35. Ignorance of prophetic diction and unskilfulness in interpreting Scripture has led them into a perversion of the point and meaning of the passage, The Lord created Me for a beginning of His ways for His works [553] . They labour to establish from it that Christ is created, rather than born, as God, and hence partakes the nature of created beings, though He excel them in the manner of His creation, and has no glory of Divine birth but only the powers of a transcendent creature. We in reply, without importing any new considerations or preconceived opinions, will make this very passage of Wisdom [554] display its own true meaning and object. We will show that the fact that He was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works, cannot be twisted into evidence concerning the Divine and eternal birth, because creation for these purposes and birth from everlasting are two entirely different things. Where birth is meant, there birth, and nothing but birth, is spoken of; where creation is mentioned, the cause of that creation is first named. There is a Wisdom born before all things, and again there is a wisdom created for particular purposes; the Wisdom which is from everlasting is one, the wisdom which has come into existence during the lapse of time is another.
36. Having thus concluded that we must reject the word creation' from our confession of faith in God the Only-begotten, we proceed to lay down the teachings of reason and of piety concerning the Holy Spirit, that the reader, whose convictions have been established by patient and earnest study of the preceding books, may be provided with a complete presentation of the faith. This end will be attained when the blasphemies of heretical teaching on this theme also have been swept away, and the mystery, pure and undefiled, of the Trinity which regenerates us has been fixed in terms of saving precision on the authority of Apostles and Evangelists. Men will no longer dare, on the strength of mere human reasoning, to rank among creatures that Divine Spirit, Whom we receive as the pledge of immortality and source of fellowship with the sinless nature of God.
37. I know, O Lord God Almighty, that I owe Thee, as the chief duty of my life, the devotion of all my words and thoughts to Thyself. The gift of speech which Thou hast bestowed can bring me no higher reward than the opportunity of service in preaching Thee and displaying Thee as Thou art, as Father and Father of God the Only-begotten, to the world in its blindness and the heretic in his rebellion. But this is the mere expression of my own desire; I must pray also for the gift of Thy help and compassion, that the breath of Thy Spirit may fill the sails of faith and confession which I have spread, and a favouring wind be sent to forward me on my voyage of instruction. We can trust the promise of Him Who said, Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you [555] ; and we in our want shall pray for the things we need. We shall bring an untiring energy to the study of Thy Prophets and Apostles, and we shall knock for entrance at every gate of hidden knowledge, but it is Thine to answer the prayer, to grant the thing we seek, to open the door on which we beat. Our minds are born with dull and clouded vision, our feeble intellect is penned within the barriers of an impassable ignorance concerning things Divine; but the study of Thy revelation elevates our soul to the comprehension of sacred truth, and submission to the faith is the path to a certainty beyond the reach of unassisted reason.
38. And therefore we look to Thy support for the first trembling steps of this undertaking, to Thy aid that it may gain strength and prosper. We look to Thee to give us the fellowship of that Spirit Who guided the Prophets and the Apostles, that we may take their words in the sense in which they spoke and assign its right shade of meaning to every utterance. For we shall speak of things which they preached in a mystery; of Thee, O God Eternal, Father of the Eternal and Only-begotten God, Who alone art without birth, and of the One Lord Jesus Christ, born of Thee from everlasting. We may not sever Him from Thee, or make Him one of a plurality of Gods, on any plea of difference of nature. We may not say that He is not begotten of Thee, because Thou art One. We must not fail to confess Him as true God, seeing that He is born of Thee, true God, His Father. Grant us, therefore, precision of language, soundness of argument, grace of style, loyalty to truth. Enable us to utter the things that we believe, that so we may confess, as Prophets and Apostles have taught us, Thee, One God our Father, and One Lord Jesus Christ, and put to silence the gainsaying of heretics, proclaiming Thee as God, yet not solitary, and Him as God, in no unreal sense.
[508] Exod. iii. 14.
[509] Isai. xl. 12.
[510] Ib. lxvi. 1, 2.
[511] Reading mens finita and naturæ finitatim for the infinita and infinitatem of the Benedictine Edition.
[512] Ps. cxxxviii. (cxxxix.) 7-10.
[513] Wisd. xiii. 5.
[514] Cf. Hilary's explanation of this passage in Book ii. §§ 19, 20.
[515] St. John i. 1-14.
[516] Col. ii. 8-15.
[517] xxiii. 22, according to the LXX., en hupostasei.
[518] ii. 14.
[519] St. John x. 38.
[520] The letter of Arius to Alexander; Book iv., §§ 12, 13.
[521] Acts iv. 32: in this and the following passages unum is read.
[522] 1 Cor. iii. 8.
[523] St. John xvii. 20, 21.
[524] St. Luke xviii. 19.
[525] St. John xvii. 3.
[526] Ib. v. 19.
[527] Ib. xiv. 28.
[528] St. Mark xiii. 32.
[529] Ib. xiv. 28.
[530] St. John x. 30.
[531] St. Luke xviii. 19.
[532] St. John xiv. 9.
[533] Ib. xvii. 10.
[534] Ib. 3.
[535] Ib. xiv. 11.
[536] St. Mark xiii. 32.
[537] Reading nativitas et nomen. The clause above, which is bracketed in Migne, appears to be a gloss.
[538] St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
[539] Ib. 39.
[540] Ib. xxvii. 46.
[541] St. Luke xxiii. 46.
[542] St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
[543] St. Matt. xxvi. 64.
[544] Ib. 39.
[545] St. John xviii. 11.
[546] St. Matt. xxvii. 46.
[547] St. Luke xxiii. 43.
[548] Ib. 46.
[549] Ib. 34.
[550] Reading non desiderasse.
[551] St. John xx. 17.
[552] 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28.
[553] Prov. viii. 22, according to the LXX.
[554] Here, as often in early writers, the Sapiential books are included under this name.
[555] St. Luke xi. 9.