; in the beginning, before He made the earth and before He established the abysses, before the springs of waters proceeded, before all the hills He generated me' (Proverbs 8:22-31). The Son continues, describing His role in creation, 'The Lord made the regions and the uninhabitable boundaries under the heaven. When He was preparing the heaven, I was with Him; when He was separating His seat, when He was making strong clouds over the winds, and when He was setting the confirmed springs under the heaven, when He was making the strong foundations of the earth, I was with Him, arranging.' The Son says, 'I was the one in whom He delighted. Daily, however, I was rejoicing before His face, when He was rejoicing in the perfect orb.' It is because the Son is endowed with such wisdom and virtue by God the Father that Trismegistus calls Him the Demiurge, and the Sibyl calls Him the Counselor, for He uses His counsel and hands in the fabrication of the world.