The Wisdom of God is God Himself

The Wisdom of God is God Himself

We often may believe that the words of Wisdom imply that it is something that God created.  However since Wisdom is God it is not a thing; it is himself.

For in her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, and pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.  For Wisdom is mobile beyond all things by reason of her purity.  For she is an aura of the might of God and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.  For she is the refulgence of eternal light , the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.  (Wis 7: 22 - 26).  

Therefore, the true Wisdom which shaped the world claims for himself all that bears his image, and rightly says: “The Lord created me in his works.”  These words are really spoken by the wisdom that is in us, but the Lord himself here adopts them as his own.  Wisdom himself is not created, because he is the Creator, but by reason of the created image of himself found in his works,he speaks thus as though he were speaking of himself.  Our Lord said: He who receives you receives me, and he could say this because the impression of himself is in us.   The Lord created me in his works; for the wisdom in the world is not creative, but is itself created in God’s works, and in the light of this wisdom the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.  (taken from a discourse against the Arians by Saint Athanasius, bishop).  (Also copied in parts from the Office of Readings; Thursday, 13th week in ordinary time).

Too often we look at Wisdom as one of the unique Wisdom Books without placing much adherence to the Word of God which is God, and miss the point that the writer intended to bring our understanding of prose that really exemplifies who God is as the author of the Bible’s Truth in a poetic fashion of divine life and an eternal existence.

Quite often too much teaching is spent on the Letters of Paul as well as the Gospels without placing these Wisdom Books before us absorbing the very wisdom that surrounds those books of the New Testament. 

Ralph B. Hathaway