Wisdom Theology as an Axial Phenomenon:

Interpreting Jesus as God’s Wisdom in Person

Niels Henrik Gregersen, University of Copenhagen

“Ziel des Philosophierens ist nicht, Gewissheiten zu zerstören,

sondern angesichts fragwürdig gewordener Gewissheiten durch

Einsicht in the Wahrheit der eigenen Situation zur Weisheit in der

Gestaltung des eigenen Lebens zu befähigen. Weder is alles gewiss

noch nichts sicher. Weder stehe wir völlig im Dunkeln, noch ist alles

klar und hell”. 1

In this lecture, I will attend to a particular strand of Wisdom tradition rather than seek

for a general evolutionary explanation of the emergence of wisdom traditions. More

precisely, I will offer a historical phenomenological analysis of the wisdom traditions

in the teachings of Jesus, highlighting particular traits in his attitude to others in

typical modes of action. On this basis I develop a sketch of a Wisdom Christology in

which Jesus is seen as a representative of divine Wisdom, and as its human

embodiment and personification.

My basic argument is that the teachings of Jesus, as interpreted in the Gospels

concomitantly builds on three strands of Jewish wisdom theology: the proverbial

strand known from the Book of Proverbs and other general wisdom traditions, the

skeptical strand known from Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job, and the metaphysical

strand which comes to the fore in the book of Wisdom and other Jewish-Hellenistic

writings. Within the Jewish tradition, of which I argue that also Jesus was an heir, the

divine Wisdom was seen as penetrating into all networks of reality, particularly in the

fields of human interactions. For, as the Book of Wisdom says, “wisdom is more

mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all

things. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of

the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection 1 Ingolf A. Dalferth, Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen. Hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003, 54).

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of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his

goodness (Wis 7:24-26, NRSV).

In what follows I will argue that it is the combination of these three strands that

characterizes the teachings and actions of Jesus of Nazareth. The proverbial strand

relates to the problem of confusion and reorientation in practical affairs of life, while

the skeptical strand shows Jesus as a contrarian thinker who was aware of the

limitations of human knowledge and security, setting up a clear wedge between

human and divine wisdom (hence between transcendence and immanence). Finally,

the metaphysical strand informs what has called the “generative matrix” (Martin

Hengel) of later Christology, hence also of later explicit interpretations of Jesus as the

embodiment and personification of God’s eternal yet mobile Wisdom. In this view,

wisdom is not a commodity to be exchanged, but living presence of divine Wisdom

in the midst of mundane experiences.

I also hope to show that in all of this the Jesus-figure can be understood within

the general framework of axial religion, with quite a few parallels in other religions

emerging around the middle of first century BC in Greek, Indian and Chinese

philosophy and religion. Evolution explanation and historical development

I will thus be zooming in on particular wisdom traditions rather than on general

evolutionary theories of religion. Nonetheless I am convinced that a wider

evolutionary perspective has something important to say about the emergence and

proliferation of religion in general. Religion, just as any other phenomenon of human

culture, will have to adapt to reality, and will have to pay the costs of natural

selection, if it doesn’t. Religions may be delusionary in many respects, but if they

were fully out of tune with reality, and without a sense for what makes life flourish in

the long run, they would hardly have survived to this day. Nor is it likely that religion

would captivate the commitment of major parts of the human species, if it was only

about esoteric ornamentations of an otherwise stable and well-functioning human

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mind. I will thus that there is something utterly un-esoteric about religious wisdom

traditions.

I do not think we have yet at hand a satisfying evolutionary understanding of

religion. Evolutionary cognitive theory of religion, however, has rightly pointed to

the universal assumption of divine powers having a “mind” of its own, a mind higher

than human minds per se, and not always accessible to human cognition. Quite a few

assumptions are widespread between different religions, such as the presence of

divine mind and penetrating presence. As pointed out by Pascal Boyer, no religious

person has ever argued that God, or gods, exist always apart from Thursdays, or that

God can be defined in purely geographical terms, such as a God for Danes, or a

Londonian God caring for the citizens of London only. But there may well an

understanding of sensed presence of divinity more pungent somewhere than

elsewhere, as it comes up in distinctions between more holy and more profane areas

of life.

Evidently, wisdom traditions build on and develop such basic religious

intuitions of a divine Mind, and a divine will or Law, each in their own ways. But the

universal spread of a religious mind-first view does not mean that mind of God is

only evoked as a “supernatural” causal agency for specific salient events. After all,

religion is not only about retroactively explaining particular facts of reality (say,

predators, thunder, floods), but also about finding meaning – what is worth attending

to? – and about finding practical orientation and directionality – which way to go? It

seems to me that neither a reductive causal perspective (explaining all religion from a

“hyperactive agency detection device”, or the like), nor excessive teleological views

of reality (arguing that everything that happens has a preset divine purpose) do justice

to the reflective and self-reflexive level of religious wisdom traditions. In general,

Wisdom traditions are concerned about living forwardly rather than

explaining backwardly (thus inherently pragmatic)

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Wisdom traditions are concerned about understanding the proximate context

in the context of wider concerns of reality (thus also embodying cognitive

concerns)

Wisdom traditions are about understanding oneself as another, knowing that

one can’t understand oneself without understanding the other person (thus

facilitating a versatility of moral orientation)

In all of this, wisdom traditions are only rarely decoupled from other religious

activities.

While wisdom traditions may have emerged as oral traditions, its experts are

more often than not part of literate cultures, knowing rituals and ceremonies

from the inside, and holy scriptures, often by heart. Even though neither Jesus

nor Socrates were writers in their own name, they were both part of literate

cultures.

Wisdom representatives are also related to the ritual aspects of religious life.

The prophet of Jeremiah, for example, is known to be associated with the

temple cult while protesting against a purely external observance of religious

rituals. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts”, says

the Lord according to Jeremiah (31:33). Wisdom traditions are thus internalizing external religious forms of life.

Without despising the latter, wisdom representatives require and facilitate a

way of bringing religious beliefs and orientations into lived religion, and into

the complex morals problem of living rightly and appropriately in the many

streets of life, where confusion more often than not is paired with small

windows of potential clarity and opportunity.

Wisdom tradition are thus inherently self-reflexive, hence moving decisively beyond

merely ad hoc explanations and automatic reactions of a “hyperactive agency

detection device”. Wisdom traditions demand and prompt new levels of self-

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awareness, including the awareness of one’s own ignorance. Often we simply do not

know why something happens, and the skeptical strand of wisdom takes distance

from widespread common sense orientations. “Why do you see the speck in your

neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Lk 6:41). Likewise

wisdom traditions may be skeptical of automatic and semiautomatic reactions. Why

do you think that the evil happening to other people is due to their particular sins, and

why do you find supernatural explanations of divine wrath when you yourself is a

sinner as well. Here a fragment from the Jesus tradition:

“At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose

blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that

because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other

Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or

those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think

that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you;

but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’“ (Luke 13:1-5). Look at

yourself rather judging others.

Wisdom traditions as an expression of axial mentality

Wisdom traditions thus begin to flourish around the middle of first millennium BC, in

which several civilizations about the same time came up with universalist ideas,

probably prompted by urbanization, the ascendency of literacy and thus of a critical

mass of highly educated middle class people. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers

dubbed this period the Axial Age in his Vom Ursprung and Ziel der Geschichte from

1949, and later the American sociologist Robert N. Bellah gave an extended

interpretation of axial cultures, and of the role of religion therein in his major work,

Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age from 20112

In the context of axial civilizations, it may be more appropriate to speak about

historical development than about evolution, even though the former builds on the

2 Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age [hereafter RHE] (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011). See also Niels Henrik Gregersen, “Religion and axiality: theological reflections on Robert N. Bellah’s Axial Age hypothesis”, Scottish Journal of Theology 70:1 (2017), 61-73.

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latter. Evolutionary selection pressures remain, but now in a human milieu that

allows for experimentation and thought experiments, and also allows for failure

without necessarily dying by failure. Wherever religious lifeforms have gone through

the prior and underlying filter of natural selection, many historical developments are

possible.

One of the best attempts to characterise axial civilisations in general terms is

found in Shmuel N. Eisenstadt who refers to the combination of new cultural

orientations and institutional formations based in the rupture of social orders in the

axial age. Axial visions include a broadening of horizons, opening up for universal

perspectives, an ontological distinction between mundane and transcendental orders,

and, not least, the normative subordination of the mundane under the transcending

perspective3 (AAC 279). This characterization has the advantage of seeing the axial

age as emerging from historical constellations that facilitated a new cluster of

attitudes towards society and the wider reality.

During the axial period – marked by Confucius in China, Buddha and

Shankara in India, Isajah and Jeremiah in Israel, the Pre-Socratic philosophers and

Plato in Greece – a new level of philosophical and theological reflection came up

relatively simultaneously in different human civilizations. Several aspects of axial

mentality, also found in the New Testament wisdom traditions, should be mentioned.

First, a universal mentality that is not confined to ethic groups and inherited

traditions, thus transcending the us-them dynamics of human co-existence. Second, a

strong view of transcendence and a mind-first view that is common to both

monotheistic and Buddhist traditions. Thirdly, this leads to a critical view of the

hitherto unquestioned authority of kings and despots.

Philosophy and wisdom theology

In the axial age, philosophy came into being alongside prophetic traditions, often

coupled to wisdom motifs. If the pursuit of philosophy, as the etymology says,

3 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “The Axial Conumdrum between Transcendental Visions and Vicssitues of their Institutionalizations”, in The Axial Age and its Consequences (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), 277-293 (279)..

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means”the love of wisdom”, or “the aspiration to wisdom”, wisdom theology

presupposes that religious life is not confined to the telling and retelling of myths, but

as a reasonable manner of “thinking the divine”, as the etymology of theology says.

In this manner, both Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian theology presupposes that

God, or the divine, is in itself mental (logikos), full of thinking. Thus the pre-Socratic

philospher Heraclitus argued that it is wise (sophon) to agree with the logos of all

reality, and that logos is “the one and only thing that is wise” (hen to sophon mounon)

(Fragment B 50 and 32), thus emphasizing that philosophy only has one source only,

the logos itself. Later, in Aristotle we find the emphasis that human sophia is a skill

or craft that comes with practice, “the perfection of an art” (aretæ technæs, Eth. Nich

1141 a 12).4.

The view of Heraclitus view was continued in the Gospel of John, and

followed up by later Christian wisdom theology, by Thomas Aquinas, for example,

who likewise insisted that all human wisdom comes from one source only, the

Wisdom of God (ST I, q 1. a 6). But the sense that wisdom is to not be possessed in

full, but only acquired piecemeal and in a manner of walking, is a particularly

important insight, also well expressed in the skeptical strand of Jewish wisdom

theology that we also found in Jesus. In this view the Wisdom of God runs against

common sense perceptions of me-versus-you, or us-versus-them. But exactly as

contrarian the divine wisdom is the ultimate source of human wisdom by offering

resources for human reorientations in a world that is neither fully transparent nor

fully opaque.

Philosophical and religious traditions of wisdom, from whatever provenance,

aim to orient human beings in a complex world. But again, in contrast to a purely

scientific interest, the primary goal of philosophy and wisdom theology is not to

explain the structures of the world by looking backwards in time but rather to

elucidate aspects of the world that are of practical importance for people that have to

make decisions for how to proceed in their lives. As put by the Norwegian

philosopher of religion Jan-Olav Henriksen, “Orientation makes people aware of

4 Günter Figal, “Wisdom I. Philosophy”, RPP 13, 505. 7/29

what is more worthy of attention than somethings else, and so on. It creates the

background against which something appears as more significant than other thigs. It

situates them in a world, makes them familiar with it, and provides direction and

suggests what should be given attention”.5

To this general understanding of religion as orientational and transformational,

however, should be added that quite some traditions of wisdom are critical of too

mundane and complacent conceptions reality (the skeptical strand), and are also very

attentive to cognitive features, such as derived human insights from the transcendent

yet all-penetrating influence of the divine wisdom (the metaphysical strand). Again:

wisdom theology should not be reduced to practicalities only, but is part of broader

spectrum of religious commitment, finding the impetus for a critical (and self-critical)

view of reality while reutilizing resources of God’s wisdom that is not always spelled

out on the streets of everyday life. Here the prophetic appeal of wisdom goes along

with cognitive assumptions about who God really is, and what is the will of God. In

the words of the prophet of Isaiah:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

   nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. 

 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

   so are my ways higher than your ways

   and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa 55:98-9).

Wisdom motifs in the teachings of Jesus: The Multiple Attestation Principle

It is a historical fact that Jewish wisdom motifs is widespread in the Jesus traditions

both in the synoptic gospels (particularly in the speeches) and in the Gospel of John.

What is more controversial is w whether these wisdom motifs exist can be traced

back to what historians call “the historical Jesus”. Was Jesus first and foremost an

apocalyptic prophet, proclaiming that the end of the world is near so that the wisdom

motifs are subordinate to the apocalyptic ones? This was the view of New Testament

Scholarship of the late 19th and mid-late 20th century, epitomized in the German

5 Jan-Olav Henriksen, “Everyday Religion as orientation and Transformation: A Challenge to Theology”, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 29:1, 38.

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scholarship of Rudolf Bultmann and his students, sometimes referred to as the

Second Quest of Jesus research, where the idea of a so-called consequent eschatology

was prevailing. Or, rather, are Marcus Borg, John Dominican Crossan and other

proponents of the Jesus Seminar at AAR, correct in observing that the teachings of

Jesus express a “sapiential eschatology” rather than a near-future or far-future

“apocalyptic eschatology” (Borg 1994, 20-21), so that the wisdom tradition take the

upper hand. This has become the prevailing view of the soc-called Third Quest of

historical Jesus research.

In the new line of Jesus-scholarship only very few scholars argue that Jesus’

ministry can be convincingly viewed exclusively as derived from view of a soon-to-

come disaster.6 Multiple reasons can be given for this change in perspective on the

character of Jesus as a whole. Old Testament studies have shown how the prophets of

OT (especially Jeremiah) are deeply influenced by wisdom traditions, just as the

apocalyptic traditions are. The sharp distinction between the prophetic-apocalyptic

traditions that are tied to the anticipation of a turn of history and the wisdom

traditions that are timeless cannot be maintained in the centuries leading up to the

time of Jesus. Wisdom theology and apocalyptic traditions go hand in hand.

Moreover, theories of metaphor of recent decades have led to the discovery of

the rhetorical features of his ministry – features that go way beyond the parables.

Thus it cannot be assumed that the words of Jesus are to be understood in a simple

referential manner, from first to last his teaching had the form of a prophetic address,

not leaving time for explaining past and future events (cf. Mark 13:22).

It is highly unlikely that the point of the parables of Jesus is to announce the

end of this world. The story of the ten bridesmaids (which has been editorially placed

in the synoptic apocalypse) is about bridesmaids waiting for the groom—not about

the glorious coming of the Son of Man. Bridesmaids have to be prepared for the day

and the hour which they do not know (Matt 25:1-13), and yet the hour is here and

6 Cf. Borg 1994, 20f, who argues for an understanding of the eschatology of Jesus as ‘sapiential eschatology’ rather than ‘apocalyptic eschatology’. E.P. Sanders is an exception in anglo-saxon scholarship. Characteristic of this turn is the important but disputed work of John Dominic Crossan, “The Historical Jesus. The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant”: “The sapiential Kingdom (...) is a style of life for now rather than a hope for life in the future” (Crossan 1992, 292).

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now since the groom is already in their midst (Matt 9:15)!

Also the example stories, e.g. the Parable of the Good Samaritan, have their

own clear meaning, completely independent of a futuristic expectation of the end

times. The same is obviously true for the proverb-like formulations that are

characteristic of much of the dialogue in the synoptic gospels. Through provocative

exaggeration Jesus compels his listeners to rediscover their sense of proportion: Why

do you see splinter in your brother’s eye, but not the beam in your own (Luk 6:4/Matt

7:3-5)! Wisdom requires the ability to change perspective.

The most important historical argument for interpreting Jesus in light of the

wisdom traditions is that they saturate the most different layers of the tradition. If the

aforementioned criterion of difference is replaced by a more common criterion of the

science of history such as the criterion of multiple indenpendent attestation (cf.

Crossan), then wisdom theology turns out to be present in the different traditions

within out outside of the Gospels, whereas the unequivocal apocalyptic expressions

are compiled in a few and highly edited passages in the synoptic Gospels, (primarily

Mark 13; Matt 24-25 and Luk 21). It is likely that these apocalyptic traditions are

collected out the interest of the first disciples, shocked by the message of

resurrection, to show the near-end of the world – an uncomfortable view only the

immediately following generations of Christians.

Neither the minimalist historical criterion of difference (what may go back to

Jesus is what differs from the interest of the early community of Christians), nor the

broader criterion of multiple attestation speak in favour of Jesus’ ministry as derived

from a futuristic expectation of a turn of history. Only this much seems to be certain:

Jesus was convinced, just as John the Baptist, that the present world order where

Satan rules is dying which will soon come to light. So, the pertinent question was

Who rules the world, God or Satan? The specific content of the kingdom on the other

hand can take various forms: “The specific content could be quite open or even

vague, for example, with or without an armed revolt, with or without a messiah, with

or without a cosmic destruction” (Crossan 1992, 287). Thus Jesus was able to use the

apocalyptic world of ideas for the purpose of wisdom teaching. As aptly formulated

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by Ben Witherington, “What seems to be the case is that Jesus usually sapientialized

whatever he said, often expressing prophetic or apokalyptic ideas in some sort of

Wisdom form of speech” (Witherington 1994, 201).

3. The histoical Jesus, phenomenological interpretation, christological interpretation

Now the question is what opportunities this emphasis on Jesus as the representative

of wisdom of the recent decades of Jesus scholarship provides for a contemporary

understanding of the figure of Jesus.

It is clear the categorisation of Jesus as a wisdom teacher is ambiguous. He can

be classified as a man of wisdom along the lines of men like Laotse, Buddha, or the

Greek-philosophical cynics, by emphasising his appeal to basic intuitions instead of

esoteric knowledge, personal integrity instead of learned skills etc.7 As such the

categorization is helpful - only it is so extensive that is loses precision.

The second option is to understand the life and work of Jesus in light of the

specific Jewish Chokmah-traditions and their partial fusion with hellenistic Sophia

thought in the centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus. This is the perspective

traditionally preferred in historical critical scholarship. Hereby a higher level of

precision is achieved. Moreover this approach makes an overlap possible between the

characterisation of Jesus by the historian, interpreted in light of the context of his

time, and some of the christological interpretations of Jesus that were later ascribed to

Jesus, such as full divinity etc.

It is relatively certain that Jesus appeared as the prophet of Wisdom and was

perceived as the representative of Wisdom by his surroundings. Where does that

leave a contemporary explication of christology?

Let me start by saying that while historians primarily use texts as stepping

stones for the historical reconstruction of the world behind the text (in our case, Jesus

behind the text), the interest of a phenomenological interpretation of the Jesus figure

lies in elucidating the manners of approaching and coping with reality that comes to

the fore within the Jesus traditions themselves (that is, the Jesus-figure in and of the

7 Cf. Marcus Borg, “Conflict, Holiness & Politics in the Teachings of Jesus” (Borg 1984, 237ff.). 11/29

texts themselves), when read as texts for understanding the human condition. Thus,

the Jesus traditions deal with real-life situations that are not bound to very specific

historical conditions but relate to issues that all human beings have to cope with: to

eat or be hungry, to live together or alone, to be in the social center or in the

periphery, to hope or to fear, to have faith or not to have faith. Thus if the historian

swings back and forth between the world of the text and the world behind the text, the

phenomenological and theological interpretations swing back and forth between the

semantic world of the texts and the practical world in front of the text, in everyday

life. (Here I use distinctions borrowed from Paul Ricoeur).

So, what the historian brackets is what a contemporary potential believer

throws into the spotlight: what if Jesus really was the last prophet, sent by God’s own

Wisdom? What if his life and destiny was the Wisdom of God in person? What

significance does it have if God’s personified Wisdom died on the cross and was

resurrected from the dead? No scientific, philosophical, or theological thinking can of

course determine whether this was the case or not. In the end, it is a decision of faith.

Only indirectly can a contemporary systematic theology in the movement of faith

from Jesus to Christ, that is in the form of a thought experiment. This takes place by

unfolding a christology along certain lines of thought (here the idea of Jesus as the

Wisdom of God embodied and personified) and by drawing the consequences of

these lines of thought for an interpretation of the human existence in general. The

historical base of such a christology will be solidified if is in continuity with the

historian’s portrayal of the historical Jesus—and will likewise be weakened if it is

opposition to the historical Jesus. Likewise, the universal perspective of such a

wisdom christology will be strengthened, if the interpretation of Jesus’ life and work

is phenomenologically intuitable, and it will be weakened if Jesus’ ministry turns out

to be esoteric.

Therefore, discussing the relationship between the historical Jesus-scholarship

and the christological interpretation does not do without a more comprehensive

understanding of the interpersonal field Jesus ministered in, acted in, and in which he

was passively involved. Christology is not simply extrapolation of the historical

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Jesus-scholarship (just as creation theology is not simply a theological extrapolation

of scientific models for the beginning of the world).

But it is important that the phenomenological interpretation of Jesus comes in

between the historical Jesus-scholarship and contemporary christology. Such

phenomenological approach interprets Jesus’ ministry and actions as exemplifying

specific attitudes towards the plethora of shortcomings and opportunities of human

existence, in the past as well as today. These attitudes are at once expressed in

semantic universes (the conceptions Jesus makes use of in his ministry) while the

semantics at the same time inform the specific character of possible human attitudes

towards reality. Every tradition deals selectively (cognitively and evaluatively) to an

experience of the world that is so multifarious that it can always be interpreted and

structured differently through other semantic universes.8

Christology might – or might not – build on the trajectory of the

simultaneously phenomenological and hermeneutical interpretation of Jesus’ ministry

and work that is offered by a phenomenological interpretation. Unlike the

phenomenological interpretation however, theology addresses the metaphysical and

theological presuppositions that—if the confession to Jesus as Christ were true—is

part of the ministry of Jesus, and can be explicated as such. The theological

interpretation thus investigates what it entails to interpret the story of Jesus in light of

God, as a revelation of God’s nature and will. But observe that also the highly loaded

concept of revelation is phenomenological in orientation: Something particular

(Jesus) may be a manifestation of something universal (God’s all-penetrating yet

invisible Wisdom) to somebody, the hearers and listeners, who can use this revelation

for elucidating the conditions of life, and orientating their own actions within this

phenomenologically describable life.

8 Thus there is a reciprocal relationship between experience and language as shown in the phenomenological hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur, David Tracy and others. An “experiential-expressive” phenomenology cannot be seen as opposed to a “cultural-linguistic” theory of language as argued by George A. Lindbeck in his influential book “The Nature of Doctrine. Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age” (Lindbeck 1984, chp. 2). Religious semantics do not form culturally lived-in a priories that are so rounded that only relations internal to the text exist. Religious semantics are selective so that some experiences are addressed while others are ignored, some a prioritised other are not. In one place Lindbeck does acknowledge the reciprocity of experience and religious language (ibid., 33f), but without any implications for his theory of language.

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Thus, the theological interpretation of Jesus differs from the historical

approach in that it does not primarily aims at an understanding of Jesus’ social or

ideological-historic background (Jesus behind the text). The systematic theological

interpretation views the texts about his life as manifestations of a certain attitude to

existence (Jesus in the text) revealing something important for the world in front of

all human beings.

Another fundamental difference between historical Jesus-scholarship and

christology is that the interest of christology not only lies in the ‘historical Jesus’ (i.e.

the picture of Jesus reconstructed by historians), but the earthly Jesus including his

effect on his companion travellers and descendants. The christological interpretation

cannot separate Jesus’ person from his later reception because the christological creed

from the outset is aware of the fact that Jesus initiated an atmosphere of faith, hope

and activity among his hearers. Also the layers of the synoptic gospels that

unequivocally reveal the influence of the easter creed of the community have the

utmost relevance for christology. If it is true that Jesus was Christ the person Jesus

cannot be separated from his followers. Christology cannot be separated from

soteriology. In this sense christology has to address a wider spectrum than the content

of Jesus’ ministry, work, and fate before easter itself.

It seems to me that wisdom theology is capable of uniting fundamental

principles of Jesus’ work and ministry with the universal perspective which is what

christology hangs on.

II

1. A Sketch for a Wisdom Christology

In what follows I will unfold the idea that Jesus, in a christological interpretation, can

be viewed as the embodiment and personification of God’s eternal Wisdom, as a

local crystallization of God’s universal will to create and communicate to human

beings.

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From this vantage point Jesus is more than a traditional teacher of the law.

Wisdom is God’s original idea of creation which was unsuccessfully formulated in

the letters of the law. Wisdom is the law of compassion and respect which was

supposed to be inscribed in the heart but was not. In the course of history the law of

God was continuously challenged by time and accident. The will of God became

invisible. Only in the union of Law and Wisdom is the will of God expressed again.

For Wisdom is saturated by the inspirational power of God—the Law is not.

If Jesus was God’s Wisdom in person, he was the “end of the law” (telos

nomou, om 10:4) in the dual sense: at once the termination of the law (as fixated law)

and the fulfilment of the law (as saturated by the Spirit of God). If Jesus was the

Messiah of Wisdom it is because he did not keep Wisdom to himself, but ignited

among his hearers the ability to make proper discernments in regard to time and

accident in their own contexts. Wisdom (Chokmah) is thus tied to the Spirit (Ruach)

that makes alive. Through Jesus the Wisdom of God transmitted herself so that he

both incorporated and released God’s Wisdom in his surroundings.

But Wisdom also contains God’s original will to self-revelation. This is the

view of the Letter to the Hebrews. Restlessly God’s Wisdom has sought the place

where it could reveal and express itself (cf. Heb 1:2). Wisdom starts in fear of God

and ends in confidence in God. It was the cult of the temple that should have

nourished fear and confidence, but it failed. Instead, Christ was the one who gave the

frankness needed to come nearer to God’s holiness, “a great priest over the house of

God” (Heb 10:21). The aim of Wisdom was from the outset God’s resting place

(Shechinah) on earth, but not until the human being Jesus did Wisdom find its

expressed image (Heb 1:3).

I have so far taken my departure from the proto-incarnational ideas of Jewish

wisdom theology. Here the expectation is formulated that God’s trans-historic

Wisdom aims at displacing itself into space and time and sets roots in the world of

creation. Following this the Christian creed is formulated that Wisdom found its full

rest and expression in Jesus. But as savior and redeemer Jesus Christ did not only

embody and personify divine Wisdom, he transmitted it. As incorporation of God’s

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Wisdom Jesus Christ is the measure of all earlier and later wisdom, the pattern all

human wisdom has to be judged by.

The Jewish Background of Wisdom Christology

But can a historical foundation even be established for a christological

comprehensive interpretation along these lines within Jewish tradition and from Jesus

himself?

With reference to the Jewish background Gottfried Schimanowski has shown

in Weisheit und Messias. Die jüdischen Voraussetzungen der urchristlichen

Präexistenzchristologie that a connection between wisdom and messiah conceptions

can already be found in the Jewish tradition. While Wisdom in Job 28 seemingly still

belongs to this world even though it is invisible and ineffable to everyone but God

(Job 28:20-28), Wisdom has a pre-cosmic state in Proverbs 8—it was there before the

creation of the heavens and the earth (Prov 8:22-36, cf. Ps 90:2). Wisdom was God’s

confidante, present on the morning of creation. The reception history of Proverbs 8

has been so strong, according to Schimanowski, that it has saturated both the

Alexandrian wisdom literature and the inter-testamental apocalypses, not least the

Henoch-literature.9 Apocalypse and wisdom is tightly woven together.

Wisdom, however, is not yet God himself. Wisdom is the first creation,

marking God’s aim with creation and which is therefore present as medium of

creation both before and under the course of history. In the rabbinic literature

Chokmah is however replaced by the Torah as the medium of creation. The universal

character of Wisdom is then interpreted in the light of a covenant theology of a

predominantly particularistic character. The love of Wisdom becomes a preference

for the Jewish people and therefore the Torah demands something special from Israel

(Schimanowski 1985, 216-298, cf. 305f).

But because God’s plan or purpose with creation is not yet realized, according

to Jewish thought, so also Messiah, who is to realise the plan in the right place in the

9 Gottfried Schimanowski, “Weisheit und Messias. Die jüdischen Voraussetzungen der urchristlichen Präexistenzchristologie”: “Rückblickend ist hiermit festzustellen, dass die Präexistenzvorstellung der Weisheit keineswegs nur ein Randphänomen der jüdischen Überlieferung darstellt” (Schimanowski 1985, 105).

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course of history, was always preexistent in God. Not as identical with God, but as an

immediate result of God’s original conception of creation. Already within Jewish

speculative wisdom a transfer from the preexistence of Wisdom to Messiah, the

emissary of Wisdom, takes place (Schimanowski 1985, 289-303 and 307f).

The Trace of Wisdom Theology in the Synoptic Tradition

Now the question is whether there are traces of wisdom theology in the layers of the

synoptic Jesus-tradition that may go back to Jesus? Did the Galilean village people,

Jesus and his followers, even know about these kinds of speculation? Yes, Jesus has

beyond doubt known about the Proverbs, but also apocryphal writings such as Book

of Wisdom and Book of Sirach that were highly popular in that time and were known

far beyond the narrow religious-intellectual spheres of the cities.

Martin Hengel has thus pointed out how the OT wisdom traditions have

established the ‘generative matrix’ for later christologies.10 That Jesus performed as

the mouthpiece of Wisdom can be seen from a logion in which we find direct speech

by Wisdom in the mouth of Jesus. Here Wisdom presents herself as the trans-historic

will of God who has followed the course of history from the Achaean and up until

this day. Wisdom herself is the powerful subject of the sending of the prophets and

apostles, even though they all failed:

“Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation’” (Luk 11:49-51)11

Here Jesus acts as the last emissary of Wisdom, who confronts his hearers with

judgment, the fruit of the generations who rejected the Wisdom’s attempts at

persuasion.12

10 Martin Hengel: “Jesus als messianischer Lehrer der Weisheit und die Anfänge der Christologie” Hengel 1979), whose viewpoints can be found again in G. Schimanowski (1985, 309-344), and in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza: “Jesus. Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet. Critical Issues in Feminist Christology”, (Schüssler Fiorenza 1994, 139-162).11 In contrast to the NRSV I have decided to let Wisdom speak throughout this passage. It is also possible to let Jesus say “Yes, will tell you…”. 12 The idea of the patient-impatient search of Wisdom (Wis 7:26ff) is continued in the Logos christology of Hebrews (Heb 1:1-3).

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In the synoptic context (which may be original) the words of Wisdom are

immediately used against those who are learned in the law (nomikoi). Apparently the

divine skill of discernment of Wisdom is in opposition to the intentions of the divine

law. The Torah cannot take the place of Wisdom. The learned keep the knowledge

for themselves while they at the same time dismiss the fruits of Wisdom:

Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering (Luk 11:52).

In other words of judgment Wisdom is not explicitly mentioned, but she is

nonetheless there indirectly. In Jesus cry of anguish over Jerusalem the protective hen

mother can be seen as an allusion to Wisdom (Chokmah and Sophia are both

feminine), and we do find the same structure of sending the Wisdom, the Wisdom not

being received, and Wisdom finally being a threat:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (Luk 13:34; Matt 23:37ff)

Wisdom turns on the security of the temple, the matter of fact-conviction that God

lives in the temple. While Wisdom according to Sir 24:7-12 settled in Israel and “was

established in Zion”, Jesus proclaims how Wisdom has fled Jerusalem, because

Jerusalem did not recognize the time of its visitation from God (Luk 19:44). Wisdom

is not a human property, not even for the people of the covenant; Wisdom must be

received and taken in here and now.

Both the law and the temple thus suspends the sense of time, accident, and

effort, and from this follows the mental fixation that Wisdom proclaims here

judgment over:

“To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ (…) Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children” (Luk 7:31-35; Matt 11:16-19).

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Without himself deciphering his relationship to Wisdom, Jesus becomes, as the child

of Wisdom, the yardstick that puts the inflexibility and lack of responsiveness in

perspective. John did not drink and eat enough, Jesus ate and drank too much:

“Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children,” as the passage ends.

This is not an exclusive christology of sending. Wisdom has multiple children,

eg. John the Baptist. The threshold to an actual wisdom christology that connects the

pre-existent Wisdom with the Messiah of Wisdom (cf. Es 11) arises in the contexts

where Jesus speaks in the first person where one would otherwise expect the voice of

Wisdom or the Lord. A number of Jesus’ proverb-like expressions thus turns out to

have parallels in the wisdom tradition, especially in the Book of Sirach. Expressions

of Jesus that we have become accustomed to hearing as expression of the later

Christology, in fact continue a Jewish wisdom tradition that can be understood on its

own terms and before the resurrection. Thus Jesus calls his hearers to live a life of

imitation in the uncertainty in which the only true rest is found:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30).

In Sirach, the Wisdom speaks: “Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of

my fruits” (Sir 24:19).

Put your feet into her fetters, and your neck into her collar. Bend your shoulders and carry her, and do not fret under her bonds. Come to her with all your soul, and keep her ways with all your might. Search out and seek, and she will become known to you; and when you get hold of her, do not let her go. For at last you will find the rest she gives, and she will be changed into joy for you.Then her fetters will become for you a strong defense, and her collar a glorious robe. Her yoke is a golden ornament, and her bonds a purple cord (Sir 6:24-30)

Ben Witherington, III has pointed to there and other similarities to Sirach and on the

background he finds it likely that Jesus—as a child of the Jewish religion—

consciously or unconsciously has spoken in continuation of Sirach (Witherington

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1994, 143-45 and 155-161). If that is the case there is an implicit self-identification

with Wisdom on Jesus’ behalf that lays the groundwork for later christology.

The outbidding of the tradition is expressed in the awareness of being ‘more

than’ a emissary among others:

The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!

While the door to Wisdom was closed by the learned and while the cult of the temple

thought it was open only to the Jewish people, it is opened to everyone regardless of

affiliation by Jesus, with consequences even for the day of judgment.

However Jesus understood himself, the reaction to his ministry and action was

a striking astonishment over the fact of how much he was one with his message of

God’s power. He spoke from the Wisdom of God and incorporated the power of the

Spirit which was in sharp contrast to his origin:

On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary[a] and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him (Mark 6:2-3).

There seems to be a convergence between fact that Jesus spoke from God’s Wisdom

and the astonishment of his surroundings at the authority of his speech (exousia)

(Mark 1:27). Jesus did not only have one message: He also incorporated the ability of

Wisdom to emphasise according to time and place and the ability of the Spirit to do

extraordinary deeds. Without this double charisma neither the opposition against him

nor his conviction and death can be understood.

4. The Ministry of Jesus: Gud’s Wisdom in Action

It seems clear that also beyond the Wisdom terminology in the specific expressions of

Jesus all of his ministry has, in a phenomenological point of view, the character of

wisdom teaching. Jesus made use of common sense observations (only the good tree

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bears good fruit, only the good person brings good things from his treasure (Luk

6:43-45; Matt 12:33-35), just as he made use of paradoxes that astonish by bringing

together what is absolutely heterogenous:

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

In this place humour is the means by which Jesus draws his reluctant hearers to the

side of God: Neither the good God nor the evil person acts in sheer folly! Hereby the

hearer is given the opportunity to reclaim his or her desire for the good. The evil

person remains secretly connected to God—even in the midst of his opposition to

God.

The parables too create a versatility of perspective through their rhetoric. The

hearers, who presumably are reluctant, are compelled to view themselves with new

eyes in the fresh perspective suggested by the foreign world of the parables. The

parables are invitations to reevaluate and reorganize one’s perspective and form of

life.

The reorganisation entails both new insights and a new practice as wisdom

deals with both skill of discernment and courage. One should not worry about being

seen or not being seen when praying, or about appearing as somber during lent:

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matt 6:17f)

Wisdom lives, just as God, in secret, not in plain view. But just like the Father

expresses himself in the daily life of his creation, Wisdom manifests herself in the

naturalness that is not strange because she has made herself one with God’s creational

will. Wisdom is not a paradox in itself. Only in the confrontation with a world that

continues to be in opposition to its creator does Wisdom appear as a contradiction of

everyday life forms (Matt 5:43-48; Luk 6:27-36)

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The good does not need cunning. Jesus points to the birds of the air who live

without worry, and to the lilies in the fields that are dressed in more splendour than

Salomo (Matt 6:25-31; Luk 12:22-31). As in Jewish wisdom traditions, faith in

creation goes hand in hand with the will of Wisdom to do God’s will in a specific

place at a specific time.

This combination of intimacy and attention to the immediate surroundings

characterises Jesus’ message:

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? (Luk 12:54-57)

If only people were as interested in the demands of the times as they are in talking

about the weather! They would read the signs of the times and be attentive. But we

only become attentive if we want to be so ourselves. No one, not even wisdom in

person can take over the duty of estimation. She can only start the engine of attention.

All that happens in our existence are occasions, but only in our own attention is the

world opened. In the estimation outwardness and inwardness coincides: The occasion

of the sign and the attention are one. Only in this way can God’s Wisdom displace

itself into the human existence.

Simultaneously individuality and sociality coincides. The ministry of Jesus is

always aimed at the individual; but wisdom is not only about the individual. Jesus

calls the individual to take up the yoke of wisdom and follow him, whereby the circle

of disciples is assembled and the group of fellow travellers is formed. None of them

escapes living the wisdom Jesus proclaimed and personified. But through this the

new family of those who do the will of the Father is created (Mark 3:31-35). The

reference to the birds of the air and the lilies in the field is not a bucolic idealisation,

but refers to the rest and peace that can only be obtained by giving up everything: the

security of family life, the expectation of money and social status. Only on the

turbulent path of wisdom rest and peace can be found.

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Wisdom cannot be based on rules, not even the good teaching of the Torah.

What is generally true is not yet the truth. Wisdom has a sens of timing—a time to

plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to weep, and a time to laugh

(Eccl 3:1-8). It is about being at one with the now of time and the here of space.

Wisdom is local, and so resourceful that it overcomes the flight of time. Eternally,

form the very beginning, Wisdom is only realised on the specific place at the right

time. When the old world order is coming to an end it is foolish to build barns; and

when one’s debt cannot be paid one might as well make friends with unfair mammon.

Unrestrained neglect of rules can be necessary to be present at the exact time and

place. On the other hand: all wisdom is lost if a rule is established from the lack of

inhibition.

Wisdom is God’s Law, challenged by time and accident, but saturated by the

inspirational power of God. Only Wisdom makes the human being superior to time

and accident instead of being inferior to them. Only Wisdom makes free—but free

only in its concrete display!

In Jesus’ interpretation of the law as it is paradigmatically united in the Sermon

on the Mount the prophecy of Jeremiah is revived: the law that is to be inscribed on

the hearts instead of on tablets of stone (Jer 31:31-34). The law is only fulfilled when

it is transformed to wisdom. What the situation demands must be done

wholeheartedly, from the full force of the passion of heart and soul. The one who

follows the way of Wisdom will surpass both the scribes and the Pharisees (Matt

5:20), the tax collectors and the Gentiles (Matt 5:46-48). God only rewards the one

who does not act to achieve his reward. ”For if you love those who love you, what

reward do you have?” (Matt 5:46). In his proclamation of Wisdom Jesus compels

man to act as lavishly as the creator. Help to help without mental reservations or

hidden motives (Matt 25:31-46)!

Jesus’ ministry is thus a practice in the life form of abundance. The perspective

is not tied to the complex of pride and indignation of the self. If struck on the cheek,

turn the other cheek! Wisdom opens the perspective so existence can be seen from

one’s own and the other’s perspective. The annoying neighbour who makes you walk

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one mile with him—walk two miles with instead! This transmits an atmosphere of

accommodation. Only hereby is the entitlement mentality burned away. And if the

other persists in his folly, walk another mile with him! Just as we should forgive

seventy times seven times (Matt 18:22), we may have to walk seventy times seven

miles. But it remains to be up to the other to convert, for conversion always comes

from the inside.

Here we face one of the examples of how Wisdom does not end in the

individual subject even though it begins here. In the conflict with the Pharisees the

public consequences of Jesus’ ministry is seen. The conflict is about clean and

unclean. According to the scribes the violation of the Law makes the violator and the

people who are close to him unclean. Uncleanness is contagious; and therefore Jesus

and his disciples become unclean through their neglect of the Sabbath, the neglect of

the eating regulations, and not least their association with prostitutes, tax collectors

and sinners. Against this Jesus—in continuation of the prophetic tradition of

inwardness—establishes the demand for the pure heart. For the pure everything is

clean, but also impurity has its roots on the inside: “Listen to me, all of you, and

understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the

things that come out are what defile” (Mark 7:14-15). Only Wisdom leads to

fearlessness in the relation to other people, for the infection does not comes from the

outside. Jesus breaks down the ‘holy’ marginalisation of the cultic or morally

unclean. Instead of the boundaries of the self he puts compassion that exposes itself

to the unclean. In the community with sinners and Gentiles the public consequences

of Wisdom are seen in the transformation of the social community. Those who are

lost are lost are the ones the new community must reach.13 But the outcasts are not to

be reached to become members of high society. Jesus blesses the poor as the beggars

they are and will remain to be. The kingdom of heaven is theirs just it is the

children’s—for both groups live day by day, from hand to mouth. They have not—as

children—experienced the ambiguity of satisfaction and dissatisfaction; they have—

as beggars—long ago given up on categorising life on the basis of the imperfect 13 Marcus Borg talks about how Jesus first and foremost through the community of the table replaced “the politics of holiness” with “the politics of compassion” (Borg 1984, 73-144).

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present and the many expectations about how it will be perfected some day.

Everything is perfect. But nothing is completed!

The kingdom of heaven is thus a kind of virtual reality, at once existent and

non-existent. The power of God is constantly ready to realise itself in the world, as it

already happens here and there, but not in a way that enables us to say: here or there

(Luk 17:20f). The kingdom is not an skill in history, but belongs to God’s creational

wealth of opportunity. As such the kingdom is at once the most real, ie. the most

active and effective, and the most unattainable that can never be realised.

But the kingdom of God can only be discovered under the conditions of

vulnerability. To live in the kingdom is only possible for the human being who

exposes himself to the unpredictable nature of the kingdom and who gives up on

riches and social status. Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your

consolation (Luk 6:24)—a consolation that is an illusion. It is easier for a camel to go

through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God

(Matt 19:24). There is so much more padding to be removed!

The conviction and death of Jesus can thus be said to be rooted in his ministry

of Wisdom: Wisdom lives the vulnerable life—and it proclaims a way of life that will

always lead to opposition from the surroundings. The crucifixion of Jesus is both the

inward and outward consequence of his life form and ministry.

5. From the Personification of Wisdom to the Incarnation of Wisdom

In the preceding paragraphs I have tried to unfold the ministry of Jesus as wisdom

theology primarily based on the synoptic gospels (Q). But what is the difference

between Jesus Ben Sirach and Jesus Ben Joseph?

Historically Jesus has proclaimed himself the incarnation of Wisdom as little

as he proclaimed himself to be the future Son of Man or Christ. It is only implicitly

that Jesus puts himself on the side of Wisdom. Jesus spoke out of Wisdom because he

was its point of breakthrough, all the while distinguishing himself from the Father,

the source of Wisdom. With Jesus pride and humility merges, but this is also in line

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with the wisdom tradition: “Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom (…) but let

those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me” (Jer 9:23ff)

In a peculiar identification with the Wisdom of God Jesus proclaimed the

judgment over the scribes and priests and the rich who have shut theselves out from

Wisdom. But Jesus has also retraced the spurs of Wisdom among his most powerless

followers who probably did not feel wise. He proclaimed the blessedness of the

kingdom of God and the knowledge of Wisdom to them. God’s Wisdom who

expressed herself in Jesus was infectious. While the scribes were afraid of the

contagiousness of the unclean, Jesus lived in the silent pressupposition that Wisdom

is infectious on through its inner purity. It was he saw around himself.

Isn’t it likely that it was this ability to ignite the sense of Wisdom even among

the marginalised that more than anything else has sparked the christological

reflections? Here are traces of the son of David on whom the Spirit of the Lord, “the

spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of

knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Is 11:2) rested. Just like the son of David Jesus

did not pass his sentence without looking at what the eye does not see. But Jesus did

not only judge the weak with justice; he was also the point of crystallisation that gave

the Kingdom of God new energi so that it could spread itself out. The communion of

the table was simultaneously a realisation and an anticipation of the eschatological

kingdom of God.

I the perspective of wisdom christology the death of Jesus was a consequence

of the unsettling message he proclaimed and lived. After Easter what was the

unmerciful consequence of his life was turned into the center of the message, because

the Son of Man came to “give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Here a new

content comes into view, a content that cannot immediately be reconciled with the

Wisdom traditions. A gap remains in the discourse between the identification of Jesus

as God’s Wisdom in person and the identification of the crucified Jesus as the “Lord”

ie. God.

In Mark the wisdom christology is more or less absent. But the idea that the

Spirit of God rested upon Jesus at his baptism can be said to be the functional

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equivalent of the wisdom christology.14 And unless Q is a separate interpretation of

Jesus it must be assumed that the pre-Easter dispositions to an interpretation of Jesus

as God’s Wisdom in person have been connected to the story of Jesus’ suffering,

death, and resurrection immediately after Easter. Matthew and Luke are later literary

expressions of an older merge of wisdom traditions and the story of Jesus’ death and

resurrection.

This also shines a new light on the death of Jesus. His death is not just a fatal

consequence of the evil of men and the vulnerabel life form of Wisdom, but God’s

path with man into suffering and death. In Paul the thought of “God’s wisdom, secret

and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor 2:7) is revived,

when it is now connected to Jesus Christ as the “Lord of Gory” (1 Cor 2:8). On the

grounds of such a connection between the pre-existent Wisdom and the crucified it is

not strange that Paul in 1 Cor 8:6 can talk about Christ as mediator of creation—the

earliest witness of a cosmic Christology we have.15

But while Paul may have used the wisdom terminology in a polemic against a

different kind of wisdom christology in Corinth (see 1 Cor 1:18ff), much speaks in

favour of a continuation of the wisdom christology in the Gospel of John in a peculiar

combination of the life and death of Jesus and his cosmic functions. Thus in Sophia

and the Johannine Martin Scott has pointed out the structuring principle of wisdom in

the Johannine christology, in the prologue as well as in the gospel as such, especially

in the “I am”-expressions.16 The Logos who is with God in the beginning and is

eternally identical to God, is at the same time life itself and the light of all people

(Joh 1:4). It is possible in a similar way to view the declarative identifying “I am”-

expressions as the self-revelation of Wisdom in continuation of the Book of Wisdom

8 and Sirach 24. In John the transition from Jesus as personified Wisdom to the once

14 How close the Spirit of God and the Wisdom of God are tied together can be seen not only in Wis 7:22-27, but also in the apocrypha Gospel of Hebrews that interprets the baptism of Jesus from the restless search of the Spirit/Wisdom for its Schekinah: (HVOR STÅR DET?)15 Cf. Schimanowski 1985, 314-344, where it is also shown what implication the concept of Wisdom indirectly has in the hymns of Eph 1, Col 1 and Phil 2. 16 Martin Scott, “Sophia and the Johannine Jesus”, (Scott 1992). Moreover Scott mentions, like Schüssler Fiorenza (1994), the importance of Wisdom as a female character: The feminine quality of Wisdom may already in contemporary time have seen as a conscious counterweight to the surrounding Isis-cult, whereby Jahve was transformed in a feminine direction.

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and for all incarnated Wisdom is completed. Jesus is the only begotten Son who is

also the only interpreter (Joh 1:18, cf. Matt 11:27), while the sending terminology of

the wisdom traditions is retained (Joh 3:16).

The terminology is once again less important than its function. As the Wisdom

theology in Mark is swallowed up in Sprit theology wherein the theme of wisdom

remains, Logos is the functional equivalent of Sophia in John. But in the farewell

speech in John (which is the origin of trinitarian thought) we find a differentiation

between Jesus as God’s only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit. This differentiation is

triggered by the death of Jesus. It is for the sake of his disciples that Jesus must leave

them—otherwise the Advocate cannot be sent to the disciples:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Joh 16:12-14)

Why can’t Jesus guide through the whole truth? Because truth cannot carry through

in the world when Wisdom is accumulated in one specific person, the only

interpreter. If Jesus is to be the savior and not the guru, who keeps the power to

himself, he has to go away. Jesus is the good shepherd who has to give up his own

life for his heard (Joh 10:11). Just like the grain of wheat cannot give manifold fruit if

it is not put in ground to die (Joh 12:24), in the same way Jesus cannot complete the

spread of Wisdom without disappearing himself:

“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (Joh 15:16)

Wisdom cannot be spread by being piled up in Jesus! The disciples are still like

children in their dependence on him. Children who cannot handle being confronted

by the demands of truth. Only the Holy Spirit who guides the individual on account

of the Wisdom who lived in Christ and who only Christ is, can release Wisdom so

that she stand up against both time and accident. Only through the extensive emission

of the skill of estimation can Christ be our savior. He is the source and measure of all

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wisdom, but only through the guidance of the Spirit in the face of time and accident

can the truth become concrete.

When the Spirit guides in the whole truth it means that the Spirit must set free

the skill of discernment in the multifarious situations of life. Only the Spirit can

further unfold the power dissemination that Wisdom found in Jesus; in opposition to

the frigidity of the Torah and the confined fixation of the temple. Only saturated by

the inspirational power of God can the human being carry manifold fruits.

The Wisdom of God is multi-coloured (polypoikilos, Eph 3:11).

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