(VERSES FROM ‘THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON’ CHAPTER 7)
I called upon God, and the Spirit of Wisdom came to me.
I preferred her before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison with her.
Neither did I liken her to any precious stone, because, in comparison to her, all gold is as a little sand...
I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for the light that comes from her never goes out...
All good things came to me with her, and innumerable riches in her hands.
And I rejoiced in them, because wisdom goes before them: yet I did not know she was the mother of them all….
For Wisdom moves beyond all motion. She penetrates and pervades all things by her purity.
She is an aura of the might of God and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing sullied enters her.
She is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.
And she, who is one, can do all things, and renews all things...
And passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets...
For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars.
Compared to light, she takes precedence.
(VERSES FROM ‘PROVERBS’ CHAPTER 8)
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?
She stands in the top of high places, and at the crossing of the paths.
She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors…
“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the deep:
When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:
Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.
