Theological Dissertation on the Theologoumena of Macarius Magnes

Our Macarius Magnes vindicates the true nature of divine Monarchy against the sophistries of this philosopher, and demonstrates that the truth of the matter does not depend on the name, but the truth of the name depends on the matter. For so he answers in the Second Fragment of his work, the Apocritica: "And the logic does not declare to us that the nature of homonymous original: "ὁμωνυμίας" - sharing the same name but different essence things is one... Nor does the appellation of the name confirm what is said, but the nature of the thing itself confirms the truth of the name. He therefore rules over the Gods and holds dominion, and has them in his power, not as if he were one of them because of the community of the name, but because he alone is unbegotten, and has dominion over those that are generated, etc." And in order to distinguish the essence of the true God, and the name of "Monarch" as belonging properly to him alone, from the false and fictitious Gods of the Gentiles, and to separate the substance itself from this homonymy:

Our Greek philosophers of the pagan persuasion do not differ much from this. For Porphyry in his Letter to Anebo poses this doubtful question to the Egyptian Priest: "What do the Egyptians think is the first cause? Is it Mind, or something above Mind? And is it solitary, or with another, or with others? And are all things from one, or from many?" To these doubts, IAMBLICHUS answers under the persona of Abammon the Egyptian in his book On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Sect. VIII, Chap. I, et seqq., p. 157. Finally, having enumerated the orders of the Egyptian gods, Iamblichus concludes in this manner: "And thus the doctrine of the Egyptians concerning principles, progressing from above to below, begins from the one and ends in a multitude governed by the rule of the one, etc."

ARNOBIUS, Book III, Against the Gentiles, p. 101: "But when we speak with you about divine matters, we demand that you show this: that there are gods who are other by nature, by power, and by name; not those proposed in the images which we see, but in that substance in which it is fitting to estimate that the power of such a name must exist."