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About this book

Wisdom of Solomon

About this book

Prayer for Wisdom in Human Life

Chapter 9

1 “O God of my ancestors and Lord of mercy, who made all things by your word;⁠ 2 and by your wisdom you formed man, that he should have dominion over the creatures that were made by you, 3 and rule the world in holiness and righteousness, and execute judgment in uprightness of soul, 4 give me wisdom, her who sits by you on your thrones.⁠ Don’t reject me from among your servants,⁠ 5 because I am your servant and the son of your handmaid, a weak and short-lived man, with little power to understand judgment and laws. 6 For even if a man is perfect among the sons of men, if the wisdom that comes from you is not with him, he will count for nothing.⁠

A King’s Prayer for Wisdom

7 You chose me to be king of your people, and a judge for your sons and daughters. 8 You gave a command to build a sanctuary on your holy mountain, and an altar in the city where you live, a copy of the holy tent which you prepared from the beginning.⁠ 9 Wisdom is with you and knows your works, and was present when you were making the world,⁠ and understands what is pleasing in your eyes, and what is right according to your commandments.⁠ 10 Send her from the holy heavens, and ask her to come from the throne of your glory, that being present with me she may work, and I may learn what pleases you well. 11 For she knows all things and understands, and she will guide me prudently in my actions. She will guard me in her glory. 12 So my works will be acceptable. I will judge your people righteously, and I will be worthy of my father’s throne.

Human Limits and the Gift of Wisdom

13 For what man will know the counsel of God? Or who will conceive what the Lord wills?⁠ 14 For the thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our plans are prone to fail.⁠ 15 For a corruptible body weighs down the soul.⁠ The earthy tent burdens a mind that is full of cares.⁠ 16 We can hardly guess the things that are on earth, and we find the things that are close at hand with labor; but who has traced out the things that are in the heavens?⁠ 17 Who gained knowledge of your counsel, unless you gave wisdom, and sent your holy spirit from on high? 18 It was thus that the ways of those who are on earth were corrected, and men were taught the things that are pleasing to you. They were saved through wisdom.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Wisdom of Solomon 9:6 and Origen, Contra Celsum 6.13

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The Christian theologian Origen uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for theology and teaching, repeating its description that even a perfect person is nothing without the wisdom that comes from God.

Passages

Wisdom of Solomon 9:6

Deuterocanon
4 give me wisdom, her who sits by you on your thrones. Don’t reject me from among your servants, 5 because I am your servant and the son of your handmaid, a weak and short-lived man, with little power to understand judgment and laws. 6 For even if a man is perfect among the sons of men, if the wisdom that comes from you is not with him, he will count for nothing. 7 You chose me to be king of your people, and a judge for your sons and daughters. 8 You gave a command to build a sanctuary on your holy mountain, and an altar in the city where you live, a copy of the holy tent which you prepared from the beginning.
50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

Origen, Contra Celsum 6.13

Early Christian · Against Celsus
Accordingly, then, there is a divine wisdom and a human wisdom. The human is what we call “the wisdom of the world,” which is “foolishness with God”; but the divine, which is different from the human, if indeed it is divine, comes by the grace of God, who gives it to those who have made themselves fit to receive it, and especially to those who, knowing the difference between the one wisdom and the other, say in their prayers to God: “For even if someone is perfect among the sons of men, when the wisdom that comes from you is absent he will be counted as nothing.” And we say that human wisdom is a training ground for the soul, but divine wisdom is its goal; and the latter is also called the “solid food” of the soul by the one who said: “Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil.” This view is indeed truly ancient; not, as Celsus supposes, in that its antiquity goes back to Heraclitus and Plato. For before these the prophets distinguished the two kinds of wisdom. For the present it is enough to quote from the words of David what is said about the man who is wise with divine wisdom, who “will not see corruption,” he says, “when he sees wise men dying.” Divine wisdom, then, being different from faith, is the first of the so-called “gifts” of God; after it, second, for those who know how to make such distinctions precisely, is what is called knowledge; and third, since even the simpler people who come to piety as well as they can must be saved, is faith. That is why Paul says: “To one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit.” Therefore you would find that it is not ordinary people who have received divine wisdom, but those who excel and stand out among all who are devoted to Christianity; nor does anyone explain the matters of divine wisdom to the most uneducated or to slaves or to the most ignorant.
248 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Origen, Contra Celsum 6

References

"... Patristic writers cited the work frequently, especially in formulating Christological and trinitarian doctrine. Thus Ignatius applied to Christ language from 7:29–30 about Wisdom, and from 18:14–15 about the logos (Ephesians 18.2–3; Magnesians 8.2). Origen cited Wisdom’s attributes to support the eternal generation of the Son by the Father and the sharing of the Father and Son in the same essence. Augustine used the same passage to argue for the full equality of the persons of the trinity. Augustine also drew often on 9:15–17, according to which the perishable body weighs down the soul and spiritual insight requires the gift of the spirit, to formulate his anthropology; and he saw in the portrayal of the persecuted righteous one in 2:12–20 a prediction of Christ’s passion. Ambrose, among others, found a foreshadowing of the crucifixion in the reference to the saving wood of Noah’s ark: “Blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes” ..."
Randall D. Chesnutt, “Wisdom of Solomon,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature, ed. Samuel L. Adams and Matthew Goff (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), 104–121.

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 9:6 and Origen, Contra Celsum 6.13

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