Chapter Seven. Solomon’s Wisdom—From Hermes to Aristotle

Various definitions of “wisdom” appear in the Bible, and the concept continued to accrue new meanings and understandings in post-biblical literature.719 The idea of Solomonic wisdom and knowledge (chokhmah and madda) thus also attracted new interpretations under the influence of Hellenistic culture. The Wisdom of Solomon (WS), a work apparently written in Palestine and Egypt in the second or first century B.C.E., holds that wisdom is “the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness”.720