WIRZ, JAKOB. See Nazarenes.

WISDOM. In Canonical Wisdom Literature In Apocryphal Wisdom Literature Q 3). III. Wisdom in the New Testament. The Current Conception (§ l In Gospels and Acts (§ 2).

In the Epistles (§ 3).

IV. Summary.

dom based on faith; only gradually could the divine wisdom have revealed itself to the prophets. They understood it to be a quality in accordance with which God establishes and realizes his aims. According to Isa. xxxi. 2, God alone is wise, and in xi. 2 it is said that the spirit of wisdom will rest upon the Messiah. In Isa. iii. 3 wisdom signifies artistic capacity in handiwork and in xxix. 14 it denotes political skill and prudence. In Deutero-Isaiah human intelligence is pronounced to be nothing as compared with the infinite wisdom (xl. 28). Jeremiah says that creation is the work of God's might and wisdom (x. 12).

In the " Wisdom literature," principally composed by those belonging to the class of " wise men," the concept of wisdom became much

a. In more prominent. This class arose after Canonical the cessation of prophecy and was of

Wisdom the greatest importance for the devel- Literature. opment of Judaism. These wise men had found that the religious doctrines contradicted the experiences of daily life, and they felt the necessity of investigating the source of this contradiction. They made no boast of divine in spiration, but strove through reflection to solve the problem of the world and of life. Like the priests, they started with the assumption that the law is the way which leads to God. Practical ethics was their principal field, and the results of their reflections were usually formulated in maxims, parables, and fables. In the Book of Job (q.v.), the religious and

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philosophical problem of how to reconcile the sufferings of the pious with the justice of God occupies a prominent place. Wisdom is impenetrable; no one knows where to find it; only God knows it and possesses it. In xxviii. 12, when the dialogue reaches its culmination, wisdom is described in highly poetic language. The writer also speaks of human wisdom and looks upon it as the essence of all morality and prudence. Naturally, it can be attained only through the fear of God (v. 13, xxviii. 28), even though it be transmitted by tradition (xv: 18). The Psalms do not often allude to wisdom. In creation and the order of nature, the divine wisdom appears (civ. 24, cxxxvi. 5). God communicates wisdom to men (Ii. 6, cv. 22); the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (cxi. 10). Proverbs being a composite book (see Proverbs of Solomon), wisdom is variously defined. In the earliest portions (x. 1 xxii. 16, xxii.17-xxiv. 22, xxxiii., xxxiv.), wisdom is treated only as a quality, the abstract conception Is not prominent; in the latest collection (L-ix.), however, the origin of wisdom is considered and to it great importance assigned. As elsewhere justice, so here wisdom is the highest ethical conception. Wisdom and piety are closely related (i. 29, ii. 5, xiv. 16), but not identical; man can attain piety by his own efforts, but not wisdom. In its essence human wisdom is only an emanation of the divine (ii. 6). In the latter are combined God's omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness, and he reveals himself thereby. Wisdom is a creation of God, it stood by his aide at the creation of the world, and is ever. active in human life (viii. 22-31). In Ecclesiastes (q.v.) a philosophical writer puts his teachings into the mouth of Solomon, the prototype of the seekers after wisdom. All through his book, wisdom is Spoken of as the practical art of how to live rightly. The author is persuaded that all striving after wisdom is vanity; that it is vain to seek to discover the eternal in the ever-changing aspects of life. Nevertheless, the writer gives in eloquent words the result of his search for wisdom: resignation, the fear of God, and an assurance of an eternal living God and of his judgment (ii. 13, v. ii. 11-12, ix. 13).

In the polemic and apologetic diatribe against paganism called the Wisdom of Solomon (see Apocrypha, IV., 13), all moral and religious convictions are referred to wisdom. For the author

3. In wisdom is the chief emanation from the Apocryphal absolute being of God, a radiation of

Wisdom his eternal light (vii. 22-29). It ap- Literature. pears as a half-celestial, half-terrestrial being, a mediatresa between God and man. The whole book gives the impression that wisdom is definitely distinguished from God and in dependent of him, and effects are attributed to it which elsewhere in the Old Testament are referred to God (vii. 27, ix. 4, x. 10). Spirit and wisdom are identical for the author; both manifest the divine power and activity in the physical as well as in the moral world (cf. i. 4, 5, 7, ix. 17), but wisdom and the word (logos) are nowhere identical. In xvi. 12, the word is the will of God; in xviii. 15, it is a poet ical personification of the divine will and action. In Ecclesiasticus (see Apocrypha, IV., 12) wisdom Is identical with ancestral faith and is the criterion

of moral action and the essence of life. The fundamental conception is the name as in the above-mentioned books. Israel is the abiding-place of true

I wisdom and the law is pronounced to be the prin ciple of wisdom and its imparter (cf. xxiv. 16, i. 16,

~~ xiii. 21). It is uncertain whether the author hypostatized wisdom, although this has often been assumed from chap. xxiv. Here wisdom appears as the first of all spirits and boasts that she was created from the beginning (verse 3), an independent entity, creating and ordering the world. However, all this is probably only a poetic personification just as God's activity is frequently represented by personifying his various powers. Certain of the ideas of Jesus ben Sirach regarding wisdom are again encountered in the Book of Baruch. The author distinguishes wisdom from God and personifies it poetically. He writes that wisdom lived with God, was bestowed upon Israel, and dwelt among mankind (iii. 32-37). The peoples of the earth did not find wisdom, Israel alone attained it . through the Law.

III. Wisdom in the New Testament: In order to understand the conception of wisdom in the New

Testament, study is necessary of the z. The form which it assumed among the Jews Current of the first century before and after Conception. Christ. Among the rabbis wisdom was

confined to the Law, and the scribes were called wise men simply because they expounded it (cf. F. Weber, Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud, pp. .95-98, 125-126, Leipsic, 1897). The Book of Enoch (see Pseudepigrapha, III.) is typical in this respect. The author endeavors to offer an exclusively Biblical system of world-philosophy and.wisdom. God is the possessor of wisdom which dwells in heaven and is bestowed upon the just in the time of the Messiah. The Messiah is the incarnation of wisdom who reveals all the mysteries of justice (xxxviii. 3, xlvi. 3; cf. A. Dillmann, Das Bush Henoch, Leipsic, 1853). The concept of wisdom occupies a more important place in the Hellenistic writings. Here wisdom bridges the chasm between the hidden God and the world and is identical with the concept of religion. Moses is not only a founder of religion, he is also a teacher of wisdom. Wisdom leads to virtue (so Philo, the epistle of Aristeas, IV Maccabees, and Josephus).

In the Synoptic Gospels the word (sophia) appears six times in Luke, but once in Mark, and three

times in Matthew. It is variously a. In used: (1) Without any religious conGospels nection whatever and only in the sense and Acts, of intellectual capability (cf. Matt.

xii. 42; Luke xi. 31, xxi. 15). In Matt. xi. 25, xxiii. 34, the learned in. the Law are called wise men (cf. Luke x. 21). (2) In the religious sense of an understanding of the will and ways of God, as well as the capacity to give testimony thereto (cf. Matt. xiii. 54; Mark vi. 2; Luke ii. 40). (3) In Matt. xi. 19 and Luke vii. 34-35, Jesus appears as the divine representative of wisdom. The idea is that God's wisdom manifests and justifies itself in Christ's life, and those who order their lives accordingly will recognize the truth of this wisdom (" wisdom is justified of all her children "). (4) The wis-

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dom of God is mentioned in Luke xi. 49. Here Luke probably reproduces a Jewish-Christian tradition; the form in Matt. xxiii. 34 is not the original one. The phrase " Therefore also said the wisdom of God " is somewhat obscure. Some think that Luke refers to Jesus, who designates himself as the wisdom of God; while others believe that the decree of the divine wisdom is meant. It is, however, evident that Jesus here cites some lost Jewish prophetic apocalyptic writing in which the wisdom of God was the speaker, or which was entitled " The wisdom of God." It is singular that this concept of wisdom is lacking in the Gospel of John, although from the range of the writer's thought one would expect to find it there. This has been.explained by supposing that the Gospel was composed at a time when the Gnostic heresies were rife and that, as the Gnostics employed the word sophia in a dualistic sense, the author of the Gospel avoided its use (cf. J. Grill, Untersuchungen über die Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums, i. 199-200, Tübingen, 1902). This view, however, lays undue stress on the employment of the word in Gnostic speculations. The idea of the word (logos) is not identical with that of wisdom (sophia); indeed nowhere in early Christian writings are sophia and logos confounded with each other as they are in Philo. In the Acts, sophia is sometimes religious knowledge and discourse, an emanation of the Holy Ghost (cf. vi. 3, 10); at other times prudence in the practical conduct of life (cf. vii. 10, 22).

Paul speaks of wisdom in his principal epistles, especially in I Corinthians. Circumstances forced him to do this; since it had been doubted whether he could preach wisdom, he showed that it was not unfamiliar to him. Paul conceives wisdom as a

force which manifested itself in Christ; 3. In the in him all the treasures of God's wisdom Epistles. were included (cf. I Cor. i. 21, 24).

God, the only wise one, did not save the world by human wisdom because the world did not recognize the divine wisdom in the natural revelation. Through Christ as well as through the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of God, of his divine plan of salvation and of heavenly things, was made possible (I Cor. ii. 9 sqq.). Paul in this epistle emphasizes the fact that the divine wisdom is not to be presented to believers shortly after their conversion (iii. 1, 2; " babes in Christ "). Such wisdom is only for the perfect (ii. 6-7); this does not signify a condition of absolute perfection, only attainable for a few, but rather a relative and normal excellence. The exposition in Ephesians of the relation of wisdom to the Church is characteristic. The Church is organically connected with Christ; in it God's purpose for the world begins to be realized, and through it the divine wisdom is manifested more and more clearly. Even the angels learn through the Church a better understanding of wisdom (Eph. iii. 10). In the Catholic Epistles the concept of wisdom appears only in James. Sophia is a gift (i. 5), the primary ethical virtue, the foundation of moral life. In wisdom the faithful possess the new principle of life through which law and freedom are revealed. And revelation teaches that wisdom gives the key to all apocalyptic problems.

IV. Summary: Wisdom is the epitome of God's perfection. Because of his wisdom, which is insep arable from love, God knows and works all things. Wisdom, however, is also objective for God; it is the world-thought, produced, created, and ordered by God, and it serves for the realization of his de crees. The true reason for the existence of the world, which had been rendered doubtful through sin, was revealed and explained by the salvation of Christ. Through his son, God has given expression to his thoughts and incarnated the divine wisdom. Only in the New Testament is the idea of wisdom especially referred to the scheme of salvation and to its realization in history. Human wisdom is a re flex of the divine. Through the spirit alone is man disposed to recognize this divine wisdom. Knowl edge consists in the conformity of the human mind with the divine wisdom and the works it has created. This refers to the revelation of God, both in nature and history. God is knowable only in so far as he reveals himself; only revelation can give the knowl edge of God.

G. Hoennicke.

Bibliography: W. T. Davison, Wisdom Literature of the O. T., London, 1894; C. F. Kent, The Wise Men of Ancient Israel and their Proverbs, Boston 1895; J. F. Bruch, Weisheitslehrer der Hebräer, Strasburg, 1851; G. Oehler, Grundzüge der alttestamentlichen Weiaheit, Tübingen, 1854; M. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des JuiJa, Paris, 1860; C. Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, Jena, 1872; F. Klasen, Die alttestamentliche Weiaheit und der Logos der jiid%schalezandrinischen Religionayhilosophie, Freiburg, 18?8; H. Blois, La Poeade pnomique chez les Hebreum et les Greca, Toulouse, 1888; idem, Origines de la philosophic Judo-Alexandrine, Paris, 1889; T. A. Cheyne Jolt and Solomon, or the Wisdom of the O. T., London, 1887; idem, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, New York, 1898; J. F. Genung, The Epic of the Inner Life, Boston, 1891; W. von Baudisain, Die alttestamentliche SPruchd%chtung, Berlin, 1893; A. AaV, Geschichte der Loposidee, Leipsic, 1896; M. D. Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, London, 1899; R. G. Moulton, Literary Study of the Bible, Boston, 1899; M. Friedländer, Griechische Philosophie im A. T., Berlin, 1904; E. Sellin, Die Spuren griechischer Philosophie im A. T., Leipsic, 1905; H. Meinhold, Die Weisheit Israels %n Spruch, Sage and Dichtung, Leipsic. 1908; DB, iv. 924-928; EB, iv. 5322-36; JE, xii. 537-538. The reader is also referred to the introductions to the commentaries on the several books which embody the Hebrew "wisdom," including the apocryphal books, also to the works on O. T. theology.