Personifikacje mądrości w Księdze Mądrości Syracha

Abstract

In some places in the Book of the Wisdom of Ben Sira we can notice specific. Texts in which the wisdom of God is presented as a person (4,11-20; 6,18-36; 14,20-10; 24,1-34; 51,13-25). These descriptions introduce wisdom in a twofold meaning: with reference to the created word and life also with reference to man’s behavior. Both cases refer to the same attribute of God which is present in the created world as well as in rational and supernatural norms that control human behaviors. It seems possible to read into this picture for not only a common personification in literal sense of words as the means but also in a deeper conception of the subject of this wisdom to show wisdom as hypostasis understood as ‘greatness which has participation in God's nature which through its influence goes into the world without lessening its nature as the cause of the hypostasis’. Wisdom described by Ben Sira is therefore rooted in the Creator. It is the ruler of the world, the people and it holds a divine cult. It leads religious gatherings and in this way it makes peoples' destiny depended on itself. However, it cannot be identified with the elements of study about the Holy Trinity or to be referred to Christ (1 Kor 1,24) Described Wisdom is truly privileged, but it does not match up with the concept of God’s Person because it has many characteristics of man's wisdom. Ben Sira was only developing and improving the already existing process in the early literature of wisdom, describing Wisdom as hypostasis which then by going through the next books was fully developed in the New Testament.