material. God, however, is greater than men first of all in this: that when nothing existed beforehand, he called into existence the very material for his creation” (Adv. Haer. 2.10.4). By the third century, the ideas of the unity of God and creatio ex nihilo were “the rule of faith.” Tertullian writes: “There is, however, a rule of faith; and so that we may acknowledge at this point what it is we defend, it is this precisely that we believe: There is only one God and none other besides him, the