Tatian, Address to the Greeks 5

God existed in the beginning, and we have received the power of the Logos as our starting point. The Master of all is himself the substance of the universe. He was alone before creation came to be, yet as the substance of all power—both visible and invisible—all things existed with him. Through his rational power, the Logos who dwelt within him was established alongside him. By the will of his simplicity, the Logos proceeds, not by separation into emptiness, but becoming the Father's firstborn work. We recognize this Logos as the beginning of the world. He came forth by division, not by severance; what is severed is cut off from its source, but what is divided receives the role of economy and does not diminish the one from whom it came. Just as many fires are kindled from a single torch without lessening the first flame, so the Logos, proceeding from the Father's power, did not leave the One who generated him without reason. Even now I speak and you hear, yet I am not emptied of the Logos by transmitting it; instead, I project my own voice to give shape to the unformed matter within you. Just as the Logos, generated in the beginning, generated our creation—himself fashioning the matter—so I, reborn through imitation of the Logos and having grasped the truth, reorder the confusion of kindred matter. Matter is not without beginning like God, nor does its lack of beginning make it equal in power to God; it is generated and came to be through no other, but only through the Creator of all, having been projected by him.