Desperately Seeking Sophia

Based on Wisdom 6:1-21

 

When I was a child, my friends and I liked to imagine what the future would be like. We envisaged flying cars and publicly accessible space travel.

 

Of course, these dreams have not eventuated, not yet anyway, but technology has advanced in other ways we had not anticipated. In particular, our access to communication with others and information is unprecedented. But has it made us any smarter? Sometimes I wonder.

 

English writer and commentator Ian Leslie has wryly noted:

 

I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers.¹

 

I too am guilty of doing both.

 

We can be both very intelligent and very foolish at the same time. Ireland’s former rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll memorably said at a press conference five years ago:

 

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. ²

 

We can have all the knowledge in the world, but not necessarily have wisdom.

 

Our First Lesson today is from the Book of Wisdom, also known as the Wisdom of Solomon. This is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible, whose inclusion is disputed. This is because while most of these books were included in the Older Testament when it was first compiled, they were not included in the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible. It is often assumed the Older Testament is a direct incorporation of the Hebrew Scriptures. But it was actually not until after the Church agreed on which Hebrew Scriptures it accepted that the Tanakh was finalised. Not the other way around.

However, the deuterocanonical books are retained in the Older Testaments used by Orthodox and Catholic Churches, who together comprise a clear majority of the world’s Christians, albeit with some discrepancies over individual books. But they have been removed from the Bibles used by most Protestants. Lutherans and Anglicans however have retained them but moved from the Older Testament into a different section we know as the Apocrypha, a practice first followed in Martin Luther’s Bible of 1534. This was included in the King James Version of the Bible until 1885. And in what could be called a typical Anglican compromise, the deuterocanonical books were authorised to be read for example of life and manners, but not to establish doctrine. There is some really beautiful content in some of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible, and it is a shame we rarely hear them read in Church these days. Which is why I asked to be able to preach on this text today.

 

We do not know for certain who wrote Wisdom, but we can safely say it was not King Solomon, even though it is attributed to and purports to be written by him. This is a literary device. But we can say Wisdom was most likely written in the Jewish community in Alexandria, clues for this being its parallels with other texts we know were written there and Egyptian references and themes in the text. It was most likely written around the turn of the era, that is between about the late First Century BCE to early First Century CE, so it is quite possible Jesus was alive at the time this book was written.

 

This was a time when Jews had suffered much oppression, which can be read about in some of the other deuterocanonical books, such as the Books of the Maccabees. Wisdom was written to bring them hope and encouragement

 

The text we heard from Wisdom this evening comprises two clearly discernible sections. The first is a plea for the rulers of the world to seek wisdom. I do not need to dwell on this, as our failure to care for creation, and short-term gain being prioritised over the long-term viability of all life on the planet makes it abundantly clear this plea that is just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.

 

This second is a description of what wisdom is. Or, to be more accurate, who she is. Because wisdom is not just a theme. Wisdom is personified as a woman, and she can be discerned by those who love her, and she can be found by those who seek her.

And this is where it gets really interesting. Because this concept of Wisdom as a person played a significant role in the development of the Doctrine of the Trinity.

 

The first known Christian to describe God as being triune in nature was Theophilus of Antioch, who wrote of God, his Word (or Logos), and his Wisdom (or Sophia) around 170 CE. The development and refinement of the Doctrine of the Trinity by other early Christian theologians like Tertullian (who gave us the word trinitas, from which we derive Trinity), and Athanasius is a theme for another day. And I note it is exactly 18 weeks to Trinity Sunday.

 

There are also three divine personifications in the Older Testament that predate and contribute to the Christian understanding of the Trinity. These are similar but not identical to those of the triune understanding of God proposed by Theophilus.

 

Firstly, there is the Spirit of God, which refers to God’s presence and power within creation. From the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis:

 

1:2 Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water.

1:3 God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.³

 

From Chapter 33 of the Book of Job:

 

4 For the spirit of God has made me, the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive.⁴

 

There is the Word of God, which portrays the speech of God as having an existence that is independent of originating from God. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah says:

¹¹ so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.⁵

 

From Psalm 119:

 

89 Forever O Lord, Your word stands high in the heavens.⁶

 

And there is Wisdom, whom I have already noted is a female personification. She is distinct from but depends upon God.

 

The personification of Wisdom is a recurring theme in Older Testament theology. From Chapter 1 of the Book of Proverbs:

 

1:20 Wisdom calls aloud in the streets, she raises her voice in the public squares;

1:21 she calls out at the street corners, she delivers her message at the city gates,

1:22 ‘You ignorant people, how much longer will you cling to your ignorance? How much longer will mockers revel in their mocking and fools hold knowledge contemptible?

1:23 Pay attention to my warning: now I will pour out my heart to you, and tell you what I have to say.⁷

 

And from Chapters 7 and 8 of the Book of Wisdom:

 

7:22 For within her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, active, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, sharp,

7:23 irresistible, beneficent, loving to man, steadfast, dependable, unperturbed, almighty, all-surveying, penetrating all intelligent, pure and most subtle spirits;

7:24 for Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.

7:25 She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; hence nothing impure can find a way into her.

7:26 She is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s active power, image of his goodness.

7:27 Although alone, she can do all; herself unchanging, she makes all things new. In each generation she passes into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets;

7:28 for God loves only the man who lives with Wisdom.

7:29 She is indeed more splendid than the sun, she outshines all the constellations; compared with light, she takes first place,

7:30 for light must yield to night, but over Wisdom evil can never triumph.

8:1 She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other, ordering all things for good.⁸

 

These words stand well by themselves, and there is little I could add to them. However, I do like this explanation offered by 19^th Century theologian James Drummond:

 

Wisdom is a self-adaptation of the inviolable spirituality of God to material conditions, an assumption of the necessary community of nature, in order to bring the infinite and internal into those relations of space and time which are implied in the creation and government of the world of sense.⁹

 

I spoke earlier of human folly, and the foolishness we can witness in our attempts to govern the world. But Wisdom is close to God, and we are encouraged to seek her. Or, if we are to call her by her Greek name, we should be desperately seeking Sophia. Because as humans, we are flawed, we are never going to get anything right on our own efforts, but the divine wisdom of God holds the answers to everything.

 

 

Darryl Ward
9 February 2025

 

 

¹ Leslie, Ian Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It (retrieved 9 February 2025)

²  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvniuK6I9zs (retrieved 9 February 2025)

³ Genesis 1:2-3 (Jerusalem Bible)

⁴ Job 33:4 (New American Bible)

⁵ Isaiah 55:11 (Jerusalem Bible)

⁶ Psalm 119:89 (Robert Alter Translation)

⁷ Proverbs 1:20-23 (Jerusalem Bible)

⁸ Wisdom 7:22-8:1 (Jerusalem Bible)

⁹ Drummond, James (1888). Philo Judaeus: Or, The Jewish-Alexandrian Philosophy in Its Development and Completion, Volume I. P 225. Cited in Osterley, W.O.E. (1958). An Introduction to the Books of the Apocrypha. SPCK, London, UK. P 55.