82.

Hence the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of Him; for the knowledge of Father through Son and of Son from Father is one and the same, and the Father delights in Him, and in the same joy the Son rejoices in the Father, saying, ‘I was by Him, daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him ¹.’ And this again proves that the Son is not foreign, but proper to the Father’s Essence. For behold, not because of us has He come to be, P. 393 as the irreligious men say, nor is He out of nothing (for not from without did God procure for Himself a cause of rejoicing) , but the words denote what is His own and like. When then was it, when the Father rejoiced not? but if He ever rejoiced, He was ever, in whom He rejoiced. And in whom does the Father rejoice, except as seeing Himself in His own Image, which is His Word? And though in sons of men also He had delight, on finishing the world, as it is written in these same Proverbs ², yet this too has a consistent sense. For even thus He had delight, not because joy was added to Him, but again on seeing the works made after His own Image; so that even this rejoicing of God is on account of His Image. And how too has the Son delight, except as seeing Himself in the Father? for this is the same as saying, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,’ and ‘I am in the Father and the Father in Me ³.’ Vain then is your vaunt as is on all sides shewn, O Christ’s enemies, and vainly did ye parade ⁴ and circulate everywhere your text, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,’ perverting its sense, and publishing, not Solomon’s meaning, but your own comment ⁵. For behold your sense is proved to be but a fantasy; but the passage in the Proverbs, as well as all that is above said, proves that the Son is not a creature in nature and essence, but the proper Offspring of the Father, true Wisdom and Word, by whom ‘all things were made,’ and ‘without Him was made not one thing. ⁶’