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?
In some ways, The Book of Wisdom written, it seems, by a philosophically minded Jew gathers together prominent aspects of Greek philosophy on ethical matters that complement Jewish teaching. Though wisdom in The Book of Wisdom is a created force or aspect of God’s will working through nature and human behaviour with an emphasis on the government of both self and others, it reflects one of the greatest wisdom passages in the Canonical Scriptures, the 28th Chapter of Job (28.12-21, 28).
“But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man does not know the way to it,
and it is not found in the land of the living.
The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’
and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
It cannot be gotten for gold,
and silver cannot be weighed as its price.
It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir,
in precious onyx or sapphire.
Gold and glass cannot equal it,
nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;
the price of wisdom is above pearls.
The topaz of Ethiopia cannot compare with it,
nor can it be valued in pure gold.
“Whence then comes wisdom?
And where is the place of understanding?
It is hid from the eyes of all living,
and concealed from the birds of the air.
“God understands the way to it,
and he knows its place.
For he looks to the ends of the earth,
and sees everything under the heavens.
And he said,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding.’”
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This biblical phrase is found in Proverbs and the Psalms. It is the Jewish counterpart to the Greek idea of “know thyself.” Such wisdom or knowledge is necessary with respect to the ordering of our lives. Prudence or practical wisdom is first and foremost, particularly with respect to the classical virtues – temperance, courage, justice and prudence – including the way those virtues are transformed into the forms of charity in the Christian understanding.
Plato’s Republic is about justice but justice depends on knowing the Good. In a way you can’t love what you don’t know even allowing for the different forms and limitations of our knowing. Knowing and loving go together. So there is a certain priority to wisdom or prudence that belongs to philosophy and theology, we might say. Job is saying that “the fear of the Lord is wisdom.” The Book of Wisdom in a complementary fashion says that “the beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love of wisdom, and love of wisdom is the keeping of her laws, and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality, and immortality brings one near to God; so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom” (Wisdom 6.17-20). That in turn reflects Plato’s Symposium in terms of eros, the passionate desire to know.
“Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her”(Wisdom 6. 12-13). Wisdom “is an unfailing treasure for men; those who get it obtain friendship with God … He [God] is the guide even of wisdom and the corrector of the wise. For both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts. For it is he [meaning God] who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements; the beginning and end and middle of all times”; in short, the whole of natural philosophy as well as ethical and political philosophy, “for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.” Wisdom belongs to God.
The seventh chapter of Wisdom ends with a splendid encomium to Wisdom.
For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent and pure and most subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Though she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the man who lives with wisdom.
“She is an initiate in the knowledge of God, and an associate in his works.” O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas. “O thou who dost rule the world with everlasting reason,” as Boethius’s Consolatio famously puts it (Consolatio III, IX).
Wisdom comes from God and is the movement of the reason of God in us and ultimately comes from the Word of God whose coming among us is what we await at Christmas and always. Wisdom is not about some sort of intellectual pretense but the very principle which governs our lives in virtue. Wisdom teaches “self-control [temperance], and prudence, justice and courage; nothing in life is more profitable than these.” Wisdom is not techne or skill. It is not AI. Philosophically and theologically Wisdom teaches us about everything that is held together in the Word and Mind of God. It is our human vocation and one which brings us to the wonder and mystery of the Advent of Christ enrobed in the very flesh of our humanity.
Wisdom is the moving principle in the Providence of God as recognised by the poet George Herbert.
O Sacred Providence, who from end to end
Strongly and sweetly movest, shall I write,
and not of thee, through whom my fingers bend
To hold my quill? Shall they not do thee right?
Of all creatures both in sea and land
Onely to Man thou hast made known thy wayes.
And put the penne alone into his hand,
And made him Secretarie of thy praise. (Herbert, Providence)
It is our human vocation and one which brings us to the wonder and mystery of the Advent of Christ enrobed in the very flesh of our humanity. As Herbert puts it in his lovely poem, Christmas:
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymne for thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
“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: Come and teach us the way of prudence.”
Fr. David Curry
Advent Meditation on Wisdom (O Sapientia)
December 16, 2025