A Mother's Wisdom: The Virgin Mary in the Old Testament Wisdom Literature

An Allegorical Interpretation of Wisdom 7 and the Fittingness of the Title "Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom"

Introduction

"For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness" (Wisdom 7:26). Many times in the seven Old Testament Wisdom books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom [of Solomon], and Sirach), Wisdom is personified as a woman. One theologian says of Lady Wisdom that, "She was a real biblical person with more material on her in the Old Testament (with Apocrypha) than anyone in the scriptures, except God, Job, Moses and David." ¹ If this is the case, then it most certainly is a topic worthy of discussion and further development.

The Scriptures have layers of meaning, and most of the aforementioned cases can be explained by describing the maternal or feminine characteristics of God the Father, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. There are ways in which the Trinity is like a "mother" to us: gentle, loving, and caring. The Holy Spirit is also called the Paraclete or "Comforter," a role commonly associated with mothers. Jesus in the Gospels even compares himself to a mother hen gathering her brood (Luke 13:34). However, there are countless references throughout Catholic Tradition to the texts of the Wisdom Books referring not only to the Trinity, but to Mary, the Virgin Mother of God. Such references are made from the early Church Fathers to Pope Benedict XVI. While understanding the wisdom books in the midst of the Church's rich theological Tradition, this work will focus on Wisdom 7 as a prototype of all wisdom literature. While this chapter is overtly directed toward the Holy Spirit and to Jesus, there are many traces of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit and Mother of Jesus within it as well. It will be ascertained whether these references are simply another Catholic "invention" used to inordinately exalt Mary. Is using the Old Testament to support mariological doctrines forced exegesis upon texts which have nothing to do with her? Is the vision of Catholics clouded by reading Old Testament texts through a Marian lens, searching for some small reference to advocate their idolatry of an otherwise humble and holy Jewish woman? And, ultimately, is Mary worthy of the title Sedes Sapientiae or "Seat of Wisdom"? ²It is fitting to address these questions in the same essay, as their development has been roughly concurrent and interdependent throughout Church history. In order to fruitfully analyze these issues, we must understand the Wisdom books in the light of both the Holy Scriptures as a whole and the Church's living Tradition.

Part I: Background

Chapter 1: Methodology

Before continuing, the methodology of this essay must be expounded. The method being used is treated exhaustively by Pope Benedict XVI in his pre-papal commentary The Sign of the Woman, which explains John Paul II's approach in Redemptoris Mater. ³ The "content and unity" of all of Scripture, understood within Church Tradition, must be at the forefront of the message of this essay. ⁴No verse in all of scripture can be adequately understood in all its breadth, height, and richness without reading it in the context of the whole of Divine Revelation. Furthermore, the study of Scripture is not so superficial as to remain at the level of source criticism, historical details, and the circumstances of authorship. The Bible is not simply a record book of ancient events frozen in the past, but rather a conveyance of eternal Truth from the mouth of God Himself with the power to convict hearts and change lives (see Heb. 4:12). ⁵Therefore, on the reader's part, this requires a full and contemplative immersion in all the biblical texts related to a given passage. Despite many seeming tensions or contradictions, one must realize the inherent unity of the entire deposit of faith, including Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. On a practical level, this means that some biblical texts which do not seem to be explicitly related can shed light on and help to interpret each other. This stems from the fact that the Bible is ultimately one story, written by God Himself, as the cosmic and eternal drama of His love for us: a plan which begins at Creation, goes through the turbulent history of the Chosen People repeatedly turning away from and returning to Him, and finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Like any good Author, God leaves traces of the ending of His story throughout its entirety by utilizing foreshadowing, typology, and other literary devices. With this being said, it naturally follows that the very same passage of Scripture can have multiple layers of meaning that are able to healthily co-exist. For instance, many passages and themes of Wisdom 7 can simultaneously refer to Solomon, Jesus Christ, Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, and Mary. Some are certainly more fitting for one or the other, and some can only be explained by one to the exclusion of the others. But, with the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and written through the hands and minds of sacred writers, more than one meaning is not at all problematic. ⁶In fact, a simple identification of Wisdom as just one person or concept could present even more difficulties. To develop this idea, we must look at some concrete examples of the unity of the Old and New Testaments.

Chapter 2: The Old & New Testaments

What's the Connection?

As previously explained, to grasp the great scope of this study, we must begin with a profound understanding of the deep inter-connectedness and integrity of the whole of scripture. More specifically, as a backdrop to our study, we must explore how the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are connected so as to discern if seeing traces of Mary in the Old Testament is suitable for authentic biblical scholarship. According to St. Augustine, "In the Old Testament, the New lies hid; in the New, the Old is manifested." ⁷Our current pontiff agrees, saying: "The whole New Testament is rooted in the Old and wants simply to be a rereading of the Old Testament in light of what occurred with and through Jesus of Nazareth." Yet, there is no greater evidence for the interplay between the Old and New Testaments than the witness of the New Testament itself, especially in the words of our Risen Savior. "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, til heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Matt. 5:17-18). Christ Himself says that He has come to fulfill all that was written in the Old Testament. In addition, there are countless places in the New Testament in which Old Testament verses are explicitly described as being fulfilled in Christ. While it is unnecessary and impossible to name them all, there are few more striking examples than Luke 24:44-47:

Then he said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the [Old Testament] scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Christ is explicitly stating that the Pentateuch, the prophets, and the psalms all refer to his coming: specifically to His suffering, death, and even to His Resurrection.

In the Fullness of Time

All of salvation history, then, leads up to and flows from the Cross of Christ. Ephesians 1:9-10 captures this idea of Christ as the center of all history, saying that God made His will known to us through Jesus Christ, "as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him" (see also Col. 1:19). Furthermore, if all history finds its focal point in Jesus Christ, then all of history must also converge upon another historical person, the person most intimately involved with the Incarnation: His Mother Mary. This is reflected in Galatians 4:4-5: "In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman...to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." The Greek word for this "fullness" found in both of the above scripture passages is "pleroma" (πλήρωμα) from the root word "pleres" (πλήρης) which means "lacking nothing, perfect" and implies a completeness of fulfillment in every way. ⁸ This word is also used in Scripture for the accomplishment of God's will in the form of promises and prophecies. Therefore, this statement means much more than appears at face value: that from the beginning of time, God planned the existence of a woman in order to bring Jesus into the world at the perfect moment in the midst of all of time and history. Pope Pius XII confirms this line of thinking in his 1950 apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus:

The august Mother of God was mysteriously united from all eternity with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a virgin inviolate in her divine motherhood, the wholehearted companion of the divine Redeemer who won a complete victory over sin and its consequences.

Typology

Therefore, if God had Mary in mind from the beginning of his salvific plan, it would make sense that her pivotal role would be foreshadowed and prepared for in the Old Testament. This foreshadowing is commonly called typology. "A type is a real person, place, thing, or event in the Old Testament that foreshadows something greater in the New Testament [called an 'anti-type']...From 'type' we get the word 'typology.'" ⁹It is also important to realize that typology makes use of analogy: "similarity in dissimilarity, unity in diversity." ¹⁰Therefore, there are also many things which types and anti-types do not have in common, as they are each distinct, individual realities in themselves. Other prominent Marian types besides that of Lady Wisdom include Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Judith, Esther, Hannah, Ruth, the Queen Mother Bathsheba, the mother of Maccabees, the Ark of the Covenant & the Burning Bush (both seen as having within them the presence of God just as Mary carried Jesus within her womb), the Ark of Noah, and Daughter Zion, among others. ¹¹ A word from Benedict XVI will provide a concise summary of the ideas presented in this section:

If one begins by reading backwards or, more precisely, from the end to the beginning, it becomes obvious that the image of Mary in the New Testament is woven entirely of Old Testament threads...Wherever the unity of the Old & New Testaments disintegrates, the place of healthy Mariology is lost. ¹²

Benedict also tells us explicitly that the concept of Lady Sophia "does not lend itself to interpretation within the context of the Old Testament alone." ¹³