Proverbs 8:22 became one of the stock passages used by the Arians in their polemic against the Son's co-eternality with the Father, who argued that "ἔκτισέ με" referred to Christ's temporal and ontological generation, thus denying the Son's eternality and insisting that there was a time when Jesus was not(that is, did not exist, filius non genitus, sed factus). Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God, and distinct insofar as he is the object of God's love(Prov. 8:30, as well as Jhn. 1:1, 14, 18, 17:24). The covenantal law of primogeniture applies to Christ the eternally pre-existent word, and he is the inheritance of all things(Wisd. 7:22-30, Lk. 22:29, Col. 1:25, Heb. 1:3). This inheritance of the Kingdom and Davidic Kingship is consummated and publicly displayed in his public, covenantal "begottenness" at his ascension to the throne of David(Ps. 2:7, Heb. 1:5, 5:5, 2 Sam. 7:14). From the Hebrew word here we get the title for God "possessor of heaven and earth"(Gen. 14:19, 22) since it is used of "possession", for example, in Jer. 32:15. The Targum unfortunately translates it אלהא בראני בריש בריתיה, "God created mein the beginning of his creatures", and the Syriac unfortunately likewise follows suit. Jerome, Pagninus, Michaelis, Schultens all have it "possidet" and Cocceius translates it "habuit."
There seems to have been disagreement concerning its meaning even among ancient Old Testamen ttranslators. The LXX renders it "ἔκτισε"(created) whereas Aquila renders it "ἐκτήσατο"(possessed)as does Symmachus, Theodotion, Venet. Athanasius understood it as "ἔκτισεν", an appointing of the eternal Son of God as the sovereign, head, firstborn, chief, etc. over ceration. Jesus was loved of God "before the foundations of the world"(Jhn. 17:24), and "in the beginning", pre-temporal language similar to what we find here. The language refers to the pre-temporal, eternal appointment of the Son as head over all creation by virtue of his primogeniture as "firstborn." This does not refer to an ontological generation but a functional appointment to sovereign, which is consummated at his appointment to the throne of David. He is in this sense "begotten", and predestined for this "begottenness" from before the foundations of the world(cf. Rev. 13:8).
The word may properly be translated as "begat", though this should not be understood as an eternal generation of the Son but of God's intimate enjoyment of the fellowship of Christ from eternity past, in the bosom of the Father(Jhn. 1:14, 18, 17:24). The LXX uses the word in this manner in Zech. 13:5. God's appointment of Christ as creator, king, prophet, priest, redeemer, sacrifice and intercessor took place before the foundations of the world.
Many of the functions of this office as connected with one another in Phil. 2:5-11, Col. 1:15-18. The double-testimony of the Word/Wisdom of and to itself and its divine origin and right of kinship we see here in Proverbs 8 is similar to what we see in Ps. 2:1-12. In both cases we see the divine Word/Wisdom established by divine right at the hand of God before creation and granted such preeminent dignity so as to be worshiped and fear by men along with God the Father. Thus Athanasius, "Deus me creavit regem", created him to be king, and Cyril, "non condidit secundum substantiam, sed constituit me totius universi principium et fundamentum", he is not constituted as a second substance but as total, universal sovereign of all.
Some deny that this passage is appropriate to make any christological conclusions whatsoever, and that God's possession of wisdom is intended merely as a foreshadowing of Christ, the incarnate Wisdom of God. It is possible that wisdom here merely personifies God in general, and has no reference at all to the person of the Logos but rather has reference to the personification of the Logos in particular, but of God in his manifold wisdom in general.
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