Wisdom and the Word
Proverbs 8:22-31, Wisdom present at creation, as the early church read it
In Proverbs 8, Wisdom speaks in the first person, present with God before the world was made, "brought forth" before the mountains, "daily his delight," rejoicing as He laid the foundations of the earth. The early church heard in this voice the eternal Word, the Son who "was with God, and was God" (John 1:1), through whom all things were made. But this very chapter became the storm-center of the greatest doctrinal battle in church history, because in the Greek Old Testament one line reads "the Lord created me," and that single word would be used to argue the Son is a creature. Justin Martyr and Tertullian, writing long before the fight, already read it of the Son begotten, not made. Their words below, with a plain restatement.
The Fathers' words are verbatim and attributed (Justin Martyr and Tertullian, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, public domain; selected from the running prose, footnote apparatus omitted). The box marked "In plain terms" is our own restatement, never the Fathers' words.
Proverbs 8:22-25 · KJVThe LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was… before the hills was I brought forth:
"God begat before all creatures a Beginning, who was a certain rational power proceeding from Himself, who is called… now the Son, again Wisdom… since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will… just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled another, but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled."
Justin MartyrJustin's image is the one the church kept: light from light, fire from fire. When one flame kindles another, the first is not diminished, and the second is fully fire, not a lesser thing. So the Son is "begotten of the Father," truly distinct yet truly God, not made out of nothing and not subtracted from the Father. Wisdom "brought forth before the hills" is this eternal begetting, the Son who was "with God in the beginning," not a creature who came later.
Proverbs 8:27-30 · KJVWhen he prepared the heavens, I was there… Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
"This is the perfect nativity of the Word, when He proceeds forth from God… by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things; and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart."
Tertullian"For if indeed Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a view to His works… yet proof is given in another Scripture that 'all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there nothing made.'"
TertullianTertullian reads "Wisdom" present at creation as the Word, the Son's "perfect nativity," begotten "from the womb of His own heart." And he meets the hard word head-on: even if one verse seems to say Wisdom was "created," John settles it, "all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there nothing made." The Maker of all cannot Himself be one of the made things. Whatever "created me" means, it cannot mean the Son is a creature, for then He would have made Himself.
Where the traditions diverge
This is the sharpest case of drift in the whole library, because the church formally defined against the error. In the Greek Old Testament the Fathers used, Proverbs 8:22 reads "the Lord created me the beginning of His ways," and in the early fourth century Arius made it his battle-cry: if Wisdom (the Son) was "created," then "there was when He was not," and Christ is the first and highest of creatures, not true God. The church answered at the Council of Nicaea (325) with words still confessed every Sunday: the Son is "begotten, not made… of one substance (homoousios) with the Father." Athanasius spent much of his life on this verse, showing that "created" speaks either of the eternal begetting or of the Wisdom who was "made flesh" as the beginning of the new creation, never of the Son being a thing God brought into being from nothing. It is worth noting that the Hebrew underneath reads "the Lord possessed (or acquired) me," which the KJV follows, language of eternal relation, not manufacture. So the historic reading, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike, is that Proverbs 8 sings of the eternal Son, "light of light, true God of true God." The drift to resist is the old Arian move, alive again wherever Christ's full deity is denied, that fastens on one word to make the Maker a creature. (See the Word was God, image and firstborn, and the Son is God.)
Patristic text from Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (ch. 61), and Tertullian, Against Praxeas (ch. 6-7), in the Ante-Nicene Fathers (public domain), selected from the running prose with footnote apparatus omitted; nothing added or paraphrased within the quotation marks. Scripture in the King James Version; the plain-language lines are our own restatement. This passage in the Study Bible; Proverbs 8 at BibleHub.