translation was as vehemently defended by the orthodox fathers. Athanasius receiving ????????? ektisen, took it in the sense of appointing, and saw in the Septuagint a declaration that the Father had made the Son the "chief," the "head," the "sovereign," over all creation. There does not seem indeed any ground for the thought of creation either in the meaning of the root, or in the general usage of the word. What is meant in this passage is that we cannot think of God as ever having been without Wisdom. She is "as the beginning of His ways." So far as the words bear upon Christian dogma, they accord with the words of John 1:1 , "the Word was with God." The next words indeed assert priority to all the works of God, from the first starting point of time. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way - Wisdom is not acquired by the Divine Being; man, and even angels, learn it by slow and progressive degrees; but in God it is as eternally inherent as any other essential attribute of his nature. The Targum makes this wisdom a creature, by thus translating the passage: ???? ????? ???? ?????? Elaha barani bereish biriteiah, "God created me in the beginning of his creatures." The Syriac is the same. This is as absurd and heretical as some modern glosses on the same passage. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,.... Not "created me", as the Targum and