Texts in Conversation
In Proverbs 8, Wisdom says she was created as the beginning of God's works, before the world existed. The Gospel of Thomas draws on this wisdom tradition, where Jesus calls blessed the one who existed before coming into being.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Proverbs 8:22
Hebrew Bible
21 that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth, and that I may fill their treasuries. 22 The Lord created me as the beginning of his works, before his deeds of long ago. 23 From eternity I have been fashioned, from the beginning, from before the world existed.
Gospel of Thomas 1:19
Early Christian
18 The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, that you are seeking the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be. Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.” 19 Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who existed before coming into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will serve you. For you have five trees in paradise which do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death.” 20 The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.” He said to them, “It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds; but when it falls on plowed soil it produces a great plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.”
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Notes and References
“... Jesus’ coming has a cosmological aspect. The coming forth of Wisdom occurred prior to creation. This is a central point of the Wisdom poem in Proverbs 8:22-31, ‘The Lord created me at the beginning of his works before all else that he made, long ago. Alone, I was fashioned in times long past, at the beginning, long before earth itself.’ To find Wisdom one must, in one sense, return to this primordial epoch; ‘In the place where the beginning is, there the end will be. Blessed is he who will stand at the beginning, and he will know the end and he will not taste death’ (18). This conception lies behind the present-eschaton sayings of 11 and 111. The person of whom this can be said is, then, present when only Wisdom and God exist. Jesus/Wisdom’s coming forth prior to creation permits the Christian who has found Wisdom, or the Living One, to exist in the present in the beginning. Therefore, in Logion 19 Jesus can say, ‘Blessed is he who was before he was created.’ That statement applies equally to Christians and Jesus/Wisdom himself. ...”
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