Who is the wisdom whom the Old Testament speaks of? And, how could the Holy Spirit speak by the prophets while Pentecost had not yet occurred?

Dear Father Angelo,

I would like to thank you for your previous answer.

Hoping to not bother you, I would still have a question about Wisdom and the Holy Spirit.

King Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom, and the book of Wisdom reads as follows: “into a soul that plots evil wisdom enters not, nor dwells she in a body under debt of sin”.

Now, I would ask you: what is this wisdom? a sort of person of the Trinity? Like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Then, about the Holy Spirit, in the creed we read that the Holy Spirit spoke to the prophets of the Old Testament, so I would ask you: how is it possible? Before the Lord gave It on the day of Pentecost?

And, I take this opportunity to greet you.

The Priest’s answer 

Dear friend,

1. The quoted verse speaks of God’s Wisdom and She is not only an attribute of His, but coincides with God Himself, with His legislating Mind.

Solomon, who also wrote the book of Wisdom, spoke about Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs in those terms.

2. Then, here is what the book of Proverbs says about wisdom: “When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains or springs of water; Before the mountains were settled into place, before the hills, I was brought forth; While as yet the earth and the fields were not made, nor the first clods of the world. When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep; When he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth; When he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command; Then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, Playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the sons of men” (Pr 8:24-31).

3. The Jerusalem Bible annotates: “In Jb 28 and Ba 3:9-4:4 wisdom is represented as a thing distinct from God and man, desirable in itself; in Pr 1:20-23; 3:16-19 and 8-9 it is represented as a person. Here Wisdom herself reveals her origin (created before all other creatures, vv, 22-26), the active part she plays in the creation, vv, 27-30, and the function she discharges among men in leading them to God, vv. 31, 35-36.”

4. That same Wisdom (Logos) is the One Who became flesh, and Who enters the hearts of men, who love God and observe His commandments, as He said: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).

Therefore, Wisdom is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word, the Son, the Logos, God who became flesh, Jesus.

5. Pope Leo XIII, in his “Divinum illud munus” encyclical on the Holy Spirit (9.5.1897), reminds that: ‘It is indeed true that in those of the just who lived before Christ, the Holy Ghost resided by grace, as we read in the Scriptures concerning the prophets, Zachary, John the Baptist, Simeon, and Anna; 

so that on Pentecost the Holy Ghost did not communicate Himself in such a way “as then for the first time to begin to dwell in the saints, but by pouring Himself forth more abundantly; crowning, not beginning His gifts; not commencing a new work, but giving more abundantly” (St. Leo the Great, Hom. iii., de Pentec.)’. 

Leo XIII says: ‘But if they also were numbered among the children of God, they were in a state like that of servants, for “as long as the heir is a child he differeth nothing from a servant, but is under tutors and governors” (Gal. iv., I, 2).Moreover, not only was their justice derived from the merits of Christ who was to come, but the communication of the Holy Ghost after Christ was much more abundant, just as the price surpasses in value the earnest and the reality excels the image’ (DS 3329).

Wishing the same for us all in the widest and most fruitful way, I bless you.

Father Angelo

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