Athanasius of Alexandria, on Ps 118:73

“JOD. Thy hands have made me and formed me: give me understanding, and I will learn thy commandments.”

“But though we were to allow some prerogative to the Protoplast as having been deemed worthy of the hand of God, still it must be one of honor, not of nature. For he came from the earth, as other people, and the hand that then fashioned Adam is also both now and ever fashioning and giving entire consistency [same human nature] to those who come after him. And God declares this to Jeremiah, as I said before: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you";25 and so he says of all, "All those things have my hand made"; and again by Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, and he that formed you from the womb, I am the Lord that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself." And David, knowing this, says in the psalm, "Your hands have made me and fashioned me"; and he who says in Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant," signifies the same. Therefore, in respect of nature, Christ differs nothing from us though he precede us in time, so long as we all consist and are created by the same hand.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.