Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Origen uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for teaching and theology, repeating its description of God's incorruptible or immortal spirit filling all things.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 12:1
Deuterocanon
1 For your incorruptible spirit is in all things. 2 Therefore you convict little by little those who fall from the right way, and, putting them in remembrance by the things in which they sin, you admonish them, that escaping from their wickedness they may believe in you, O Lord. 3 For truly the old inhabitants of your holy land, 4 hating them because they practiced detestable works of enchantments and unholy rites— 5 merciless slaughters of children and sacrificial banquets of men’s flesh and of blood—
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Origen, Contra Celsum 4.37
Against Celsus
Early Christian
He accuses us of introducing a man formed by the hands of God, though the book of Genesis mentions God's hands neither for the making of man nor for his forming; but Job and David said, “Your hands made me and formed me,” concerning which “there is much to say” to show what was meant by those who said it, not only about the difference between making and forming but also about the hands of God. Those who have not understood these and similar expressions of the divine Scriptures think that we attribute to the God over all a shape like the human one; and by their reasoning it would follow that we think there are wings on God's body, since the Scriptures taken literally say this too of our God. The present work does not require us to interpret these things now; for we have examined them as best we could, primarily, in our exegetical works on Genesis. Then see Celsus's malice in what follows. For when our Scripture says of the forming of man, “And he breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul,” he, maliciously wishing to ridicule “he breathed into his face the breath of life,” which he did not even understand in what sense it is said, wrote that they composed a story of “a man formed by the hands of God and breathed into,” so that someone, thinking “breathed into” was said like bellows blown up, might laugh at “he breathed into his face the breath of life,” which is said figuratively and needs an explanation showing that God gave man a share of the imperishable Spirit, as it is said: “Your imperishable Spirit is in all things.”
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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