Advent Programme 2: Wisdom (O Sapentia)
Notes on Wisdom: Advent Programme 2 at Christ Church December 16th, 2025: Wisdom (O Sapientia)
In the Prayer Book Calendar, December 16th commemorates O Sapientia: an ancient Advent anthem. It may seem to be a rather strange commemoration: not a person, not an event exactly but a form of Advent devotion that has come to mark the beginning of the great ‘O’ Antiphons that frame the singing of the Magnificat at Vespers or Evening Prayer. They originated probably between the sixth and eighth centuries in the western Latin Church for use during the week before Christmas. The first of the antiphons is O Sapientia which some think reflects the teaching of Boethius in the early 6th century in his famous Consolation of Philosophy where one of the very few biblical references is to the Book of Wisdom, the passage from Wisdom 8. 1 captured concisely in the first of the ‘O’ Antiphons, O Sapientia.
O Wisdom, which comes out of the mouth of the Most High, and reaches from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things (fortiter et suaviter): Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Early English use began with O Sapientia on the 16th of December, rather than the 17th. Later an eighth antiphon O Virgo Virginum was added for the first Evensong of Christmas Eve, the 23rd. Seven of the antiphons form the verses of the great Advent carol, the Veni Emmanuel, albeit in a kind of reverse order. They all highlight certain ‘Messianic’ aspects of Christ, names or titles that contribute to our understanding of the mystery of Advent as drawn from Scripture. Quod Moyses velat, Christus revelat. What is veiled in the Old is revealed in the New.
The Wisdom of Solomon dates from either the first century BC or the first century AD. It is one of several texts that belong to what is known as Wisdom Literature. Three-quarters of The Book of Wisdom are read in the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer on the Week of the Sunday Next Before Advent. It is worth noting, too, that in the Year I cycle of Sunday Office Readings, passages from Wisdom are read at Morning Prayer from the 21st Sunday after Trinity through to the 24th Sunday after Trinity while at Evening Prayer on those Sundays, passages from Ecclesiasticus, the Book of the Wisdom of Jesu ben Sirach are read. It is an earlier work dating from the early second century BC but also a work included under the category of Wisdom Literature.
Both works are named in the 39 articles alongside of the Canonical Books of the Old Testament but are read, following Jerome, “for example of life and instruction of manners but not to establish any doctrine,” as Article VI puts it, works designated as Apocryphal. Yet Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus reflect the teaching of the Wisdom Literature that belongs to Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as well as some of the Psalms and passages from such prophets as Isaiah.
Wisdom is also read in the Sunday Offices at certain times of the Church Year, notably at Evening Prayer on Whitsuntide Monday and Tuesday, the latter reading concluding with the 1st verse of Chapter 8 which informs the O Sapientia antiphon. Why is wisdom the first of the O antiphons? Why wisdom?
