The LORD by wisdom has founded the earth; by understanding has he established the heavens.
All Commentaries on Proverbs 3:19 Go To Proverbs 3
Athanasius the Apostolic
AD 373
Solomon says, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens.” And this wisdom is the Word, and by him, as John says, “all things were made” [and without him not one thing was made]. This Word is Christ, “for there is one God the Father, from whom are all things. We are for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are through him.” If all things are through him, he himself should not be reckoned with the “all things.” Whoever dares to say that he, through whom are all things, is one of all the things surely will have the same speculation about God, from whom are all things. If anyone flees from this as absurd and excludes God from the “all things,” it would follow that even the onlybegotten Son, since he is proper to the Father’s substance, must be excluded from the “all things.” And if he is not one of the “all things,” then it is not right to say about him “There was once when he was not” and “He was not before he was begotten.” Such terms are fittingly used of creatures, but the Son himself is such a one as is the Father, of whose substance the Son is a proper offspring, Word and wisdom. This is peculiar to the Son in relation to the Father, and this shows that the Father is peculiar to the Son; so that we may neither say that God was ever wordless or that the Son was ever nonexistent. For how else could he be a Son, unless from God? Or how could he be Word and wisdom unless he is always peculiar to [God]? Four Discourses Against the Arians.
