Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Athanasius uses the Greek Septuagint version of Proverbs 8:25 to argue that Jesus is "eternally begotten" and not created. This reading is only possible in the Greek version and not the original Hebrew version.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Proverbs 8:25
Septuagint
23 before eternity he founded me in the beginning, before making the earth 24 and before making the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, 25 before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills, he begets me. 26 The Lord made territories and uninhabited regions and inhabited extremities of the earth under the skies.
Athanasius Discourse Against the Arians 21
Early Christian
And that creature and offspring are not the same, but differ from each other in nature and the signification of the words, the Lord Himself shows even in the Proverbs. For having said, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways;' He has added, 'But before all the hills He begot me.' If then the Word were by nature and in His Essence a creature, and there were no difference between offspring and creature, He would not have added, 'He begot me,' but had been satisfied with 'He created,' as if that term implied 'He begot.' but, as it is, after saying, 'He created me a beginning of His ways for His works,' He has added, not simply 'begot me,' but with the connection of the conjunction 'But,' as guarding thereby the term 'created,' when he says, 'But before all the hills He begot me.' For 'begot me' succeeding in such close connection to 'created me,' makes the meaning one, and shows that 'created' is said with an object , but that 'begot me' is prior to 'created me.' For as, if He had said the reverse, 'The Lord begot me,' and went on, 'But before the hills He created me,' 'created' would certainly precede 'begot,' so having said first 'created,' and then added 'But before all the hills He begot me,' He necessarily shows that 'begot' preceded 'created.' For in saying, 'Before all He begot me,' He intimates that He is other than all things; it having been shown to be true in an earlier part of this book, that no one creature was made before another, but all things originate subsisted at once together upon one and the same command. Therefore neither do the words which follow 'created,' also follow 'begot me;' but in the case of 'created' is added 'beginning of ways,' but of 'begot me,' He says not, 'He begot me as a beginning,' but 'before all He begot me.' But He who is before all is not a beginning of all, but is other than all but if other than all (in which 'all' the beginning of all is included), it follows that He is other than the creatures; and it becomes a clear point, that the Word, being other than all things and before all, afterwards is created 'a beginning of the ways for works,' because He became man, that, as the Apostle has said, He who is the 'Beginning' and 'First-born from the dead, in all things might have the preeminence.'
Date: 355-360 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
… Athanasius reads two verses together: 8.22: ‘the Lord created me as a beginning of his ways for his works.’ 8.25: ‘But before all the hills, he begets me.’ The first verse, with its explanatory clause explaining the reason ‘as a beginning…’, refers to the Lord becoming incarnate as part of the divine economy of salvation. Verse 25, speaking directly and simply of the Lord, identifies his eternal begetting from the Father (Against the Arians 2.60). Athanasius presents the precise logic of this language as reflecting the overall pattern of scriptural speech. The use of ‘but’ at the beginning of verse 25, for instance, is there to highlight the contrast between creating and begetting. …
Ayres, Lewis
"Scripture in the Trinitarian Controversies" in Blowers, Paul M.; Martens, Peter W. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation
(pp. 444-445) Oxford University Press, 2019
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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