Founded Before the World

But the heretics, reading the next verse, “He founded me before the world,” take a perverse view of that too. They say it is spoken of the Godhead of the Word and not of his presence among us in the flesh. So it is necessary to explain this verse also and show their error. [a] It is written, “The Lord founded the earth by Wisdom.” If, then, the earth is founded by Wisdom, how can the one who founds be founded? No, this too is said in the manner of proverbs, and we must look into its sense in the same way, so that we may know that, while the Father frames and founds the earth by Wisdom, so that it may be firm and steady, Wisdom itself is founded for us, so that it may become the beginning and foundation of our new creation and renewal. Accordingly, here as before, he does not say, “Before the world he made me Word or Son,” or there would seem to be a beginning of his being made. For this is what we must look into before everything else: whether he is Son. “On this point above all, search the Scriptures.” This was the very thing at stake when the apostles were questioned, and Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This was also one of the first questions the father of the Arian heresy asked: “If you are the Son of God.” For he knew that this is the truth and the ruling principle of our faith. He knew that if Christ was himself the Son, the devil’s tyranny would come to an end; but if he was a creature, he too was one of those descended from the Adam whom the devil had deceived, and the devil had no cause for alarm. For the same reason the Jews of that time were angry, because the Lord said that he was the Son of God and that God was his own Father. If he had called himself one of the creatures, or said, “I am a work,” they would not have been startled at the news, nor thought such words blasphemy, since they knew that even angels had come among their fathers. But since he called himself Son, they saw that this was not the mark of a creature, but of Godhead and of the Father’s nature. The Arians, then, ought, if only in imitation of their own father the devil, to take some special pains on this point. If he has said, “He founded me to be Word or Son,” then let them think as they do. But if he has not said so, let them not invent for themselves what is not there. [b]

For he does not say, “Before the world he founded me as Word or Son,” but simply, “He founded me.” This shows again, as I have said, that here too he speaks in the manner of proverbs, not for his own sake but for the sake of those who are built on him. Knowing this, the apostle also writes, “No one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ; but let each one take care how he builds on it.” And the foundation must be of the same kind as the things built on it, so that they can be fitted well together. As the Word, then, he has no one like himself who could be fitted together with him, for he is the only Son. But having become man, he has others like him: those, namely, whose likeness in the flesh he has put on. So he is founded according to his humanity, so that we, like precious stones, may be built on him and may become a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. And as he is a foundation and we are stones built on him, so again he is a vine and we are joined to him as branches. This is not according to the substance of the Godhead, for that is surely impossible, but according to his humanity. For the branches must be like the vine, and we are like him according to the flesh. Moreover, since the heretics have such human notions, we may fittingly refute them with human comparisons drawn from the very matter they press on us. He does not say, “He made me a foundation,” or he might seem to be made and to have a beginning of being, and they might find in that a shameless excuse for impiety. He says, “He founded me.” Now what is founded is founded for the sake of the stones that are raised on it. It does not happen at random: a stone is first brought from the mountain and set down deep in the earth. While a stone is still in the mountain, it is not yet founded. But when need demands, and it is brought and laid deep in the earth, then at once, if the stone could speak, it would say, “He has now founded me, who brought me here from the mountain.” So the Lord too did not begin to exist when he was founded, for he was the Word before that. But when he put on our body, which he separated off and took from Mary, then he says, “He has founded me,” as if to say, “Me, who am the Word, he has wrapped in a body of earth.” For in this way he is founded for our sakes, taking on himself what is ours, so that we, incorporated and fitted and bound together in him through the likeness of the flesh, may attain to a perfect man and remain immortal and incorruptible. [d]

Nor should anyone be troubled by the words “before the world,” “before he made the earth,” and “before the mountains were settled.” They agree very well with “founded” and “created,” for here again the reference is to the plan of salvation carried out in the flesh. The grace that came to us from the Savior has appeared, as the apostle says, only now, and came when he lived among us. Yet this grace had been prepared even before we came into being, indeed before the foundation of the world, and the reason for it is kind and wonderful. It was not fitting that God should make his plans about us afterward, or he might seem not to know what would become of us. So the God of all created us by his own Word. He knew our destinies better than we do, and foresaw that, though we were made “good,” we would afterward break the commandment and be thrust out of paradise for our disobedience. Being loving and kind, he prepared beforehand, in his own Word, through whom he also created us, the plan of our salvation. He did this so that, though we fell away from him through the serpent’s deceit, we might not remain wholly dead, but, having in the Word the redemption and salvation prepared for us beforehand, might rise again and remain immortal, when he should be created for us “a beginning of the ways,” and he who was “the firstborn of creation” should become the “firstborn” among the “brothers,” and again should rise as “the firstfruits of the dead.” Paul, the blessed apostle, teaches this in his writings. As though interpreting the words of the Proverbs, “before the world” and “before the earth was,” he speaks this way to Timothy: “Share in the sufferings of the good news according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but has now been made known through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life to light.” And to the Ephesians: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as children through Jesus Christ for himself.” [e] How, then, has he chosen us before we came into existence, unless, as he himself says, we were represented in him beforehand? And how, before human beings were created, did he predestine us to adoption, unless the Son himself was “founded before the world,” taking on himself the plan of salvation that was for our sake? Or how, as the apostle goes on to say, do we have “an inheritance, having been predestined,” unless the Lord himself was founded “before the world”? For he purposed, for our sakes, to take on himself through the flesh the whole inheritance of judgment that stood against us, and from then on we were made sons in him. And how did we receive it “before the world was,” when we did not yet exist but came afterward in time, unless the grace that has reached us was stored up in Christ? That is why, at the judgment too, when everyone will receive according to his conduct, he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” How, then, or in whom, was it prepared before we came to be, except in the Lord, who “before the world” was founded for this very purpose, so that we, built on him like well-fitted stones, might share the life and grace that come from him? And this took place, as a devout mind naturally sees, so that, as I said, we, rising after our brief death, might be capable of eternal life. Of this we would not have been capable, being men formed from earth, had not the hope of life and salvation been prepared for us in Christ “before the world.” So there is good reason why the Word, on coming into our flesh and being created in it as “a beginning of ways for his works,” is laid as a foundation in keeping with the Father’s will, which was in him before the world, as has been said, and before the land was, and before the mountains were settled, and before the fountains burst forth. This was so that, though the earth and the mountains and the shapes of visible nature pass away when the present age is complete, we on the contrary might not grow old as they do, but might be able to live after them. For we have the spiritual life and blessing that were prepared for us before all these things in the Word himself, according to election. In this way we will be capable of a life that is not temporary, and will remain and live in Christ forever afterward, since even before this our life had been founded and prepared in Christ Jesus. [h]

Nor was it fitting for our life to be founded anywhere but in the Lord, who is before the ages and through whom the ages came to be, so that, since our life was in him, we too might be able to inherit that everlasting life. For God is good, and being always good, he willed this, knowing that our weak nature needed the help and salvation that come from him. A wise architect who plans to build a house also gives thought to repairing it, in case it should ever fall into disrepair after it is built. Planning for this, he makes preparations and gives the workmen materials for a repair, and so the means of repair are provided before the house. In the same way the repair of our salvation was founded in Christ before us, so that in him we might even be created anew. The will and the purpose were made ready “before the world,” but took effect when need required it and the Savior came among us. For the Lord himself will take the place of all things in the heavens for us when he receives us into everlasting life. This, then, is enough to prove that the Word of God is not a creature, and that the sense of the passage is a right one. But since that passage, when examined closely, has a right sense from every point of view, it may be well to state what that sense is; perhaps many words will bring these senseless men to shame. Here I must go back to what was said before, for what I have to say concerns the same proverb and the same Wisdom. The Word has not called himself a creature by nature, but has said in proverbs, “The Lord created me.” And he plainly points to a sense that is not spoken “plainly” but lies hidden, one we will be able to find by taking the veil off the proverb. For who, hearing the Wisdom that frames all things say, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways,” does not at once ask what it means, wondering how that creating Wisdom can be created? Who, hearing the only Son of God say that he was created “a beginning of ways,” does not look into the sense, wondering how the only Son can become a beginning of many others? For it is an obscure saying. But “a man of understanding,” he says, “will understand a proverb and its interpretation, the words of the wise and their obscure sayings.” [j]

Now the only Son of God, Wisdom itself, is the Creator and Framer of all things. “In wisdom you have made them all,” he says, and “the earth is full of your creation.” But so that what came into being might not only exist but be good, it pleased God that his own Wisdom should stoop down to the creatures, so as to set an imprint and likeness of its Image on all of them together and on each one, so that what was made might plainly be wise works, worthy of God. For as our word is an image of the Son of God considered as the Word, so the wisdom planted in us is an image of the same Son considered as Wisdom. In this wisdom we, having the power of knowledge and thought, become able to receive the Wisdom that framed all things, and through it we are able to know its Father. “For whoever has the Son,” he says, “has the Father also,” and “whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” Since such an imprint of Wisdom has been created in us and is in all the works, it is with good reason that the true and framing Wisdom takes to itself what belongs to its own imprint and says, “The Lord created me for his works.” For what the wisdom in us says, the Lord himself speaks as though it were his own. He is not himself created, since he is the Creator; yet because of the image of him created in the works, he says this as though of himself. And as the Lord himself said, “Whoever receives you receives me,” because his imprint is in us, so too, though he is not among the creatures, yet because his image and imprint is created in the works, he says, as though in his own person, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways for his works.” And this imprint of Wisdom has been brought into being in the works so that, as I said before, the world might recognize in it its own Creator, the Word, and through him the Father. This is what Paul said: “Because what can be known of God is plain to them, for God has shown it to them. For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made.” But if so, the Word is not a creature in substance. Rather, it is the wisdom that is in us, and is called wisdom, that is spoken of in this passage in the Proverbs. [k] But if even this does not persuade them, let them tell us themselves whether there is any wisdom in the creatures or not. If there is none, how can the apostle complain, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God”? Or if there is no wisdom, how is it that “a multitude of wise men” is found in Scripture? For “a wise man fears and turns away from evil,” and “by wisdom a house is built.” And the Preacher says, “A man’s wisdom makes his face shine,” and he rebukes the headstrong in this way: “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not ask about this in wisdom.” But the Son of Sirach says, “He poured her out on all his works; she is with all flesh according to his gift, and he has given her to those who love him.” And if this outpouring is a mark not of the substance of Wisdom itself, the only Son, but of the wisdom imaged in the world, why is it incredible that the true Wisdom that framed all things, whose imprint is the wisdom and knowledge poured out in the world, should say, as I have already explained, as though of itself, “The Lord created me for his works”? For the wisdom in the world is not creative; it is what is created in the works, the wisdom by which “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” If people have this within them, they will acknowledge the true Wisdom of God, and will know that they are truly made after God’s Image. Suppose a king’s son, when his father wished to build a city, had his own name printed on each of the works as they rose. He would do it both to give assurance that the works would last, since his name was displayed on everything, and to make people remember him and his father by the name. And suppose that, when the city was finished, he were asked how it was made. He would answer, “It is made securely, for by my father’s will I am imaged in each work; my name was made in the works.” But in saying this he does not mean that his own substance is created, only the imprint of himself by means of his name. In the same way, to apply the illustration, the true Wisdom answers those who admire the wisdom in the creatures: “The Lord created me for the works, for my imprint is in them; and I have stooped down in this way for the framing of all things.” [m]

Moreover, no one should be startled that the Son speaks of the imprint within us as if it were himself. Consider (for we must not shrink from repeating ourselves) that when Saul was persecuting the church, in which was his imprint and image, he said, as if he himself were being persecuted, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” So, as has been said, if the imprint of Wisdom that is in the works had itself said, “The Lord created me for the works,” no one would have been startled. In the same way, if he, the true and framing Wisdom, God’s one and only Word, uses what belongs to his image as if it were about himself, saying, “The Lord created me for the works,” let no one overlook the wisdom created in the world and in the works and think that “he created” is said of the substance of Wisdom itself. Otherwise he dilutes the wine with water and will be judged a cheat who defrauds the truth. For Wisdom itself is creative and the Framer; but its imprint is created in the works, as the copy of the image. And he says, “a beginning of ways,” because such wisdom becomes a kind of beginning, the first elements, as it were, of the knowledge of God. A man enters first on this way, as it were, and keeps to it in the fear of God (as Solomon says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”). Then, advancing upward in his thoughts and perceiving the framing Wisdom that is in the creation, he will perceive in it its Father also, as the Lord himself said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” and as John writes, “Whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” And he says, “Before the world he founded me,” because in its imprint the works remain settled and eternal. Then, so that no one who hears of the wisdom created in this way in the works should think that the true Wisdom, God’s Son, is by nature a creature, he has found it necessary to add, “Before the mountains, and before the earth, and before the waters, and before all hills, he begets me.” In saying “before every creature” (for under these heads he includes the whole creation), he shows that he is not created together with the works in substance. For if he was created “for the works,” yet is before them, it follows that he exists before he was created. So he is not a creature by nature and substance, but, as he himself has added, an Offspring. How a creature differs from an offspring, and how it is distinct by nature, has been shown earlier. [o] But since he goes on to say, “When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him,” we ought to know that he does not say this as if the Father prepared the heaven or the clouds above without Wisdom. There is no room to doubt that all things are created in Wisdom, and without it not even one thing was made. What he says is this: “All things came to be in me and through me. And when there was need for Wisdom to be created in the works, in my substance I was indeed with the Father, but by stooping down to the things that have come into being, I was setting my own imprint on the works, so that the whole world, being as it were in one body, might not be at odds with itself but in harmony.” All those, then, who with an upright understanding, according to the wisdom given to them, come to contemplate the creatures, are able to say for themselves, “By your ordinance all things continue.” But those who make light of this must be told, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” For “what can be known of God is plain to them, for God has revealed it to them. For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being perceived through the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, but served the creature rather than the Creator of all, who is blessed forever. Amen.” And they will surely be put to shame when they hear, “For since, in the wisdom of God (in the way we have explained above), the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.” For God no longer willed to be known, as in former times, by an image and shadow of wisdom, that is, the wisdom in the creatures. He has made the true Wisdom itself take flesh, become man, and undergo the death of the cross, so that from now on all who believe may obtain salvation through faith in him. Yet it is the same Wisdom of God that first revealed itself, and through itself its own Father, by its own Image in the creatures, which is why it is also said to be created. Afterward, being itself the Word, it “became flesh,” as John says; and after abolishing death and saving our race, he revealed himself still more, and through himself his own Father, saying, “Grant them to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” [q]

So the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of him. For the knowledge of the Father through the Son and of the Son from the Father is one and the same. The Father delights in him, and with the same joy the Son rejoices in the Father, saying, “I was beside him, his delight daily, rejoicing before him always.” And this again proves that the Son is not foreign to the Father’s substance but belongs to it as his own. For see: he has not come into being because of us, as the impious say, nor is he from nothing (for God did not obtain for himself a cause of rejoicing from outside). The words point to what is his own and like him. When, then, was there a time when the Father did not rejoice? But if he always rejoiced, the one in whom he rejoiced always existed. And in whom does the Father rejoice, except in seeing himself in his own Image, who is his Word? It is true that he also delighted in the sons of men when he had finished the world, as it is written in these same Proverbs; but this too has a consistent sense. For even then he delighted, not because joy was added to him, but again because he saw the works made after his own Image, so that even this rejoicing of God is on account of his Image. And how does the Son delight, except in seeing himself in the Father? For this is the same as saying, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” So your boasting is empty, you enemies of Christ, as has been shown on every side. And in vain you paraded your text, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways,” and circulated it everywhere, twisting its sense and publishing not Solomon’s meaning but your own notion. For see, your sense is proved to be a mere fantasy. But the passage in the Proverbs, together with all that has been said above, proves that the Son is not a creature in nature and substance, but the Father’s own Offspring, true Wisdom and Word, through whom “all things were made,” and “without him not one thing was made.” [r]