1 Peter 1:20

As the paschal lamb was taken on the tenth day of the month (Exodus 13:3) so Christ was foreknown before the creation and existed before His manifestation. The preexistence of Moses is stated in similar terms in Assumption of Moses, i. 12 14, “God created the world on behalf of His people. But He was not pleased to manifest this purpose of creation from the foundation of the world in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted.… Accordingly He designed and devised me and He prepared me before the foundation of the world that I should be the mediator of His Covenant.” So of the Messiah, Enoch (xlviii. 3, 6) says: “His name was called before the Lord of spirits before the sun and the signs of the zodiac were created.… He was chosen and hidden with God before the world was created. At the end of time God will reveal him to the world.” Alexandrian Judaism took over from Greek philosophy (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle) the doctrine of the preexistence of all souls. So in the Secrets of Enoch (xxiii. 5) it is said “Every soul was created eternally before the foundation of the world”. The author of Wisdom was a goodly child and obtained a good soul or rather being good came into a body undefiled (Sap. 8:19 f.); and Philo found Scriptural warrant in the first of the two accounts of Creation (Genesis 1:26 f.). Outside Alexandria, apart from the Essenes (Joseph, B. J., ii. 154 157) the general doctrine does not appear to have been accepted. But the belief in the preexistence of the Name of the Messiah if not the Messiah Himself was not unknown in Palestine and was latent in many of the current ideals. The doctrine of Trypho was probably part of the general reaction from the position reached by the Jewish thinkers (A.D.) and appropriated by the Christians. There are many hints in the O.T. which Christians exploited without violence and the development of angelology offered great assistance. Current conceptions of Angels and Wisdom as well as of the Messiah all led up to this belief. Apart from the express declarations of Jesus recorded by St. John, it is clear that St. Peter held to the real and not merely ideal pre-existence of Christ, not deriving it from St. Paul or St. John and Heb. It is no mere corollary of God's omniscience that the spirit of Christ was in the prophets. προεγνωσμένου, cf. κατὰ πρόγνωσιν, 1 Peter 1:2; only here of Messiah, perhaps as a greater Jeremiah (cf. Jeremiah 1:5) but see the description of Moses cited above. πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. The phrase does not occur in LXX but Matthew 13:35 = Psalms 78:2 renders מני קדם by ἀπὸ καταβολῆς (LXX ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς) Philo has καταβολὴ γενέσεως) and αἱ καταβολαὶ σπερμάτων and uses ἐκ κ. = afresh. In 2Ma 2:29, καταβολή is used of the foundation of a house; cf. κατασκευάζειν in Heb. φανερωθέντος, of the past manifestation of Christ. In 1 Peter 5:1 of the future implies previous hidden existence, cf. 1 Timothy 3:16 (quotation of current quasi-creed) ἐφανερώθη ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. The manifestation consists in the resurrection and glorification evidenced by descent of spirit (21): cf. Peter's sermon in Acts 2, risen, exalted, Jesus has sent the spirit: therefore let all the house of Israel know surely that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ. St. Paul speaks in the same way of the revelation of the secret, which is Christ in you; see especially Colossians 1:25-27. Compare John 1:14. ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων, at the end of the times, cf. ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν (Hebrews 1:1 and LXX). The deliverance effected certo tempore by Christ's blood is eternally efficacious, cf. αἰώνιον λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος Hebrews 9:12 and the more popular statement of the same idea in Revelation 13:8, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.