An Atheist Explores the Apocrypha Part 15: The Cult of the Holy Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon 6-10)

Wisdom of Solomon 6-10

The Cult of the Holy Wisdom.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

 And now:

 Wisdom 6

“If your delight be then in thrones and sceptres, O ye kings of the people, honour wisdom, that ye may reign for evermore.”

This chapter is addressed to rulers, advising them that their best course is to seek wisdom. God sees all things and judges all men, great or small – “he which is Lord over all shall fear no man's person, neither shall he stand in awe of any man's greatness: for he hath made the small and great, and careth for all alike”. There seems to be a difference in the expectations of rulers versus the ruled, however, since “mercy will soon pardon the meanest: but mighty men shall be mightily tormented”. With great power comes great responsibility, in other words.

There’s certainly evidence that this piece shares an author with Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, Solomon or not, since it personifies Wisdom as a female entity – “Whoso seeketh her early shall have no great travail: for he shall find her sitting at his doors”. This, and other verses, could be transposed into the New Testament with references to “wisdom” and “she” replaced with “Christ” and “He”, making me suspect that there’s a similar kind of mystery cult element going on in both. Even more so because there are a sequence of verses that do one of those “fear leads to the Dark Side” progressions – “For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love; And love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption; And incorruption maketh us near unto God”. 

This similarity continues, as the chapter ends with the author promising to let us into the secrets of Wisdom – “As for wisdom, what she is, and how she came up, I will tell you, and will not hide mysteries from you: but will seek her out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge of her into light, and will not pass over the truth”. Maybe it’s just me picking up on words like “nativity”, “light” and “truth”, but this still seems like an echo of the Christ myth to me.

Wisdom 7

“I myself also am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of him that was first made of the earth”

I really liked this chapter, it’s overflowing with positivity and the best of humanity. Apart from some rather dubious obstetrics at the start – “in my mother's womb was fashioned to be flesh in the time of ten months, being compacted in blood, of the seed of man, and the pleasure that came with sleep”, it’s a paeon to the female personification of Wisdom.

 There are a couple of other similarities to the Gospels here; I mentioned “nativity” last time, which is really just a fancy term for “birth” and so not *too* surprising, but here also we get mention to “swaddling clothes” and also that “there is no king that had any other beginning of birth”. It’s part of a section about how we are all mere mortals, kings and commoners alike, so any similarity to the birth of Jesus is not too surprising; the purpose of the Nativity tales is to emphasise how even the Son of God has humble, human, beginnings.

 After that, we get into the praise of Wisdom proper, how she is better than wealth because “Neither compared I unto her any precious stone, because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before he”, and that “the light that cometh from her never goeth out” and “she is a treasure unto men that never faileth”.

It’s not, however, that Wisdom is any rival to God, rather Wisdom comes from God – “she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her” and “she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness”, a power that brings people to God.

 But there’s more than a form of enlightenment in the view of Wisdom here. She isn’t simply a kind of spiritual awakening that “maketh them friends of God, and prophets”, but also knowledge and understanding. Not for the author here the “shut up and just believe” attitude of the Epistles. Here we are told that “For he [God] hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements: The beginning, ending, and midst of the times: the alterations of the turning of the sun, and the change of seasons: The circuits of years, and the positions of stars: The natures of living creatures, and the furies of wild beasts: the violence of winds, and the reasonings of men: the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots: And all such things as are either secret or manifest, them I know”. Hey, it’s okay to do science! According to the author, God grants man the ability to understand His creation, and actually wants him to do it.

 Wisdom is a force for good, “for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, Kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits”.  “She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars”, and “vice shall not prevail against wisdom”.

 I note that so far the Apocrypha have shown a lot more feminine elements, whether it be this personification of Wisdom as a shining female spirit of God, or the wily Judith, or Esdras’ sly assertions that women are more powerful than kings, or even the loyal daughter-in-law in Tobit. I wonder if this is a common element throughout the rest of them.

 Wisdom 8

“If riches be a possession to be desired in this life; what is richer than wisdom, that worketh all things?”

 Here the author extols the virtues of Wisdom personified, as one who “teacheth temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude: which are such things, as men can have nothing more profitable in their life” and can be “a counsellor of good things, and a comfort in cares and grief”. Having Wisdom means that a person is heeded – “When I hold my tongue, they shall bide my leisure, and when I speak, they shall give good ear unto me: if I talk much, they shall lay their hands upon their mouth” and is a valuable ally for a ruler – “Horrible tyrants shall be afraid, when they do but hear of me; I shall be found good among the multitude, and valiant in war”.

There’s an interesting nugget about how Wisdom grants immortality – “Moreover by the means of her I shall obtain immortality, and leave behind me an everlasting memorial to them that come after me”, of a kind where a person leaves behind a legacy and is remembered thus. Not for the author here the immortality of an afterlife, this is a much more imminent form of immortality; “how that to be allied unto wisdom is immortality”. And at least not here, the concept of gaining immortality through Wisdom is not because Wisdom grants access to God.

 However, the synergistic relationship between Wisdom and God is spelled out. Wisdom enables a person to know God, but one can only come to Wisdom through seeking God. So on the one hand “she is privy to the mysteries of the knowledge of God, and a lover of his works” but the author comes to realise at the end of the chapter that “when I perceived that I could not otherwise obtain her, except God gave her me; and that was a point of wisdom also to know whose gift she was; I prayed unto the Lord, and besought him”.

It ends on a cliffhanger. The last verse ends with “with my whole heart I said…”. To be continued….

Wisdom 9

“For though a man be never so perfect among the children of men, yet if thy wisdom be not with him, he shall be nothing regarded.”

 “With my whole heart I said…”. Please send me Wisdom, basically. So that I can be a good king as You wanted me to be. What emerges from this chapter is where Wisdom, the Hagia Sophia, sits within the metaphysical interpretation of God. Wisdom is something that God can send out to people – “O send her out of thy holy heavens, and from the throne of thy glory, that being present she may labour with me, that I may know what is pleasing unto thee”, and is also presented as kind of a companion to God (but also can be interpreted as an element of God) – “And wisdom was with thee: which knoweth thy works, and was present when thou madest the world, and knew what was acceptable in thy sight, and right in thy commandments”.

 Wisdom is later equated as the Holy Spirit, or a quality granted by the Holy Spirit – “And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above?”. Throughout the Bible the Holy Spirit appears to the mechanism by which God imparts behaviours onto humankind – granting Wisdom, giving courage or inspiration or religious zeal, and if we take the verses from this book that imply that Wisdom is “with God”, then it appears that the message is that these are all qualities possessed by God that are passed onto humans if they seek it. To me, this is putting the cart before the horse. We feel these qualities, therefore they must come from elsewhere, from some Ideal of the qualities, according to the Bible. This, to me, is an assumption that has nothing to back it up; we feel these qualities because we are able to feel and label these qualities.

 Wisdom 10

“She preserved the first formed father of the world, that was created alone, and brought him out of his fall”

 There follows some elliptical references to various events in Genesis and Exodus, pitched in terms of how Wisdom helped the people involved. So, from the quote above, Wisdom preserved Adam after the Fall. One might question why Wisdom didn’t stop Adam from acting so as to bring about the Fall, but there you go. It’s also arguable that Adam and Eve were incapable of actually comprehending Wisdom until they had the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

 Wisdom also protects Noah in the Flood, “in a piece of wood of small value”. She saves Lot from the destruction of Sodom – “the righteous man, who fled from the fire which fell down upon the five cities”. There’s a great description of the area where Sodom and Gomorrah are supposed to have stood – “even to this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruit that never come to ripeness: and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul”.

There’s a lengthy reference to what must be Jacob, including the verse “When the righteous fled from his brother's wrath she guided him in right paths, shewed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of holy things, made him rich in his travels, and multiplied the fruit of his labours”. This is repeated over a few more verses, about bringing the “righteous” out of the pit and raising him to a “sceptre of the kingdom”.

 This is followed by Moses and the Exodus – “She delivered the righteous people and blameless seed from the nation that oppressed them”. It’s again quite reminiscent of the Qur’an, this section, in the way that it only refers to characters and events through elliptical references and doesn’t use any proper nouns.

 Overall, then, this is a curious compilation. By the books of Genesis and Exodus, it is God that does these things, as a symbol of His power and also in connection with the keeping or breaking of His various covenants with humanity. But here we have Wisdom providing salvation. It seems to me that Wisdom here means the wisdom possessed by the various “righteous characters” – Noah, Moses, Lot etc. – to keep to God’s covenant. Because there’s nothing otherwise that they do of their own initiative that means that they prosper where others fail. It isn’t like Jacob the Trickster who lives by his wits.