45. We must also enquire what is the meaning of the saying that God, born before the ages, was again created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. This surely is said because where there is a birth before the commencement of the ages, there is the eternity of an endless generation: but where the same birth is represented as a creation from the commencement of the ages, for the ways of God and for His works, it is applied as the creative cause to the works and to the ways. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether He is Himself the beginning of the way of the works of God. Of this, I think, there is no doubt; for He says, I am the way, and, No man cometh to the Father except through Me841    St. John xiv. 6.. A way is the guide of those who go, the course marked out for those who hasten, the safeguard of the ignorant, a teacher, so to speak, of things unknown and longed for. Therefore He is created for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God; because He is the Way and leads men to the Father. But we must seek for the purpose of this creation, which is from the commencement of the ages. For it is also the mystery of the last dispensation, wherein Christ was again created in bodily form, and declared that He was the way of the works of God. Again, He was created for the ways of God from the commencement of the ages, when, subjecting Himself to the visible form of a creature, He took the form of a created being.

45. Natus ante saecula, creatus a saeculo, quid. Qui initium viae operum Dei. Quando et cur creatus.---0462B Et quaerendum est, quid sit natum ante saecula Deum, rursum in initium viarum Dei et in opera creari. Quia ubi ante saeculum est nativitas, infinitae generationis aeternitas est: ubi vero a saeculo est creatio eadem in vias Dei atque in opera ejus, operibus ac viis causa creationis aptata est. Ac primum, quia Christus sapientia est, videndum est an ipse sit initium viae operum Dei. Nec, ut opinor, ambigitur: ait enim, Ego sum via (Joan. XIV, 6); et, Nemo vadit ad Patrem, nisi per me (Ibidem). Via est dux euntium, festinantium cursus, ignorantium securitas, et quaedam nescitarum ac desideratarum rerum magistra. Ergo in viarum initium in opera Dei creatur: quia et via est, et deducit ad Patrem. Sed creationis hujus, quae a saeculo est, ratio quaerenda 0462C est. Nam ultimae dispensationis sacramentum est, quo etiam creatus in corpore, viam se Dei 0463A operum est professus. Creatus autem est in vias Dei a saeculo: cum ad conspicabilem speciem subditus creaturae, habitum creationis assumpsit.