The Lord's Crowning Conception

David Martin | The Daily Knight

Holy Scripture states: “All wisdom is from the Lord God, and has been always with Him.” (Ecc. 1:1) This helps us to establish a healthy premise, namely, that wisdom is God’s own personal attribute that he has possessed from all eternity. Just as God is omnipotent and all knowing, he is all wise.

Yet the Bible says that “Wisdom has been created before all things.” (Ecc.1:4) The 1 Biblical Book of Wisdom even speaks of “her origin” and “her birth.” (6: 24) This poses something of a mystery since we know that wisdom always existed with no genesis, yet scripture says that God created Wisdom. Which is it?

The truth is that wisdom had no beginning but is eternal before all time. Even so, at a certain point before the creation of the world, this wisdom came to be as a creature. God personified it, “He created her in the Holy Ghost” (Ecc.1:9), so that his own eternal wisdom now became a personage of God with its own identity.

The First Born of God’s Creatures

She in fact was the firstborn of God’s creatures, saying, “I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before all creatures.” (Ecc. 24:5) Again she says, “I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made.” (Proverbs 8:23)

The references to Wisdom in the Bible are numerous, though this Wisdom is always referred to in the 2 feminine gender. “Her ways are beautiful ways, and all her paths are peaceable.” (Proverbs 3:17) Again we read, “In the multitude of the elect she shall have praise, and among the blessed she shall be blessed.” (Ecc. 24:4)

Wisdom furthermore is maternal. “I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, and in me is all hope of life and virtue.” (Ecc. 24: 24, 25) Accordingly, she sees God’s children as her own. “My delights were to be with the children of men. Now therefore, ye children, hear me.” (Proverbs 8:31, 32)

Now according to the scriptures, this Wisdom once created would never cease but would always remain. “From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be.” (Ecc. 24:14) She furthermore would be found among the elect of God’s people. “My abode is in the full assembly of saints.” (Ecc. 24:16)

Clearly, we see that there was a creature of exceptional grace and beauty that God brought into existence before the Creation to assist His designs. “When He prepared the heavens, I was present…. When He compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him 3 forming all things.” (Proverbs 8: 27-30)

Mediatrix of Grace

Hence the workings of the Almighty are accomplished through Wisdom; she is the Mediatrix of His power and grace. Any grace that comes to mankind comes through her hands. “Now all good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands. And I rejoiced in all these: for this Wisdom went before me, and I knew not that she was the mother of them all.” (Wisdom 7:11,12)

Wisdom then is the mother of God’s creation who has been entrusted with the care of His children. She nourishes her garden of souls on earth with great maternal love. “I will water my garden of plants, and will water abundantly the fruits of my meadow.” (Ecc. 24:42)

Tabernacle of God

This same Wisdom is the resting place of the Divinity. “Then the Creator of all things commanded, and he said to me, and he that made me rested in my tabernacle.” (Ecc. 24:12) Outside of Wisdom God does not abide but through her he executes all his moves.

Given such an exalted role, it stands that Wisdom would have to be completely pure of imperfection, so pure, that the light of God is magnified through her! “She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness.” (Wisdom 7:26)

This echoes the famous Gospel verse, “My soul does magnify the Lord.” (Luke 1: 46) The mirror of Wisdom is like a powerful magnifying glass through which the mysteries of God become clear and manifest. Through her intercession, the things of God become accessible to men.

Accordingly, the friendship of God is also gained through her intercession. By the hand of Wisdom God forms the saints and prophets and brings them to the sight of His glory. “She maketh the friends of God and prophets. For God loves none but him that dwells with Wisdom." (Wisdom 7:27,28)

Now if this created Wisdom would never cease but would always remain with God’s people, it stands that they will know who she is; she is no stranger to them. And whereas they don’t call her “Mother Wisdom” she nonetheless is their familiar guide and light, just as she was to the elect in the Old Testament. “She was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night.” (Wisdom 10:17)

Reference to Mary

Certainly, we will recognize the image of the Blessed Virgin prevailing throughout, for she was present in the mind of God long before her placement upon earth. St. Bernardine of Sienna says of her: “Thou wast preordained in the mind of God, before all creatures, that thou might beget God Himself as man.”

Mary indeed was preordained to be that holy tabernacle wherewith to bring the Messiah to man. For if it was fit that Wisdom should be the heavenly tabernacle to embody the Creator in the beginning, it was likewise fit that she should later be the corporal tabernacle to channel his entry into the world as man.

There is no denying that Mary and Lady Wisdom are both the eternal abode of the Divinity. Both are the tabernacle of God, yet God has only one tabernacle in heaven, not two. There exists only one Mother of fair love, not two.    

Had our modern thinkers not considered that both are one and the same entity? Certainly, the prophets didn’t provide us with pretty language for our aesthetics but gave us eternal truths wherewith to instruct us in the mysteries of God.

The commonly held notion that Lady Wisdom was merely a symbolic representation of God’s wisdom is only an opinion, not an article of faith. The more credible opinion is that this Wisdom was the living forerunner of Mary before her placement on earth.  

Wisdom Was a Living Entity

For while it is true that Lady Wisdom in the Old Testament was a figure of Mary to come, it doesn’t end there, for to conclude that Wisdom merely prefigured the Virgin Mary would negate the scriptural teaching that she existed as a personage before the creation of the world, that she was active in preserving Adam, Noe, Abraham and Lot (Wisdom 10: 1-6), that she served as God’s tabernacle upon her creation, and that she assisted him in bringing creation into existence. “When He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with him forming all things.” (Proverbs 8:29,30) 

What is indisputably clear is that the created Wisdom was a living entity that dwelled with God in the 4 beginning as His only companion. There existed God, Holy Wisdom, and no other creatures for God to share His love with. This same Wisdom would eternally remain with God as the apple of His eye, just as the Blessed Virgin today remains the apple of His eye. The idea that Lady Wisdom would somehow retire or fade out of existence and give place to the Blessed Virgin is absurd. What was said of Wisdom is true of the Holy Virgin: she “shall not cease to be” (Ecc. 24: 14) but will abide “in the full assembly of saints.” (Ecc. 24:16)

To be continued as Part II…  

1. One of the seven deuterocanonical books of Holy Scripture not found in Protestant bibles. The Council of Trent decreed: “Henceforth the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament, protocanonical and deuterocanonical alike, in their entirety and with all their parts, comprise the canon and are held to be of equal authority.”

2. In Hebrew, the word for wisdom is “Chakmah,” in Greek it is “Sophia,” and in Latin it is “Sapientia.” All three words are feminine nouns.

3. God alone is the Creator and Master Designer who formed the universe, but His work of creation was executed through the hands of Wisdom, which prefigured the Virgin Mary’s role as “Mediatrix of all Graces.”

4. That is, before the creation of anything during the six days of Creation, since Wisdom was “the firstborn before all creatures.” (Ecc. 24:5) who “was with Him forming all things (Prov. 8:29,30)