Written by William E. Mouser
Foreward
Today, one of the greatest heroines of antiquity continues to struggle with mistaken identities never intended for her. Solomon introduced Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9 to illuminate his readers, not to confuse them. Yet, with the passage of time, the confusion surrounding Lady Wisdom's identity has grown to bizarre proportions. Is she God's female side? Is she a feminine deity in her own right? Is she an Old Testament adumbration of Jesus Christ? Or is she perhaps a pre-incarnate manifestation of Messiah?
The confusion is bizarre, because Lady Wisdom's identity is plainly inscribed in Holy Writ. Of course, the plain meaning of Scripture has never impeded earnest theologians from importing ideas into the Bible which are alien to it, or from drawing ideas out of the Bible text which do not reside there. Lady Wisdom's identity was first muddied by theological controversy during the Fourth Century, when Arius contended that Jesus of Nazareth was not fully divine. Today, Lady Wisdom's identity is again emmeshed in a debate about how gender relates to God. As in the Arian controversy, the outcome of today's debate could transform Christianity into an entirely different religion.
So, a relatively simple Bible-study problem becomes pivotal in today's debate about God's nature. In the context of the Old Testament faith and Proverbs 1-9, it is relatively simple to learn who Lady Wisdom is, and who she is not. But, we'll begin by dispensing with some of her mistaken identities, both ancient and modern. Only then can Lady Wisdom's actual identity once more emerge from Solomon's introduction to the Book of Proverbs.
Mistaken Identities
Whatever one thinks of the origin and development of Old Testament faith, its zealous monotheism confronts the reader on every page of the entire Old Testament. Jews from time to time worshipped gods other than YHWH, as the biblical record makes clear. However, the prophetic perspective of all the Old Testament is exclusively monotheistic, and the one God, who alone is God, bears the name YHWH.
This perspective infuses the book of Proverbs, where Israelite monotheism radiates from every page. In approximately 100 references to God in the book, all but a dozen employ the name YHWH—the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses. It is the fear of YHWH which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). When we examine Lady Wisdom's own words, we find some passionate zeal for Israel's God. She mocks fools who reject the fear of YHWH (Prov. 1:29), and she blesses those who fear Him (Prov. 8:35).
Not God, Nor the Goddess
A relatively recent identity for Lady Wisdom is a divine one. For example,
...Dame Wisdom is the image of God as female used most often by biblical authors, appearing frequently in the canonical Book of Proverbs and also in the deuterocanonical books of Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, and Ecclesiasticus.1
Support for identifying Lady Wisdom with God does not arise from the biblical text itself, as we shall see shortly. But, religious feminists find this interpretation attractive for several reasons, all of which support their efforts to eradicate male headship from the belief and practice of the Christian faith.
Dame Wisdom is an especially important symbol for contemporary women because she gets us beyond the concept that femaleness finds its primary fulfillment in motherhood. Wisdom is busy in the public sphere; she is no shrinking violet, no vessel waiting to be given her significance by someone else.2
But, viewing Lady Wisdom as a goddess in her own right flatly contradicts the biblical source which introduces Lady Wisdom in the first place. By her claim to be a creature (see below), she contradicts all who interpret her as some aspect of God Himself. By her unflinching call to worship YHWH alone, Lady Wisdom contradicts all who view her as worthy of worship in her own right.
Consequently, it is a mistake to think of Lady Wisdom as “God's feminine side” or as a feminine co-deity with YHWH.
Not Christ
Early in the Church's history, some teachers identified Jesus Christ with Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9. This idea arose partly from early efforts to validate Jesus' divinity and messiahship from Old Testament adumbrations of Christ. But, is equating Christ and Lady Wisdom valid from an apostolic perspective or Old Testament perspective?
Some say yes, citing 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30—“...[but we preach] Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. . . .Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God...” (NASB). Others point to Matt. 11:19b and Luke 7:35. In Matthew, Jesus defends Himself by saying, “But, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds;” while Luke reports Jesus' defense this way—“But wisdom is vindicated by her children.”
Because Jesus' deeds are being discussed in both passages, some urge that Jesus implicitly identified Himself with wisdom, specifically Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9. However, upon closer examination, neither passage justifies linking Christ with Lady Wisdom.
Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:35 :
Consider first the gospel passages. Just before the “wisdom saying,” both Matthew and Luke—with insignificant variance—report Jesus to say, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say 'Behold a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of taxgatherers and sinners.' ” Note that “wisdom's children” or “wisdom's deeds” refer to more than Jesus alone.
The crowds, according to Jesus, had passed judgment on the activities of both Jesus and John the Baptist.
In reply, Jesus offers the cryptic rebuttal, “Yet, wisdom is vindicated by her children [Luke; “deeds” in Matthew].” If these words imply that Jesus is incarnate wisdom, they would also indicate that John the Baptist is also incarnate wisdom, an inference which no one draws!
Jesus possibly has Lady Wisdom in view, but only so far as to claim that He and John are Lady Wisdom's sons. To say that wisdom is vindicated by her deeds or her children is to affirm basically the same idea. Either way, neither Jesus nor John are assumed to be wisdom embodied. Rather, Jesus claims that both He and John are sons of wisdom—men in whom wisdom is producing good fruits, although each displays differing ministry styles.
1 Corinthians 1:24, 30:
The background for Paul's words on wisdom to the Corinthians is the religious smorgasbord available in Corinth, a center for the worship of Aphrodite, Melkart, Athene Phoenike, Poseidon, and many lesser maritime deities. Each religion advertised its own special brand of wisdom to potential worshippers. Religious partisanship was not invented by the Corinthian Christians—they simply brought this fault with them into the Church when they responded to the gospel.
Instead of attaching their allegiance to this or that Corinthian deity, as they had done while pagans, the born-again Corinthians latched on to this and that Christian preacher. “I am of Paul,” said one. “I am of Apollos,” another retorted. “I am of Cephas,” sniffed a third. “I am of Christ,” quipped another, no doubt thinking he had trumped everyone else. The Apostle Paul was not pleased.
Into this religious partisanship, Paul trains his sights on the so-called “wisdom” of the Corinthian culture, a wisdom he bluntly scorns—“Where is the wise man? . . . Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20 NASB). Paul has such contempt for Corinthian religious fashions that he sarcastically applies the label “folly” to the gospel—“. . . God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:21-23).
Paul's next words in 1:24 do not equate Christ and wisdom. “Christ crucified” was the content of Paul's preaching to the Corinthians (1:23). When he adds “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” in verse 24, he is again referring to the message of a crucified Christ—it is God's power and God's wisdom for those who believe. What God did in Christ is foolishness from man's point of view. What Christ did on the cross is weakness as mere men see things. Yet, Paul insists that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1:25).
In his attempt to engage the wrong-headed perspective in his Corinthian converts, Paul draws stark contrasts between the radically different ways that Christ and His crucifixion are esteemed by God, on one hand, and the Corinthian mind-set on the other. Corinthian Christians thought and acted like mere men (1 Cor. 3:4). Paul demanded they adopt a way of thinking which the world viewed as folly and weakness.
None of Paul's words, however, allude, even obliquely, to the Book of Proverbs or Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9. Paul's references to wisdom in 1 Cor. 1:24 and 1:30 have the Corinthian passion for wisdom in view. Against that background, Paul is telling the Corinthians that “Christ is for us what the Greeks seek when they seek wisdom. Our wisdom is Christ.”
Neither Proverbs nor Lady Wisdom were on Paul's mind as he penned 1 Corinthians. Consequently, Paul makes no link between Lady Wisdom and Christ in his passage.
The Old Testament Perspective
The largest stumbling block for equating Lady Wisdom and Christ comes from Lady Wisdom's own words. For all her primacy, she is a creature, not a demi-goddess. The key passage is her discourse in Proverbs 8:22-31.
In verse 22, Lady Wisdom was “possessed” by God prior to the dawn of creation itself. Many pages record the debate as to whether the Hebrew verb qanah in verse 22 should be translated as created or possessed or acquired, and to explicating any of those meanings in this context. However, none of the proposed meanings for this difficult word support the idea that Lady Wisdom is eternal or a part of God's essence. Most of what Lady Wisdom says is quite clear. She claims priority and antiquity over all creation, because she was the first entity God created.
Lady Wisdom is “the first of His works of old” (v.22). She was “established” (verse 23); she herself was “given birth” (verse 24). In sum, Lady Wisdom is a creature. She had a beginning. And while Jesus, in his humanity, had a beginning 200 years ago in the womb of Mary, He was and is, nevertheless, the eternal Logos, who was always with God and who is God (John 1:1ff). To identify the creature Lady Wisdom with the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, therefore, is to invite a serious misunderstanding of the person of Christ Himself.
Heresy, Ancient and Modern
Early in the Church's life, such a misunderstanding arose. A North African prebyter named Arius began teaching that Jesus was not really God, that He was Himself a creature. Basic to Arius' Biblical supports for this idea was Proverbs 8:22-25, which, according to Arius, proved two things—(1) that the Father created the Son, (2) for the purpose of creating the world through Him. Other verses in Old and New Testament were marshaled by the Arians to prove that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were not divine. But, the equation of Lady Wisdom and Christ was foundational to Arius' interpretation of other Biblical texts.
In 325 A.D. the Council of Nicaea, source of the Nicene Creed that we recite in our worship services, labeled Arius and his doctrines heretical, because they denied the deity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is noteworthy that the Arian heresy is alive today in the doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses. As Arius did before them, they appeal to Proverbs 8:22 as Biblical evidence for the creatureliness of Jesus Christ.
Not everyone who equates Jesus with Lady Wisdom is heretical. Some Christians believe in the full deity of Christ nevertheless equate Jesus with Lady Wisdom, an idea which the Nicene Council did not explicitly condemn. However, Christians with this view teeter on the edge of an interpretive error which supports heresy. They give unwitting comfort to heretics ancient and modern, who teach that Jesus is less than God.
Not a Person, But a Personification
So, who is Lady Wisdom? If she is not a goddess, nor some aspect of God Himself, who is she?
First, Lady Wisdom is not a person at all. Rather, she is a personification of wisdom. Personification is an ancient and elaborate figure of speech in which an author presents an abstract idea as a person. In Proverbs 1-9, Solomon tells us many things about wisdom by personifying it as a woman, by giving her speeches to deliver, and by calling on his readers to relate to wisdom as they would relate to various kinds of women (see below).
The strongest indication that Lady Wisdom is a personification rather than an actual heavenly being is her evil counterpart, the Woman Folly, with whom she is contrasted in Proverbs 9. No one, of course, ever maintains that Woman Folly is an actual personality. Like Lady Wisdom, she is a personification, a personification of folly.
God's First Feminine Creation
To say that Lady Wisdom is not an actual person, however, does not deny her femininity. Entities which are not actual personalities can still be feminine. Israel, for example, is often referred to as the wife of YHWH (cf. Ezek. 16, Hosea passim), even though concretely Israel is the aggregate of all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Bride is a well-known New Testament metaphor for the Church, even though concretely the Church is the totality of all believers baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). The Church is not actually a person any more than Israel is a person; both, however, are feminine.
In the same way, Lady Wisdom is an aggregate—the totality of all principles by which God created and sustains the universe. She includes moral law, scientific law, practical law, and philosophical mysteries. Wisdom is the foundation of all general revelation—what can be known about God and His law from observing the universe around us (cf. Psalm 19).
Some suppose that Solomon personified wisdom as a woman merely because the Hebrew word for wisdom, hokmah, is grammatically feminine. However, more than grammatical gender is involved. Wisdom is, properly, Lady Wisdom, because in her relationship to humans, wisdom's roles are classically feminine.
Thus, God's first creation was feminine, and in partnership with that feminine creation, God proceeded to create everything else. God's creative work inaugurated a pattern which He replicated time and time again in His universe—masculinity working with femininity to produce fruit bearing characteristics of both. Lady Wisdom was His beloved companion—“beside Him”—and “daily His delight.” She was His responder and glorifier, rejoicing in God and His works, especially His greatest work, mankind.
An Aspect of All Femininity
The Proverbs open with a series of poems revealing Lady Wisdom (chapters 1-9). The collection closes with the advice of a human mother (Prov. 31:1-9) and a description of the Excellent Wife (Prov. 31: 10-31). These placements are not happenstance. If Proverbs 8 portrays an archetypal Lady Wisdom, Proverbs 31 portrays individual women as concrete embodiments of Lady Wisdom. King Lemuel's mother is Lady Wisdom giving her royal son counsel. The Excellent Wife is Lady Wisdom giving her husband the help and nurture which enhance his reputation in the community.
Looking over Proverbs 1-9, therefore, we find Lady Wisdom taking the following classic feminine roles.
The Reproving Teacher
(Prov. 1:18ff)—Who can read these verses and not recall (from experience, literature, or anecdotal reports) a starch-stiff elementary school matron collaring some rowdy jack-a-nape on the playground? This, of course, is only one of the many manifestations of the reproving Lady Wisdom.
The Elusive Fiancèe
(Prov. 7:4)—English readers will usually miss the force of Hebrew idiom in which sister is an affectionate term for “wife” or “bride” (cf. Song of Songs 4:9-12, 5:1-2). Solomon's exhortation in Proverbs 7:4 is to court Lady Wisdom as one would court a woman to marry. This will not only protect one from adulteresses of flesh and blood (Prov. 7:6-23), but also from the Woman Folly whose adulteries—sexual and otherwise—bring death to thousands (Prov. 7:24-27).
The Lifegiving Wife
(Prov. 4:6ff)—to exhort his son to pursue wisdom, the Father uses words and expressions typical of the husband-wife relationship, highlighting the husband's duty to the wife and the benefits that flow back to him from a wife he loves. “Do not forsake her” (4:8). In return, as any good wife, wisdom will guard, honor, and exalt her husband. See Proverbs 31:10ff for specifics.
The Archetypal Mother
(Prov. 8:22ff)—After her discourse on her participation with God in creation, Lady Wisdom addresses the readers “Now, then, my sons, listen to me...” (Prov. 8:32). Mother Earth is sometimes an idolatrous concept, but the earth can rightly be understood as a mother without being transformed into an idol.
Besides being our dusty origin, our source of bodily nurture, and our temporal home, the earth teaches us a great deal of what theologians call “general revelation” (cf. Psa. 19, Rom. 1-2). It is good to recall that the earth is the only “mother” Adam ever had. Solomon, however, points to someone grander and more maternal than the earth, when he portrays cosmic Lady Wisdom as the Mother of all mankind.
The Wealthy Patroness
(Prov. 9:1-12)—Amaury de Reincourt, in his book Sex and Power in History, writes of the women who presided over the famous French salons of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries:
One and all, these women regulated the cultural life of the country, gave talent its due, disciplined the often tempestuous, and occasionally encouraged those rare birds who were unduly humble and shy. ... They also knew how to stimulate creativity by the use of appropriate encouragement and praise. ... Far better psychologists than the cocksure males, and also basically more realistic and modest, hostesses spoke little and listened a great deal, knowing with their usual flair how to bring dull conversation delicately to an end. But talented men were always encouraged and came away quite surprised to discover that they were far more witty in this kind of environment than elsewhere.
Lady Wisdom extends an invitation to “this kind of environment” to all who need the patronage she offers (Prov. 9:4).
Lady Wisdom in Our Midst
Is Lady Wisdom a total stranger? For some she is unknown, for others she is seen less and less often.
The black columnist Walter Williams, in a memorable column, recalled a Mrs. Dorothy I. Rice. After attending her funeral at Philadelphia's St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Mr. Williams wrote the following:
I met Mrs. Rice about ten years ago when she invited me to deliver a couple of lectures to community groups with which she was associated. But I never got to know her personally. At the funeral for this wonderful lady who was born in 1902, the 40 or so people in attendance were mostly ladies, like Mrs. Rice up in years. As I sat in the audience before the open casket, an important part of black tradition, now virtually gone, passed before my mind's eye.
I was reminded of traditions past because while most of the mourners were strangers to me, there was an uncanny familiarity about their faces. One of these ladies might well have been the one who confronted me when I was a kid. “Does your mother know you are out here throwing stones at people?” Another might have been the one who set me back saying, “After I tell your mother you won't do that again.” Yet another might have admonished, “Be a credit to your race.” Of course, in all probability these were not the people actually encountered during my mischievous youth, but they sure looked familiar. Back in the '30's, '40's, and '50's parents were everywhere. If you did something wrong, even in another neighborhood, your real parents were likely to learn about it, sometimes even before you got home.
Listening to the quiet conversation during the funeral viewing, I heard the King's English being spoken. None of that “I be” and “they be” talk called Black English, which today's enlightened tell us is the traditional speech pattern among blacks. If there is such a thing as Black English, it must have skipped Mrs. Rice's generation. Ladies like Mrs. Rice and those at her funeral were the leavening and stabilizing factor in black neighborhoods of yesterday.
They had absolutely no reservation or fear in coming up to a youngster and demanding that he behave himself. At best, the youngster would shiver in his boots hoping the matter would end there. For any would be surrogate parent of today, taking the same action could easily mean assault, loss of life, or at least a tongue lashing by a kid. Experts wring their hands, debating this and studying that about what is wrong with a large and increasing black underclass in our cities.
But the answer is simple. Relationships and behaviors among people in black neighborhoods, once natural, are now unnatural. Let's look at it. Isn't it unnatural for adults to be afraid of kids? Kids cursing and assaulting teachers? Healthy people refusing to work? Teenagers and preteens engaging in sex? Sensible, caring, and demanding blacks of Mrs. Rice's generation are just about gone. The ones who would have followed in their footsteps have seen their efforts sabotaged by government authorities who in effect teach it is okay to be slovenly and irresponsible. It is okay to engage in antisocial behavior because it is not your fault. Millions of people like Mrs. Rice made all of the difference for blacks. But I get the feeling they are dying off faster than they are being born. If that is the case, I hate to think ahead of the year 2050.4
To our good fortune, we can still find Lady Wisdom embodied in mature women around us. To our peril, such women are fewer than they were a generation or so ago. The loss can be seen not only in black culture, but increasingly in white. Christian culture as well.
A mature femininity will always show the outline of Lady Wisdom's template. But, femininity will only mature as it finds in Lady Wisdom (or her flesh and blood incarnations) character traits to copy, patterns of life to mimic, and roles to emulate. To mistake Lady Wisdom for someone she is not, to hail her as a goddess, or Christ, or even God Himself, is to miss all God created her to be. If Christians are to multiply ladies of wisdom in their midst, they must rediscover Lady Wisdom's true identity as God revealed her in Proverbs 1-9.
1Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female (Crossroads, 1994), p. 97.
3Amaury de Reincourt, Sex and Power in History, (Del Publishing Co., 1974), pp. 270-271.
4Walter Williams, Dallas Morning News, May 22, 1989, page 13A.
