Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But someone will argue that two supreme greatnesses can perfectly well coexist, distinct and separate within their own boundaries, and will of course summon as proof the kingdoms of the earth—so many of them in number, and yet each one supreme and great within its own territory—supposing that human affairs can everywhere be measured against divine ones. Well, if this line of argument is allowed any room at all, what is to stop us introducing not merely a second and a third god but as many gods as there are kings of nations? The subject under discussion is God, and it is God's very own and essential property that he admits comparison to no example whatever. Nature herself will proclaim this, even without an Isaiah—or rather God himself proclaims it through Isaiah: 'To whom will you liken me?' Human things may perhaps be compared to divine things; God is not to be compared to anything. God is one thing, the things of God are another. Now then, you who use the example of a king as though he were the 'supreme greatness'—watch that you have not just disqualified yourself from using it. A king, even though he is a supreme greatness on his own throne, remains beneath God; set him beside God and he instantly falls from being a supreme greatness, once transferred into comparison with God. If that is so, how can you use as an example, for comparing it to God, a thing that is annihilated the moment it is brought into that comparison? What now, if not even among kings can a 'supreme greatness' be found scattered in many instances, but only one and unique—namely in him who, being king of kings by the height of his majesty and the subjection of every lesser rank, is received as the very summit of dominion? Even other types of king, single rulers presiding over the unity of an empire, if they were gathered from every side for examination against the petty kingdoms, so to speak, to see which of them excels in the substance and strength of rule, the pinnacle of greatness would necessarily be distilled down to one, all the others being stripped and excluded step by step in the process of comparison. So it is: even though 'supreme greatness' seems to appear scattered in many places, by its own strength, its own nature, and its own standing it is one. Accordingly, when two gods are set side by side, like two kings and two supreme greatnesses, the unity of the supreme greatness must necessarily fall to the one, by the very verdict of the comparison—because supremacy consists in victory, in overcoming a rival who, though great, is not supreme, and by the defeat of that rival it possesses, in a kind of solitude, the singularity of its own preeminence, and so is unique. This inescapable knot binds the argument to one conclusion: either deny that God is a supreme greatness—which no sane person will tolerate—or admit that it can be shared with no one else.
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