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Dialogue with Trypho
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Chapter 61 - Wisdom is Produced by the Father, Like Fire from Fire.
"I will give you another testimony, my friends," I said, "from the Scriptures, that God begat a Beginning before all creatures, a certain rational power proceeding from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit as the Glory of the Lord, the Son, Wisdom, an Angel, God, and then Lord and Logos; and at another time, He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nun. He can be called by all these names, since He serves the Father’s will and was begotten of the Father by an act of will, just as we see happening among ourselves: when we express a word, we bring forth the word, yet not by division, so as to lessen the word remaining in us when we express it.
JUST AS WITH A FIRE: which is not diminished when it kindles another, but remains the same; and that which is kindled by it, likewise, exists by itself, not reducing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will testify to me when He speaks through Solomon the following: ‘If I will declare to you what happens daily, I will recall events from everlasting and review them.
The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting, He established me in the beginning, before He made the earth and the deeps, before the springs of waters issued forth, before the mountains were established. Before all the hills, He begat me. God made the country, the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He prepared the heavens, I was with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds, when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He laid the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging.
I was the one in whom He rejoiced; daily and at all times, I delighted in His presence, because He delighted in the completion of the habitable world and delighted in the sons of men.
Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the one who listens to me, and the mortal who keeps my ways, watching daily at my doors, observing the posts of my entries. For my ways are the ways of life, and my will has been prepared by the Lord.
But those who sin against me trespass against their own souls; and those who hate me love death.'"