Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] They have found it easier to suppose the Father acted under the Son's name than the Son under the Father's — though the Lord himself says, 'I have come in my Father's name'; and again, to the Father himself, 'I have made your name known to men'; and scripture agrees, saying, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord' — meaning, of course, the Son in the Father's name. [2] And the Father bears the titles 'Almighty God,' 'Most High,' 'Lord of Hosts,' 'King of Israel,' 'He Who Is.' Insofar as the scriptures teach this, we say that the Son too has shared in these titles, and that in bearing them the Son has come, and in them has always acted, and so has revealed them to men in himself. [3] 'All things that are the Father's,' he says, 'are mine' — why not the names as well? So when you come across 'Almighty God,' 'Most High,' 'the God of Hosts,' 'King of Israel,' and 'He Who Is,' ask whether the Son is not equally shown, in his own right, to be God — almighty, as Word of the Almighty God and as one entrusted with power over all; most high, as one 'lifted up at God's right hand,' according to Peter's proclamation in Acts; lord of hosts, since 'everything has been made subject to him' by the Father; King of Israel, since that nation's lot has fallen to him in particular; and likewise He Who Is, since 'many are called sons' who are not truly sons. [4] But if they wish the name 'Christ' also to belong to the Father, they will hear my answer to that in its own place. For now, let me have ready here an answer to what they also bring forward from John's Apocalypse: 'I am the Lord, who is and who was and who is coming, the Almighty' — and to their claim that nowhere else does the title 'God Almighty' suit the Son as well: as though the one who is to come could fail to be almighty, when the Son of the Almighty is every bit as almighty as God the Son of God.