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

The Early Church to the Middle Ages

One of the first pertinent references regarding Mary as "Seat of Wisdom" is from St. Ephrem the Syrian who said in 373 that Mary surpassed Christ's throne in heaven: "How much more honorable and venerable is the King's mother than His throne." ¹ Ephrem also said, "Heaven is the throne for His glory, yet He sits on Mary's knees." ² This idea is also found in Wisdom 18:15 which says, "...thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed..." The Word of God, though He had a throne in heaven, needed a new throne when he took on flesh in the Incarnation. St. John Chrysostom, a 4^th Century doctor of the Church, was certainly one of the first to explicitly call Mary the "throne" when he says, "Rejoice, mother and heaven, maiden and cloud, virgin and throne, the boast and foundation of our Church." ³ The culmination, however, of thinking of Mary as both a "throne" and as the "Mother of Wisdom" comes with St. Augustine (d. 430) who was the first to use the Marian title "Seat of Wisdom." ⁴Incidentally, around the same time, St. Jerome (d. 419) became one of the first to attribute a wisdom text to Mary when he applies Song of Songs 4:12 to her saying that she is a "garden enclosed, a fountain sealed." ⁵At the Council of Toledo XI in 675, Adeodatus speaks of Christ as Wisdom who built a house for herself in the Blessed Virgin (see Prov. 9:1, 14:1), echoing St. Leo the Great in 449 almost verbatim. ⁶ The council, like St. Leo, also cites John 1:14 (Christ as the "Logos") as proof of their claim. ⁷ So, while this council does not affirm that the feminine personification of the Wisdom texts refer to Mary, it does show the continued presence of Mary's relationship to Wisdom in the mind of the Church. The highpoint, however, of this line of thinking emerges in the Early and High Middle Ages (8^th to 13^th Centuries). St. Andrew, Archbishop of Crete (d. 740), went so far as to say that the entire book of Song of Songs is about her. ⁸ St. Anselm of Canterbury also saw Mary in the Song of Songs (d. 1109) ⁹, as did St. Bernard of Clairvaux (the last of the Church Fathers, d. 1153). Besides those fathers and theologians already mentioned, the mariological interpretation of Song of Songs is also supported by St. Hippolytus, St. Ephrem, St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. Sophronius, St. John Damascene, St. Germain, St. Peter Damian, Rupert of Deutz, and Allan of Lille. ¹⁰St. Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1167) says that by virtue of Mary's being the Mother of Christ, she is the mother of our wisdom. ¹¹ Also in the 12^th Century, Abbot Odo of Battle Abbey said, "Philosophy is called the pursuit or love of wisdom. Mary is, therefore, the philosophy of Christians for whoever desires the true wisdom must direct all their love and endeavor towards Mary." ¹² Perhaps one of the most authoritative interpretations of Mary's deep connection to the wisdom books is from St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). Though he wrote very little concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, in his few writings which do concern her, he cites the wisdom literature frequently. These references are all found within the six articles of the Summa Theologica under question 27: "On the Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin." In article 1, St. Thomas cites Song of Songs 4:1 ("Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee") referring to Mary's being preserved from original sin. ¹³ He quotes the same passage again in Articles 2 and 4. He also quotes Wisdom 7:25 and Wisdom 1:4 ("nothing defiled...") for the same purpose, as noted in the rhetorical section. Another telling fact regarding the medieval application of Mary to the wisdom texts is found with a connection to the "Throne of Wisdom" statues which arose throughout that time period, many of which featured peculiarly Black Madonnas. Church authorities could invoke Song of Songs 1:5-6 as an explanation for her dark complexion: "I am as dark...as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Salma. Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has burnt me." Another concept which relates Mary to the wisdom literature is expressed by St. Lawrence Justinian, a bishop who died in 1455. He related the Virgin Mary's contemplation to her guarding the New Law of divine Wisdom. Interestingly, the best examples of Marian interpretations of wisdom literature in the 16^th Century come from the Litany of Loreto itself, used in Loreto since 1531 and approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587. ¹⁴More than one fourth of the titles used have strong parallelism with, or are simply direct quotes from, the wisdom literature. These titles include "Mother Most Pure" (Wis. 7:24) "Mother Undefiled" (Wis. 7:25) "Mother of Good Counsel" (Prov. 8:14), "Virgin Most Prudent" (Prov. 8:14), "Mirror of Justice" (Wis. 7:26), "Seat of Wisdom," "Singular Vessel of Devotion" (Prov. 25:4), "Mystical Rose" (Song. 2:1; Sir. 39:13, 24:14), "Tower of David" (Song. 4:4), "Tower of Ivory" (Wis. 7:4), "House of Gold" (Prov. 9:1), "Gate of Heaven" (Prov. 8:34), and "Morning Star" (Song. 6:10). In light of this great number of references, it is clear that the application of the wisdom texts to Mary is truly "the work of the early Church" and is one of the best examples of how living tradition developed Divine Revelation to form the study of Mariology. ¹⁵

Mary, Conqueror of Heresies

We mentioned earlier how the same wisdom texts could also be applied to Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, but it was only a matter of time before the distinct person seen in a close relationship with God would be seen as a mere creature (see Sir. 1:4,9,14; Sir. 24:2,8,9; Prov. 8:22; Wis. 7:15). It is this idea that gives rise to the grave consequences of taking the wisdom texts only as a reference to Christ as noted by Bouyer and Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman. Although this is a long quote, it is written so persuasively it seems that paraphrasing the text would not do it justice:

The Arian dispute exhibits the danger of understanding this purely and simply of Christ, for these same texts insist on the created character of Wisdom. The question therefore arose: who is this someone, so near to God without being God, associated with him in the role of mother of the whole world and of his People in particular, this female figure that fulfils his plan to perfection? It was the analogy between this image and that of the Woman clothed with the sun and crowned with stars, in the Apocalypse, that was to decide on the special application of these texts to Mary. This is so well expressed by Newman that we cannot do better than repeat what he says: "Jesus indeed was really the 'Wisdom in whom the Father was eternally delighted', yet it would be natural if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of such descriptions...Thus there was a 'wonder in heaven':...mediatorial, intercessory...a crown bright as the morning star...; and who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that Wisdom, and what was her name, 'the Mother of fair love, and fear, and only hope', 'exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho'? The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son come up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous unless Arianism is orthodoxy.'" (J.H. Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, pp. 144-5). ¹⁶

As just alluded to, certain aspects of the image of Wisdom seem to imply only a creature, which causes St. Athanasius (a Church Father who helped in condemning Arianism at Nicea in 325, d. 373) in his work Contra Arianos to admit that there is a created Wisdom which has uncreated Wisdom as its source but is also distinct. The Arians were never conclusively refuted in their concept of wisdom as a created being, although their problem was that they applied the creaturely aspects of Wisdom to Christ instead of to Mary and the Church. ¹⁷

A parallel error has been committed all the way from the 1^st Century Gnostics to extreme modern-day feminists who make the opposite claim that the divine characteristics of Wisdom refer, not to Christ, but to a female goddess. The title of the Blessed Mother as "Conqueror of Heresies" immediately comes to mind upon hearing these ideas. For every doctrine and dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary only serves as a guarantor and protector of every truth about Christ. If Mary is the Mother of God, then Jesus must be a divine person with both divine and human natures. This truth about the Virgin Mary, therefore, combats every heresy regarding the Incarnation of Christ: 1^st Century Gnosticism; 2^nd Century Docetism; 4^th Century Arianism and Appolinarianism; 5^th Century Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and Neoplatonism; and the widespread modern heresies of denying Christ's divinity. ¹⁸ If Mary is a perpetual virgin, then Jesus Christ must have God as His Father. If Mary is sinless and was assumed into heaven body and soul, then Christ's death and rising must have really opened up the door to heaven to all those who would believe in and follow Him. If Mary is Queen of Heaven & Earth, then she must be the mother of Christ the true King of the Universe. If Mary is the Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of all Graces, and Advocate, then Jesus must have really merited grace for us through the Cross and placed us in right relationship with the Father. If Mary can be seen as the created incarnation of Lady Wisdom, then one is not forced to resort to Gnosticism or Arianism when interpreting the Wisdom texts in relation to Christ. The belief in Arianism purports that Christ was simply the most perfect of God's creatures. ¹⁹ If one was forced to adhere to this belief, he or she would cease to be Christian because our faith centers around the full divinity and humanity both present in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Mary. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus said, "That which God did not assume, He did not redeem." ²⁰This, therefore, proves that from the beginning of Christianity, the Marian interpretation of the wisdom texts was strictly necessary in order to safeguard the divinity and the Incarnation of Christ, and therefore the whole of the Christian faith. Spiritual Formation in Seminaries, a 1980 congregation document under John Paul II, expresses this fact very succinctly:

Christology is also Mariology...In particular, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary can and must be a guarantee against everything which would tend to eradicate the historicity of the mystery of Christ. One cannot help but wonder whether the decline in devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary does not often mask a certain hesitation to profess frankly and openly the mystery of Christ and the Incarnation.

Pope Benedict XVI expresses a similar idea regarding the reality of the Incarnation, saying that, "...only when it touches Mary & becomes Mariology is Christology itself as radical as the faith of the Church requires." ²¹Furthermore, the refutation of the Arian heresy explains why this development of Mary as Lady Wisdom of the Old Testament, as well as the explicit references of the correlation between Mary and the wisdom literature, come relatively late in the Church's history. The Church has never felt the need to define doctrines or clarify subjects before there is confusion, dissension, or controversy surrounding them which must be set at ease by a defined article of faith, explaining clearly and explicitly what the Church has thought on an issue throughout past centuries. Therefore, it was not until Christ as the fulfillment of Divine Wisdom was questioned, that it was necessary to more adequately develop the sophiological Mariology of the Old Testament. This is also fitting to the humble character of the Blessed Virgin who ever-prefers to remain hidden in the background and to allow her Son to receive His due worship and glory. It is only when she must emerge to protect the truth about her Son that she comes to His aid as any mother would.