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About this book

Wisdom of Solomon

About this book

Wisdom Guides the Ancestors

Chapter 10

1 Wisdom guarded to the end the first formed father of the world, who was created alone, and delivered him out of his own transgression, 2 and gave him strength to rule over all things. 3 But when an unrighteous man fell away from her in his anger, he perished himself in the rage with which he killed his brother.⁠ 4 When because of him the earth was drowning with a flood, wisdom again saved it, guiding the righteous man’s course by a paltry piece of wood. 5 Moreover, when nations consenting together in wickedness had been confounded, wisdom knew the righteous man, and preserved him blameless to God, and kept him strong when his heart yearned toward his child.⁠ 6 While the ungodly were perishing, wisdom delivered a righteous man, when he fled from the fire that descended out of heaven on the five cities.⁠ 7 To whose wickedness a smoking waste still witnesses, and plants bearing fair fruit that doesn’t ripen, a disbelieving soul has a memorial: a standing pillar of salt.⁠ 8 For having passed wisdom by, not only were they disabled from recognising the things which are good, but they also left behind them for their life a monument of their folly, so that where they stumbled, they might fail even to be unseen; 9 but wisdom delivered those who waited on her out of troubles. 10 When a righteous man was a fugitive from a brother’s wrath, wisdom guided him in straight paths. She showed him God’s kingdom, and gave him knowledge of holy things.⁠ She prospered him in his toils, and multiplied the fruits of his labor. 11 When in their covetousness men dealt harshly with him, she stood by him and made him rich. 12 She guarded him from enemies, and she kept him safe from those who lay in wait. Over his severe conflict, she watched as judge, that he might know that godliness is more powerful than every one.⁠ 13 When a righteous man was sold, wisdom didn’t forsake him, but she delivered him from sin. She went down with him into a dungeon, 14 and in bonds she didn’t depart from him, until she brought him the sceptre of a kingdom, and authority over those that dealt like a tyrant with him. She also showed those who had mockingly accused him to be false, and gave him eternal glory.

Wisdom Delivers Israel from Egypt

15 Wisdom delivered a holy people and a blameless seed from a nation of oppressors. 16 She entered into the soul of a servant of the Lord, and withstood terrible kings in wonders and signs.⁠ 17 She rendered to holy men a reward of their toils.⁠ She guided them along a marvelous way, and became to them a covering in the daytime, and a starry flame through the night. 18 She brought them over the Red sea, and led them through much water; 19 but she drowned their enemies, and she cast them up from the bottom of the deep. 20 Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly,⁠ and they sang praise to your holy name, O Lord, and extolled with one accord your hand that fought for them, 21 because wisdom opened the mouth of the mute, and made the tongues of babes speak clearly.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Wisdom of Solomon 10:21 and Augustine, Confessions 8.5

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The Christian theologian Augustine’s use of the Wisdom of Solomon shows how Western theologians used Hellenistic Jewish texts as authoritative sources. His quote shows how Wisdom’s portrayal of divine deliverance became a part of Christian tradition.

Passages

Wisdom of Solomon 10:21

Deuterocanon
19 but she drowned their enemies, and she cast them up from the bottom of the deep. 20 Therefore the righteous plundered the ungodly, and they sang praise to your holy name, O Lord, and extolled with one accord your hand that fought for them, 21 because wisdom opened the mouth of the mute, and made the tongues of babes speak clearly.
50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

Augustine, Confessions 8.5

Early Christian
When this man of yours, Simplicianus, told me the story of Victorinus, I was eager to imitate him. Indeed, this was Simplicianus' purpose in telling it to me. But when he went on to tell how, in the reign of the Emperor Julian, there was a law passed by which Christians were forbidden to teach literature and rhetoric; and how Victorinus, in ready obedience to the law, chose to abandon his "school of words" rather than your Word, by which you make eloquent the tongues of the mute—he appeared to me not so much brave as happy, because he had found a reason for giving his time wholly to you. For this was what I was longing to do; but I was still bound by the iron chain of my own will. The enemy held my will fast, and had made of it a chain, and had bound me tight with it. For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. By these links, as it were, forged together—which is why I called it "a chain"—a hard bondage held me in slavery. But that new will which had begun to spring up in me freely to worship you and to enjoy you, my God, the only certain Joy, was not yet able to overcome my former willfulness, made strong by long indulgence. Thus my two wills—the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual—were in conflict within me; and by their discord they tore my soul apart.
397–400 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Augustine, Confessions 8

References

"... the West, further from the home of the Hebrew canon, and knowing the Old Testament chiefly through the Latin version of the LXX, did not scruple to mingle non-canonical books with the canonical. Hilary and Ruffinus were doubtless checked, the one by the influence of Eastern theologians, the other by the scholarship of Jerome; but Hilary mentions that there were those who wished to raise the number of the canonical books to twenty-four by including Tobit and Judith in the canon. From the end of the fourth century the inclusion of the non-canonical books in Western lists is a matter of course. Even Augustine has no scruples on the subject; he makes the books of the Old Testament forty-four (de doctr. Chr. ii. 13 "his xliv libris Testamenti Veteris terminatur auctoritas"), and among them Tobit, Judith, and two books of Maccabees take rank with the histories; and the two Wisdoms, although he confesses that they were not the work of Solomon, are classed with the Prophets. His judgement was that of his Church ("sunt canonicae scripturae Salomonis libri quinque ... Tobias, Judith ... Machabaeorum libri duo"). The African Church had probably never known any other canon, and its belief prevailed wherever the Latin Bible was read ..."
Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek: With an Appendix Containing the Letter of Aristeas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900).

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Wisdom of Solomon 10:21 and Augustine, Confessions 8.5

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