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The Christian theologian Origen uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for teaching when he repeats its description of wisdom as a power that fills and renews all creation, showing how he was influenced by Jewish traditions.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 7:25
Deuterocanon
23 beneficent, loving toward man, steadfast, sure, free from care, all-powerful, all-surveying, and penetrating through all spirits that are quick to understand, pure, most subtle. 24 For wisdom is more mobile than any motion. Yes, she pervades and penetrates all things by reason of her purity. 25 For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty. Therefore nothing defiled can find entrance into her. 26 For she is a reflection of everlasting light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. 27 Although she is one, she has power to do all things. Remaining in herself, she renews all things. From generation to generation passing into holy souls, she makes friends of God and prophets.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Origen, Contra Celsum 3.72
Against Celsus
Early Christian
Then, as if in the person of one who teaches our doctrine, he says something like this: “For the wise turn away from what we say, being led astray and hindered by their wisdom.” To this too we will say that if wisdom is knowledge of “divine and human” things and their causes, or, as the divine word defines it, “a vapor of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty” and “a radiance of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness,” no one who is wise would turn away from what is said by a Christian who understands Christianity, nor would he be led astray or hindered by wisdom. For it is not true wisdom that leads astray, but ignorance; and of all things only knowledge is firm, and truth, which come from wisdom. But if, contrary to the definition of wisdom, you call wise one who lays down any doctrine whatever with some sophistries, we will say that indeed one who is wise according to the wisdom you speak of turns away from the words of God, led astray by plausibilities and sophistries and hindered by them. And since according to our teaching “the knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom,” and a “knowledge of wickedness,” if I may so name it, is in those who hold false opinions and are deceived by petty sophistries, I would call it ignorance rather than wisdom in such people.
Date: 248 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the Western Church one should not overlook the Muratorian Fragment, perhaps a (late) second-century writing from Rome: In its lines 68–70 it mentions Wisdom (after the Epistle of Jude and two Johannine Epistles) among writings related to the New Testament. Interestingly, according to this text Wisdom was written “by friends of Solomon to his honour” (Sapientia ab amicis Salomonis in honorem ipsius scripta). Even if Origen is well aware of the fact that Wisdom is not accepted everywhere (Principles 4, 4, 6) he himself makes regular use of the book even in Christological debates (see Principles 1, 2, 9; Celsum 3:62; 5:10; 6:63; 8:14). Winston observes: “Although he [Origen] sometimes quotes it [Wisdom] with the skeptical formula he epigegrammene tou Solomontos Sophia (In Iohannem Commentarius 20.4; Contra Celsum 5:29), he also quotes it almost as frequently as a work of Solomon ..."
Tobias Nicklas, “The Apocrypha in the History of Early Christianity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 52–73.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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