Wisdom in The Old Testament

WISDOM IN . . .

Many WELL-INTENTIONED readers of Montfort’s Love of the Eternal Wisdom . . .

. . . have expressed dismay that the book is somewhat of a puzzle to them. They find that, after the relatively clear and lucid exposition that they find in his True Devotion, Montfort’s book on Divine Wisdom is, by contrast, a little too dense and abstruse.

This comes as more of a disappointment to them, since they are sometimes told that Montfort’s form of devotion to Our Lady cannot be fully appreciated and understood without a previous understanding of Divine Wisdom. They have heard it said that Divine Wisdom gives a more comprehensive idea of the meaning and import of Montfortian Spirituality, and that without it, his True Devotion is incomplete.

. . . THE OLD TESTAMENT

Now, as was mentioned in a previous article within The Queen, this notion is open to question. It can be readily maintained that Divine Wisdom really adds nothing substantial to an understanding of Montfort’s Marian devotion, and that one can acquire an adequate knowledge of his spirituality simply from True Devotion itself.

For the time being, let the question ride. It would, for now, be more profitable to look at Divine Wisdom as a work in itself and reserve its relationship with True Devotion for later on.

To begin with, let’s consider the point that seems to puzzle so many readers. What is this “Wisdom” that Montfort is talking about, and why all these references to a book of the Old Testament, a book that few people are familiar with?

A little historical and scriptural background might help us to understand what he is talking about, particularly with a few preliminary notes about the Book of Wisdom from the Old Testament.

MODERN SCRIPTURE STUDIES

Studies have made it evident that the Book of Wisdom was written in the first century before the birth of Christ. It had been attributed (as was much of the so-called “wisdom literature” of the Bible) to King Solomon. The author of the book is unknown, but we are sure it was not King Solomon. Solomon lived in the tenth century before Christ and could not possibly have written a book that makes such copious references to the Greek literature of the first century B.C. What the unknown writer did was to follow the old Hebrew custom of attributing his writing to Solomon the Wise so as to add authority to his own statements.

THE GREEK RULERS PERSECUTED THE JEWS FOR THEIR BELIEF IN THE ONE TRUE GOD

The writer of the book lived at a time when the influence of Greek thought and Greek culture was having a harmful effect upon the Jewish people of Egypt, especially in the great cultural center of Alexandria. “The Greeks,” St. Paul tells us, “seek wisdom …”.  But their wisdom was totally opposed to the Hebrew concept of the God of true wisdom. The Greek thinkers of the day held the Hebrew God up to ridicule. The Greek rulers persecuted the Jews for their belief in the one true God, for their claim to be His chosen people, for their religious rites (especially circumcision), for their belief that God had made a covenant with them and only with them.

It is difficult to underrate the damage that was being done to the Jews of Egypt, especially to the young people who were so greatly impressed by Greek thought and culture. They found it impossible to reconcile the “wisdom” proposed by the Greek thinkers with the revelation that had been given to them by God. The result was a weakening of their faith in the God of Israel and a rejection of their beliefs as barbaric.

This is what the writer of the Book of Wisdom set about to correct. His intention was to explain to the Jewish people, especially to the young, that the God of their fathers is the only author of true and genuine wisdom.

THE UNKNOWN AUTHOR SHOWS

The author shows himself to be well acquainted with the Greek philosophies of his time and takes upon himself the task of showing that the wisdom of the true God is vastly superior to the wisdom of the Greeks.

He uses the ancient literary device known as “personification,” that is, giving to an abstraction the attributes of personhood. (This is what we do, for example, when we speak of “Mother Nature”.) He visualizes the wisdom of the one true God of the Jews as a subsisting reality that is responsible for all the beauty and order that the Greeks so admired in the universe. He shows the wisdom of God to be the guiding force in the history of the Jews, stressing their deliverance from Egypt under Moses and pointing to a future deliverance from their present state in the Egypt of the first century B.C.

THE BOOK OF WISDOM DID NOT REVEAL THE CONCEPT OF THE BLESSED TRINITY

It is important to remember, though, that the author of the Book of Wisdom did not identify the wisdom of God with the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He had no knowledge at all of a God in Whom there are Three Persons. When he attributes personal characteristics to the wisdom of God, he is only using a figure of speech that was common in his day. The revelation of the Blessed Trinity was not to come for another hundred years or so.

But when that revelation did come, the writers and preachers and theologians of the early Church noted the remarkable resemblance that exists between wisdom as portrayed in the Old Testament book and many of the attributes of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. They saw that they could easily accommodate many of the unknown author’s reflections to the Son of God. And thus arose the notion of Christ, the Uncreated and Incarnate Wisdom.

St. Louis de Montfort was not the first to use these texts from the Book of Wisdom and apply them to Christ our Lord. He simply followed an ancient Christian tradition when he composed his book, The Love of the Eternal Wisdom.