God was not always Father; but there was when God was alone and was not yet Father; afterward He became a Father. The Son was not always; for since all things have come into existence from nothing, and all things are creatures and have been made, so also the Logos of God himself came into existence from nothing and there was a time when He was not; and that before He came into existence He was not; but He also had a beginning of His being created. For God, he says, was alone and not yet was there the Logos and Wisdom. Afterward He willed to create us, then He made a certain one and named Him Logos and Wisdom and Son, in order that by Him He might create us. He says, therefore, that there are two wisdoms, one proper to, and existing together with, God; but the Son came into existence by that wisdom, and was made a partaker of it and was only named Wisdom and Logos. For Wisdom existed by wisdom and the will of God’s wisdom. So, he says, that there is another Logos besides the Son in God, and the Son partaking of that Logos is again named Logos and Son by grace.… There are many powers; and there is one which is by nature proper to God and eternal; but Christ, again, is not the true power of God, but is one of those which are called powers, of whom also the locust and the caterpillar are called not only a power but a great power [Joel 2:2], and there are many other things like to the Son, concerning whom David says in the Psalms: “The Lord of Powers”;(101) likewise the Logos is mutable, as are all things, and by His own free choice, so far as He wills, remains good; because when He wills He is able to change, as also we are, since His nature is subject to change. Then, says he, God foreseeing that He would be good, gave by anticipation to Him that glory, which as a man He afterward had from His virtue; so that on account of His works, which God foresaw, God made Him to become such as He is now. (_e_) Council of Alexandria, A. D. 320, _Epistula encyclica_, in Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, I, 6. (MSG, 67:45.) _Cf._ Kirch, nn. 353 _ff._ The encyclical of the Council of Alexandria under Alexander, in which Arius and his sympathizers were deposed, was possibly composed by Athanasius. It is commonly found in his works, entitled _Depositio Arii_. It is also found in the _Ecclesiastical History_ of Socrates. For council, see Hefele, § 20.