Wisdom of Solomon

Wisdom of Solomon or Wisdom, early Jewish book included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible. The book opens with an exhortation to seek wisdom, followed by a statement on worldly attitudes. Chapter 3 is an eloquent passage on the immortality of the just and the rewards of the wicked, amplified in the next chapters. Then follows another exhortation and a transition to a section praising wisdom, ending with a prayer for it. The remainder of the book is a history of God's care of the Jews from the beginning, with a long parenthesis on the natural origin of idolatry and its folly. The style and content of the book lend themselves to quotation; for example, St. Paul 's letters allude to passages from Wisdom. The book is probably of Alexandrian Jewish authorship—most scholars place the date in the two centuries before Jesus. Some see in it a composite work of three parts: chapters 1-6, 7-9, and 10-19, of which the third is said to resemble a Passover Haggada. It is the paragon of what is called wisdom literature, a term for the Jewish philosophical writings of the pre-Christian era. The following books of the Hebrew Bible also represent this type: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach.

Bibliography: See D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon (1979). See also under Old Testament Apocrypha.

Wisdom of Solomon. One of the books of the Apocrypha. The author's familiarity with Gk. philosophy places him as a Jew of Alexandria in the period 2nd cent. BCE–1st cent. CE. The terms used of Wisdom in ch. 7 passed into Christian theology as applied to Christ.

Wisdom of Solomon. A Book of the Apocrypha. The first part (1: 1–6: 8) describes the different destinies awaiting the righteous and the wicked; the second part (6:9–9: 18) contains the meditation on Wisdom which gives the Book its name; the last part (10–19) reviews the history of Israel to the Exodus, with an excursus on idolatry in 13–15. The ascription of the Book to Solomon is a literary device. It was most probably written by an Alexandrian Jew in the 1st or 2nd cent. BC.

The Book has greatly influenced Christian thought. It may have been directly used by NT writers. Later the terms used of the Divine Wisdom are freely applied to Christ. See also the previous entry.