Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Proverbs 8:25
There are 21 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 108, footnote 15 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Tarsians (HTML)
Chapter VI.—Continuation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1205 (In-Text, Margin)
... made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not?” How could such a one be a mere man, receiving the beginning of His existence from Mary, and not rather God the Word, and the only-begotten Son? For “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And in another place, “The Lord created Me, the beginning of His ways, for His ways, for His works. Before the world did He found Me, and before all the hills did He beget Me.”[Proverbs 8:25]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 488, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XX.—That one God formed all things in the world, by means of the Word and the Holy Spirit: and that although He is to us in this life invisible and incomprehensible, nevertheless He is not unknown; inasmuch as His works do declare Him, and His Word has shown that in many modes He may be seen and known. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4073 (In-Text, Margin)
... declares by Solomon: “God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding hath He established the heaven. By His knowledge the depths burst forth, and the clouds dropped down the dew.” And again: “The Lord created me the beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before He established the depths, and before the fountains of waters gushed forth; before the mountains were made strong, and before all the hills, He brought me forth.”[Proverbs 8:22-25] And again: “When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and when He established the fountains of the deep; when He made the foundations of the earth strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I was He in whom He rejoiced, and throughout all time I ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 601, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
The Word of God is Also the Wisdom of God. The Going Forth of Wisdom to Create the Universe, According to the Divine Plan. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7821 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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;”[Proverbs 8:22-25] 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 He prepared the heaven,” says Wisdom, “I was present with Him; ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 602, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
The Son by Being Designated Word and Wisdom, (According to the Imperfection of Human Thought and Language) Liable to Be Deemed a Mere Attribute. He is Shown to Be a Personal Being. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7832 (In-Text, Margin)
... testifies: “My heart,” says He, “hath emitted my most excellent Word.” The Father took pleasure evermore in Him, who equally rejoiced with a reciprocal gladness in the Father’s presence: “Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee;” even before the morning star did I beget Thee. The Son likewise acknowledges the Father, speaking in His own person, under the name of Wisdom: “The Lord formed Me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works; before all the hills did He beget Me.”[Proverbs 8:25] For if indeed Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a view to His works, and to accomplish His ways, yet proof is given in another Scripture that “all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 246, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On Christ. (HTML)
... only-begotten Son of God is, seeing He is called by many different names, according to the circumstances and views of individuals. For He is termed Wisdom, according to the expression of Solomon: “The Lord created me—the beginning of His ways, and among His works, before He made any other thing; He founded me before the ages. In the beginning, before He formed the earth, before He brought forth the fountains of waters, before the mountains were made strong, before all the hills, He brought me forth.”[Proverbs 8:22-25] He is also styled First-born, as the apostle has declared: “who is the first-born of every creature.” The first-born, however, is not by nature a different person from the Wisdom, but one and the same. Finally, the Apostle Paul says that “Christ ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 515, footnote 5 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
... 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. When He made the strong clouds above the winds, and when He placed the strengthened fountains under heaven, when He made the mighty foundations of the earth, I was by His side, ordering them: I was He in whom He delighted: moreover, I daily rejoiced before His face in all time, when He rejoiced in the perfected earth.”[Proverbs 8:22-31] Also in the same in Ecclesiasticus: “I went forth out of the mouth of the Most High, first-born before every creature: I made the unwearying light to rise in the heavens, and I covered the whole earth with a cloud: I dwelt in the high places, and my ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 105, footnote 4 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Lactantius (HTML)
The Divine Institutes (HTML)
Book IV. Of True Wisdom and Religion (HTML)
Chap. VI.—Almighty God begat his Son; and the testimonies of the Sibyls and of Trismegistus concerning Him (HTML)
Assuredly He is the very Son of God, who by that most wise King Solomon, full of divine inspiration, spake these things which we have added:[Proverbs 8:22-31], “God founded me in the beginning of His ways, in His work before the ages. He set me up in the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He established the depths, before the fountains of waters came forth: the Lord begat me before all the hills; He made the regions, and the uninhabitable boundaries under the heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was by Him: and when He separated His own seat, when He made the strong ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 365, footnote 8 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Dionysius (HTML)
Against the Sabellians (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2349 (In-Text, Margin)
... not to be understood in the same manner as “made.” For to make and to create are different from one another. “Is not He Himself thy Father, that hath possessed thee and created thee?” says Moses in the great song of Deuteronomy. And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and rash men! was then “the first-born of every creature” something made?—“He who was begotten from the womb before the morning star?” —He who in the person of Wisdom says, “Before all the hills He begot me?”[Proverbs 8:25] Finally, any one may read in many parts of the divine utterances that the Son is said to have been begotten, but never that He was made. From which considerations, they who dare to say that His divine and inexplicable generation was a creation, are ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 448, footnote 15 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Sec. III.—On Feast Days and Fast Days (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3143 (In-Text, Margin)
... darts are sharpened, O Thou that art mighty; the people shall fall under Thee in the heart of the king’s enemies. Wherefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” Concerning Him also spake Solomon, as in His person: “The Lord created me the beginning of His ways, for His works: before the world He founded me, in the beginning before He made the earth, before the fountains of waters came, before the mountains were fastened; He begat me before all the hills.”[Proverbs 8:22-25] And again: “Wisdom built herself an house.” Concerning Him also Isaiah said: “A Branch shall come out of the root of Jesse, and a Flower shall spring out of his root.” And, “There shall be a root of Jesse; and He that is to rise to reign over the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 31, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge. (HTML)
24. According to the form of God, it is said “Before all the hills He begat me,”[Proverbs 8:25] that is, before all the loftinesses of things created and, “Before the dawn I begat Thee,” that is, before all times and temporal things: but according to the form of a servant, it is said, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” Because, according to the form of God, He said, “I am the truth;” and according to the form of a servant, “I am the way.” For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 84, footnote 3 (Image)
Eusebius: Church History from A.D. 1-324, Life of Constantine the Great, Oration in Praise of Constantine
The Church History of Eusebius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Summary View of the Pre-existence and Divinity of Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 45 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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.”[Proverbs 8:22-25]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 42, footnote 2 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Letter of Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre. (HTML)
... and is incomprehensible not only to man, but also to all beings superior to man. These opinions we advance not as having derived them from our own imagination, but as having deduced them from Scripture, whence we learn that the Son was created, established, and begotten in the same substance and in the same immutable and inexpressible nature as the Maker; and so the Lord says, ‘ God created me in the beginning of His way; I was set up from everlasting; before the hills was I brought forth[Proverbs 8:22-26].’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 158, footnote 16 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Two senses of the word Son, 1. adoptive; 2. essential; attempts of Arians to find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was created immediately by God (Asterius's view), or that our Lord alone partakes the Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He makes, really; though His creation and generation are not like man's; His generation independent of time; generation implies an internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God; explanation of Prov. viii. 22. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 837 (In-Text, Margin)
... his mind be disordered, and he beside himself. Plainly, divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of everything, says through Moses, of the creatures, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;’ but of the Son it introduces not another, but the Father Himself saying, ‘I have begotten Thee from the womb before the morning star;’ and again, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.’ And the Lord says of Himself in the Proverbs, ‘Before all the hills He begets me[Proverbs 8:25];’ and concerning things originated and created John speaks, ‘All things were made by Him;’ but preaching of the Lord, he says, ‘The Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him.’ If then son, therefore not creature; if ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 168, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 935 (In-Text, Margin)
... place, as ‘He set over the works made by Him,’ that is, ‘made by the Son Himself.’ And ‘He created’ here must not be taken for ‘made,’ for creating differs from making. ‘Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee and created thee?’says Moses in his great song in Deuteronomy. And one may say to them, O reckless men, is He a work, who is ‘the First-born of every creature, who is born from the womb before the morning star,’ who said, as Wisdom, ‘Before all the hills He begets me[Proverbs 8:25]?’ And in many passages of the divine oracles is the Son said to have been generated, but nowhere to have come into being; which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s generation, who presume to call His divine and ineffable ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 168, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 939 (In-Text, Margin)
... nowhere to have come into being; which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s generation, who presume to call His divine and ineffable generation a making. Neither then may we divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with the name of ‘work’ the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united[Proverbs 8:25]. For ‘I,’ says He, ‘and the Father are one;’ and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ For thus both the Divine Triad, and the holy preaching of the Monarchy, will be preserved.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 365, footnote 13 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Contrast between the Father's operations immediately and naturally in the Son, instrumentally by the creatures; Scripture terms illustrative of this. Explanation of these illustrations; which should be interpreted by the doctrine of the Church; perverse sense put on them by the Arians, refuted. Mystery of Divine Generation. Contrast between God's Word and man's word drawn out at length. Asterius betrayed into holding two Unoriginates; his inconsistency. Baptism how by the Son as well as by the Father. On the Baptism of heretics. Why Arian worse than other heresies. (HTML)
32. It is plain from this that the Arians are not fighting with us about their heresy; but while they pretend us, their real fight is against the Godhead Itself. For if the voice were ours which says, ‘This it My Son,’ small were our complaint of them; but if it is the Father’s voice, and the disciples heard it, and the Son too says of Himself, ‘Before all the mountains He begat me[Proverbs 8:25],’ are they not fighting against God, as the giants in story, having their tongue, as the Psalmist says, a sharp sword for irreligion? For they neither feared the voice of the Father, nor reverenced the Saviour’s words, nor trusted the Saints, one of whom writes, ‘Who being the Brightness of His glory and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 379, footnote 1 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22 Continued. Our Lord is said to be created 'for the works,' i.e. with a particular purpose, which no mere creatures are ever said to be. Parallel of Isai. xlix. 5, &c. When His manhood is spoken of, a reason for it is added; not so when His Divine Nature; Texts in proof. (HTML)
... and as it beseemed not to say this, so it is natural and proper in the case of man to say, ‘He created’ and ‘He made’ Him. On this account then the reason of ‘He created’ is added, namely, the need of the works; and where the reason is added, surely the reason rightly explains the lection. Thus here, when He says ‘He created,’ He sets down the cause, ‘the works;’ on the other hand, when He signifies absolutely the generation from the Father, straightway He adds, ‘Before all the hills He begets me[Proverbs 8:25];’ but He does not add the ‘wherefore,’ as in the case of ‘He created,’ saying, ‘for the works,’ but absolutely, ‘He begets me,’ as in the text, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ For, though no works had been created, still ‘the Word’ of God ‘was,’ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 392, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
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. (HTML)
... knowledge of God; for a man entering, as it were, upon this way first, and keeping it in the fear of God (as Solomon says, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’), then advancing upwards in his thoughts and perceiving the Framing Wisdom which is in the creation, will perceive in It also Its Father, as the Lord Himself has said, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,’ and as John writes, ‘He who acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also.’ And He says, ‘Before the world He founded me[Proverbs 8:24-26],’ since in Its impress the works remain settled and eternal. Then, lest any, hearing concerning the wisdom thus created in the works, should think the true Wisdom, God’s Son, to be by nature a creature, He has found it necessary to add, ‘Before the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 442, footnote 12 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse IV (HTML)
Since the Word is from God, He must be Son. Since the Son is from everlasting, He must be the Word; else either He is superior to the Word, or the Word is the Father. Texts of the New Testament which state the unity of the Son with the Father; therefore the Son is the Word. Three hypotheses refuted--1. That the Man is the Son; 2. That the Word and Man together are the Son; 3. That the Word became Son on His incarnation. Texts of the Old Testament which speak of the Son. If they are merely prophetical, then those concerning the Word may be such also. (HTML)
... the Sons of Korah for understanding, a song about the Well-beloved;’ and in Isaiah, ‘I will sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Well-beloved touching my vineyard. My Well-beloved hath a vineyard;’ Who is this ‘Well-beloved’ but the Only-begotten Son? as also in the hundred and ninth, ‘From the womb I begat Thee before the morning star,’ concerning which I shall speak afterwards; and in the Proverbs, ‘Before the hills He begat me;’ and in Daniel, ‘And the form of the Fourth is like the Son of God[Proverbs 8:25];’ and many others. If then from the Old be ancientness, ancient must be the Son, who is clearly described in the Old Testament in many places. ‘Yes,’ they say, ‘so it is, but it must be taken prophetically.’ Therefore also the Word must be said to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 117, footnote 11 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He explains the phrase “The Lord created Me,” and the argument about the origination of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius' reasoning, and the passage which says, “My glory will I not give to another,” examining them from different points of view. (HTML)
... to us who have put Him on the beginning of the ways of salvation, that He may make us the work of His own hands, new modelling us from the evil mould of sin once more to His own image. He is at once our foundation before the world to come, according to the words of Paul, who says, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,” and it is true that “before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before He made the depths, and before all hills, He begetteth Me[Proverbs 8:23-25].” For it is possible, accord ing to the usage of the Book of Proverbs, for each of these phrases, taken in a tropical sense, to be applied to the Word. For the great David calls righteousness the “mountains of God,” His judgments “deeps,” and the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 305, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Third Theological Oration. On the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3520 (In-Text, Margin)
XIII. What now remains of their invincible arguments? Perhaps the last they will take refuge in is this. If God has never ceased to beget, the Generation is imperfect; and when will He cease? But if He has ceased, then He must have begun. Thus again these carnal minds bring forward carnal arguments. Whether He is eternally begotten or not, I do not yet say, until I have looked into the statement, “Before all the hills He begetteth Me,”[Proverbs 8:25] more accurately. But I cannot see the necessity of their conclusion. For if, as they say, everything that is to come to an end had also a beginning, then surely that which has no end had no beginning. What then will they decide concerning the soul, or the Angelic nature? If it ...