Proverbs 8:23

Nor is He a mere man, by whom and in whom all things were made; for “all things were made by Him.” “When He made the heaven, I was present with Him; and I was there with Him, forming [the world along with Him], and He rejoiced in me daily.” And how could a mere man be addressed in such words as these: “Sit Thou at My right hand?” And how, again, could such an one declare: “Before Abraham was, I am?” And, “Glorify Me with Thy glory which I had before the world was?” What man could ever say, “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me?” And of what man could it be said, “He was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world: He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. …

But it is not thus that the prophets and the apostles have told us that the world was made by God merely appearing and approaching Matter. They did not even mention any Matter, but (said) that Wisdom was first set up, the beginning of His ways, for His works. Then that the Word was produced, “through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.” Indeed, “by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts by the breath of His mouth.” He is the Lord’s right hand, indeed His two hands, by which He worked and constructed the universe . “For,” says He, “the heavens are the works of Thine hands,” wherewith “He hath meted out the heaven, and the earth with a span.” Do not be willing so to cover God with flattery, as to contend that He produced by His mere appearance and simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather forming them by His own energies. …

This power and disposition of the Divine Intelligence is set forth also in the Scriptures under the name of Σοφία , Wisdom; for what can be better entitled to the name of Wisdom than the Reason or the Word of God? Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a Second Person: “At the first the Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works, before He made the earth, before the mountains were settled; moreover, before all the hills did He beget me;” that is to say, He created and generated me in His own intelligence. Then, again, observe the distinction between them implied in the companionship of Wisdom with the Lord. …

When, therefore, Moses has spoken of “the six days in which God made heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh from all His works,” Simon, in a manner already specified, giving (these and other passages of Scripture) a different application (from the one intended by the holy writers), deifies himself. When, therefore, (the followers of Simon) affirm that there are three days begotten before sun and moon, they speak enigmatically of Mind and Intelligence, that is, Heaven and Earth, and of the seventh power, (I mean) the indefinite one. For these three powers are produced antecedent to all the rest. But when they say, “He begot me prior to all the Ages,” such statements, he says, are alleged to hold good concerning the seventh power. …

In Solomon in the Proverbs: “The Lord established me in the beginning of His ways, into His works: before the world He founded me. In the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He appointed the abysses, before the fountains of waters gushed forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills, the Lord begot me. He made the countries, and the uninhabitable places, and the uninhabitable bounds under heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him; and when He set apart His seat. …

XX . For even now, on the tenth day of the month Gorpiæus, when they assemble together, they read the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which it is said, “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord was taken in their destructions;” and Baruch, in whom it is written, “This is our God; no other shall be esteemed with Him. He found out every way of knowledge, and showed it to Jacob His son, and Israel His beloved. Afterwards He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.” And when they read them, they lament and bewail, as themselves suppose, that desolation which happened by Nebuchadnezzar ; but, as the truth shows, they unwillingly make a prelude to that lamentation which will overtake them. …

15. To which she adds: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, for his works; before the world he established me, in the beginning, before he made the earth, before he made the depths, before the mountains were settled, before all hills he begat me. When he prepared the heavens I was present with him, and when he established the fountains of the region under heaven I was with him, disposing. I was the one in whom he delighted; daily I rejoiced before him at all times when he was rejoicing at having completed the world.”

13. It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son’s eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases ‘He was not,’ and ‘before’ and ‘when,’ are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our system, says, ‘And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.’ And in Deuteronomy, ‘When the Most High divided to the nations.’ And the Lord said in His own Person, ‘If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father, for My Father is greater than I. …

Chapter XXII . Texts Explained; Sixthly, the Context of Proverbs viii. 22 Vz. 22-30 It is right to interpret this passage by the Regula Fidei. ‘Founded’ is used in contrast to superstructure; and it implies, as in the case of stones in building, previous existence. ‘Before the world’ signifies the divine intention and purpose. Recurrence to Prov. viii. 22 , and application of it to created Wisdom as seen in the works. The Son reveals the Father, first by the works, then by the Incarnation.

But since the heretics, reading the next verse, take a perverse view of that also, because it is written, ‘He founded me before the world,’ namely, that this is said of the Godhead of the Word and not of His incarnate Presence, it is necessary, explaining this verse also, to shew their error.

58. Even as the Child, then, is born not unto all, but unto the faithful: so the Son is given to the faithful and not to the unbelieving. He is given to us, not to the Photinians; for they affirm that the Son of God was not given unto us, but was born and first began to exist amongst us. To us is He given, not to the Sabellians, who will not hear of a Son being given, maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same. Unto us is He given, not unto the Arians, in whose judgment the Son was not given for salvation, but sent over subject and inferior, to whom, moreover, He is no “Counsellor,” inasmuch as they hold that He knows nought of the future, no Son, since they believe not in His eternity, though of the Word of God it is written: “That which was in the beginning;” and again: “In the beginning was the Word.” To return to the passage we set before us to discuss. …