Duchowa mądrość w Liście do Kolosan

Abstract

The pneumatology of the Letter to the Colossians, which has been expressed only in two texts (Col l:8n; 3:16), reveals important sapiential features. The complex sentence Col 1:9-11, correlated with a plain reference to the Spirit of God in 1:8, characterises the ideal of “wisdom and comprehension, imparted by the Spirit” (σοϕία καί σύνεσις πνευματική). This kind of wisdom has both cognitive/revelational features of full knowledge of God’s will and pedagogical/moral qualities of spiritual skill in discerning and doing what is good and pleasant to God. This spiritual wisdom and comprehension reveals itself also in an openness of the faithful to a deep, religious, personal relationship of knowledge and love, binding them with God. The sapiential terms applied in Col 1:9: σοϕία (wisdom) and σύνεσις (comprehension, intelligence) belong to the key words of the Letter to the Colossians (l:28;2:2n.23; 3:16; 4:5). In Col 3:16 the term σοϕία (wisdom) has also been joined with a pneumatological motif of “spiritual psalms, hymns, and songs” The author of the Letter most probably thought of compositions similar to the christological hymn Col 1:15-20, that must have been used in the early Christian liturgy. They contained sapiential/didactic elements and proved to the faithful the living presence of the Spirit of God in the communities of the Church.