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 Word according to his love, and by obeying him we always learn how great God is. He is the one who establishes, chooses, and adorns all things in relation to us, and so we ourselves have been made together with everything he contains. This is what Scripture says: God formed the human being 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 make the image of God, nor anyone else except the Word of the Lord, nor any power far removed from the Father. God did not need such helpers to do what he had predetermined, as if he lacked his own hands. For the Word and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, are always present with him, and through them and in them he freely and willingly made all things. He also speaks to them, saying, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," himself drawing from himself the substance of creatures, the pattern of things made, and the form of the world's ornaments.

Scripture has rightly declared: "First of all, believe that there is one God, who established and completed 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 also says: "Is it not one God who established us? Is it not one Father of all of us?" (Malachi 2:10). And consequently the Apostle says: "There is one God, the Father, who is over all and in us all" (Ephesians 4:6). Similarly the Lord says: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father" — clearly by him 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, neither in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth, nor even see it, except the Lamb who was slain and redeemed us with his blood from him who made all things by the Word and adorned them by Wisdom. He received all authority when the Word became flesh, so that just as the Word of God held primacy in heaven, so also he might hold primacy on earth — because the righteous man who committed no sin, in whose mouth no deceit was found — and primacy over the things under the earth, having become the firstborn of the dead. And so all things might see their King, as we have previously said; and so the paternal light might meet the flesh of the Lord, and radiant light might come to us from his flesh, and so 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 since Wisdom, that is, the Spirit, was with him before all creation, Solomon says: "By wisdom the Lord founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds dropped down dew" (Proverbs 8:22-31). 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" (Proverbs 8:22-31). And again: "When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then 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" (Proverbs 8:22-31).

Therefore there is one God, who made and ordered all things by the Word and Wisdom. This is the Demiurge, who also assigned this world to the human race. According to his magnitude he is unknown to all who have been made by him, for no one has searched out his height — neither the ancients who have rested, nor those who are now. But according to love he is always known through him through whom he established all things: our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the last times became man among men, so that he might join the end to the beginning. And therefore the prophets, receiving the prophetic gift from the same Word, predicted his coming in the flesh, through which the mingling and communion of God and humanity was accomplished according to the Father's good pleasure. The Word of God had previously announced that God would be seen by humans, would converse with them on earth, would be present with his creation, saving it, being perceived by 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.