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he makes mention of it thus: “But where was wisdom found? and where is the place of understanding?” and elsewhere: “The wisdom of the poor man is despised;” and, “He is the corrector of wisdom.” But some have understood the Creator to have spoken from the person of created wisdom the words, “The Lord created me.” For often the Sustainer and Savior of all takes on the person of created things and speaks; as when from the person of the Church once persecuted by Paul he says: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” and to those who have done well: “I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink;” and all such things. For shining forth with his own philanthropy, and being wholly goodness, and as the apostle Jude said, the only Master, he spares all, and makes his own the sins against the works of his hands. And indeed we shall also find other things spoken anthropomorphically about the inaccessible divine; as when he writes in a parable: “There was a certain householder;” and again: “A certain man had a vineyard;” and as when he compares the heavenly kingdom to a grain of mustard seed and to seed. But even if it must be granted that Solomon did not write from the person of the wisdom in us, still it must be understood from the person of the wise and incomprehensible incarnation, and not as having been spoken at all about the unoriginate and invisible nature of the only-begotten God. For he did not say absolutely, “He created me,” but, “for his works;” as if he said: He created me, when for men I became his works, or I tabernacled among them, having been made flesh from them. For he who is, and who was before, and who came to be not for himself, but for others, how is it possible to understand that 39.817 for whom and according to whom he came to be? Just as conversely they are found in a way to be what he who came to be for them according to them is. Therefore, being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant; and we were made according to the image of him who created us, as Paul taught. Or perhaps he used the word “created” here instead of, “he established,” or, “he appointed,” when he was at once upon the cherubim and in a manger, as he foretold, enigmatically declaring the things concerning his incarnation: “But I was established as king by him upon Zion his holy mountain;” and as the Psalmist sings: “The Lord has reigned, he has clothed himself with majesty;” although he pre-existed eternally as king of kings, having incomprehensible majesty. Likewise he did not say, in the beginning, or, before the beginning of his ways, but “the beginning of his ways.” So that again the beginning of his incarnation is foretold, and not the nature of his unoriginate deity. For when men had lost the way that leads to God, he himself in the economy became for us a new and living way; and in the same way he said on account of the economy in the flesh: “I am the way;” and again: “No one comes to the Father, except through me,” that is, unless he walks through faith in my incarnation; on account of it he also said, “The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.” For he was begotten, from the substance of the Father, without beginning, ineffably; but from the immaculate Virgin, by foreknowing all things as God, and by foreordaining the economy, before the age as they write, Paul to the Colossians: “This mystery, which was hidden before the ages and from the generations, has now been revealed to his saints;” and Peter in his first Epistle concerning Christ: “Foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but revealed in the last times,” but in actuality, when he appeared from on high to those who once sat in darkness and the shadow of death; when he was parabolically named a stone; when he became the beginning of ways and our foundation; to which foundation and stone they bear witness thus, Paul writing first to the Corinthians: “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” But he received the beginning of being called Jesus Christ in the incarnation. Whence in Luke the angel gives his name as for future things,

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τοιῶσδε μέμνηται ταύτης· «Ἡ δὲ σοφία πόθεν εὑρέθη; ποῖος δὲ τόπος ἐστὶ τῆς φρονήσεως;» καὶ ἑτέρωθι· «Σοφία τοῦ πένητος ἐξουθενουμένη·» καὶ, «Οὗτος τῆς σοφίας ἐστὶ διορθωτής.» Τινὲς δὲ τὸν γενεσιουργὸν ἐνόησαν ἐκ προσώπου τῆς κτιστῆς εἰρηκέναι σοφίας τὸ, «Κύριος ἔκτισέ με.» Πολλάκις γὰρ κτισμάτων πρόσωπον ὁ πάντων ὑποστάτης καὶ Σωτὴρ ἀναλαμβάνων διαλέγεται· ὡς ὅταν ἐκ προσώπου τῆς ποτε διωχθείσης Ἐκκλησίας παρὰ Παύλου φάσκει· «Σαοὺλ, Σαοὺλ, τί με διώκεις;» καὶ τοῖς εὖ ποιήσασιν· «Ἐπείνασα, καὶ ἐδώκατέ μοι φαγεῖν· ἐδίψησα, καὶ ἐποτίσατέ με·» καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα. Ἰδίᾳ γὰρ ἐκλάμπων φιλανθρωπίᾳ, καὶ ὅλος ὢν ἀγαθότης, καὶ ὡς ὁ ἀπόστολος Ἰούδας ἔφη, μόνος ∆εσπότης, φείδεται πάντων, καὶ ἰδιοποιεῖται τὰ εἰς τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν αὐτοῦ ἁμαρτήματα. Καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἕτερα ἀνθρωπολογηθέντα περὶ τοῦ ἀνεφίκτου θείου εὑρήσομεν· ὡς ὅταν παραβολικῶς γράφει· «Ἄνθρωπός τις ἦν οἰκοδεσπότης·» καὶ πάλιν· «Ἄνθρωπός τις ἦν ἔχων ἀμπελῶνα·» καὶ ὡς ὅταν τὴν οὐράνιον βασιλείαν κόκκῳ σινάπεως καὶ σπόρῳ παρεικάζει. Εἰ δὲ καὶ συγχωρητέον τὸ μὴ ἐκ προσώπου τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν σοφίας Σολομῶνα γεγραφέναι, ἀλλ' οὖν νοητέον ἐκ προσώπου τῆς σοφῆς καὶ ἀπερινοήτου ἐνανθρωπήσεως, οὐχ ἅπαξ δὲ περὶ τῆς ἀνάρχου καὶ ἀθεωρήτου φύσεως τοῦ μονογενοῦς Θεοῦ εἰρηκέναι. Οὐκ αὐτοτελῶς γὰρ ἔφη, «Ἔκτισέ με,» ἀλλ', «εἰς ἔργα αὐτοῦ·» ὡσεὶ ἔλεγεν· Ἔκτισέ με, ὅτε εἰς ἀνθρώπους τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ ἐγενόμην, ἢ κατεσκήνωσα σαρκωθεὶς ἐξ αὐτῶν. Ὁ γὰρ ὢν, καὶ προὼν, καὶ μὴ δι' ἑαυτὸν, δι' ἄλλους δὲ γενόμενος, ἐκεῖνο 39.817 πῶς ἔστι νοῆσαι, δι' οὓς καὶ καθ' οὓς ἐγένετο; Ὡς τὸ ἀνάπαλιν ἐκεῖνοι εὑρίσκονται τρόπον τινὰ, ὅ ἐστιν ὁ δι' αὐτοὺς γενόμενος κατ' αὐτούς. Τοιγαροῦν ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, μορφὴν ἔλαβε δούλου· ἡμεῖς τε ἐγενόμεθα κατ' εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος ἡμᾶς, ὡς ἐδίδαξε Παῦλος. Ἢ ἄρα καὶ τῇ «ἔκτισε» λέξει ἐνταῦθα ἀντὶ τοῦ, κατέστησεν, ἢ, κατέταξεν, ἐχρήσατο, ὅτε ὁμοῦ ἐπί τε τῶν χερουβὶμ καὶ ἐν φάτνῃ ἦν, ὡς τὰ περὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως αὐτοῦ αἰνιγματωδῶς δηλῶν προεῖπεν· «Ἐγὼ δὲ κατεστάθην βασιλεὺς ὑπ' αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ Σιὼν ὅρος τὸ ἅγιον αὐτοῦ·» καὶ ὡς ὁ Ὑμνολόγος ψάλλει· «Ὁ Κύριος ἐβασίλευσεν, εὐπρέπειαν ἐνεδύσατο·» καίτοι ἀϊδίως προϋπῆρχε βασιλεὺς βασιλευόντων, εὐπρέπειαν ἀκατάληπτον ἔχων. Ὁμοίως οὐκ εἶπεν, ἐν ἀρχῇ, ἢ, πρὸ ἀρχῆς ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ' «ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ.» Ὥστε πάλιν τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως αὐτοῦ ἀρχὴν προλέγεσθαι, καὶ οὐ τὴν φύσιν τῆς ἀνάρχου αὐτοῦ θεότητος. Ἀπολεσάντων γὰρ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν ἄγουσαν πρὸς Θεὸν, αὐτὸς ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ οἰκονομίᾳ ὁδὸς ἐγένετο πρόσφατος καὶ ζῶσα· καὶ ὃν τρόπον διὰ τὴν ἐν σαρκὶ οἰκονομίαν εἶπεν· «Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδός·» καὶ πάλιν· «Οὐδεὶς ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα, εἰ μὴ δι' ἐμοῦ,» τοῦτ' ἔστι διὰ τῆς εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἐνανθρώπησιν πίστεως βαδίσῃ· δι' αὐτὴν ἔφη καὶ τὸ, «Κύριος ἔκτισέ με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ.» Ἐτέχθη γὰρ, ἐκ μὲν τῆς ὑποστάσεως τοῦ Πατρὸς, ἀνάρχως, ἀφράστως· ἐκ δὲ τῆς ἀμιάντου Παρθένου, τῷ μὲν προειδέναι πάντα ὡς Θεὸς, καὶ τῷ προορίσαι τὴν οἰκονομίαν, πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος καθὰ ἐπιστέλλουσιν, Παῦλος μὲν Κολοσσαεῦσιν· «Τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο, τὸ ἀποκεκρυμμένον πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν γενεῶν, νῦν ἐφανερώθη τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ·» Πέτρος δὲ ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ Ἐπιστολῇ περὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ· «Προεγνωσμένου μὲν πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, φανερωθέντος δὲ ἐπ' ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων», τῷ δὲ πράγματι, ὅτε ἐπέφανεν ἐξ ὕψους τοῖς ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου ποτὲ καθεσθεῖσιν· ὅτε λίθος παραβολικῶς ὠνομάσθη· ὅτε ἐγένετο ἀρχὴ ὁδῶν καὶ θεμέλιος ἡμῶν· ᾧτινι θεμελίῳ καὶ λίθῳ ἐπιμαρτυροῦσιν οὕτως, Παῦλος μὲν γράφων Κορινθίοις τὸ πρῶτον· «Θεμέλιον γὰρ οὐδεὶς δύναται θεῖναι παρὰ τὸν κείμενον, ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός.» Ἀρχὴν δὲ τοῦ καλεῖσθαι Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῇ ἐνανθρωπήσει ἔλαβεν. Ὅθεν ἐν τῷ Λουκᾷ ὁ ἄγγελος τὴν ὀνομασίαν αὐτοῦ ὡς ἐπὶ μέλλουσιν ποιεῖται,