Tatian, Address to the Greeks 5

God existed in the beginning, and we have received the Logos's power as our starting point. The Master of all things, Himself the substance of everything, was alone before creation came into being; yet as the substance of all power—both visible and invisible—He held all things within Himself. Through His rational power, the Logos who dwelt in Him was established there. By the will of His simplicity, the Logos proceeds, not by separating 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 cut off is separated from its source, but what is divided, having received its role in the divine economy, does not diminish the One from whom it came. Just as a single torch kindles many fires without losing its own light, 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 listen, yet I am not emptied of the Logos by its transmission; rather, by putting forth my voice, I undertake to adorn the unadorned matter within you. As the Logos, generated in the beginning, generated our creation by Himself fashioning its matter, so I—reborn by imitating 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 a beginning make it equal in power to God; it is generated, not from any other source, but solely from the Creator of all things, having been put forth by Him.