Letters

^29. The answer is brief: Solomon not only did not say this, but, on the contrary, expressly said that God has a Son. For in one of his writings Wisdom says: “Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.” And what is Christ but the Wisdom of God? Again, in another place in the book of Proverbs, he says: “God has taught me wisdom, and I have learned the knowledge of the holy. Who has ascended up into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the winds in His fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name?” Of the two questions concluding this quotation, the one referred to the Father, namely, “What is His name?”— with allusion to the foregoing words, “God has taught me wisdom,”— the other evidently to the Son, since he says, “or what is His Son's name?”— with allusion to the other statements, which are more properly understood as pertaining to the Son, viz. “Who has ascended up into heaven and descended?”— a question brought to remembrance by the words of Paul: “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens;” — “Who has gathered the winds in His fists?” i.e. the souls of believers in a hidden and secret place, to whom, accordingly, it is said, “You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” — “Who has bound the waters in a garment?” whence it could be said, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ;” — “Who has established all the ends of the earth?” the same who said to His disciples, “You shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”