NPNF2-04. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters

81. But since He proceeds to say, ‘When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him2772,’ we ought to know that He says not this as if without Wisdom the Father prepared the heaven or the clouds above (for there is no room to doubt that all things are created in Wisdom, and without It was made not even one2773 thing); but this is what He says, ‘All things took place in Me and through Me, and when there was need that Wisdom should be created in the works, in My Essence indeed I was with the Father, but by a condescension2774 to things originate, I was disposing over the works My own impress, so that the whole world as being in one body, might not be at variance but in concord with itself.’ All those then who with an upright understanding, according to the wisdom given unto them, come to contemplate the creatures, are able to say for themselves, ‘By Thy appointment all things continue2775;’ but they who make light of this must be told, ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools;’ for ‘that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has revealed it unto them; for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, but served the creature more than the Creator of all, who is blessed for ever. Amen2776.’

And they will surely be shamed at hearing, ‘For, after that in the wisdom of God (in the mode we have explained above), the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe2777.’ For no longer, as in the former times, God has willed to be known by an image and shadow of wisdom, that namely which is in the creatures, but He has made the true Wisdom Itself to take flesh, and to become man, and to undergo the death of the cross; that by the faith in Him, henceforth all that believe may obtain salvation. However, it is the same Wisdom of God, which through Its own Image in the creatures (whence also It is said to be created), first manifested Itself, and through Itself Its own Father; and afterwards, being Itself the Word, has ‘become flesh2778,’ as John says, and after abolishing death and saving our race, still more revealed Himself and through Him His own Father, saying, ‘Grant unto them that they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent2779.’

82. Hence the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of Him; for the knowledge of Father through Son and of Son from Father is one and the same, and the Father delights in Him, and in the same joy the Son rejoices in the Father, saying, ‘I was by Him, daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him2780.’ And this again proves that the Son is not foreign, but proper to the Father’s Essence. For behold, not because of us has He come to be, as the irreligious men say, nor is He out of nothing (for not from without did God procure for Himself a cause of rejoicing), but the words denote what is His own and like. When then was it, when the Father rejoiced not? but if He ever rejoiced, He was ever, in whom He rejoiced. And in whom does the Father rejoice, except as seeing Himself in His own Image, which is His Word? And though in sons of men also He had delight, on finishing the world, as it is written in these same Proverbs2781, yet this too has a consistent sense. For even thus He had delight, not because joy was added to Him, but again on seeing the works made after His own Image; so that even this rejoicing of God is on account of His Image. And how too has the Son delight, except as seeing Himself in the Father? for this is the same as saying, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,’ and ‘I am in the Father and the Father in Me2782.’

Vain then is your vaunt as is on all sides shewn, O Christ’s enemies, and vainly did ye parade2783 and circulate everywhere your text, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,’ perverting its sense, and publishing, not Solomon’s meaning, but your own comment2784. For behold your sense is proved to be but a fantasy; but the passage in the Proverbs, as well as all that is above said, proves that the Son is not a creature in nature and essence, but the proper Offspring of the Father, true Wisdom and Word, by whom ‘all things were made,’ and ‘without Him was made not one thing.2785’