THE COSMIC POWERS OF GOD (continued)
C. THE WISDOM OF GOD
2. WISDOM AS THE PRINCIPLE OF COSMIC ORDER, AND .4S HYPOSTASIS
The first point to strike one on reading this literature is the way in which the concept ofwisdotn has been radically expanded. Not only the old skill in practical affairs but also the purpose and order discerni6Ze in the cosnzos are now regarded as effects of wisdom. The hymn in praise of wisdorn in Job 28 particularly emphasizes this aspect when it con- nects wisdom closely with the work of creation:
God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.
When he gave to the wind its weight, and meted out the waters by measure;
when he made a decree for the rain,
and a way for the lightning of the thunder;
then he saw it and declared it;
he established it, and searched it out.1
In these noble verses the poet links the mystery of Nature with the divine wisdom, which stood before the face of God as a pattern of that which was to be created, and so determined the natural order. An earlier writer had already declared that the world had been made in 1 Job 28.23, 25-27. The text is not undisputed, but the exposition of Budde seems to be the best. (Budde’s translation from his commentary on Job is the one quoted in the German edition; the RSV rendering has been used here, since it corresponds exactly to that of Budde. Tr.). For a similar interpretation cf. H. Ring- gren, O/J. cil., pp. 8 I ff.
84 THE COSMIC POWERS OF GOD
wisdom,1 but here b&ma’ is presented with distinctive emphasis as being in its original essence a cosmic principle. The writer of Prov.
8 also speaks of this divine cosmic principle in very much the same way. If wisdom here commends herself as a teacher, yet she bases her authority on her coming into existence before all created things, and on the relationship with the Creator God which she is privileged to .enjoy:
The LORD created me as the first revelation of his power,2 the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been planted, before the hills, I was brought forth;
before he had made the earth with its fields, and the mass of the clods of the world.
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made huge the clouds above,
when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress their shore, when he made strong the foundations of the earth . . . then was I beside him, like a master workman,
playing before him at all times, sporting with his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.3
1 PS. 104.24.
2 This translation has been proposed by J. B. Bauer (VTVIII, 1958, pp. g’f.), who draws attention to the sense of drkt = ‘sovereignty, power’ in the Ugaritic texts.
3 Prov. 8.22-3 I, For the translation and its justification cf. C. Steuernagel in Kautzsch-Bertholet, Die heilige Schrift des AT. (The RSV has been retained where- ever it gives substantially the same sense as the German rendering; in lines I, 7,
IO, I 3, 16, I 7,20 and 2 I direct translation has been made from the German version, but the deoartures from the RSV which this involves are of detailed significance only. Tr.) in the text of v. 30, however, the word ‘cTm& ought not to be iranslated
‘little child’, but denotes an ‘overseer’, even though elsewhere the form is vocalized differently (‘omm&, So of S. 7.2 ; ‘iimmcin in the Mishnah). Against this rendering appeal is made principally to the expressions in w. 3of., which speak of wisdom as ‘playing’ or ‘sporting’, ideas seemingly incompatible with the conception of the cosmic architect. This is, however, simply to overlook the fact that a poetic description, which may in any case have been influenced by mythological portra- yals of a divine child, does not usually stop to ask whether its imagery will serve to illumine a sober and considered understanding. The statements in v. 25 were still too close for the poet to be able to speak of her as a mature adult. In addition it
THE WISDOM OF GOD 85
Here too, therefore, wisdom is the cosmic thought, proceeding from God, creatively organizing and acting, and an objective reality even to God himself. Henceforward this connection with the creation and sustaining of all things was inseparable from wisdom, as the literature of later Judaism bears witness.l
If it is asked why the bokmtf, which hitherto had been primarily the method of instruction in right living, should now be understood so emphatically as creative wisdom, the answer is to be thought of less in terms of influence from Babylonian, Egyptian or Persian mytho- logy2 than of contact with the philosophical schools of Hellenism.
Jewish scholars of the third century BC, such as the famous Aristobulus of Alexandria, reveal what a, strong impression the natural philo- sophy of Aristotle in particular had made on Jewish thought; but even before the time of these theologians Jews must have found their point of contact with Hellenism in the sense of wonder which they shared in their contemplation of the cosmos, and have managed to incorporate this into their concept of wisdom.
should be remembered that the picture of the child at play is, in fact, a matchless illustration of the effortlessness with which God or his wisdom masters the mighty task of creation. The contrast is definitely not disturbing, but heightens the poetic effect. Since Job 28 proves that the mediatory status of wisdom at the creation was a current idea at this time, there can be no reason for excising it here. In the same way Wisd, 7.22 speaks of the ndvrwv r&7&s. H. Ringgren also supports this translation of ‘cim%z (op. cit., pp. ggff.).
1 Ecclus. I .2-6; 24.5f. ; Slavonic Enoch 30.8 ; Wisd. 7. I 2, I 7ff., 2 If. ; 8. I, 4f. ; 9.9; similarly in Philo, cf. W. Schencke, Die Chokma (Sophiu) in der jiidischen Hypostasenrpekulation, I g I 3, p. 69.
2 That behind the Wisdom hypostasis lies an actual myth of a goddess of crea- tion and revelation, as Schencke and also Bultmann (‘Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum Johannesevangelium’, Eucharisterion, Gunkel durg., 1923, pp. tff.) have argued, seems to me unprovable. In Babylonia it is primarily the description of the wisdom of the cosmic creator Marduk, and of his relations with his father Ea, which exhibits many startling similarities with Israelite ways of thought, but without making direct influence probable (cf. Heinisch, Die fierslilz- lithe Weisheit des AT in religionsgeschichtlier Beleuchtung, 1923, pp. 47ff.). Much more remote are the analogies with the Egyptian gods Ptah and Thoth, and with the Persian conceptions of the two Amesha Spentas, Vohu Maneh (Good Mind) and Armaiti (Humility), of whom the former, in the manner of a Logos, was Ahura’s irstrument in the creation of the earth, while the latter, as Ahura’s wife and daughter, became the mother of the first Man, and through him of all man- kind. One ought, however, to take the influence of Persian religion more positively into accocnt when considering the increased tendency to hypostasis speculations in general,
86 T H E C O S M I C I ’ O W E R S O F G O D
Not only was the sphere of wisdom’s operation thus enlarged, the concept was further enriched by being exalted into a /zz@stasis. Because of the peculiar character of oriental poetic diction it is easy to under- stand that there should often be considerable doubt whether anything more is involved than poetic personification, implying no kind of dogmatic statement. 1 An appeal to the personification of wickedness and folly in Proverbs2 would seem to support this view. However, the most that these last examples prove is that this stylistic form had been in use for a very long time, and was, in fact, still used when, in the case of Wisdom, personification had already passed over into hypo- statization. Moreover, even if one was not prepared to see the descriptions in Job 28 and Proverbs 8 as anything more than mere imagery- though even at this stage God’s will and thought are clearly enough considered as personal, independent power proceed- ing from God-the picture drawn in the Apocrypha would provide a decisive argument to the contrary, for here there can be no doubt whatever of the separate existence of Wisdom. In these texts Wisdom proceeds out of the mouth of the Most High,3 she is a breath of the power of God, an effluence of the glory of the Almighty, a reflection from eternal light, an image of the goodness of God,* and she partakes of God’s holiness, majesty and love. She is granted a dwelling among the angels in heaven,5 yea, she sits on the throne of God,6 and chooses his works.7 It is to her that God gave the command to make Man.8 In view of all this the hypostatic character of Wisdom in the earlier descriptions must also be acknowledged, and its emergence explained not merely in terms of the logical separation between the transcendent God and the immanent world-process, but also as a result of the value set upon themselves by the wisdom teachers, who wished to rate their own authority no less highly than that enjoyed by the prophets, who appealed to the Word and Spirit of God. Indeed, Wisdom has as much power to reward and punish as Yahweh himself.9
This development of the concept of Wisdom gained in importance, 1 Cf. E. Kiinig, 77xoZogie 304, p. 187 ; J. Fichtner, op. cit., p. I I g ; W. Frankenberg, Die S’tic!re (Gottingen Handkommentar zum AT II.3), 1898, pp. 6of., et al.
s Prov. 7.1off.; g.x3ff.
s Ecclus 24.3.
4 Wisd. 7.25f.
5 Enoch 42. I f.
s Wisd. 9.4, cf. 8.3.
7 Wisd. 8.4.
* Slavonic Enoch 30.8.
9 Prov. 1.22ff.; 3.x6f., cf. 3.6, I If.; also x.28, cf. Amos 8.12; Isa. 55.6; 65.1.
T H E W I S D O M O F G O D 81
because it afforded the possibility of acknowledging truths possessed by foreign nations by describing them as participation in the divine
!zokm& For since Wisdom is already made known in the creation, she is naturally accessible to all peoples. Her connection with the ancient conception of practical shrewdness could be accommodated by making the latter the gift and endowment of Wisdom. As the creator of Man she loves him,1 and seeks to make him happy. She invites him into her house,2 and encourages him to make a covenant with her. She it is who bestows sovereignty and skill in government on the kings and nobles of the earth. 3 ‘Every voice that exhorts to good, is her voice. Every perception of truth and every practice of virtue comes under her influence, and is her work. Whoever rejects her, forfeits life; whoever possesses her, has found life.‘4 In this way a wide sector was opened up within which it was possible to come to terms with foreign practical wisdom, and to make its much-admired in- sights one’s own. Knowledge of Nature, and the moulding of the individual life, formed a bridge between Israel and the pagan world.
In so doing men had no thought of imperilling Israel’s own inheri- tance, but believed themselves capable of loyally holding fast to Yahweh.
Yet this assimilation to alien truth did indeed conceal dangers.
The more important the divine Wisdom discernible in Nature be- came, the easier it was to suppose that from that starting-point one could arrive at a rational understanding of God accessible even to the heathen. And the greater the confidence that wisdom could achieve this goal, the more quickly were men ready to expect from her a solution to the rest of life’s riddles as well. If the former error is more apparent in the Jewish theology of Alexandria with its rationalization of revealed knowledge,5 and in apocryphal writings like the Wisdom of Solomon,6 the latter became acute in the Palestinian community, when in its struggle for certitude concerning God’s sovereignty living piety was threatened by a dogmatic explanation of the world quite
1 Prov. 8.17,3xb.
2 Prov. 8. I ff. ; I .2off.
3 Prov. 8. I 5f:
4 A. Dillmann, Handbuch der alttestamentlichen Theologie,, p. 347. G. von Rad (Old Testament Theology I, p. 443) rightly emphasizes that with this imploring invitation of Wisdom, which brings the offer of salvation with special urgency directlv to the individual. something new comes into the life of Tudaism.
6 & A. Schlatter, Gkchichte IsGels van Alexander dem Grossen his. Hadrians,
‘925, PP. 77fE 6 Wisd. 7. I 7ff.
88 THE COSMIC POWERS OF OOD
divorced from reality.1 Hence it was of decisive importance for wis- dom teaching that from its own ranks there should arise a resolute rejection of all attempts to assimilate it to paganism or bring it down to that level, and an energetic reconsideration of its own understand- ing of the world along the lines laid down in the religion of Israel.
Thus it is precisely the cosmic significance of Wisdom which the author of Job 28 plans to use in order to prove that, although indeed the traces of Wisdom are to be found everywhere, yet nowhere on earth is she herself to be found. The underworld, too, and the king- dom of the dead, say: ‘We have heard the rumour of her!’ But God alone knows and possesses her, for at the creation he brought her forth from himself as, so to speak, the cosmic idea or the model of the cosmic structure, and he penetrated into all her mysteries and searched them out.* This world-pervading and controlling Wisdom, however, he kept back from Man, granting him instead a different kind of wisdom, one appropriate to him: ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding’.a This fierce polemic by the poet of Job against the presumptuous way in which men fancy themselves to have sat in God’s council is clearly intended as a protest against the current wisdom teaching with its self-conceit, as this is represented by Job’s friends.” In opposition to them the poet stresses that God’s wisdom is not placed in its entirety within Man’s grasp for him to read off from the works of creation alone. Because Man can discover only traces of Wisdom, but never Wisdom herself, therefore there remain riddles in the course of the universe which Man cannot plumb, but can only accept in awe and adoration before the all-wise Creator. The speeches of God himself5 express even more powerfully the ideal of self-effacement which keeps silence before the marvels and mysteries of creation, a self-effacement which leads, however, not to slavish subjection, but, because of the gracious self-communication of the Lord of the universe, to trustful surrender. This dethroning of all autonomous wisdom is also the concern of Koheleth, when he indeed acknowledges wisdom within 1 Cf. the speeches of the friends in Job, and the mechanical doctrine of retribu- tion to be found in such passages as Prov. 1. r g, 3 I ff. ; 2.2 I f. ; 3.33ff., etc. and Pss, 37; 39; 49; 73 ; I 28. On this subject cf. Eichrodt, ‘Vorsehungsglaube und Theodizee rm AT’, Pro&h-Fe&h@, I 934, pp. 62f.
s Job 28.27.
s Job 28.28.
4 Job 5.2ff.; 8.8ff.; 15.2ff., 7ff, 17ff., etc.
s Job 38-42.
THE WISDOM OF GOD 89
its limits as a high good,1 but at the same time throws a fierce light on its ‘vanity’, so far as ultimate questions are concerned, by his profound meditations on the power of God in creation.2
3. WISDOM AS A PRINCIPLE OF REVELATION3
It is true that it proved impossible to carry through absolutely rigorously this clear and logical critique of the wisdom teaching.
There can, however, be no doubt that it contributed to the fact that the wisdom teachers renewed a vigorous search for a link with the Old Testament understanding of God, and that the primary attachment of all human efforts after truth to the revelation was more clearly per- ceived. As early as Proverbs wisdom and the fear of Yahweh are sometimes used as interchangeable concepts,4 and the fear of Yahweh is described as the re”.!% of wisdom; that is to say, not only its begin- ning, but its chief ingredient, its essence, its germs-though it is true that the logical conclusions from this are not always clearly drawn.
In Ben Sirach we find a quite new attempt to do justice to the dis- tinctive character of the Israelite inheritance. It is true that he con- tinues to see that there is a deposit of truth mediated by Wisdom, and is therefore unwilling to break the links with heathen wisdom teach- ing. God has poured out his Wisdom over all his works; all flesh possesses as much of her as his bounty has willed to bestow.6 Wisdom, however, is still the rationale of the cosmos, existing before all created things, and in its profundity impenetrable to Man, and reserved to God alone.7 Hence God bestowed her in abundance only on those who feared him; indeed, she is created with the pious in the womb.8 Israel
1 Eccles 2.r3f., 26; 4.13; 7.4f, rrf.; g.x6ff.
a Cf. in this connection, H. W. Hertzberg, Der Prediger iibersetst und erkliirt, 1932, pp. 42ff. In Koheleth criticism the positive elements are on the whole too little regarded, as, for example, in A. Lauha, ‘Die Krise des religiosen Glaubens bei Kohelet’, VTSuppl. III, pp. 183ff.
3 J. C. Rylaarsdam investigates the opposition between rationalist and theolo- gical wisdom teaching, and the changeover from one to the other: cf. p. 82, n. I
above.
4 Prov. 13.14 and 14.27.
6 Prov. 1.7; 9.10; the weakening of these statements by Budde, (Mob, 1913, p.
I 70), as though they referred only to an elementary stage of wisdom beyond which the fully qualified exponent will press on by his own efforts to complete under- standing, overlooks the fact that rZ’SZt means far more than this, and that its fuller connotation cannot be disregarded in this context.
6 Ecclus. I. I o.
7 Ecclus 1.2-8.
s Ecclus x.10, 14.
90 THE COSMIC POWERS OF G O D
thus has an unchallengeable advantage, which is ultimately defined as lying in a particular quarter, namely God’s revelation wit/& Israel.
For the Creator of all things commanded Wisdom: ‘Let your dwel- ling be in Jacob, and your inheritance in Israel!’ There she served before him in the holy tabernacle, and then on Mount Zion, above all, where she took root in the honoured people.1 In particular she was embodied in the Law of Moses, from which she caused her doc- trine to shine abroad.2 Here, therefore, we are confronted with Wisdom in a narrower sense, which coincides with God’s revelation to Israel, which for the Jews is comprised pre-eminently in the Law.
This orientation of Wisdom toward the Law also occurs in many of the didactic poems in the Psalters and in Baruch.4 It finds its full development in the Pirke Aboth, for which the true sage is the teacher of the Torah, and the Law constitutes the unique and absolute norm.5
This change in the character of the wisdom teacher, which took place primarily in the Palestinian community, also had its effect in the Diaspora, though not, it is true, universally. Just as the Wisdom of Solomon praises the faith of the patriarchs as the true wisdom, so Philo portrays Moses as a teacher of wisdom, to whom the divine words were revealed in ecstasy, and whose laws are therefore sup- premely rational and universally binding. This, however, did not prevent the infiltration of a whole range of Platonic and Stoic influences, whether it be in individual philosophic ideas such as the dualistic world-view, the pre-existence of the soul, the eternal dura- tion of matter, and the immanent world-soul, all of which play a part in the Wisdom of Solomon, or in the whole structure of ethics, as in IV Maccabees, or in the transformation of the Old Testament faith into the philosophical religion of Hellenism which Philo accomplished with the help of allegorical exegesis of the Scriptures. Despite a formal connection with the Old Testament revelation, in all these instances the wisdom of heathenism was triumphant.
Because of this enlargement of the concept of Wisdom there was inevitable ouerlapping with the hypostases of Word and Spirit, and this had a complicating effect which hampered clear exposition. In particular Wisdom and the Spirit, because of the similarity of their functions,
1 Ecclus 24.8f.
2 EC&S 2+23ff.
SPSS. II 1; 11g.g7ff.
4 Bar. 4.x.
6 Pirke Aboth I. I If.; 11.8; 1.2.
THE WISDOM OF GOD 9’
easily combine to form a homogeneous concept. Sometimes they are arranged in synonymous parallelism, as in Dan. 5. I I ff. or Wisd.
9.17; sometimes their functions merge, as in Philo and 11(4) Esdras;
sometimes they are identical, as in the Wisdom of Solomon, where Wisdom, like the Spirit, is the breath of God, representing the divine power both in the physical and in the moral order, and as a m&pa
&L&@U~TOV educates mankind. Whereas in this document the Word is still clearly distinct from Wisdom, and appears as an independent angelic being,1 in Ben Sirach Wisdom is virtually born from the Word,2 and in Philo is presented conversely as the mother of the Logos, with God as the father. The Jewish teachers never found a method of organizing these various hypostases into a single system.
4. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPT FOR THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH
Nevertheless the importance of the Wisdonz hypostasis for the dialogue of the Old Testament faith with the world of Hellenistic spirituality should not be underestimated. Its significance within the congrega- tion increased markedly as a result of its association with the Law, for this gave it new content in the form of knowledge of God to add to its practical wisdom and understanding of Nature. But this was not all. It also gave the community a platform from which they were able to answer the problem of truth posed by Hellenistic wisdom, without in the process evaporating or curtailing their faith in the revelation of God within Israel. It was possible to give an affirmative answer to the question whether divine truth was accessible also to the heathen, and to appeal in support of this answer to the co-opera- tion of the divine Wisdom in the creation, as a result of which it had been communicated to all creatures. But the further question, how this was to be reconciled with the absolute claims made for the divine revelation within Israel, was resolved by placing alongside that revelatio generalis a reuelatio specialis, the peculiar possession of Israel alone.
In this way both that which the two societies had in common and that which distinguished them were brought within the scope of a single practicable formula, thus averting the danger which must have threatened had there been a total equation of divine wisdom in Israel
1 Wisd. 9.1; 16.12; 18.15f.
2 Ecclus 1.4; 24.3.