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WorkPseudo-Solomon

Wisdom of Solomon

A Jew, probably of Alexandria, writes in the voice of King Solomon to argue that the just do not die, and lets the pleasure-seekers speak first.

by Pseudo-Solomon36 passages held

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Original title
Σοφία Σαλωμῶνος
First published
20 BCE(aged 40)
Original language
Greek

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Overview

The book speaks as a king who asked God for wisdom and received it, and every reader was meant to hear Solomon, though the text never writes his name. It was in fact written in Greek, most likely in Alexandria, by a Jewish author whose name is lost, centuries after Solomon; scholars place it between the late first century BCE and the early first century CE, and this page calls that author Pseudo-Solomon. Its argument is that justice is immortal: death is not the end the godless take it for, and the righteous who die young are safe in God's hand. The book lets its opponents speak first. In the second chapter the godless set out their creed: the mind is a spark that goes out, so enjoy what is here and crown yourselves with roses before they wither. They end by plotting against the just man whose life rebukes theirs. Against them the king, who calls himself a mortal like everyone else, praises Wisdom as the breath of God's power and credits her with teaching the four virtues of Greek philosophy: self-control, prudence, justice and courage. Later chapters fault, more gently, the thinkers who admired fire, wind and stars and never reasoned from that beauty to its maker, and trace idols back to a grieving father who made an image of his dead child. The book names no person at all, not even Moses. Most scholars think New Testament writers knew it, the author of Hebrews among them; Paul's account of idolatry in Romans runs so close to its chapters on idols that whether he was answering it is still debated. An early Christian list of scripture, the Muratorian fragment, already said that friends of Solomon wrote it in his honour, and Jerome, translating the Bible into Latin around 400, noted that the Hebrews did not have it and left it untranslated.

Key concepts

What does the book mean by 'righteousness is immortal'?

It means that a just life is not cancelled by dying. The book treats the death the godless fear as only the end of the body; the real death is the one they invite by their own deeds and words, courting it like a friend. The righteous, however early or cruelly they die, are held by God, so justice keeps its worth beyond the grave.

Is Wisdom in this book a quality or a person?

Both at once: wisdom is a quality a person can have, and the book also speaks of Wisdom as a living figure. She sits beside God's throne, reaches from one end of the world to the other and orders everything gently. The king says he loved her from his youth and wanted her as his bride, so seeking wisdom becomes something like courtship rather than study.

What is 'honourable age' if it is not a long life?

Honourable age is maturity measured by understanding and a blameless life, not by years. The book says wisdom is a person's grey hair and an unspotted life is their old age, so a young person can be truly old and an old one remain a child. It is the book's answer to the shame of an early death: length was never the measure.

What does 'measure and number and weight' mean here?

It is the book's picture of God as a maker who leaves nothing to chance: everything was ordered in proportion. The same proportion governs how he acts in history. Punishment is fitted to the offence and given gradually, and in the closing chapter the elements change their roles like notes on a harp that keep their tune, so even miracles keep the order.

What is the 'visitation' the book keeps mentioning?

A visitation is the moment God comes to look upon people and settle accounts. For the righteous it is vindication: the book says that in the time of their visitation they will shine and run like sparks through stubble. For idols and their makers it is exposure. The word lets the book place justice at a coming moment rather than in the visible present.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The Just Do Not Die

If the honest are crushed and the cynics thrive, was honesty a mistake? Everything turns on whether death is the last word on a life.

The opening chapters stage a trial. Men who think the soul is a spark that goes out argue for pleasure now, then turn on the just man whose life shames them. The book answers that God made no one for death: the souls of the righteous rest in his hand, a life cut short can be complete, and the scoffers end up confessing that their pride passed like a ship's wake. Justice is measured from beyond the grave, not by how a life ends.

  • divine justice
  • justice
  • righteousness
  • immortality
  • afterlife
  • mortality
  • suffering
  • punishment

Enter a dialogue

A King Who Asks for Wisdom

Can anyone, even a king, be wise by their own effort, or must understanding be asked for? The answer decides what rulers owe and what learning is.

The speaker takes a king's voice only to strip it of privilege: he was born like everyone else and had nothing until he prayed. Wisdom then appears as a living presence, the breath of God's power, loved like a bride and preferred to thrones and gold. She teaches the four virtues the Greek schools prized, so philosophy is folded into a gift from God. Rulers are warned hardest, because those given power face the sharpest judgement.

  • wisdom
  • knowledge
  • virtue
  • prayer
  • wealth
  • political philosophy
  • reason
  • epistemology

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Idols, Nature and a Measured God

Why do people looking at a beautiful world end up bowing to wood and stone? And how does a God who loves everything he made deal with those who go astray?

Retelling a people's escape from slavery without naming anyone, the later chapters read history as Wisdom's work and God as one who orders all things by measure, number and weight. Punishment comes slowly, leaving room for repentance, and fits the offence. Idolatry is diagnosed rather than mocked: it begins in a father's grief or a craftsman's leftovers, while those who admired the stars are blamed more gently for stopping at the beauty instead of reasoning to its maker.

  • idolatry
  • religion
  • nature
  • creation
  • cosmic order
  • divine providence
  • divine power
  • divine mercy
  • mercy
  • repentance
  • deliverance
  • fear

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held
36
distinct concepts
93
by passages held, corpus-wide
#703

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “divine providence” and “justice”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 6 concepts, joined by 9 pairings. 17 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
divine providencejustice4
justicewisdom3
divine justicerighteousness2
divine justicewisdom2
divine providencewisdom2
divine providenceidolatry1
idolatryjustice1
idolatryrighteousness1
righteousnesswisdom1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. -20 Wisdom of Solomon (Σοφία Σαλωμῶνος) you are here EN
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