That concerning the verse, 'In the beginning He made the heaven and the earth,' he says: One would not err in saying that the 'beginning' is Wisdom itself. For Wisdom is spoken of by one of those of the divine choir, speaking concerning herself in this manner: 'The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, for His works; before the age He founded me.'
For it was fitting and most becoming that all things which came into generation should be younger than Wisdom, since they came into being through her. For consider whether it does not accord with this, that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,' according to the Evangelist, 'and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God.'
For one must call the 'beginning,' from which the most upright Word sprang up, the Father and Maker of all things, in whom He was. But by 'the same was in the beginning with God,' He seems to signify the authoritative power of the Word, which He had with the Father even before the world came into generation—he having spoken of the 'beginning.' Therefore He becomes, after His own beginningless Beginning, the Father, the beginning of the rest, through whom all things are crafted.