Tertullian

“ If, then, the things which differ from God, and from which God differs, lose what existence they had whilst they are undergoing change, wherein will consist the difference of the Divine Being from all other things except in His possessing the contrary faculty of theirs,—in other words, that God can be changed into all conditions, and yet continue just as He is? ”

“ Change, therefore, is not possible to a Being who cannot come to an end. Without doubt, the nature of things which are subject to change is regulated by this law, that they have no permanence in the state which is undergoing change in them, and that they come to an end from thus wanting permanence, whilst they lose that in the process of change which they previously were. ”

“ You cannot express any apprehension that, [8] if He had been born and truly clothed Himself with man’s nature, He would have ceased to be God, losing what He was, while becoming what He was not. For God is in no danger of losing His own state and condition. ”

“ You have sometimes read and believed that the Creator’s angels have been changed into human form, and have even borne about so veritable a body, that Abraham even washed their feet, [11] and Lot was rescued from the Sodomites by their hands; [12] an angel, moreover, wrestled with a man so strenuously with his body, that the latter desired to be let loose, so tightly was he held. ”

“ When a thing is distasteful, the very notion [3] of it is scouted; because it makes no difference whether a thing exist or do not exist, if, when it does not exist, it is yet assumed to exist. It is of course of the greatest importance that there should be nothing false (or pretended) attributed to that which really does not exist. ”

“ Footnotes ↑ Quatenus.↑ Nativitatem.↑ Opinio.↑ If Christ’s flesh was not real, the pretence of it was wholly wrong.↑ Viderint homines.↑ It did not much matter (according to the view which Tertullian attributes to Marcion) if God did practise deception in affecting the assumption of a humanity which He knew to be unreal. Men took it to be real, and that answered every purpose. ”