It is not difficult to see how the Alexandrian Jews found their Heb. 727 (Hokhma) in this Greek doctrine of the vods. Not to take account of dif- ferences, Plato and Solomon—or the writer of Pr 8 it should perhaps rather be said—were agreed that Wisdom must be distinguished from God, that it nevertheless belongs to Him, and that through it
* De Wette, Hv, Joh, p. 12 (Leipzig, 1837),
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asa medium He actively works. Here, then, was a distinct point of union; and it is only natural that in passing from Sirach to Wisdom, written in another country and at a later time, we should meet with a considerable development of the OT doctrine, which was still substantially repeated there. This development is in the direction of Hellenizing the Heb. doctrine of Wisdom.
The writer introduces his discussion of Wisdom with the remark that he will explain what it is, and how it arose (6”). Further, the doctrine is set forth in the abstract terms of Platonism, and not inlanguage current among the ancient Hebrews. There is in Wisdom ‘a spirit quick of understand- ing, holy, alone in kind, manifold, subtil, freely moving, clear in utterance, unpolluted, distinct, unharmed, loving what is good, keen, unhindered, beneficent, loving towards man, stedfast, sure, free from care, all-powerful, all-surveying, and penetrating through all spirits that are quick of understanding, pure, most subtil’ (7%). This summation of the attributes of Wisdom in no fewer than 21 particulars is quite after the Hel- lenistic style. he computation is indeed moderate when compared with the 150 epithets applied by Philo to vicious men.* The whole description of Wisdom recalls the manner in which the Gr. philo- sophers were accustomed to speak of their vois. In point of subtlety of thought and expression the passage is manifestly framed after the Gr. rather than the Heb. models. It is also worthy of note that this does not profess to be a description of Wisdom itself, but only of a spirit that is in her. In this connexion Langen says: ‘There was a disinclination to transfer directly to Wisdom itself what the Greeks said of the vots, because codia in the abstract is only a bare conception, and there- fore in the case of such a transference the qualities mentioned ran the risk of being handed over from their more substantial bearer (vois) to a purely ideal one. On this account the writer elevated cog¢la into a substance, while investing it with a spirit (ve}ua). And hereby there was therefore also implied an actual doctrinal advance, inasmuch as the essential character (Wesenseigenthiimlichheit) of Wisdom came to clearer expression than was possible through the figurative language of Solomon (v.¢. Pr. 8), Yet this advance can be treated only as formal and not material, since Solomon also, through his anthropomorphic presentation of Wis- dom playing before God, had already plainly enough raised it above the purely ideal.’+ As regards the description itself, it would seem that, when the writer speaks of Wisdom as ‘a clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty,’ ‘an effulgence from everlasting light,’ ‘an unspotted mirror of the working of God,’ and ‘an image of his goodness,’ he means to represent it as standing in a relation to God that is not shared by the Divine creations —a relation so close and peculiar as to constitute Wisdom the very image or reflexion of His own essential Being, in a sense in which man cannot be said to be so. Here at all events Wisdom is no mere personification, but_a real essence of purest light, the image of the Godhead, streaming forth as a substance from God before the creation of the world, At the same time there is no sharp dis- tinction of personality drawn between God and His Wisdom. While, in conjunction with the Gr. doctrine of the vods, the Heb. doctrine of the Wisdom came to be more clearly conceived and expressed, it was not as yet, either in the mind of our author or of his contemporaries, hypos- tatized into a second and subordinate God, as it afterwards was by Philo. There is in more than the usual sense a personification of Wisdom, yet we
* De Mercede Meretiicis, ed. Mang. ii. 268, t Judenthum, ete. p. 259 f.
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE
are led only half-way to personality. As Schiirer says, ‘The author applies theterm Iisdom of God to represent the notion of an intermediary hypostasis, so far as he entertains it’ (HJP IL. ili. p. 376 n.). It is, however, important to note that, as the re- sult of the combination and interaction of the Greek and the Jewish mind, the Book of Wisdom marks a distinct step towards greater definiteness of conception and expression in reference to this doctrine.
In the Bk. of Wisdom the Heb. Hokhma is practi- cally identified, however, not only with the Gr. vods, but also with the Holy Spirit and with the Logos. In the OT, God’s Holy Spirit is the giver of all good; so to the Alexandrian was Wisdom. It is not wonderful therefore that the author of our book virtually identifies the two, and attributes to Wisdom just what the OT (e.g. in Is 11°) does to the Spirit of J”. At all events, the idea of the Spirit of God is intermixed with that of Wisdom, for it is Wisdom that inspires the prophets (7”). In one passage in particular (917) Wisdom and the Holy Spirit are spoken of in quite parallel terms as the sole avenues to knowledge of the Divine counsel. Although not known to most of the Apocryphal writers, the Holy Spirit is, beyond doubt, expressly mentioned here. See art. HoLy Sprririnvol. ii. In at least one passage there also seems to be an identification of the Wisdom with the Gr. Néyos. Regarding the destruction of the firstborn in Egypt it is said, ‘Thine all-powerful word leaped from heaven out of the royal throne, a stern warrior into the midst of the doomed land, bearing as a sharp sword thine unfeigned com- mandment ; and standing it filled all things with death ; and while it touched the heaven it trode upon the earth’ (18%). The description here given of the déyos inevitably suggests what the writer has already said of Wisdom as sharing God’s royal throne (9*); and besides, as Langen has pointed out, there is merely a transference to the \éyos of what was before said of Wisdom, viz. that it ‘pervadeth and penetrateth all things’ (74), and ‘reacheth from one end of the world to the other’ (81). In support of the view that God’s Word is here only another name for His Wisdom, we have the general doctrine, otherwise clearly expressed in our book, that God executes His will through His Word (16”). It can make no differ- ence that in this case His will was to punish Egypt, and was not associated with any creative or healing purpose. A comparison of this passage with 10! shows that what is here ascribed to the Adyos might equally well have been attributed to the agency of the Wisdom. Bretschneider, on the other hand, maintains (/.c. p. 254f.) that Nbyos here denotes the destroying angel, and that nowhere either in the Apocrypha or in the LXX is it the equivalent of 7224, which is always trans- lated by codia. But can the epithet ravrodivapos be fittingly applied to an angel? However this may be, it seems quite plain that the doctrine of Wisdom in the Apocrypha is intermediate between that of the OT and the Logos of Philo, just as in Philo again we have the transition from the Apo- eryphal to the Johannine doctrine. In the Book of Wisdom there is assuredly development of some sort, however we may be disposed to characterize it. If our author says no more than the OT, he certainly says it more clearly. If there be no material advance on the OT doctrine, we have that doctrine presented in a much fuller and more developed form, and this we may regard as the legitimate service of Greek thought. Hagenbach recognizes ‘the more definite and concrete form which, at the time when the Apocryphal writings were composed, was given to the personifications of the Divine word and the Divine Wisdom found