Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine: The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity 9780567667144, 9780567667168, 9780567667151

Table of contents :
FC
Library of New Testament Studies
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
1. The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity
2. Is he she?
3. Why is it so?
4. Where shall Wisdom be Found?
5. Re-Recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom
6. Scandalous Invitations
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

557 formerly the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series

Editor Chris Keith

Editorial Board Dale C. Allison, John M.G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper, Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Love L. Sechrest, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Catrin H. Williams

Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity

Sally Douglas

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Sally Douglas, 2016 Sally Douglas has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-56766-714-4 ePDF: 978-0-56766-715-1 ePub: 978-0-56766-833-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Douglas, Sally (Minister) Title: Early church understandings of Jesus as the female divine : the scandal of the scandal of particularity / by Sally Douglas. Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2016. | Series: Library of New Testament studies; volume 557 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015035612 | ISBN 9780567667144 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ--History of doctrines. | Jesus Christ--Person and offices. | Femininity of God. | Wisdom (Biblical personification) Classification: LCC BT198 .D66 2016 | DDC 232--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc. gov/2015035612 Series: Library of New Testament Studies, volume 557 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

CONTENTS Acknowledgementsvi Abbreviationsvii List of Illustrations viii 1. THE SCANDAL OF THE SCANDAL OF PARTICULARITY1 2. IS HE SHE?15 3. WHY IS IT SO?71 4. WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?109 5. RE-RECOGNIZING JESUS-WOMAN WISDOM163 6. SCANDALOUS INVITATIONS205 Bibliography209 Index223

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks go to my doctoral supervisors the Revd Dr Sean Winter and Dr Janette Gray RSM who were willing, in the first place, to enter an interdisciplinary enterprise. In equal measure they trusted me with the space to explore these vast questions and challenged me to test everything and to demonstrate my findings with precision. Thanks also go to the University of Divinity for financial support through the Australian Postgraduate Award. My life partner Andrew’s devotion, encouragement and ability to laugh with me in the face of adversity have been a sustaining song. Jemimah and Zach, each day we are unspeakably glad that you are here. Paradoxically your presence created the time for this work to be birthed. Finally, I am grateful to the early Jesus communities who sang, prayed and celebrated the divine embodied in Jesus in such a scandalous, life-giving way.

ABBREVIATIONS ASC b.c.e. c.e. LNTS NRSV

Altered State of Consciousness Before Common Era Common Era Library of New Testament Studies New Revised Standard Version

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1  Jesus of the People (1999)181 by Janet McKenzie Figure 1.2  The Supper at Emmaus (1601)183 by Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio Figure 1.3  Crucifixion, Shoalhaven (1979–80)184 by Arthur Boyd

1 T H E S C A N D A L O F T H E S C A N DA L O F P A RT IC U L A R I T Y

Jesus’ status inflames debate. This has been the case since the historical Jesus started teaching with an assuredness that upset those in religious authority, feasting with social outcasts and the ‘other’ thus turning them into friends, and enduring, rather than inflicting, suffering, violence and death. In the aftermath of Jesus’ state-sanctioned murder this debate was fanned by people claiming to have ongoing experiences not only of the risen Jesus, but also of a new, collective ‘risen’ life enabled through Jesus. Central to debates about Jesus’ status, which have continued for nearly 2,000 years, is whether in some way Jesus uniquely embodies the divine. The phrase the ‘scandal of particularity’ has come to signify this. Lesslie Newbigin summarizes this expression: The Christian tradition affirms that God has made his mind and purpose known to some (not to all) people through events in history – not all events but some, the memory of which is treasured in the Christian tradition. This affirmation is a cause of scandal, what is sometimes called the scandal of particularity.1

As Christendom disintegrates in the West, the debate has not burned itself out. Instead a renewed energy has fuelled the quest to discover who Jesus really was. Various individuals and schools of thought pit themselves against one another as they insist that they have discovered the truth. The diversity of these truths about Jesus is demonstrated by recent publications. On the one hand there are those who insist that the evidence reveals that Jesus was exalted to God status through a process of human re-imagining.2 On the other hand there are those who insist that the evidence reveals that, from the outset, it was believed that God became 1. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1989), p. 72 (brackets original). Newbigin goes on to explore the implications of this: ‘On what rational grounds can one single out particular happenings from the whole seamless robe of history and say: ‘Here God acted; here he revealed himself?’ Newbigin, Gospel, p. 72. 2.  Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperCollins, 2014).

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flesh in Jesus and that Jesus thought of himself in divine terms.3 What is surprising is that both sides of this debate consistently eclipse a central proclamation of who Jesus is across earliest christological understandings. The scandal of the scandal of particularity is that in various Second Testament and early church texts in which Jesus is celebrated as divine, Jesus is understood and celebrated as the female divine.4 Insufficient attention has been devoted to this and to the question of why this is so. In recognizing the prominence of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Second Testament and early church texts and investigating why in the early Jesus movement Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, potent insights are gained that slice through the polemics of contemporary christological debate. In excavating why the church in the second and third centuries began to obscure this understanding, and exploring the implications of re-engaging with this proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context, simultaneously ancient and fresh insights are gained. When the scandal of the scandal of particularity is recognized, understandings of the divine, christology, soteriology, church, discipleship, gender, ‘other’ and self are radically recalibrated. Before embarking upon this investigation, contemporary christological debate needs to be outlined in order to contextualize the work. It is increasingly popular to argue that Jesus’ divinity emerged through a process of accretion. This view is evidenced by Bart Ehrman, ‘in early Christianity the views of Christ got “higher and higher” with the passing of time, as he became increasingly identified with the divine’.5 Similarly, Geza Vermes argues that: By the end of the first century Christianity had lost sight of the real Jesus and of the original meaning of his message. Paul, John and their churches replaced 3. Michael Bird et al., How God became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature – A Response to Bart Ehrman (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), see pp. 41–70. 4. Understandings of Woman Wisdom’s divinity in Hebrew texts will be discussed in Chapter 2. In English scholars variously refer to σοφία as Sophia, Lady Wisdom, wisdom and personified Wisdom. The term Woman Wisdom is utilized in this work to indicate her presence in the texts under discussion. This title reflects both her importance as a divine wisdom figure in First Testament and intertestamental texts and also acknowledges her female personification, a central attribute of her personhood. The language of First and Second Testament is used to signify the biblical text in this work. The descriptors of Old and New Testament have the unfortunate inference that the new replaces the old. Use of the term Hebrew Bible, while appealing, does not adequately reflect that some Jewish texts were not written in Hebrew, including the Wisdom of Solomon, which is of significance to this research. While not without problems, the descriptor of First and Second Testament acknowledges the faith of the early church that their convictions about Jesus were in accord with, and grew out of, their understanding of Jewish sacred scriptures. 5. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 353. Earlier Ehrman states that the Jesus movement: ‘came up with increasingly exalted things to say about him and magnified his importance more and more with the passing of time. Eventually they came to claim that he was God come to earth’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 212.



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him by the otherworldly Christ of faith, and his insistence on personal effort, concentration and trust in God by a reliance on the saving merits of an eternal, divine Redeemer… Jesus, the religious man with an irresistible charismatic charm, was metamorphosed into Jesus the Christ, the transcendent object of the Christian religion.6

Likewise, Robert Funk states that from a ‘relatively modest beginning, Jesus was gradually elevated to godhood in the second and third centuries’.7 This has become a significant view in popular theology.8 On the face of it, this understanding of a divine escalator, in which Jesus is a charismatic man at the bottom and made into the ‘God one’ by the time he is conveyed to the top, appears reasonable.9 However, as will be demonstrated, the textual evidence disrupts this theory. Earlier than Second Testament and early church texts composed in the first century, Jesus is worshipped as divine. This is evidenced in the hymns and liturgical fragments that are embedded within these sources, which celebrate and proclaim Jesus’ divinity.10 These fragments bear witness to worship practices that 6. Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 263. 7. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 31. 8.  As illustrated by John Shelby Spong: ‘After much debate over the first several centuries of Christianity’s life, theism’s capture of this faith system was made complete. Incarnation was defined. Jesus was the God-Man – perfect in divinity, perfect in humanity’. John Shelby Spong, A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born (Sydney: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 110. See also Val Webb, Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine (London: Continuum International Publishing, 2007), pp. 191–209. 9.  This delineation between the good earthly ‘man’ Jesus and the corrupted ‘deity’ Christ is, at times, propelled by late twentieth- and twenty-first-centuries agendas. Rejection of the ideology that people will be excluded from God’s embrace and condemned if they do not believe that Jesus is the ‘God one’ in a particular way contributes to the minimization of early church understanding of Jesus’ divine particularity. Demonstrating this, Robert Funk states: ‘As I look around me, I am distressed by those who are enslaved by a Christ imposed on them by a narrow and rigid legacy … I have a residual hankering to free my fellow human beings from that bondage, which can be as abusive as any form of slavery’, Funk, Honest to Jesus, p. 19. While sharing sympathy with this concern, this motivation does not permit the denial of Second Testament and early church evidence that challenges the view that proclamations about Jesus’ divinity were a construct of the later church. 10.  Just over a century ago, William Bousset pointed out that primitive worship in Jesus communities was ‘in general still addressed to God’. William Bousset, Kyrios Christos, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970), p. 131. However, he also acknowledged that: ‘On the other hand, in the Pauline age the custom of prayer in the name of Jesus must already have appeared’ and that there is Pauline evidence of ‘brief outcries of prayer, [and] sighs of the oppressed and overflowing heart which in worship were addressed directly to Jesus’. Bousset, Kyrios, p. 132.

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were sufficiently established and familiar in Jesus communities to be quoted in the composition of these texts.11 As Larry Hurtado states: A number of New Testament passages are widely thought to incorporate hymnic material from the worship of first century Christian circles (e.g. Phil. 2.6-11; Col. 1.15-20; Jn 1.1-18; Eph. 5.14; 1 Tim. 3.16) … The first thing to note is how much this hymnic material in the Pauline letters and other early Christian writings is focused on the celebration of Jesus, his significance and work.12

Hurtado rightly points out that in this early Christian worship ‘There are two distinguishable figures, God and Jesus, but in Paul’s letters there is an evident concern to understand the reverence given to Jesus as an extension of the worship of God.’13 Despite Ehrman’s commitment to the view that the earthly Jesus was elevated to ‘a divine being’ through a process of accretion, he concurs with Hurtado’s assessment of these sources and states, ‘Christians insisted that they believed in only one God, and yet, they revered Jesus as divine and worshipped their “Lord Jesus” along with God.’14 Reflecting on Hurtado’s work, Ehrman admits that ‘virtually right away’ in the Jesus movement, Jesus was being ‘worshipped as a divine being’.15 Ehrman acknowledges the immediacy of this early practice of worshipping Jesus as ‘a divine being’, yet maintains that it was over time that Jesus was ‘increasingly identified with the divine’.16 He seeks to smooth over this disjuncture by arguing that the first Christians’ christological understanding of Jesus was from the perspective of ‘adoptionism’.17 Ehrman states, ‘The earliest Christians held exaltation Christologies in which the human being Jesus was made the Son of God – for example, at his resurrection or at his baptism.’18 This is not the whole 11. See 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-20; Heb. 1.3 as well as the prologue of Jn. 1.1-18. These passages will be discussed in detail in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 as will other early church texts that may also have been composed at the same time, or even before some Second Testament texts. 12. Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), pp. 147–8 (brackets original). 13. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 151. 14. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 235. 15.  Ehrman recognizes the significance of Hurtado’s ‘two important books’ and summarizes them by stating that they explore the ‘dilemma of how Jesus could be worshiped as a divine being so early in the history of the Christian religion – virtually right away – if in fact the Christians considered themselves monotheists, not ditheists (worshipers of two gods)’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 235 (brackets original). 16. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 353. 17. Ehrman, How Jesus, pp. 230–1. Ehrman does not like the term ‘adoptionism’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 249. 18. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 249, see also pp. 230–49.



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story. While some early texts do indicate an ‘adoptionist’ christology, other early texts do not. There is, potentially, evidence of an ‘adoptionist’ Wisdom christology in Mark’s baptism account, and, perhaps, 1 Clement 36.19 However, in other early texts that celebrate Jesus as Woman Wisdom an ‘incarnational’ christology predominates, as evidenced in the Colossians hymn in which Jesus is pre-existent and the one who embodies the ‘fullness of God’. When reflecting on these ancient sources, care must be taken not to demand that they provide answers to the theological dilemmas of later centuries, or those of the contemporary context. Regardless of how Jesus was understood to be divine, whether in an ‘adoptionist’ manner or in an ‘incarnational’ manner, or both, the liturgical fragments in Second Testament and early church texts indicate that from a very early period in the Jesus movement Jesus was being celebrated as ‘a divine being’. While these Jesus communities may not have been able to articulate an understanding of how Jesus was – or came to be – divine to the satisfaction of later christological criteria, this evidence indicates that they worshipped Jesus as ‘a divine being’ nonetheless. Despite their contrasting positions, Ehrman and Hurtado are examples of scholars who rightly recognize the early hymn and prayer fragments of Second Testament texts in which Jesus is worshipped as ‘a divine being’.20 However, neither Ehrman nor Hurtado adequately acknowledge, or explore, that in a significant proportion of these fragments in Second Testament and in early church texts Jesus is imaged and celebrated as Woman Wisdom. This is evidenced in Ehrman’s discussion of 1 Cor. 8.6. Ehrman admits that what is said about Jesus ‘sounds very much like what non-Christian Jewish texts occasionally say about God’s Wisdom. And God’s Wisdom was itself understood to be God.’21 In this acknowledgement Ehrman suppresses Woman Wisdom’s personhood and gender, not least through the use of the neuter pronoun, even as he reflects that Jesus is likely being imaged as her. The question of why in this text Jesus would be imaged as 19. While not a wisdom text, Rom 1.3-4 is another example of a possible ‘adoptionist’ text. 20. James Dunn also recognizes that: ‘praise being offered for the exaltation of Jesus Christ as God’s right-hand plenipotentiary would logically and naturally entail that praise be offered to the plenipotentiary himself ’. James Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 41 (italics original). Richard Bauckham also underscores the very early Christian practice of worshipping Jesus in hymns and prayers. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), pp. 127–39. Bauckham states that the worship of Jesus: ‘corresponds to the very high christology of the earliest Christian communities, according to which Jesus exercises all the functions of God in relation to the world as Saviour, Lord and Judge …The one who functions as God shares the divine identity with God, and, naturally, receives divine worship …’, Bauckham, Jesus and the God, p. 138. 21. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 268 (italics added).

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Hebrew Woman Wisdom is not entertained by Ehrman.22 Not only does Ehrman minimize Woman Wisdom in the passage; he minimizes the priority of Wisdom christology, by arguing, without sufficient evidence, that this christology is based on an understanding of Jesus being an angel: ‘Paul clearly thought Jesus was God in a certain sense – but he does not think that he was the Father. He was an angelic divine being before coming into the world; he was the Angel of the Lord.’23 The evidence of First Testament and intertestamental texts demonstrates that Woman Wisdom was not understood as an angel.24 In Charles Gieschen’s examination of ‘angelomorphic’ christology, he discusses understandings of Woman Wisdom and rightly points out that Woman Wisdom is presented as being ‘distinct from the rest of creation’ 25 and that ‘she is God’s companion, even a participant in creation’.26 Gieschen also recognizes that Woman Wisdom is described as being enthroned with God (e.g. Wis. 9.4; 10),27 and that she proclaims her glory in the midst of the angelic host (Sir. 24.2).28 Furthermore Gieschen argues that in Proverbs 8.30, the description of Woman Wisdom ‘beside’ God: ‘is indicative of more than the position of a typical angel’.29 22. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 268. 23. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 269. 24. Ehrman briefly discusses understandings of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental texts, see Ehrman, How Jesus, pp. 70–2. While he admits that in Wisdom Woman Wisdom does: ‘what the Hebrew Bible claims God did (creation; exodus)’, he again inserts an angel by arguing that this is also what ‘the angel’ of God did: ‘for example rescuing Abraham’s nephew Lot from the fires that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 72 (brackets original). In light of the ways in which Woman Wisdom is imaged across First Testament and intertestamental texts it is misleading to compare these descriptions of Woman Wisdom with angels. Ehrman does admit that Woman Wisdom was considered as divine, but seeks to diminish the prominence of this understanding: ‘some Jewish readers read the passage [Prov. 8.22-36] more literally and took Wisdom to be an actual being that was speaking, a being alongside God that was an expression of God. This view led some Jewish thinkers to magnify Wisdom as a divine hypostasis’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 71 (italics added). In contrast, the evidence in First and intertestamental texts demonstrates that Woman Wisdom is repeatedly imaged as prior to all things (e.g. Prov. 8.22-31; Wis. 9.9-10; Sir. 1.9-10; 24.3), companion with God (e.g. Prov. 8.30; Wis. 8.3), agent in creation and salvation (e.g. Prov. 3.19; 8.30; Wis. 7.27; 8.1; 4; 10.1–11.4), enthroned with God (Wis. 9.4; 10) and superior to the angelic hosts (Sir. 24.2). See Chapter 2. 25. Charles Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 90. 26. Gieschen, Angelomorphic, pp. 90–1. 27. Gieschen, Angelomorphic, pp. 91; 93–7. 28. Gieschen, Angelomorphic, p. 91. 29. Gieschen, Angelomorphic, p. 91. Despite this, Gieschen concludes by arguing that: ‘angelomorphic traditions were instrumental in the Jewish adaption of Wisdom before



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Despite this, in Ehrman’s discussion of John’s prologue he again minimizes the Wisdom christology of the passage and continues to argue that this author understood Christ as an angel: ‘Christ was some kind of angelic being before becoming a human – probably the “chief angel” or the “Angel of the Lord”’.30 It is only by downplaying the expansive role of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental texts, minimizing the presence of Woman Wisdom in 1 Cor. 8.6 and John’s prologue, and transposing the view of Jesus as ‘an angelic being’ over the top of these texts, that Ehrman is able to maintain his view that Jesus was understood to be divine through a process of gradual accretion. When early celebrations, and worship, of Jesus-Woman Wisdom are recognized, his argument for divine elevation collapses. Ehrman does admit that in the Colossians hymn Jesus is worshipped as ‘Wisdom made flesh’.31 However he does so while continuing to downplay Woman Wisdom’s personhood and gender.32 Rather than acknowledging that this christology aligns with the Wisdom christology of Paul, the early Jesus movement that Paul quotes from, and John’s prologue, Ehrman argues that Colossians is the exception to the rule, ‘We have now moved into an entirely different realm from the earlier exaltation Christologies.’33 The Second Testament evidence demonstrates that Colossians is not the exception to the rule. In contrast, the Colossians hymn, as well as other early hymn and prayer fragments in Second Testament and early church texts, are the exception to Ehrman’s rule. As will be discussed at length in Chapter 2, texts in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, John’s prologue, Hebrews, as well as other Second Testament and early church texts including 1 Clement and the Didache, demonstrate that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, in which Jesus is imaged as the female divine, were pivotal across many communities in the early Jesus movement. This ‘high’ christology did not emerge through a she was identified with Torah’. Gieschen, Angelomorphic, p. 103. Gieschen’s definition of ‘Angelomorphic’ elucidates this apparent contradiction: ‘“Angelomorphic” is an inclusive term which means having some of the various forms and functions of an angel, even though the figure may not be explicitly called an “angel” or considered to have the created nature of an angel’, Gieschen, Angelomorphic, p. 3 (fn. 2, italics added). While Gieschen argues that Woman Wisdom’s origins were influenced by ‘angelomorphic traditions’ he is not arguing that Woman Wisdom is understood as an angel in First Testament and intertestamental texts. 30. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 278. Ehrman acknowledges the ‘high’ christology of the prologue: ‘higher than even in the Philippians poem’. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 278, and the presence of (Woman) Wisdom in this text. However he continues to depersonalize her and further minimizes the Wisdom christology by focusing on Logos christology. Ehrman, How Jesus, pp. 276–7. 31. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 280. 32. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 280. Again, Ehrman does not reflect on the paradox that Jesus is celebrated as the female divine. 33. Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 280. Ehrman also acknowledges the presence of (Woman) Wisdom in Hebrews christology (1.2-3). Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 281.

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gradual process of accretion. The extant evidence reveals that Jesus is imaged, celebrated and worshipped as the divine from a very early period and that in these proclamations Jesus is imaged, celebrated and worshipped as the female divine. Hurtado rightly identifies that hymn and prayer fragments embedded within Second Testament texts provide insight into the christological understandings in the early Jesus movement, and that these practices ran contrary to ‘the norms’ of Jewish culture. Hurtado states, ‘emphasis on Jesus in early Christian worship songs is unprecedented, and constitutes at the least a significant degree of difference from the liturgical practices and pattern characteristic of Jewish groups of the period’.34 Hurtado also acknowledges the Wisdom christology within the liturgical passages that he cites. However, not unlike Ehrman, Hurtado downplays the personhood and ‘womanliness’ of Woman Wisdom even as he acknowledges the Wisdom content of these passages. This is evidenced in Hurtado’s discussion of the creedal fragment in Hebrews: ‘the passage appropriates Jewish Wisdom tradition to assert Jesus’ glorious relationship to God (cf., e.g. Wisd. Sol. 7.22–8.1)’.35 If readers were not familiar with ‘Jewish Wisdom tradition’ they would not know that in this liturgical fragment Jesus is being imaged as the female divine, Woman Wisdom. When Hurtado discusses 1 Cor. 8.6 he points out that ‘Scholars commonly (and cogently) suggest that this reflects an appropriation of biblical/Jewish traditions about God’s Wisdom pictured as God’s companion in creation (Prov 8.22-30; Sir 24.9; Wisd. Sol 7.22; 8.4; 9.9).’36 Here, again, while admitting the priority of Wisdom christology and that Wisdom is ‘God’s companion’, Hurtado refrains from acknowledging that Wisdom is personified as the female divine. Likewise, when Hurtado discusses John’s prologue he states, ‘It is widely thought that the use of the term “Logos” in 1.1-18 was influenced by, and was intended to allude to, biblical and Jewish traditions about God’s Word and Wisdom, sometimes pictured as the uniquely intimate and efficacious agent of divine purposes.’37 Hurtado acknowledges the ‘uniquely intimate’ place of Woman Wisdom in Jewish traditions at the same time as consistently obscuring her personhood and gender. Hurtado and Ehrman are not alone in acknowledging the priority of early church Wisdom christology while simultaneously minimizing the presence of Woman Wisdom and the reality that Jesus is imaged as her. As will be discussed in detail, recent work by David Ford and Paul Fiddes also obscures the presence of Woman Wisdom and early understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom amidst their discussions of the importance of Wisdom christology both in the early church and in contemporary context.38 For some, it may be a startling reality 34. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 149. 35. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 499. 36. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 125 (brackets original). 37. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 367. 38. For example, David Ford, Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, ed. Colin Gunton and Daniel Hardy, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Paul Fiddes, Seeing the World and



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that in Second Testament and early church texts that preserve hymn and prayer fragments from the early Jesus movement, when Jesus is worshipped as a divine being, he is regularly imaged as the female divine. For others, it may be an equally startling reality that scholars continue to minimize this, even as they acknowledge the priority of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in these texts.39 In recent decades feminist scholars have highlighted and begun to explore the presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in Second Testament texts. This is seen in the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth Johnson and others.40 Their work has not only been crucial in the rediscovery of the significant place of Wisdom christology in the early church, it has also contributed to vital and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-Modern Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See Chapter 5. 39. Interestingly, Marcus Borg acknowledges the ‘womanliness’ of Woman Wisdom through his transliteration of Sophia. In a qualified manner he acknowledges early understandings of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom: ‘The use of Sophia imagery to speak of Jesus is early and widespread in the New Testament. In the synoptics, Paul and John, Jesus is spoken of as the child, prophet, and incarnation of divine Sophia’, Marcus Borg in Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 152. As will be discussed in detail in Chapter 2, in Luke’s gospel Jesus is imaged as a child and prophet of Woman Wisdom, however the evidence of other texts indicates that Jesus is predominantly imaged as Woman Wisdom. The strangeness of this early identification of Jesus as the female divine does not appear to strike Borg. Instead, with an emphasis upon Jesus as wise teacher, he argues that: ‘Presumably the historical ground for this is Jesus’ roles as a wisdom teacher and prophet who was also known for inviting all and sundry to banquet with him’, Borg, Meaning of Jesus, p. 152. If Jesus was only, or predominantly, imaged as Woman Wisdom’s prophet or child this explanation would carry weight. However, given that early communities celebrate Jesus as Woman Wisdom, this explanation does not sufficiently account for the paradoxical proclamation that the earthly man Jesus was the incarnation of the female divine. 40. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1990) and Jesus, Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology (London: SCM Press, 1995); Elizabeth Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom of God: A Biblical Basis for Non-Androcentric Christology’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 61 (1985), pp. 261–94 and She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2005, originally published in 1992); Martin Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus (Sheffield: The Sheffield University Press, 1992); Elaine Wainwright, Shall We Look for Another? A Feminist Rereading of the Matthean Jesus (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1998); Sharon Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999); Silvia Schroer, Wisdom has Built Her House: Studies on the Figure of Sophia in the Bible (Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book: Liturgical Press, 2000) and Sandra Schneiders, Written that You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2003). Their work is discussed throughout this research.

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ongoing dialogue about the nature of the divine and gender equality in the church. However, the challenges and insight offered by Jesus-Woman Wisdom do not only disrupt assumptions about divine gender and godly patterns of ecclesiology. Re-engagement with Jesus-Woman Wisdom has far-reaching implications, as demonstrated in the recent work of Denis Edwards and Celia Deane-Drummond in relation to ecology.41 Perhaps it is the expansive implications of this ancient christology and soteriology that has contributed to the ongoing eclipse of JesusWoman Wisdom in theological debate. When the personhood and ‘womanliness’ of Woman Wisdom are acknowledged and it is openly recognized that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, the question that, finally, erupts to the surface is why would early Jesus communities celebrate Jesus in the language and imagery of the female divine? It was once assumed that the linking together of Jesus and Woman Wisdom was attributable to the desire to elevate the earthly Jesus to a divine being.42 However, the reality that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom in earliest preserved expressions of christology – within the hymnic and creedal fragments of the primitive church – indicates that this strange proclamation was being made before any process of christological elevation was supposed to have occurred. The motivations in early Jesus communities for imaging Jesus, a man killed in a state-sanctioned murder, with the figure of divine Woman Wisdom must have been significant, and so compelling, that the cultural patriarchal bias against women was temporarily superseded in order to make way for this paradoxical proclamation. The reasons why this why question has been overlooked in the West are manifold. Habits of seeing, and not seeing, beget themselves. Because JesusWoman Wisdom is commonly obscured in a variety of ways, there has been little space for the strangeness of this paradox to emerge. This question may also have been overlooked because of the ‘silos’ in which academic work often exists. At times, biblical scholarship can remain focused on the texts at hand, to the exclusion of the broader questions that the texts educe. On the other hand, at times, systematic theology can focus on broader theological questions, without maintaining focus on the biblical texts that form the basis of the theological enterprise. This monograph is the fruit of interdisciplinary research across biblical studies and systematic theology: reflexively paying attention to the biblical texts under consideration, as well as other early church texts, and stepping back from these sources in order to attend to the broader questions that they elicit. While there are inherent risks and difficulties in working in this interdisciplinary 41. See Denis Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Ecological Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 1995) and Ecology at the Heart of Faith: The Change of Heart that Leads to a New Way of Living on Earth (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2006); Celia Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) and Creation through Wisdom: Theology and the New Biology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). Edwards and Deane-Drummond’s work is discussed across the chapters that follow. 42. For example Martin Hengel, The Son of God (London: SCM Press, 1976), p. 72. See Chapter 3 below.



The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity

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manner, this approach has created both sufficient depth and space to engage with the immensity of the scandal of the scandal of particularity. Through this process the commonalities in the ignition of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology and the multivalent motivations for the eclipsing of Jesus-Woman Wisdom across the sources have been able to be recognized, mapped and examined. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary approach has enabled some of the potential implications of this ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the contemporary context to be investigated at length. In the chapters that follow, four key movements of exploration are made. Chapter 2 demonstrates and discusses the presence of Woman Wisdom in First Testament, intertestamental, Second Testament, and ‘orthodox’ early church texts composed before the middle of the second century. In order to investigate the various ways in which Woman Wisdom is imaged in First Testament and intertestamental texts four criteria are utilized that examine explicit and implicit references to Woman Wisdom, how Woman Wisdom is imaged in relation to God, and what her role is understood to be, in these texts. The ‘issue’ of Woman Wisdom’s ‘womanliness’ is explored, and the strangeness of the celebration of Woman Wisdom’s divine being in texts of monotheistic Israel is investigated. Second Testament and early church texts are also examined according to a fourfold criterion. This enables identification of explicit and implicit references to Jesus and Woman Wisdom, and investigation of the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology present within many of these texts. Chapter 3 is devoted to the question of why Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and early church texts. By attending to the ways in which Jesus is imaged, celebrated and worshipped as Woman Wisdom across these sources, the common motivation for this early identification emerges. Five shared, significant features of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental texts and Jesus-Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and early church texts, are identified and investigated. Through analysis of these common features it is demonstrated that ongoing, collective transformative experiences within early Jesus communities ignited Wisdom christology and the celebration of a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology. Contemporary bias against religious experience is discussed, and it is demonstrated that this does not justify the denial of the significant place of these claimed experiences in, and for, early Jesus communities.43 Second Testament and early church texts indicate that it was not the select few who were claiming to share in such experiences.44 The sources also demonstrate that these

43. Hurtado and Colleen Shantz rightly identify contemporary bias against religious and ‘mystical’ experiences: Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 64–78 and Colleen Shantz, Paul in Ecstasy: The Neurobiology of the Apostle’s Life and Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 1–60. See Chapter 3 below. 44. In contrast Ehrman suggests that visions – only of the risen Jesus – were likely received by ‘three or four people’, for him this is: ‘Peter, Paul and Mary, as it turns out’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 192.

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experiences were not limited to visions.45 The evidence reveals that early Jesus communities claimed and celebrated that they were sharing in ongoing experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’.46 These transformative experiences not only ignited celebrations and worship of Jesus-Woman Wisdom but also enabled these communities to begin, falteringly, to live in deeply counter-cultural ways. Chapter 4 identifies and investigates the reasons for the veiling of JesusWoman Wisdom in the second and third centuries. Drawing from key writers and texts from this period, it is demonstrated that multivalent motivations led to this eclipsing. These include the patriarchal gender bias, the influences of ‘Gnosticism’ and the impacts of gentile audiences less familiar with Hebrew Woman Wisdom, upon the apologetic imperative. Changing experiences of church in the second and third centuries also contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. By utilizing the fivefold criteria of Chapter 3, alongside investigation of textual evidence from the second and third centuries, it will be demonstrated that as the church became increasingly stratified; in ecclesial structure, in liturgical practices and in patterns of exclusion and inclusion, there was increasingly less room for claimed experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. That is, because early Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology were ignited through transformative experiences, as experiences of church changed, and these earlier experiences were recast as deluded and, at times, heretical, ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were veiled. By osmosis, over time, Jesus communities no longer recognized Jesus-Woman Wisdom in their midst. Chapter 5 explores the potential validity of ‘re-recognizing’ Jesus-Woman Wisdom.47 David Ford’s ‘interrogative field’ provides the framework for this assessment of the faithfulness of ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology.48 Ford’s six interconnecting questions not only test the ‘orthodoxy’ of this understanding of salvation, but also provide the apparatus to test the potential fruitfulness of this ancient understanding in the twenty-first-century. Through this examination the simultaneously faithful and wildly accessible nature of this ancient proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is demonstrated. 45. Again, in contrast Ehrman states: ‘My overarching contention is that belief in the resurrection – based on visionary experiences – is what initially led the followers of Jesus (all of them? some of them?) to believe that Jesus had been exalted to heaven and made to sit at the right hand of God as his unique Son’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 7 (brackets original). While Ehrman states that he is, ‘not going to take a stand on this issue of whether Jesus really appeared to people or whether their visions were hallucinations’ he goes on to do so: ‘I personally do not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and so I do not believe he “appeared” to anyone’, Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 187. 46. The term ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ is employed in order to reflect the descriptions of the kinds of experiences that early Jesus communities repeatedly celebrate. See Chapter 3. 47. By utilizing the unconventional language of ‘re-recognizing’, the reality that JesusWoman Wisdom never completely disappeared is acknowledged. 48. Ford, Self, pp. 5–7.



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The investigation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the early Jesus movement, her veiling in the second and third centuries and her rediscovery in contemporary context is summarized in the conclusion. The book ends with reflections about future fields of exploration that engagement with Jesus-Woman Wisdom continues to invite. The scandal of particularity is not simply that Jesus is understood to be divine. The scandal of the scandal of particularity is that across texts of the early Jesus movement, Jesus is imaged, understood, celebrated and worshipped as the female divine. Ancient proclamations of Jesus-Woman Wisdom disrupt prevalent contemporary assumptions about divine gender and church structure. This scandalous understanding of Jesus’ particularity also shatters well worn, and commonly rejected, understandings of who God is, how God acts and what this might mean for humanity and the very earth. It is this ancient scandalous particularity, which has been veiled by successive generations, that continues to shimmer and overflow with promise, vitality and provocation.

2 I S H E SH E ?

Before investigating the reasons why Woman Wisdom is significant for and understood in relation to Jesus in the early church, her presence in First Testament, intertestamental, Second Testament and ‘orthodox’ Christian texts written before the middle of the second century c.e. will be identified and explored. This investigation necessarily covers a wide range of texts, doing so largely at a level of conceptual association and parallel. Within the constraints of the research every exegetical ambiguity and scholarly debate cannot be adjudicated. Instead the purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the presence of Woman Wisdom in these texts and the use of First Testament and inter­ testamental Wisdom traditions in the development of Second Testament and early Christian christology and soteriology. With regard to First Testament and intertestamental texts the following criteria will be utilized: First, are there explicit references to Woman Wisdom? Second, are there explicit connections made between Woman Wisdom and God? Third, are there implicit connections made between Woman Wisdom and God? Fourth, what is Woman Wisdom’s role in this text? The ‘issue’ of Woman Wisdom’s ‘womanliness’ in these First Testament and intertestamental texts will then be investigated. This will be followed by an exploration of the potential origins and implications of the presence of Woman Wisdom in monotheistic Israel. In the second half of this chapter Second Testament and early church texts that present Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom will be investigated accordingly: First, are there explicit references to Woman Wisdom? Second, are explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom? Third, are implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom? Fourth, are Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology present in the text? This investigation will demonstrate that Woman Wisdom had a significant role in both Jewish and early Christian contexts, and that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology informed the way in which many first Christians understood and proclaimed who Jesus was, what Jesus achieved, and what Jesus was continuing to achieve.

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Woman Wisdom in First Testament and Intertestamental Texts In First Testament traditions, God’s power and presence are at times described through the analogy of ‘fleshly’ features, such as the ‘right hand of the Lord’ (e.g. Pss 89.13; 98.1; 118.15). However the extended treatment of Woman Wisdom across various texts sets her apart.1 In First Testament and intertestamental texts Woman Wisdom is a ‘three-dimensional’ being, described as pre-existent,2 ‘firstborn’ of creation, intimate of God, and, at times, as salvific.3 Within the limitations of this study, questions about the way in which this language functions will be put to one side. To press these sources to explain whether Woman Wisdom was a literary device or was understood as a hypostatic divine being, is to insist that these ancient texts explain themselves according to later categories of debate and runs the risk of misrepresenting them.4 The motivations for the inclusion of Woman Wisdom in various First Testament and intertestamental texts vary. Therefore the ways in which Woman Wisdom is understood in relation to God in these texts also varies.

1. Alice Sinnott points to First Testament and intertestamental texts that indicate elements of personification (e.g. Prov. 20.1, Isa. 58.8) but rightly states the personification of Woman Wisdom: ‘takes on a profound and dynamic character’, Alice Sinnott, The Personification of Wisdom, ed. Margaret Barker, Society for Old Testament Study Monographs (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005), pp. 19–20. 2.  The term pre-existent is used to refer to the repeated description of Woman Wisdom being brought into being before the creation of all things (e.g. Prov. 8.22; Sir. 1.4; Wis. 9.11). 3. Dorothy Lee, Flesh and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002), p. 32. 4. Dunn rightly recognizes the falsity of utilizing fourth-century concepts of hypostasis in order to interpret Hebrew Woman Wisdom. Dunn, Worship Jesus, p. 76 (fn. 43). However, there is insufficient evidence to claim, as Dunn does, that Woman Wisdom ‘was not regarded as a “semi-divine intermediary”’, but was a way of speaking of God’s activity in creation and salvation, Dunn, Worship Jesus, p. 79 (italics original). It cannot be known how (all) Jewish groups regarded Woman Wisdom. What the evidence does demonstrate is that some First Testament and intertestamental texts image Woman Wisdom like God and as a divine being with God. While this may not comply with twenty first-century expectations about ancient Israel, this textual reality should not be minimized. Sinnott explores presentations of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental texts and engages with questions of personification and hypostasis, see Sinnott, Personification, pp. 16–52. However, she minimizes texts in which Woman Wisdom is imaged as acting independently (e.g. Job 28): Sinnott, Personification, pp. 27; 176–7, and argues: ‘one must conclude that personified Wisdom speaks directly of God …’, Sinnott, Personification, p. 178 (italics mine). In some texts Woman Wisdom acts independently and appears to speak as God rather than of God. While this may raise fears of ‘bi-theism’– something that I am not suggesting is indicated by these texts – this textual reality should be acknowledged.



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Job Scholars argue that the personification of Woman Wisdom can be traced in outline in the book of Job.5 In particular, key verses in 28.20 and 28.23 are cited.6 Woman Wisdom may be present in this passage as Job asks, ‘Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?’ (Job 28.20). However, this text does not meet the first criterion identified above, as personified Woman Wisdom is not explicitly named. The wisdom that is spoken of may reflect an emerging understanding of Woman Wisdom or may refer to the attribute of wise knowledge. Likewise, there are no explicit connections made between Woman Wisdom and God. The possibility that there are implicit connections made between Woman Wisdom and God, our third criterion, is strengthened by a passage in Job 15 in which the character Eliphaz asks Job with derision, ‘Are you the first born of the human race? Were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened to the council of God: And do you limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us?’ (Job 15.7-9). The description of a first-born, wise, intimate of God, whom Job is not, bears uncanny resemblance to the self-description of Woman Wisdom’s in Proverbs. Here Woman Wisdom states that she is ‘created at the beginning of his work’ (8.22; see also 23); ‘before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth’ (8.25), and to ‘listen to me … for whoever finds me finds life’ (8.32; 35).7 While not arguing for, or against, textual dependency, the parallel between the portrayal of Woman Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and this description in Job 15 adds weight to the possibility that the author(s) of Job were familiar with understandings of Woman Wisdom that presented her as first-born of creation and intimate of God. In Job 28.25-26 God is described in the act of making creation. Amidst this, God saw and declared wisdom/Woman Wisdom (28.27). Here, an implicit link may be traced between God, creation being brought into being and Woman Wisdom.8 In Job 28, God gives wisdom, or Woman Wisdom, a place (28.27).9 However, God also 5. For discussion of the origins and dating of the book of Job see Norman Habel The Book of Job: A Commentary, ed. Peter Ackroyd et al., The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 40–2. Sinnott, Personification, pp. 89–90. Carol Newsom, ‘The Book of Job: Introduction, Commentary and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. iv (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), pp. 325–6. 6. Roland Murphy, The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1996). pp. 134–35. Johnson, She Who Is, p. 87. Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 21. 7. See Stuart Weeks for further discussion: Stuart Weeks, ‘The Context and Meaning of Proverbs 8.30a’, Journal of Biblical Literature 125, no. 3 (2006), p. 436. 8.  Drawing from Job 15, Norman Habel suggests that Woman Wisdom is present in Job 28, Habel, Book of Job, p. 394. 9. Murphy, Tree of Life, p. 134.

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understands the way to wisdom/Woman Wisdom (28.23) and searches wisdom/ Woman Wisdom out (28.26-27). God’s searching implies the understanding that wisdom/Woman Wisdom is already present.10 Here the paradoxical implication is that wisdom/Woman Wisdom is in need of God’s establishment and that God needs, or desires, the presence of wisdom/Woman Wisdom and thus searches her out. The broader context is that humanity searches for wisdom/Woman Wisdom, and that wisdom/Woman Wisdom is elusive (28.12-13, 20–21).11 This may influence the way in which, even God is imaged as seeking wisdom/Woman Wisdom.12 If Woman Wisdom is present in Job 28, the implicit connection between Woman Wisdom and God could be described as interdependent. Because of the contrasting descriptions of being established and searched for, the role of Woman Wisdom is difficult to designate. When read with Job 15, what is implicitly suggested in Job 28 is that Woman Wisdom was present as creation was brought into being. Other aspects of Woman Wisdom’s role, or perhaps it is more accurate to say Woman Wisdom’s attributes, are that she is elusive (28.13-14, 20–21) precious, and costly (28.15-18). Proverbs Woman Wisdom’s presence is unmistakable in Proverbs.13 There are explicit references to Woman Wisdom in Chapter 1 and these continue through to 10.  As David Clines states: ‘It is perhaps a little strange that the first thing God did with wisdom was to “see” it, for that suggests that wisdom was already existing’, David Clines, Job 21–37, ed. Bruce Metzger et al., World Biblical Commentary, vol. 18A (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), p. 922. Clines points out that this view stands in contrast to Proverbs and rightly states: ‘it is not necessary that Job 28 should agree in all respects with Proverbs, and it may be that here wisdom is regarded as coexisting with God … in which case God’s “seeing” it would make sense as his first act’, Clines, Job, p. 922. Pierre Van Hecke argues that: ‘God is not depicted as the creator of wisdom here. God’s acquaintance with wisdom and his creation took place simultaneously’, Pierre Van Hecke ‘Searching for and Exploring Wisdom: A Cognitive and Semantic Approach to the Hebrew Verb Haqar in Job 28’, Job 28: Cognition in Context, ed. Ellen Van Wolde, Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 64 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 158 (fn. 44). 11. Sinnott, Personification, p. 91. 12. See Van Hecke, ‘Searching for Wisdom’, pp. 158–60. 13.  For discussion of the origins and dating of Proverbs, see R. N. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study, ed. Robert Morgan, History of Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), pp. 1–33. Roland Murphy, Proverbs, ed. Bruce Metzger et al., World Biblical Commentary, vol. 22 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), pp. xx–xxi. Sinnott, Personification, pp. 3–7. Claudia Camp, Wisdom and The Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), pp. 179–208, 233–54. Raymond Van Leeuwen, ‘The Book of Proverbs: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. v (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), pp. 20–1.



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Chapter 9. Woman Wisdom is an authoritative woman who calls out in the street (1.20-21).14 She promises generosity to those who attend to her call (1.23) and warns those who ignore her that they will suffer the consequences of their own choices (1.29-31, see also 1.24-28). Sharing parallels with Job in which wisdom/ Woman Wisdom ‘cannot be exchanged for jewels or fine gold’ (28.17) and ‘the price of wisdom is above pearls’ (28.18), here Woman Wisdom is described as ‘more precious than jewels’ (3.15). In Proverbs Woman Wisdom’s ‘ways are ways of pleasantness’, ‘all her paths are peace’ (3.17) and she is ‘a tree of life’ (3.18). In 8.1-9 Woman Wisdom states, ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. O simple ones learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it. Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right’ (8.4-6). People are to heed her because her words are truth, righteous and they are better than silver or gold (8.2-10). The cosmic nature of Woman Wisdom and her explicit connection with God is celebrated.15 She speaks for herself revealing that she is pre-existent (8.22-23) and this is underscored over several verses (8.22-30). The intimate connection between Woman Wisdom and God is heightened as she is not only presented as dwelling with God (8.27-30), but she also declares that she is the one in whom God delights (8.30). In this text, Woman Wisdom is involved in the forming of creation with God (8.30). Cosmic Woman Wisdom invites all, particularly the simple, to come and find life and insight at her feast (9.1-6). The exact nature of Woman Wisdom’s role in creation in Proverbs is debated. In particular, disputes revolve around 8.30 in which the Hebrew is notoriously ambiguous. Is Woman Wisdom presented as ‘master worker/artisan’ shaping creation or as the ‘little child’ beside God as God creates? Significant theological implications arise from these interpretations: she is either powerful co-creator or infantile spectator. Michael Fox argues for the latter, stating that the problem with understanding Woman Wisdom as ‘artisan’ is that ‘nowhere in Proverbs 8 is Wisdom assigned an active role in creation. On the contrary, in the parallel lines she is said to be playing constantly.’16 Fox’s contention rests upon untested assumptions that what constitutes an ‘active role’ in creation must exclude the role of ‘playing’.17 In contrast Alan Lenzi argues that Proverbs 8.22-31 emerged in response to Mesopotamian myths and thus in Proverbs 8.30 Woman Wisdom is ‘master’.18 Roland Murphy points out: ‘The Wisdom of Solomon solved the 14. Johnson, She Who Is, p. 87. 15.  Ringe argues: ‘From the very outset [of Proverbs], personified Wisdom and YHWH are represented as sharing common authority and responsibility, especially as the giver of life’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 35. 16. Michael Fox, ‘Amon Again’, Journal of Biblical Literature 115, no. 4 (1996) p. 700 (italics original). 17. Alan Lenzi highlights the reality that contemporary Western assumptions regarding play may be misleading. Alan Lenzi, ‘Proverbs 8.22-31: Three Perspectives on Its Composition’, Journal of Biblical Literature 125, no. 4 (2006) pp. 707–9. 18. Lenzi, ‘Proverbs 8.22-31’, p. 714.

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ambiguity by calling her a technitis, or crafts(wo)man (Wis. 7.22; 8.6; 14.2).’19 However, because Woman Wisdom is understood as ‘artisan’ in Wisdom does not prove that she was thus understood in Proverbs 8. This does demonstrate that such an interpretation was valid for those who composed and preserved Wisdom. Stuart Weeks argues that both ‘artisan’ and ‘little child’ are inadequate interpretations.20 Weeks points out that both these interpretations have difficulty in translation, and both fail to take seriously the wider context of verse 30.21 Weeks argues that the intention of verses 22–31 is to convince readers of the reliability of Woman Wisdom. In her speeches in both Chapters 1 and 8 Woman Wisdom has called for all to listen to her. Here Woman Wisdom demonstrates why she is worthy of trust.22 According to Weeks, the presentation of Woman Wisdom does not simply refer to creation in the static past, but rather the purpose is to show that ‘she has been with God throughout the history of the world, and still is. To humans, in whom Wisdom delights, she offers a unique understanding of the divine will, which will enable them to live and prosper with divine favor.’23 Weeks ultimately argues that ‘amon’ is best understood as faithfulness.24 Thus he concludes, ‘The verse is not a cosmological assertion of Wisdom’s intrinsic nature or role at creation, but, like the rest of the poem, it is an assertion of Wisdom’s value and reliability.’25 Weeks’ contextual reading offers an alternative to dominant assumptions and correlates with other aspects of Woman Wisdom’s role in Proverbs. Woman Wisdom is not only presented as the one who was involved in creation in the past, she is presented as the source of life (3.18; 8.35) and as the one who has insight, strength and wisdom (8.14; 9.4-6). While she was involved in creation, Woman Wisdom understands her own role to be active and ongoing, as she continues to seek to share her life-giving gifts with humanity (1.20-23; 8.32-34; 9.3-6). Woman Wisdom is pre-existent and dwells in delighting communion with God and she is also gracious host to humanity in whom she delights. She is the cosmic giver of the transforming feast who sends her servant-girls out to proclaim from the highest places, so that all may hear, that there is space at the table (9.3-5). Like God, in Proverbs, Woman Wisdom offers knowledge, understanding, insight, life and peace (1.23; 2.6; 3.13, 16–18; 8.5-10, 33, 35; 9.5-6), as she speaks, calls, challenges, warns, invites, serves and nourishes.26 19. Roland Murphy ‘Wisdom and Creation’, Journal of Biblical Literature 104, no. 1 (1985), p. 5. 20. Weeks, ‘Context’, pp. 434–5. 21. Weeks, ‘Context’, p. 435. 22. Weeks, ‘Context’, pp. 436–7. 23. Weeks, ‘Context’, p. 438. 24. Weeks, ‘Context’, pp. 440–1. 25. Weeks, ‘Context’, p. 441. 26. Judith McKinlay argues that Proverbs 31 ‘completes the domestication’ of Woman Wisdom, Judith McKinlay Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat and Drink, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 216 (Sheffield:



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Sirach In Sirach there are explicit references to Woman Wisdom.27 Her pre-existence is proclaimed (1.4) and her expansive presence is declared (1.9-10). Explicit connections are made between Woman Wisdom and God: God creates her ‘before all other things’ (1.4, 9) and ‘poured her out upon all his works’ (1.9). Woman Wisdom and God are intimately related: ‘all wisdom is from the Lord’ (1.1) and ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (1.14, see also 16, 18, 20) and she proclaims: ‘I have come from the mouth of the Most High’ (24.3). In many of these depictions Woman Wisdom is presented as passive while it is God who initiates her action and who is to be revered.28 However this is not always the case.29 Woman Wisdom also acts independently: ‘She rained down knowledge and discerning comprehension, and she heightened the glory of those Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 131. However, Proverbs 31 may reflect understandings of God imaged as Woman Wisdom. M. Beth Szlos points out that the woman of worth has unusual power and action, M. Beth Szlos ‘A Portrait of Power: A Literary-critical Study of the Depiction of the Woman in Proverbs 31.10-13’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 54, no. 1–2 (2000), p. 99. Tzvi Novick argues that 31.17 resembles the description of God’s action (Isa. 52.10) and the actions of God’s messenger (Ezek. 4.7). Tzvi Novick ‘She binds her arms: rereading Proverbs 31.17’, Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no. 1 (2009), pp. 112–13. Al Wolters points out that: ‘the Valiant Woman is celebrated in a literary form otherwise reserved for the praise of Yahweh’. Al Wolters ‘Proverbs 31.10-31 As Heroic Hymn: A Form Critical Analysis’, Vêtus Testamentum XXXVIII, no. 4 (1988), p. 456. However he does not discuss the possibility that God may here be imaged as a woman and be the object of praise. 27. Sirach is also known as ‘The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach’, ‘The Wisdom of Ben Sira’, ‘The Wisdom of Bar Sira’ and ‘Ecclesiasticus’. For discussion of origins and dating see Alexander Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A New Translation with Notes, ed. William Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, vol. 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), pp. 8–16. Richard Coggins Sirach, ed. Michael Knibb, Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 18–20. James Crenshaw ‘The Book of Sirach: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. v (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), pp. 606–13. 28. Di Lella argues that: ‘Though Wisdom is personified and has her origin from God (v 3a), she remains nonetheless a creature (cf. v 8ab)’, Di Lella, ‘The Wisdom of Ben Sira’, p. 332. 29. Claudia Camp states: ‘Reading Ben Sira’s wisdom “program” against the backdrop of his concerns with honour, shame and name gives an overall sense of someone trying to control the uncontrollable. Wisdom is both inaccessible (1.1-5) and everywhere (1.9)’, Claudia Camp Ben Sira and the Men who Handle Books: Gender and the Rise of CanonConsciousness, ed., David Clines et al., Hebrew Bible Monographs, vol. 50 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013), p. 141. Interestingly, the characterization of ‘normal’ women in Sirach is often negative (e.g. 22.3b; 25.24; 26.12).

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who held her fast’ (1.19). Likewise, Woman Wisdom invites all to come and eat from her (24.17-22) and promises that ‘those who work with me will not sin’ (24.22). In Sirach Woman Wisdom shares life-giving knowledge (1.19; 14.20-21; 24.22; 51.26) and brings rest and joy (6.27-28). Her fetters bring defence (6.29) and her yoke, a term associated with slavery or burden, is a golden ornament (6.30). In Jewish tradition the yoke is associated with Torah,30 and this provides a clue to the ways in which Woman Wisdom is imaged later in Sirach. Woman Wisdom is presented as the one who shelters and protects (14.26-27). She is imaged as a mother (15.2) and bride (15.2), who feeds with ‘the bread of learning’ (15.3) and who gives the ‘water of wisdom to drink’ (15.3). She is the source of support, exaltation and gladness (15.4-6). In a similar manner to Proverbs 8, Woman Wisdom speaks for herself, proclaiming her exalted status in the heavenly courts (24.3). She is the one who is enthroned in the highest heavens, and through her vastness, is also able to traverse the abyss (24.3-5).31 Following this declaration Woman Wisdom recalls that she is commanded by the Most High to encamp with Israel (24.8). Here, the author links Woman Wisdom with the tabernacle, the holy tent in which God was encountered in the wilderness.32 From within this context she invites all who desire her to come and feast on her fruits (24.19-21). Like Proverbs 9, an integral part of Woman Wisdom’s role is to offer the nourishing feast. However there is a significant difference between these texts. Despite the vast scope of depictions of Woman Wisdom in Sirach, the image of Woman Wisdom making camp with humanity becomes specifically understood in relation to the gift of Torah (24.23).33 This understanding may also be reflected in the concluding chapter.34 While in Sirach Woman Wisdom’s expansive presence is initially celebrated, she is ultimately drawn down into one context, that of the law.

30. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison state: ‘Jewish teachers commonly spoke of the yoke of the Torah’, W. D Davies and D. C Allison, Matthew 8–18, The International Critical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (London: T&T Clark International, 1991), p. 289. 31.  McKinlay notes that scholars attribute this chapter to various influences and rightly concludes: ‘… whether or not the literary form is to be identified with such parallels [Near Eastern traditions] there is little doubt that the imagery here, as in Proverbs, draws on long and deeply rooted traditions’, McKinlay, Gendering, pp. 135–6. 32. Di Lella, ‘The Wisdom of Ben Sira’, p. 333. Crenshaw, ‘The Book of Sirach’, p. 757. 33. Murphy, Tree of Life, p. 139. Johnson, She Who Is, p. 89. 34. Here the invitation is made again to take on Woman Wisdom’s yoke (51.26) and may underscore her relationship to Torah.



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Baruch In the book of Baruch there are explicit references to Woman Wisdom.35 She appears within the wider context of Israel’s misfortune (3.9–4.3) and the text declares that the people are suffering (3.10-11) because they have ‘forsaken the fountain of wisdom’ (3.12). The people are implored to ‘Learn where there is wisdom’ (3.14). The text then asks: ‘Who has found her place? And who has entered her storehouses?’ (3.15), and goes on to list those who have perished, including the giants of old, because they do not have wisdom (3.26-28). Following this, Woman Wisdom is described in cosmic terms: ‘Who has gone up into heaven and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds: Who has gone over the sea, and found her, and will buy her for pure gold?’ (3.29-30). This cosmic portrayal shares symmetry with other Woman Wisdom texts, however this depiction may be utilized in order to link her with Torah.36 There are explicit connections made between Woman Wisdom and God. Only God knows Woman Wisdom and ‘found her by his understanding’ (3.32). The imagery of God finding Woman Wisdom bears resemblance to Job 28.27.37 Ultimately in Baruch the role of Woman Wisdom is explicitly linked with Torah, ‘She is the book of the commandments of God, the law that endures for ever …’ (4.1). Murphy states that this is a ‘strange’ identification and one that: ‘… is not a conclusion that a reader of Prov. 1–9 and Job 28 would have anticipated’.38 However, contextually, this conclusion may make sense. At the outset the author(s) identify lack of Torah observance as the central reason for the troubles that the people are now enduring (1.15-22; 2.10; 3.9; 4.1-2). In Baruch Woman Wisdom is not the focus. Law observance is, and she is utilized to advocate for this purpose.39

35. This text is also called 1 Baruch. For a discussion of origins and dating see Sinnott, Personification, pp. 89–91. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 39. Anthony Saldarini ‘The Book of Baruch: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. vi (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), p. 931. For a reconstruction of the Hebrew and new translation of the text see Emanuel Tov, The Book of Baruch, ed. Robert Kraft, Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Pseudepigrapha Series, Texts and translations 8, Pseudepigrapha Series 6 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975). 36.  These questions echo the language of Deut. 30.12, 13-14 that focuses on the law and may highlight understandings of Woman Wisdom in relation to Torah. In Romans, Paul re-uses the same imagery of Deut. 30.12 and Bar. 3.29, in order to speak of the closeness, not of the law, but of Christ (Rom. 10.6-10). 37.  In Baruch 3.32 and Job 28.27 the implication is that Woman Wisdom is independent of, and sought out by, God. Saldarini seeks to account for God’s searching: ‘the finding of the way of knowledge is less a search and more a recognition that God and knowledge/ wisdom are one and the same’, Saldarini, ‘The Book of Baruch’, p. 968. 38. Murphy, Tree of Life, p. 141. 39. Sinnott, Personification, pp. 93–8.

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Wisdom of Solomon There are explicit references to Woman Wisdom in Wisdom and in this text she has a pivotal role.40 She emerges as a ‘kindly spirit’ (1.6) and is described as ‘radiant and unfailing’ and ‘easily discerned by those who love her’ (6.12). As in Proverbs, Woman Wisdom ‘hastens to make herself known to those who desire her … for she will be found sitting at the gate’ (6.13-14; Prov. 8.1-3).41 The effusive descriptions of Woman Wisdom, and her active, saving role, populate Chapters 7 through to 11. Here Woman Wisdom is cosmic: the first-born of creation and with God in the bringing forth of creation (9.9). She is ‘all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle. For Wisdom is more mobile than any motion because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things’ (7.23b-23). Woman Wisdom ‘is more beautiful than the sun’ (7.29). Explicit connections are made between Woman Wisdom and God. Woman Wisdom ‘is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of God’ (7.25), ‘she is a reflection of eternal light … and an image of his goodness’ (7.26).42 As Murphy states, ‘The general image is a sort of radiation from the divinity … she is the outflowing of divine glory, which is usually conceived of as light or fire’.43 The love between Woman Wisdom and God is also explicit: ‘She glorifies her noble birth by living with God, and the Lord loves her’ (8.3). She is both connected with, and acts independently of, God: she ‘is an initiate in the knowledge of God, and an associate in his works’ (8.4). Woman Wisdom is not only the companion whom God loves, but also the intermediary through whom God is made known to humanity (e.g. 7.27; 9.10). While Woman Wisdom is presented in relation to Torah (6.18), she is not equated with the Torah.44 Instead, she is cosmic and her role defies boundaries. The extraordinary breadth of Woman Wisdom’s power and presence are celebrated: 40. For discussion of origins and dating see David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Comments, ed. William Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, vol. 43 (New York: Doubleday, 1979), pp. 20–5. Michael Kolarcik, ‘The Book of Wisdom: Introduction, Commentary and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. v (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), p. 439. 41. Gathering at the gate was a male prerogative, so this invitation may have been extended to only half the population. However, the author/s goes on to emphasize that Woman Wisdom’s inclusion transcends geographic, temporal and gender boundaries as she is described as the one who is to be found in the inner being of those who seek her (6.16). 42. Sinnott rightly states: ‘Here Wisdom becomes as an expression of God to human beings … an emanation of divine attributes’, Sinnott, Personification, p. 156. 43. Murphy, Tree of Life, p. 144. 44. Winston also highlights this contrast between Wisdom and Sirach, Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, pp. 42–3.



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‘she can do all things’ (7.27), ‘she is the ‘renewer of all things’ (7.27) and she saves (10.1-11.3).45 In this text Woman Wisdom is simultaneously cosmic and intimate: she is ‘radiant and unfading’ (6.12), ‘reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other’ (8.1) and simultaneously she makes people into friends with God (7.27).

The ‘Issue’ of Woman Wisdom’s Womanliness The exalted presence of Woman Wisdom in the patriarchal context in which First Testament and intertestamental texts emerged is intriguing. It is argued by some that her presence is the result of patriarchal agendas.46 In Proverbs, Woman Wisdom is set in contrast with the loud, lewd, foolish woman (7.6-27; 9.13-18). Implied readers are invited to choose between these extreme women who, paradoxically, both offer bread (9.5, 17) and are found in the streets or market places (1.20-21; 7.12).47 This gives rise to creative tension and reflects the difficulty for readers in discerning the ‘right’ path in life. It is commonly argued that the context for this comparison is the implied audience of a young man, who is being encouraged to make the prudent choice, and desire the ‘right’ woman (see Prov. 7.1-5). McKinlay argues that within this textual construct, young men are encouraged into: ‘viewing women either as the symbolically desirable who open up heaven and mediate its delights to the world of humankind, or as the seductively dangerous “strangers” to be avoided at any cost’.48 McKinlay claims that within this patriarchal rendering, ‘For women this is a requirement to read against themselves; in such a reading it is indeed the text that is deceptive.’49 While the text does present these two extreme women, a third woman is present in Proverbs 1–9 and she adds complexity to interpretation. In Proverbs the child is told to adhere to the mother’s teaching (6.20) that is described as ‘light’ (6.23). It is stated that by binding to the heart the mother’s teaching, together with the father’s commandment, the child will find leading, protection and counsel 45. Woman Wisdom delivers from transgression (10.1), saves (10.4) and rescues (10.6, 9). She shows ‘the kingdom of God’ and gives knowledge (10.10), protects and keeps safe from enemies (10.12). She gives victory (10.12) and does not desert the righteous but delivers them from sin and those who oppress (10.13, 15). She guides, shelters (10.17), and opens the mouths of the mute (10.21). Woman Wisdom quenches thirst (11.4). Winston states: ‘As the Divine Mind immanent within the universe and guiding and controlling all its dynamic operations … she is synonymous with Divine Providence, controlling historical events, and in each generation guiding the friends of God and inspiring his prophets’ (7.27, 14.3), Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, p. 42. 46. McKinlay claims that Proverbs is: ‘a text written by men for men’, McKinlay, Gendering, p. 85. Ringe states that Woman Wisdom is ‘a man’s woman’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 31. 47. Camp, Wisdom, p. 118. 48. McKinlay, Gendering, p. 99. 49. McKinlay, Gendering, p. 99.

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(6.21-22). The child is called to ‘keep my commandments’ (7.2) referencing the father’s commands (6.20), in the following line it is stated ‘keep my teachings’ (7.2) equally referencing the mother’s teaching (6.20).50 Reading contextually it becomes clear that the implied voice is not necessarily the father but equally may be the mother.51 While Proverbs does present the contrast between the very good and the very bad woman, perhaps for its implied young male audience, these two women are not the only women in the text. There is also the wise, teaching mother who stands between them.52 Her inclusion may be yet another construct created to serve patriarchal agendas. However, the presence of this teaching mother challenges the claim that in Proverbs there is only the ‘symbolically desirable who opens up heaven’ or the ‘seductively dangerous’ woman, and thus that ‘women are required to read against themselves’.53 In Proverbs there is also the wise mother, a third, authoritative woman, whose teaching gives light. A final observation regarding the ‘womanliness’ of Woman Wisdom is warranted. It is reasonable to assume that the people of Israel were exposed to images of, and ideas about, female deities from competing faith traditions. As will be discussed below, some argue that the popularity of these goddesses influenced the emergence of Woman Wisdom. Whether this is the case or not, images of the female divine were likely more familiar and less shocking in this ancient Jewish context than they are in contemporary, post-Christendom, Western culture.

Why is Woman Wisdom Present in Texts of Monotheistic Israel? The texts of Job, Proverbs, Sirach, Baruch and Wisdom demonstrate that Woman Wisdom was significant for at least some within the Jewish tradition before, and perhaps after, the Common Era.54 The potential origins of, and motivations for, 50. Camp points out: ‘The mother’s equality with the father in the handing down of wisdom is repeatedly emphasized by parallelism (1.8; 4.1-3; 6.20; 10.1; 15.20; 23.22-25)’, Camp, Wisdom, p. 82. 51. Schüssler Fiorenza obscures this textual reality, stating that in Proverbs Wisdom emerges ‘… for the most part in a body of literature articulated either in the form of instructions of a father for his son or as a fictive address to a young king’. She thus claims: ‘Hence, it is safe to assume that Jewish Wisdom literature was shaped to serve the kyriarchal interests of elite men’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s, p. 132. Schüssler Fiorenza’s omission of the wise mother reveals that it is not ‘safe’ to make such assumptions. 52. Camp rightly observes that in Proverbs: ‘where mother imagery occurs, the connotation is neither biological nor theological but rather educational’ and that there is a ‘complete lack of mother imagery applied to personified Wisdom and to the woman of worth’, Camp, Wisdom, pp. 81–2. Proverbs presents an understanding of women who have, and wield, authority that is not dependent upon the control and use of their bodies by men. 53. McKinlay, Gendering, p. 99. 54. Woman Wisdom also appears in apocalyptic texts, including Enochian literature, see 1 Enoch 42.



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the presentation and celebration of Woman Wisdom in these texts of monotheistic Judaism continue to be debated. The varying portrayals of Woman Wisdom across these texts, demonstrates that motivations were diverse.55 For some decades it has been common to assume that Woman Wisdom emerged as a way of countering the popularity of goddess worship within other faith traditions surrounding Israel.56 In particular, the widely popular cult of Isis is seen as a trigger point.57 In contrast Judith McKinlay argues that Woman Wisdom may have more in common with the mysterious figure of Asherah, a female cultic figure whom some find in First Testament texts.58 McKinlay suggests that Woman Wisdom: ‘comes into use as the result of a convergence of Asherah, the divine consort of Yahweh, once or possibly even still known and worshipped in the cult, with Yahweh’.59 The similarities and dissimilarities in these positions are immediately obvious. Woman Wisdom is cast either as a creative, albeit reactive, response to external foreign pressure, or Woman Wisdom emerges from within Israel’s own, ultimately suppressed, worship practices, shaped and honed into a culturally ‘legitimate’ expression of faith. The reality of a female divine figure within the pages of monotheistic Judaism appears to drive the majority of scholars to assume that Woman Wisdom must have come from somewhere else.60 The influences of both external and internal goddess worship may have contributed to the presence of Woman Wisdom in Jewish texts. However the lack of clear 55. Lenzi, ‘Proverbs 8.22-31’, p. 690. 56. Sinnott and Camp each provide overviews of this scholarly position: Sinnott, Personification, pp. 5–7; 34–52; Camp, Wisdom, pp. 21–70. See further Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 30. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 52. Richard Clifford ‘Introduction to Wisdom Literature’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. v (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), p. 13. 57. Johnson states: ‘The cult of Hellenized Isis was experienced as a temptation to Jews to turn from the traditional faith of their ancestors …There is very little doubt among scholars that Jewish authors both at home and abroad transferred characteristics of the mighty Isis to the figure of personified Wisdom in a creative effort to counteract the religiously attractive deity’, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 269. See also Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s, p. 137. Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 32. 58.  Highlighting texts such as 2 Kgs 23.7 and Jer. 7.18; 44.17, 19, McKinlay suggests that these texts indicate the ‘special and ongoing place for this goddess symbol [Asherah] within the lives of Israelite women’, McKinlay, Gendering, pp. 32–3. McKinlay acknowledges the ambiguous nature of texts regarding Asherah but argues that this ambiguity suggests that Asherah worship existed and is being silenced within the redactive processes of the composition, McKinlay, Gendering, p. 32, for further information see pp. 17–37. 59. McKinlay, Gendering, p. 36. 60. Likewise Martin Scott argues: ‘… Sophia’s gender was the single most important factor in her selection as a personification of God’s appeal to men in the book of Proverbs. The gender of the Hebrew word (as also the Greek) allowed for the possibility of giving to Sophia attributes otherwise associated with the goddess of the ancient Near Eastern fertility cults, yet without infringing on monotheism.’ Scott, Sophia, p. 242 (italics original).

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evidence about Woman Wisdom’s origins requires that assumptions that she came from elsewhere be re-investigated. Claudia Camp is right to state that if her origins were based purely in response to foreign goddesses this was ‘a risky way at best’ to proceed in monotheistic Israel: ‘especially given female Wisdom’s virtual usurpation of Yahweh’s prerogatives’.61 There is insufficient evidence to assert with confidence that Woman Wisdom emerged in reaction to the popularity of foreign goddesses or from within suppressed Jewish goddess worship practices.62 More is gained by attending to the textual reality of the presence of Woman Wisdom in these First Testament and intertestamental texts than by seeking to find origins beyond these texts that, perhaps inadvertently, have the effect of explaining Woman Wisdom away. Utilizing the tools of literary criticism, Camp argues that traces of the origins of Woman Wisdom in the book of Proverbs can be detected most fruitfully within, rather than beyond, the text. Camp sees clues to Woman Wisdom’s origins in the text’s imaging of women.63 Utilizing a whole text approach, Camp points out that in this source women of authority appear,64 and argues that Israel’s own ‘multifaceted experience of women and male-female relationships’ informed the presentation of Woman Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9.65 In particular, Camp argues that the role of wife as a counsellor to her husband was significant within Israel, and points out that this runs parallel to the role of counsellors to kings.66 Rather than making an argument from external historical possibilities, Camp points to the broad historical context of these texts in post-exilic Israel.67 She proposes that the rising emergence of Woman Wisdom correlated with the loss of the king and, therefore his royal counsellor, in Israel. As the centre of faith returned from the court to the home, the importance of the other model of counsellor, wife to husband, grew.68 As Camp states, ‘…Israel’s experience of women, both actually and symbolically, thus helps to render Wisdom’s claims about her role in society and her relationship to Yahweh emotionally convincing’.69 This perspective does not explain the emphasis upon the pre-existent and cosmic nature of Woman Wisdom in Proverbs. Yet, Camp’s proposal that Woman Wisdom emerged from within Israel’s own experience of authoritative women who provided counsel to 61. Camp, Wisdom, p. 28. 62. Likewise Sinnott, Personification, p. 52. 63. Camp, Wisdom, pp. 79ff. 64. Camp states: ‘…the book of Proverbs provides us with the clearest picture of the authority of women and their equality with men in the instruction of children, both youngsters and as young adults … (1.20-21; 8.1-3, 14-16; 31.13, 14, 18, 20, 24)’, Camp, Wisdom, p. 82. 65. Camp, Wisdom, pp. 69ff. 66. Camp, Wisdom, pp. 88, 93. 67.  Raymond Van Leeuwen states in relation to Proverbs: ‘… the first nine chapters and the thirty-first chapter are usually dated in the early Persian period, after the return from the Babylonian exile (583 b.c.e.)’. Van Leeuwen, ‘The Book of Proverbs’, pp. 20–1. 68. Camp, Wisdom, p. 265. 69. Camp, Wisdom, p. 264.



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men, provides an important counterpoint to assumptions that Woman Wisdom must have emerged from somewhere else.70 Furthermore, Camp’s recognition of the place of experience aligns with the ignition of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the early church, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 3. The question of why Woman Wisdom is celebrated in cosmic, pre-existent, and salvific terms within the context of monotheistic Israel will, no doubt, continue to energize theological debate. However, at the least, texts such as Proverbs and Wisdom reveal that for the authors and/or final redactors of these texts, celebrating Woman Wisdom as pre-existent, involved in creation and the intimate of God, who renews and orders all things, who saves and gives life, understanding and true nourishment, did not present a threat to their understanding of monotheism. As Denis Edwards highlights, ‘there is no evidence that the biblical writers thought of themselves as introducing a second deity into the tradition of Israel. There was no sense of conflict with Jewish monotheism and no alternative cult of Sophia.’71 Despite contemporary assumptions, the space granted to the celebration of Woman Wisdom in these texts indicates that her inclusion was not only seen as acceptable, but beneficial, to understandings of the Most High, creation and salvation. By mapping the presence of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental texts her significance is demonstrated and common features of her personification begin to emerge. As will be explicated below, these understandings of Woman Wisdom were a resource in early christology and soteriology as evidenced in Second Testament and early church texts.

Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and Early Christian Texts A variety of Second Testament and early Christian texts speak of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom, here only commonly accepted ‘orthodox’ texts composed before the middle of the second century c.e. will be considered.72 First Corinthians In 1 Corinthians Paul declares that ‘Christ is the power and the wisdom of God’ (1.24).73 Paul’s declaration that Jesus is the w/Wisdom of God makes an implicit 70. Sinnott also argues that the context of the Babylonian exile contributed to the inclusion of Woman Wisdom. This view shares aspects in common with Camp, but rather than emphasizing the role of women in this context, Sinnott argues more generally that: ‘Personified Wisdom was a response to the crisis following the events of 587 BCE …’, Sinnott, Personification, p. 86. 71. Edwards, Jesus, the Wisdom, p. 32. 72. The term ‘orthodox’ indicates texts that are indisputably recognized as faithful, non-heretical sources from the early Jesus movement. 73. For discussion of the origins and dating of 1 Corinthians see Raymond F. Collins ‘First Corinthians’, Sacra Pagina, ed., Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville, MN: A Michael

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connection between Jesus and Woman Wisdom, meeting the third criterion.74 His statement may also furnish evidence of an explicit reference to Woman Wisdom, the first criterion. If this is the case the second criterion is also fulfilled, as thus there is an explicit connection between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. However, the way in which w/Wisdom is intended to be understood in this text is a matter of dispute.75 Paul may be stating that God’s wise ways are reflected in Jesus enduring this death.76 Or Paul may be stating that Christ is pre-existent Woman Wisdom, whose wisdom and power are revealed in ways that stand in contradiction to worldly wisdom and power, as s/he endures the scandal of the cross.77 The Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 1999), p. 24; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Commentaries, ed. Henry Chadwick, Black’s New Testament (London: A&C Black, 1994), pp. 1–17; Hans Conzelmann, I Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. James Leitch, ed. George MacRae, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), pp. 2–5. 74. ‘w/Wisdom’ is utilized to acknowledge the ambiguity surrounding Paul’s use of the term. 75. Johnson provides a brief summary of various positions, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 277. See also Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 73. 76.  See J. Paul Sampley, ‘The First Letter to the Corinthians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. x (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), p. 812. Hans Conzelman recognizes the christological import of this passage and rejects the notion that the wisdom spoken of is ‘a new attitude of mind in which man after all can gain direct insight into the divine wisdom’. However, he asserts that the conjunction of wisdom and power of God ‘shows that here “wisdom” is not a hypostasis but a conceptual term’, Conzelman, 1 Corinthians, p. 48. The reality that Paul uses the term power alongside w/Wisdom is not necessarily problematic when it is considered that Woman Wisdom is described as ‘breath of the power of God’ (Wis. 7.25). Conzelman notes this verse in his footnotes (84). The language of ‘hypostasis’ unhelpfully inserts a category of later thinking over Paul’s description of Jesus and assists in distancing Paul from his claims. It is difficult to imagine that Paul is celebrating Jesus as Wisdom as a ‘conceptual term’, for according to Paul in this passage, Jesus is God’s w/ Wisdom who embodies and actualizes salvation: ‘He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us w/Wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1.30). 77.  C. K. Barrett highlights the popularity of Woman Wisdom in ‘Jewish speculation’ in the Common Era and that: ‘Wisdom was thus a term that lay ready to hand for Christological purposes, and Paul uses it … by appropriating to Christ functions and predicates which in Judaism had been ascribed to Wisdom’, Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 60. Barrett argues that: ‘Christ crucified himself becomes the personal figure of Wisdom, God’s agent in creation (cf. viii 6), but especially (as far as the present passage is concerned) God’s means of restoring men to himself ’, Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 60 (brackets original). See also Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, pp. 277–8; Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 149–50; Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 73. Rodrigo Morales argues that there is evidence in 1 Corinthians of links with the Wisdom of Solomon in particular in



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ambiguity about what Paul is explicitly claiming in this passage is compounded by the assumption that there is a division in Paul’s thinking between the cross, creation and Jesus-Woman Wisdom.78 Paul understands these elements together: Jesus Christ ‘became for us wisdom/Woman Wisdom from God’ and Jesus who is wisdom/Woman Wisdom is ‘righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1.30).79 An important aspect of Wisdom soteriology, as reflected here, is the understanding of the divine enduring rather than inflicting violence in order to save.80 The likelihood that Paul is connecting Jesus with Woman Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1.23-24 and 30 is strengthened in view of 1 Cor. 8.6. In the midst of discussion of monotheism and idols, Paul proclaims Jesus Christ’s pre-existence and pivotal role in creation: ‘yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist’ (1 Cor. 8.6). The brevity of this extraordinary statement belies Paul’s assumption that the community in Corinth is not relation to 1 Cor. 2.6-7. In his investigation he notes that it is therefore possible that Paul sees Christ as personified Wisdom, Rodrigo Morales ‘The Spirit, the Righteous Sufferer, and the Mysteries of God: Echoes of Wisdom in 1 Corinthians’, Biblische Zeitschrift 54. no. 1 (2010), p. 66 (fn. 53). 78. Conzelmann’s discussion of 1 Cor. 1.30 reveals this assumption, Conzelmann, I Corinthians, p. 52. This dualistic thinking is also evidenced in the work of Richard Horsley. By reading 1 Corinthians through Philo as well as ‘Gnostic’ traditions (the problematic nature of so called ‘Gnostic’ sources will be discussed in Chapter 4) Horsley asserts knowledge of Paul’s opponents in Corinth and argues that: ‘it is quite clear … that Paul is rejecting wisdom of word as well as wisdom as the means of salvation’, Richard Horsley, Wisdom and Spiritual Transcendence at Corinth: Studies in First Corinthians (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2008), p. 27 (italics original). Horsley makes these claims without adequately addressing the reality that while Paul criticizes those who are asserting themselves as ‘wise’, ultimately for Paul, Christ is the power and w/Wisdom of God (1.24). Instead he asserts than when Paul criticizes the ‘wisdom of men’ these are ‘rather polemical references’ to ‘derogate’ ‘the heavenly Sophia’, Horsley, Wisdom and Spiritual, p. 35. Exemplifying this dualistic thinking, Horsley goes on to claim, without adequate justification, that ‘Paul rejects the sophia as the means of salvation (1.21-24) by replacing it with the crucified Christ as the true “power” and “wisdom” of God’, Horsley, Wisdom and Spiritual, p. 36. In contrast, in Morales’ investigation of Wisdom and 1 Corinthians he rightly identifies the common theme of the ‘righteous sufferer’ in both Wisdom material and Paul, see Morales, ‘The Spirit, the Righteous’, p. 72. 79. As Edwards rightly states: ‘The Pauline structure of thought is that the wisdom of God revealed in creation is now revealed in a staggering way in the cross of Jesus’, Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 73. Deane-Drummond also emphasizes the priority of reading the cross, Jesus and Woman Wisdom together, Deane-Drummond, Creation, pp. 52–9; see also William Gray, ‘Wisdom Christology in the New Testament’, Theology 89, no. 732 (1986), pp. 455–7 and Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 60. 80. See Chapter 3.

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only familiar with, but also holds these convictions.81 There are implicit connections with Woman Wisdom in this cosmic proclamation of who Jesus is. Central to descriptions of Woman Wisdom is the understanding that she was prior to creation (e.g. Prov. 8.22-31; Sir. 1.4; 24.3-5, 9; Wis. 9.9) and that she sustains and infuses creation (e.g Prov. 3.19; 8.30-31; Sir. 1.9-10; 24.3; Wis. 7.24, 27; 8.1, 4). Paul’s dramatic claims rely on Wisdom christology.82 Second Corinthians In 2 Corinthians Paul continues to make implicit connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom, stating that Jesus Christ ‘is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4.4) and that ‘the glory of God’ is found ‘in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4.6).83 Woman Wisdom is described as ‘a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty’ (Wis. 7.25) and ‘a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness’ (Wis. 7.26). As C. K. Barrett states, Paul ‘uses the concept of Wisdom as the means by which the unknown God is revealed’.84 Furthermore, 81. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 125. Ehrman suggests this may incorporate a pre-Pauline creed: Ehrman, How Jesus, p. 268. 82. As Johnson points out: ‘through evocative use of the Jewish wisdom tradition, Paul was making the point that the same divine Wisdom active in the creating and saving ordering of the world is present in a definitive way in Jesus’, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 277. See also Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 125; Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, pp. 77–8 and Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 193. Barrett argues that Paul is claiming that something more is intended here: ‘which is indeed independent of Wisdom and Torah speculation’. He goes on to state: ‘Jesus Christ is the divine agent in whose action God is perceived; he would be visible in his work of creation were it not that creation had been defaced’, Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 193. However, Paul’s imaging of Jesus as Woman Wisdom may include the understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the ‘divine agent in whose action God is perceived’ in both creation and redemption. Furthermore, the extent of creation’s ‘defacing’ (and God’s inaccessibility within that) is ambiguous in Paul’s writing as reflected in Rom. 1.20 in which Paul asserts that people can still gain access to God in creation and within their own hearts, see also Rom 2.14-15. Scholars also point to 1 Cor. 10 as further evidence of Paul identifying Jesus and Woman Wisdom as the ‘rock’. See Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 149–50 and Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Wisdom as Nourisher: A Study of an Old Testament Theme, its Development Within Early Judaism and its Impact on Early Christianity, Acta Academiae Aboensis, Series A, Humaniora, vol. 64/3 (Abo: Abo Akademi, 1987), pp. 161–72. 83.  For discussion of the origins and dating of 2 Corinthians see Jan Lambrecht, Second Corinthians, ed. Daniel Harrington, Sacra Pagina, vol. 8 (Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 6–9. Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, vol. 32A (New York: Doubleday, 1984), p. 55. 84. C. K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Commentaries, ed. Henry Chadwick, Black’s New Testament (London: A&C Black, 1986), p. 133. See also M. E.



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it is likely that a chapter earlier, when Paul discusses the Jesus community ‘seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror’ (3.18), it is not only that Paul is referencing Moses, but is also imaging Jesus as Woman Wisdom.85 Paul not only utilizes Wisdom christology in order to proclaim who Jesus is. On a conceptual level Paul celebrates what Jesus achieves through Wisdom soteriology. He states: ‘For it is God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4.6). Paul is claiming here that something has happened within the hearts of his implied readers, and within his own heart.86 They have experienced inner divine illumination. Woman Wisdom is described as the radiant light of God (Wis. 6.12; 7.25, 26), who is ‘more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars’ (Wis. 7.29).87 She is celebrated as the one who makes God’s ways known to humanity (Prov. 8.32-35; 9.4-6; Sir. 1.9, 19; Wis. 9.9-11) and who ‘will come into your heart’ (Prov. 2.10), who ‘meets them Thrall, 2 Corinthians: 1–7, ed. J. A. Emerton et al., The International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, vol. 1 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 310. Margaret Thrall also points out that, simultaneously, Paul may have in mind Jesus as Adam: ‘Therefore it is very probable that in describing Christ as the image of God, Paul thinks of him both as the embodiment of the figure of Wisdom and as the prototype of new humanity’, Thrall, 2 Corinthians, p. 310. While Ralph Martin recognizes links between this description of Jesus and the Colossians hymn, he does not point out the links to Woman Wisdom in both passages: Ralph Martin, 2 Corinthians, ed. David Hubbard et al., World Biblical Commentary, vol. 40 (Waco: Word Books, 1986), p. 79. 85. Raymond Collins also highlights that in 2 Cor. 3.18 the language reflects descriptions of Woman Wisdom in Wis. 7.25-26 and ‘seems to depend on Jewish Wisdom tradition’, Raymond Collins, Second Corinthians, ed. Mikeal Parsons et al., Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), p. 92. 86. Despite Paul’s plural language it is commonly argued that here Paul is referring to his own ‘Damascus’ experience. See Thrall, 2 Corinthians: 1–7, p. 298; Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, ed. Gordon Fee, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), p. 224. This assumption relies on the text of Acts (9.1–19), and uses its narrative construction of Paul’s ‘conversion’ experience to read against the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians. See further Thrall, 2 Corinthians: 1–7, pp. 316–18. This assumption takes insufficient account of Paul’s claims a few verses earlier that ‘all of us’ are ‘being transformed into the same image’ (3.18) and the various Pauline passages in which Paul assumes that the Jesus community is directly experiencing spiritual gifts and transformation in Christ (e.g. 1 Cor. 12.28-31; 14.12-13; Gal. 5.22-25). While Barnett also assumes that here Paul refers to the ‘Damascus’ experience, he does allow that Paul’s ‘unique … inner enlightenment of the heart also describes the illumination of all who receive the gospel message’, Barnett, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 224. See Chapter 3. 87. The text continues: ‘Compared with the light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail’ (Wis. 7.29-30). This claim shares resonance with Jn 1.4-5.

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in every thought’ (Wis. 7.16) and that ‘she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God’ (Wis. 7.27). In 2 Cor. 4.4-6 Paul utilizes Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology to proclaim that through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, God who spoke the first light of creation into being – in Wisdom texts with Woman Wisdom at God’s side – is now illuminating Jesus communities with the knowledge of God in their inner beings.88 Colossians Within Colossians an extract from early Christian worship is included (1.15-20).89 This passage is thought to predate the composition of Colossians and reflects a hymn about Jesus from early Jesus communities.90 In the Colossians hymn there are not explicit references to Woman Wisdom and there are no explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. However there are implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. Jesus is celebrated as the image, εἰκὼν, of the invisible God (1.15; as 2 Cor. 4.4), as the first-born of creation (1.15) and the one through whom ‘all things’ in heaven and earth have been created (1.16) and hold together (1.17). Likewise Woman Wisdom is described as an image, εἰκὼν, of God’s goodness (Wis. 7.26; also 25), first-born of creation (Prov. 8.22-30; Sir. 1.4; 24.9; Wis. 9.9) and she is repeatedly imaged as cosmic birther, infuser and sustainer of creation (Prov. 3.19; 8.30-31; Sir. 1.9-10; 24.3; Wis. 7.22; 8.4) and of ‘all things’ (Wis. 7.24, 27; 8.1).91 In the Colossians hymn Wisdom 88. Barrett recognizes that: ‘Paul still has in mind the theme of Christ as the Wisdomimage of God (cf. verse 4); this facilitates the comparison between the first creation and the new creation’, Barrett, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, pp. 134–5. 89. Authorship of this hymn and of Colossians is disputed. Some scholars believe it is written by Paul: Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, ed. David A. Hubbard et al., World Biblical Commentary, vol. 44 (Waco: Word Books, 1982), pp xlvii–xlviii. Others suggest it was written by a close associate, possibly Timothy. See Andrew T. Lincoln, ‘The Letter to the Colossians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. xi (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), pp. 577–83. For analysis of authorship, see Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, Colossians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, English Translation Astrid B. Beck, vol. 34B (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 114–26. For discussion of dating see O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, p. liv; Barth and Blanke, Colossians, pp. 126–34. 90. See Lincoln, ‘The Letter to the Colossians’, p. 597. The significant place of such hymns is underscored in Colossians 3.16. 91. Eduard Lohse discusses the multiple links between Woman Wisdom and Jesus in the Colossians hymn: Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, trans. William Poehlmann and Robert Karris, ed., Helmut Koester, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 47–56. See also James Dunn, The Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon: A Commentary on the Greek Text, ed. I. Howard Marshall et al., The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids:



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christology is the primary lens through which Christ’s divinity is proclaimed and celebrated.92 This hymn celebrates Jesus in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom despite the fact that Jesus is called the ‘beloved Son’ in Colossians 1.14. As will be discussed below in relation to John’s prologue, the paradox of the male gender of the historical Jesus and the female gender of Woman Wisdom did not hinder the imaging of Jesus as Woman Wisdom in the Jesus movement. Furthermore, while ‘beloved Son’ may be assumed to be problematic, this language may actually underscore associations between Jesus and Woman Wisdom in the early Jesus movement.93 The presence of Wisdom christology is again affirmed in Colossians: I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (2.2-3)94

Here, Christ is God’s mystery and the one who embodies divine wisdom and William Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), pp. 83–104. Christopher Beetham offers an extended discussion of the description of Woman Wisdom in Prov. 8 as the background for the Colossians hymn, Christopher Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 111–41. Walter Wilson, The Hope of Glory: Education and Exhortation in the Epistle to the Colossians, ed., C. K. Barrett et al., Supplements to Novum Testamentum, vol. LXXXVIII (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p. 125. 92. See Ian Smith, Heavenly Perspective: A Study of the Apostle Paul’s Response to a Jewish Mystical Movement at Colossae, ed., Mark Goodacre, Library of New Testament Studies, vol. 326 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 160–2. See also Jerry Sumney, Colossians: A Commentary, ed. C. Clifton Black et al., New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 65; Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 80. Schüssler Fiorenza also recognizes this and argues: ‘…This proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Sophia of God and the cosmic Lord functions in the Christian community as the foundational myth which engenders its own cult’, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 190. Beetham argues that Paul [he assumes Paul is the author] images Jesus as the ‘embodiment of wisdom’ rather than that Paul thinks Jesus Christ ‘is Wisdom’. Beetham, Echoes, p. 140 (italics original). Beetham goes on to claim that: ‘Paul … appropriates the language typically employed to depict Wisdom/Word to highlight that all that this familiar but shadowy figure represented had found its ultimate and concrete expression in the reality of Jesus Christ’, Beetham, Echoes, p. 140. His description of Woman Wisdom as ‘shadowy’ and as ‘merely a literary personification in the first place’, Beetham, Echoes, p. 140, perhaps explains why he seeks to qualify Colossians’ imaging of Jesus as Woman Wisdom. 93. These associations between ‘beloved’ and Jesus-Woman Wisdom will be discussed below in relation to Mark and 1 Clement. 94. Smith also highlights both 2.2-3 and points to 1.9 as being significant in their references to wisdom both before and after the hymn in which Jesus is celebrated as the embodiment of Wisdom. Smith, Heavenly Perspective, p. 161.

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knowledge. The proclamation that Jesus embodies the divine is restated a few verses later, ‘For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (2.9). For the author/s of this text, in mystery, Jesus is Woman Wisdom. Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are central to the Colossians hymn. Here creation and cross are understood together as expressions of JesusWoman Wisdom’s self-giving power and purpose. This is evidenced in the refrain ‘all things’: ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (16) τὰ πάντα δι’αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται (16) καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων (17) καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν (17) καὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάξαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν (20)

The hymn celebrates that the cosmic one who is the image of the invisible God (15), who is before ‘all things’ and through whom ‘all things’ hold together (17), is the same one through whom God reconciles ‘all things’ (1.20).95 Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s salvific power is understood in relation to divine self-giving, as pre-existent and all-encompassing Jesus-Woman Wisdom uses ‘power for’ rather than ‘power over’ in order to reconcile all. Hebrews The opening sentence of Hebrews provides further insight into the Jesus movement.96 Within this declaration of who Jesus is and what Jesus achieves there are no explicit references made to Woman Wisdom, and thus, there are no explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. However, there 95.  As Dunn states: ‘It is obviously no accident that the verse [20] echoes the “all things through him and to him” of 1:16.’ Dunn, Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon, p. 104. Edwards rightly recognizes some of the cosmic implications of this hymn’s Wisdom soteriology: ‘Against all false forms of dualism, Colossians insists that Christ has universal meaning … Colossians will not allow us to contain our theology of redemption within the narrower (although profoundly important) orbit of human sin and forgiveness … The Colossians hymn insists that the whole universe is caught up in the Christ event’, Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 82. See also Edwards, Ecology, pp. 55–7, Deane-Drummond, Creation, pp. 59–66. 96. For discussion of the origins and dating of Hebrews see Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, vol. 36 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 42–50. Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary, ed. C. Clifton Black et al., The New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), pp. 38–44. Fred Craddock, ‘The Letter to the Hebrews: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. xii (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), pp. 7–10.



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are multiple implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. Jesus is described as the ‘reflection of God’s glory’ (1.3), as Woman Wisdom is celebrated as ‘radiant and unfading’ (Wis. 6.12) and a ‘pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty’ (Wis. 7.25). Jesus is celebrated as ‘the exact imprint of God’s very being’ (1.3), as Woman Wisdom is described as ‘a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness’ (Wis. 7.26). Jesus, the Son, ‘sustains all things by his powerful word’ (1.3). Woman Wisdom is presented as sustaining creation (e.g. Prov. 8.30-31; Sir. 1.9-10; Wis. 7.22, 24, 27) and ordering ‘all things’ well (Wis. 8.1). She is also described as proceeding from the mouth of the Most High (Sir. 24.3) and as a breath of the power of God (Wis. 7.25). Wisdom christology provides the framework for the opening of Hebrews.97 It is commonly accepted that Woman Wisdom is linked with Jesus in Hebrews. Insufficient attention has focused on why and how this gender paradox is to be accounted for and why Woman Wisdom is not named in Hebrews.98 In Hebrews, Wisdom soteriology is also present. As in the Colossians hymn, Christ’s cosmic role in creation is understood alongside the soteriological power of the cross (1.3-4). These texts reveal an ancient conviction that the two are interwoven. Christ’s salvific role in Hebrews, which also includes ‘purification for sins’ (1.3), will be discussed in greater detail below in relation to 1 Clement.

97. For further exploration of Wisdom christology in Hebrews see Mary Ann Beavis, ‘Hebrews and Wisdom’, Mark, Manuscripts, and Monotheism: Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado, eds. Chris Keith and Dieter T. Roth; LNTS, 528 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), pp. 205, 207–14. See also: Johnson, Hebrews, pp. 68–70; Harold Attridge Hebrews, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 41–5; Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 499, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 189 and Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, p. 80. 98. Johnson rightly identifies that experience played a pivotal role in the emergence of this Wisdom christology: ‘Such statements [1:3] … are not to be attributed simply to a process of textual study, but above all to the impact of the resurrection experience, by which Jesus’ followers experienced him after his death as the powerful and life giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15.45)’, Johnson, Hebrews, p. 68. However he does not address the issue of the identification of the male Jesus with the female Woman Wisdom, nor does he elaborate on what kinds of resurrection experience(s) would motivate this paradoxical identification. Johnson does discuss the importance of experience in the early church elsewhere, though, again, without focus on the paradoxical identification of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. See Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). Beavis’ recent study takes up the issue of the presence and absence of Woman Wisdom in Hebrews. Beavis concludes, ‘Woman-Wisdom is displaced by the man Jesus, the human embodiment of the masculine Word (cf. Heb. 11.3) – a masculinized Wisdom’, Beavis, ‘Hebrews and Wisdom’, p. 218. ‘Son’ language in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom will be discussed below. In Chapter 4 the veiling of Woman Wisdom will be further discussed.

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Mark In Mark there are no explicit references to Woman Wisdom and therefore there are no explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom.99 However, there may be implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. Silvia Schroer argues that in the Markan account of the baptism the dove is connected with Woman Wisdom.100 Schroer argues that there is evidence of the imagery of doves in relation to goddess cults in the ancient world.101 Reading Mark’s baptism alongside the baptism account in the Gospel of the Hebrews, as quoted by Jerome, both Schroer and James Robinson argue that correlations between Woman Wisdom and the Spirit who descends on Jesus are apparent, as both seek rest.102 Schroer states: The baptismal event reveals that Jesus is the person in whom/upon whom Wisdom/Spirit finds rest. The voice from heaven is the voice of divine Sophia/ Sophia-God, who has found her/his Chosen One. As symbol of Sophia, as message of her love, and as sign of her presence in Jesus, the dove of the ‘goddess’ Sophia/the pneuma descends upon him.103

Schroer goes on to claim that this understanding of the Markan baptism suggests that Jesus is ‘understood as prophet and emissary of Wisdom, but also already as the incarnation of Sophia, as that Wisdom who is in the most intimate possible relationship with God’.104 Schroer’s supposition that Gentile Christians would have recognized the dove at Jesus’ baptism in relation to goddess mythology cannot be proved, nor can the 99. For a discussion of the origins and dating of Mark see John O’Donohue and Daniel Harrington, Mark, ed. Daniel Harrington, Sacra Pagina (Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 2002), pp. 38–46. Adelo Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, ed. Harold Attridge, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 7–14. See also James Crossley The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity, Journal for the Study of New Testament Supplement Series, vol. 266. (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), p. 208. 100. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, pp. 135, 155. 101.  Schroer traced various images in ancient art and writing and demonstrates that the image of the dove was closely associated with pagan goddesses, Schroer, Wisdom has Built, pp. 132–8. She states, ‘As late as the third century c.e. the pagan dove goddess was known in Palestine (Ashelon) and Gentile Christian groups would have found the imagery in the story of Jesus’ baptism immediately familiar against this background’, Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 139. 102. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 144. James Robinson, ‘Jesus as Sophos and Sophia: Wisdom-Tradition and the Gospels’, Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Robert L. Wilken (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), p. 12. 103. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 145. 104. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 145.



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extent of widespread understanding of dove iconography in relation to goddesses. Schroer acknowledges this in the accompanying notes of a later reprint of her article.105 However, the reality that dove iconography is not adequately accounted for by biblical scholars,106 and the reality that this imagery already existed in relation to goddesses does present interesting implications when contemplating the dove who rests upon Jesus.107 The possibility that Woman Wisdom is present in the Markan baptism is further strengthened when the language of ‘the beloved’ ὁ ἀγαπητός (1.11) is considered afresh. This title is restated in the transfiguration (9.7). Scholars commonly read ‘beloved’ alongside the language of ‘Son’ and then link this with Psalm 2.7 and Isaiah 42.1.108 However neither of these passages uses this language. No mention of ‘beloved’ is made in the Psalm and in Isaiah the ‘chosen one’ is described as ‘the one in whom my soul delights’.109 In Proverbs Woman Wisdom is also described as daily God’s ‘delight’ (8.30). Furthermore, in language that comes closer to ‘beloved’, in Wisdom it is stated that: ‘the Lord of all loves her’ καὶ ὁ πάντων δεσπότης ἠγάπησεν αὐτήν (8.3). These links with Woman Wisdom are, perhaps, in part overlooked because of the perceived problem of ‘Son’ language for Jesus being equated with Woman Wisdom language and imagery.110 However, as illustrated above, for the hymn writers, singers and authors of Colossians and Hebrews this problem, if it was one, was not insurmountable. It is therefore possible that in Mark’s baptism account, as well as in the transfiguration, Wisdom christology is present.111 105. Schroer, Wisdom has Built, p. 155. 106. Nineham states that the dove in Jesus’ baptism: ‘… no doubt rests on some dove symbolism current in late Judaism but no longer known to us’, D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark (London: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 61. 107. Ben Witherington also points to the potential connection between the dove imagery and Woman Wisdom in the Markan baptism, noting that Philo links Woman Wisdom with imagery of the dove. Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), p. 155. 108. See O’Donohue and Harrington, Mark, p. 65. Collins, Mark, pp. 150–1. Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., Anchor Yale Bible vol. 27 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 162–6. Francis Moloney The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), pp. 36–7. In this discussion Moloney also emphasizes that there could be references to Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22.2, 12, 16). 109. Drawing from the Matthaean Jesus’ quote in 12.18 Collins suggests that some translations of Isa. 42 may have included the term ‘beloved’. Collins, Mark, p. 150. 110. Use of ‘Son’ language may, in part, have been favoured to reflect the reality that Jesus was male. 111. Interestingly, Nineham argues that in Mk 9.19 the Markan Jesus ‘speaks here as an incarnate deity whose human form and earthly existence are only temporary and who already has one foot in the next world’, Nineham, Saint Mark, p. 243. In response, Simon Gathercole argues that Mark 9.19 does not infer where Jesus has come from, but instead

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The possibility that Jesus is understood in relation to Woman Wisdom in the Markan baptism is further underscored in Mark 6. The Markan Jesus returns to his hometown and begins to teach at the synagogue and many were astounded (6.2). The questions that the people wrestle with in response to Jesus are christological and soteriological: we know his human origins (6.3) so ‘where did this man get all this?’ (6.2a). At the heart of this debate wisdom, or Woman Wisdom, emerges.112 The people recognize that it is wisdom/Woman Wisdom that has been given to Jesus and it is this that makes him different (6.2). The hometown crowd are troubled, not only by the content and manner of Jesus’ teaching, but also by what Jesus does: his ‘deeds of power’ and they identify these with the gift of w/ Wisdom that Jesus has received (6.2).113 It could be that Jesus’ gift of wisdom is the quality of wise counsel. However, it could equally be that the person of Woman Wisdom is referred to here.114 In light of the potentiality of Woman Wisdom imagery within the Markan baptism, the specific focus on the gift of w/Wisdom to Jesus within the christological and soteriological debate of Mark 6 is pertinent. In Mark, through wisdom, or perhaps through Woman Wisdom, Jesus is gifted and set apart as the one who has the authority to teach about God and God’s kingdom (1.27; 2.18-28; 3.22–4.33), the power to heal, to liberate from cosmic evil and to restore life for those who believe (1.21-2.12, 3.1-12; 5.1-43). If (some) implied readers recognized the presence of Woman Wisdom in the dove and voice at Jesus’ baptism, the answer to the crowd’s question, ‘What/who is this wisdom/Woman Wisdom that has been given to him?’ is obvious. First audiences would know the secret that the home crowds could not recognize or accept: it is Woman Wisdom who is here present in, and empowering, Jesus.115 where Jesus is heading. Thus Gathercole argues that here readers see ‘a theology of postexistence’, Simon Gathercole, The Pre-Existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark and Luke (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publishing, 2006), p. 207. The brevity of the statement undermines attempts to quantify whether the Markan Jesus is referring to pre- or post-existence here. 112. Sean Freyne ‘The Galilean Jesus and a Contemporary Christology’, Theological Studies 70 (2009) p. 294. 113. The deeds of Jesus-Woman Wisdom are also significant in Matthew (11.2-6, 19) see below. 114.  While the NRSV translates this passage as ‘what is this wisdom that has been given to him?’, it could equally be translated as ‘who is this Wisdom that has been given to him?’: καὶ τίς ἡ σοφία ἡ δοθεῖσα τούτῳ ἵνα? 115.  Whether the author of Mark is alluding to the gift of wisdom to Jesus from Woman Wisdom, or implying that the gift itself is Woman Wisdom’s embodied presence within Jesus, is dependent upon how one views the Markan baptism. If Woman Wisdom imagery is at the heart of the Markan baptism her presence could be understood incarnationally: Woman Wisdom rests upon, and abides within, Jesus. Equally it could be interpreted that Woman Wisdom rests upon Jesus in order to bestow her gifts. Either understanding may present as an ‘adoptionist’ christology.



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In light of the potential presence of Woman Wisdom in the Markan baptism and in the christological and soteriological debate in Mark 6, a reinvestigation of the Markan transfiguration account is required. In this account the voice from the cloud again calls Jesus ‘Son’ and ‘the beloved’ (9.7). In the transfiguration Jesus’ clothes are described as becoming ‘dazzling white’ (9.3), just as Woman Wisdom (rather than her clothes) is described in language of radiance (e.g. Wis. 6.12; 7.26, 29). Furthermore, the voice from the cloud commands the disciples to ‘listen to him’ (9.7) just as Woman Wisdom repeatedly calls all to listen to her and thus gain life (Prov. 1.20-23; 8.1-21; 9.4-6). When the Markan baptism, the christological and soteriological debate of Mark 6, and the Markan transfiguration are read together it becomes evident that Wisdom christology, as well as Wisdom soteriology, may be present and significant within this gospel. Luke The role of table fellowship, and its transformative power, is an important theme in Luke.116 The Lukan Jesus underscores the link between feasting, friendship and Woman Wisdom. Here Jesus declares that it is the choice to feast with and befriend those who are marginalized that prompts misunderstanding and rejection (7.34-35; see also Mt. 11.19). In Luke, Jesus explicitly refers to Woman Wisdom: ‘The son of man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Nevertheless, Wisdom is vindicated by all her children’ (7.34-35). The implicit connection between the Lukan Jesus and Woman Wisdom is that he is Woman Wisdom’s child (7.35). Here John the Baptist is also imaged as Woman Wisdom’s child, and the text alludes to the possibility of other children (7.33-35).117 Many assume that the Lukan presentation of Jesus as one of Woman Wisdom’s children originated before the corresponding Matthaean passage.118 116.  For discussion of origins and dating of Luke’s Gospel see Luke Timothy Johnson The Gospel of Luke, ed. Daniel Harrington, Sacra Pagina (Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 1–3. See also Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I–IX: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1981), pp. 35–59. For the importance of table fellowship see R. Alan Culpepper, ‘The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander E. Keck et al., vol. ix (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 26–7; Justo Gonzalez, Luke, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw et al., Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), pp. 9–10. 117. Fitzmyer, Gospel According to Luke, p. 681. 118. See Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 139–41, Freyne, ‘The Galilean Jesus’, p. 293. This conclusion is often reliant upon assumptions about the primacy of ‘Q’ and that the Lukan tradition reflects this source.

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Explicit reference is again made to Woman Wisdom as the Lukan Jesus quotes from her, speaking of the persecution of the prophets and apostles that she sends (11.49-52). The source that the Lukan Jesus quotes is unknown in contemporary context; however the reality that the Lukan Jesus quotes Woman Wisdom indicates that she is a significant figure. Woman Wisdom’s significance is further underscored because the author does not offer explanation of who she is, thus revealing the assumption that Woman Wisdom was familiar to implied audiences. This textual reality disrupts the assumption that first audiences knew little of Woman Wisdom.119 In Luke, Jesus is not identified with Woman Wisdom; instead he is identified as one of her children. While Jesus’ transformative meals are significant in this gospel, and Jesus’ open table fellowship is linked with Woman Wisdom (7.35), there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that this meal focus is (primarily) derived from connections between Woman Wisdom and Jesus. While Woman Wisdom is explicitly present in Luke, and Jesus is imaged as one of her children, Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology do not appear as central features. Matthew From the outset in Matthew, there is an understanding that in Jesus the divine is made present on earth.120 An important way in which this finds expression is through Woman Wisdom. In Matthew, explicit reference is made to Woman Wisdom (11.19). Unlike the Lukan Jesus who quotes Woman Wisdom, in the parallel passage, the Matthaean Jesus implicitly speaks as Woman Wisdom, grieving over the fate of the prophets who will be persecuted, and warning those

119. Reflecting on Lk. 11.49-51 and Mt. 23.34 Gathercole reveals his assumption that Woman Wisdom was not well known: ‘… although it is possible that Matthew himself thought of an identification of Jesus and Wisdom, it is scarcely possible that he could expect his readers to pick up on this unless they were somehow privy to his sources and aware of the original content of this saying. It is only by combining the Lukan and Matthaean versions that any identification of Jesus with Wisdom could be made’, Gathercole, Pre-existent Son, p. 200. Gathercole provides no evidence to support this claim. 120. For discussion of the origins and dating of Matthew see Daniel Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina (Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 4–16; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary, Based on the Three Volume International Critical Commentary (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. xi–xxii; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7, trans. James Crouch, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 56–60. The Matthaean Jesus is called Emmanuel in Chapter 1; the author then translates this phrase so that there may be no ambiguity, ‘God is with us’ (1.23).



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who may persecute them (23.34-39).121 The reality that in Matthew Jesus is understood in relation to Woman Wisdom is increasingly recognized.122 In Matthew 11 there are significant implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom.123 Imprisoned, John sends his own disciples to investigate whether Jesus is the ‘one who is to come’ (11.3). John is having doubts because of the works that Jesus is doing (11.2). The Matthaean Jesus does not deny or detract from his works; instead he highlights them as works of compassion and healing (11.4-5). The author states that John had expected something very different in the works of the Coming One (3.11-12). There are textual references to Isaiah in verses 11.2-5. 124 However, it is likely that the Matthaean Jesus’ self-described works are also intended to be read in relation to Woman Wisdom. The Matthaean Jesus describes himself healing and bringing life where there has been death. Woman Wisdom is described as the source of life (Prov. 3.16, 18; 8.35), she is also described as liberator, saviour and healer (e.g. Wis. 10.1–11.4). Jesus is the one who brings good news to the poor (5) just as Woman Wisdom is described as the one who enlightens with divine knowledge that transforms (Prov. 1.20-23; 8.8, 14; 9.4-6; Wis. 9.9-12), particularly for those deemed lesser, ‘the simple’ (1.22; 9.4) and she is the one who brings joy and delight (Sir. 6.27-28; Wis. 8.16-18). At the conclusion of the discussion about John the baptizer Jesus declares, ‘yet Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’ (19) or more literally, ‘and proven right is Sophia by her 121. As Johnson highlights, not only does the Matthaean Jesus speak as Woman Wisdom, like her, he sends envoys, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 281. Johnson states, ‘He is not just a lawgiver, but the embodiment of Torah-Sophia: he is not simply Sophia’s child or envoy, but her embodiment’, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 283. 122. Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, pp. 280–2, James Dunn, Christology in the Making: An Enquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press, 1980), pp. 197–204. M. Jack Suggs, Wisdom, Christology and the Law in Matthew’s Gospel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 58; Wainwright, Shall We Look, pp. 76–83; Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 151–2. 123. Gathercole dismisses this textual reality: ‘… the problem of the very masculine definition of Jesus as ‘Son’ in Matthew 11 and Luke 10 makes it doubtful that hearers or readers would have picked up on the association with Wisdom’, Gathercole, Pre-existent Son, p. 202. Not only does Gathercole assume that implied readers lacked the necessary sophistication to hold the paradox of the male Jesus and female Woman Wisdom, he attempts to justify his position by taking verses, particularly from Mt. 11, and seeking to dismiss them individually, rather than allowing them to be read together as the final author and/or redactors intended. His argument collapses when Matthew 11 is read as a whole text. 124. The Matthaean Jesus adds greater emphasis to these works and their rightness as he claims sacred text from Isaiah (29.18-19; 35.5-6; 61.1). Significantly, the Matthaean Jesus uses Isaiah selectively to emphasize these compassionate works in contrast to ‘judgment’ verses in Isaiah that reside alongside these. As Davies and Allison point out, ‘eschatological salvation’ rather than ‘judgment’ is highlighted, Davies and Allison, Matthew 8–18, pp. 244–6.

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works’ καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῆς. The works of the Matthaean Jesus are the works of Woman Wisdom.125 The Matthaean Jesus states that ‘this generation’ (16) reject him for being a ‘glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ (19). This is the context in which the Matthaean Jesus states, ‘And proven right is Sophia by her works’ (11.19). The NRSV unhelpfully translates καὶ (and) as ‘yet’ creating a separation between these two adjoining thoughts. The Matthaean Jesus is asserting that it is, most particularly, as Jesus shares hospitality and befriends those who are deemed lesser by wider society that Woman Wisdom is utterly proved right. Like Woman Wisdom who welcomes all to her feast (Prov. 1.20-23; 8.1-8; 9.1-6; Sir. 24.19-21), the Matthaean Jesus shares an open table that welcomes outcasts to an extent that garners rejection (19). Just as Woman Wisdom is the one who brings people into friendship with God (Wis. 7.27, see also 7.14) the Matthaean Jesus, the one who is ‘God with us’ (1.23), makes friends with the marginalized (19). The Matthaean Jesus does the deeds of Woman Wisdom: healing and liberating, giving knowledge, feasting and befriending. Here in Matthew 11 Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are central, as Jesus is imaged as her.126 The Matthaean Jesus goes on to claim, ‘All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him’ (11.27). These words of apparent exclusivity and ‘high’ christology have been deemed by many to be a Johannine apparition.127 Others suggest that the influence may flow in the reverse direction.128 Regardless of textual primacy, the Matthaean Jesus’ reference to ‘all things’ is striking and shares resonance with the Colossians hymn (1.15-20), Hebrews 1.3 and 1 Corinthians 8.6. Here, again, the Matthaean Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom, the intimate of God who infuses and sustains ‘all things’ (Sir. 1.9-10; Wis. 7.22-24; 7; 8.1). 125. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20, trans. James Crouch, ed. Helmut Koester, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 149–50. Davies and Allison, Matthew, p. 181. Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 282; Suggs, Wisdom Christology, pp. 36–8; 56–8; Wainwright, Shall We Look, p. 71; Celia Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, Jesus and the Sages: Metaphor and Social Context in Matthew’s Gospel (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996), pp. 53–4. 126. Suggs rightly states, ‘Sophia is identified with Jesus. Jesus is Sophia incarnate’, Suggs, Wisdom Christology, p. 58 (italics original). As Johnson states: ‘Here is an example of biblical reflection on the male human being Jesus which envisions him as embodying a female Gestalt of God in gracious involvement with the world’ (11.19), Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 284. See also Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 151, Wainwright, Shall We Look, pp. 76–7 and Dunn, Christology in the Making, p. 201. 127. Hase’s phrase ‘a thunderbolt’ from John has been widely utilized to connote this. Karl von Hase, Die Geschichte Jesus: Nach akademischen Vorlesungen, 2nd edn, (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1876), p. 422. 128. Davies and Allison argue that it ‘was probably one of the vital seeds from which Johannine theology sprouted’, Davies and Allison, Matthew 8–18, p. 282 (fn. 218).



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However, the Matthaean Jesus utilizes the male language of ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ to describe this intimacy with God and knowledge of ‘all things’. This male language is out of step with the female imagery of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. Some argue that the emphasis upon male language is utilized in order to repress the female imagery of Jesus-Woman Wisdom.129 While readily acknowledging that ‘Son’ language has been used to marginalize women, it is not accurate to conclude as Celia Deutsch does that ‘the female identity of the metaphor is absorbed into the male figure of Jesus and disappears’.130 Evidence across various Second Testament and early church texts that celebrate Jesus as Woman Wisdom, as well as the ongoing scholarship that investigates these texts and their implications in the contemporary world, indicate that Jesus-Woman Wisdom has not disappeared. The emphasis upon male language may reflect attempts to minimize the early identification of Jesus as Jesus-Woman Wisdom in Matthew 11.131 However, despite this, as Wainwright states, ‘Jesus is Jesus Sophia and, like Sophia, unites the human and the divine by way of theological evocation that breaks open gender distinctions.’132 Jesus-Woman Wisdom, as celebrated in Matthew’s gospel, not only transcends cultural and religious boundaries, but also melts gender divides within the being of his/her body.133 Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology reach their zenith as the Matthaean Jesus reveals that he has received ‘all things’ and makes the following invitation: Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (28–30)

Just as Woman Wisdom invites all to come to her for nourishment (Prov. 1.20; 9.5; Sir. 15.3; 24.19), the Matthaean Jesus invites all to come to him for rest. Here Jesus invites the weary to take on his yoke, ζυγός, and thus gain rest for their souls, 129. See Wainwright, Shall We Look, p. 81; Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 144. If the suppression of female imagery is the motivating factor, the radical inclusivity that the Matthaean Christ refers to in the preceding lines, in which it is the unexpected infants who perceive the gracious infinite reign of God, is corrupted almost immediately. Schüssler Fiorenza acknowledges this in her discussion. 130. Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, p. 147. 131. Perhaps, ironically, the male language of Mt. 11 may (also) have been used to draw attention to the priority of Woman Wisdom for the Matthaean Jesus. In the Wisdom parable a central ‘transgression’ of the ‘righteous’ man is that he claims God as his Father and that he is God’s child (Wis. 2.13, 16, 18). See also Wainwright, Shall We Look, p. 81. 132. Wainwright, Shall We Look, p. 77. Similarly, later in her work Schüssler Fiorenza suggests that ‘In Jesus as the incarnation of Sophia, divine feminine and human masculine are integrated’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 160. 133. Issues of gender and the divine will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

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just as Woman Wisdom’s collar is described as bringing rest (Sir. 6.24-31) and her yoke, ζυγόν, instruction for the soul (Sir. 51.26). The metaphor of taking on Jesus’ yoke is singular to Matthew in the Second Testament, and is a significant symbol in the Wisdom tradition (Sir. 6.24-31; 51.23-26).134 Here the Matthaean Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom inviting all the weary and heavy laden to come, and take on his/her yoke, to learn from him/her and to find rest for their souls (29).135 The profundity of the Matthaean Jesus’ claim, ‘I am gentle and humble in heart’ (29) has been tainted by the sentimentality of recent centuries. However, here Jesus-Woman Wisdom reveals his/her inner nature. This is a Matthaean ‘I am’ statement that overflows with both christological and soteriological import. The Matthaean Jesus, who embodies Woman Wisdom, is the divine gentle one who heals, gives life and instructs. Jesus-Woman Wisdom welcomes, feasts with and befriends the excluded and gives soul rest to the world-weary and oppressed. This gentleness is not about powerlessness, but about the nature of divine power. JesusWoman Wisdom, God with us, does not use ‘power over’ others, but in contrast, uses ‘power for’ others, in order to liberate, heal and reconcile.136 John In John there are no explicit references to Woman Wisdom and thus, there are no explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom.137 However, it is commonly recognized that Wisdom christology has a profound place in this gospel.138 Multiple implicit connections are made between Jesus and Woman 134. Deutsch argues that what is implied here is that ‘To learn of Jesus-Wisdom the sage, to take up his yoke, is to learn Torah’, Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, p. 58. While there are connections with the Matthaean Jesus and Torah in this reference, the Matthaean JesusWoman Wisdom is not only understood in relation to Torah. 135. Some argue that the Matthaean Jesus’ invitation to rest refers to liberation from religious obligation, see Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, p. 59. However, when read contextually, the connection between the opening of Matthew 11 in which the Matthaean Jesus’ discussion with the crowd begins, and this declaration at the end of this dialogue with the crowd can be seen. Rest is offered by Jesus-Woman Wisdom to all who are burdened by oppressive forces: by illness, disability, exclusion, death and poverty (2-6), by the judgements of others (18-19), by the cycles of violence that scapegoat (20-24), by exhaustion (28) and also, as will be revealed, by cosmic forces (e.g. 12.22-29). 136. This understanding relates to Paul’s Wisdom soteriology (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.23-25). See Chapter 3. 137.  For discussion of origins and dating of John see Raymond Brown, An Introduction to John’s Gospel, ed. Francis Moloney and Noel Freedman, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 2003), pp. 189–215; Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, pp. 10–28; Ben Witherington III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), pp. 5–29. 138.  For detailed analysis of Woman Wisdom within John’s Gospel see Scott, Sophia, see also Cornelis Bennema, The Power of Saving Wisdom: An Investigation of Spirit and Wisdom



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Wisdom and these begin in the prologue. Jesus, the Word (1.1, 14, 17) was ‘in the beginning with God’ (1.2). Not only does this language resonate with the first creation account (Gen. 1.1), this text places the pre-existent Jesus-Word within the birthing of creation as an active participant, ‘all things came into being through him’ (1.3). By highlighting that the Johannine Jesus-Word is present prior to creation, and that ‘all things’ come into being through him, Woman Wisdom is implicitly alluded to (e.g. Prov. 3.19-20; 8.22-31; Sir. 1.4, 9-10; 24.3-5, 9; Wis. 7.22, 23, 24, 27; 8.1; 9.9; see also Col. 1.16-17, 20; Heb. 1.3; 1 Cor. 8.6). The prologue proclaims that Jesus-Word is life and light (1.5) just as Woman Wisdom is celebrated as the source of life (Prov. 3.18; 8.35; Wis. 6.18) and the radiant, light-filled one (Wis. 6.12; 7.25-26, 29–30). The author declares that the darkness did not overcome this light (1.5), likewise, it is stated: ‘compared with the light she [Woman Wisdom] is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against Wisdom evil does not prevail’ (Wis. 7.29–8.1). The author proclaims that the pre-existent Word has taken human form, and made camp ἐσκήνωσεν with humanity. The idea of the divine pitching tent and camping on earth is also expressed in relation to Woman Wisdom καὶ ὁ κτίσας με κατέπαυσεν τὴν σκηνήν μου (Sir. 24.8-10). While in Sirach the presence of Woman Wisdom making camp with humanity is linked with the tabernacle in Jerusalem (24.8-11), in John it is claimed that this encampment is now present in the particular person of Jesus (1.14, 16-18).139 The prologue’s cosmic proclamation of Jesus-Word is reliant upon Woman Wisdom for its content and authority.140 Despite the resonance between Woman Wisdom and the Word in the prologue, the prologue prefers the language of λόγος rather than σοφία. Debate continues about why the author(s) chooses to veil Woman Wisdom when she provides the foundation for the christology and soteriology of this text.141 Many scholars detect gender bias against the feminine as the motivating factor for the veiling of Woman in Relation to the Soteriology of the Fourth Gospel, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, Reihe. 148 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 173–85; Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 152–4. 139. Sandra Schneiders states: ‘Divine Wisdom, which had poured herself out in creation, in the salvific history of the chosen people, in the testimony of the prophets and the teaching of the sages, and which had been at times received and at times rejected by humanity, goes to the very limit in entering human history in the person of Jesus. The Word, Holy Wisdom, God’s self-revelation becomes human, incarnate, in order to speak to humanity in a language we could understand’, Schneiders, Written that You, p. 49. 140.  See Scott, Sophia, pp. 94–115; Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I–XII: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Raymond Brown. The Anchor Bible, vol. 29 (New York: Double Day Press, 1966), Appendix II, p. 524; Lee, Flesh and Glory, p. 32; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 155. 141. The prologue may be a hymn of the Johannine community or the composition of the author of the Gospel. As Ringe states, ‘It is impossible to say whether the author of the fourth Gospel was also the poet who crafted language into this new song for the people to sing’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 48.

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Wisdom in the language of Logos.142 In some contrast, Martin Scott argues that the identification of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the language of Logos, paradoxically, indicates both the conviction that Jesus embodied Woman Wisdom and that this embodiment was revealed in Jesus who was a man.143 The motivation for the veiling of Woman Wisdom in Logos language will be taken up further in Chapter 4. It is significant that while Woman Wisdom is not explicitly named in the prologue, the title of Word is not utilized after the prologue.144 Scott argues, ‘The Logos is not important as a title in itself, being merely a vehicle by which it is possible to introduce Sophia incarnate as a man.’145 The evidence of the gospel supports this as in the body of the text the Johannine Jesus is repeatedly imaged as Woman Wisdom. This is despite the paradox that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom at the same time as being described as the one who reveals the glory ‘as of a father’s only son’ (1.14). As discussed above, other Second Testament texts also image Jesus as Woman Wisdom and utilize ‘Son’ language (e.g. Col. 1.13-20; Heb. 1.3-5; Mt. 11.27 and possibly Mk 1.11; 9.7). While at times this may reflect a primitive account of Jesus’ baptism, this emphasis on ‘Son’ language may also indicate gender bias against the femaleness inherent to Woman Wisdom.146 142. McKinlay, Gendering, p. 206; Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 153. A related possibility is that the author, or final redactor, chose to utilize the language of λόγος to reflect a strand of Hellenistic philosophical thought that saw λόγος as the presence of divine reason. See Johnson’s discussion of Philo, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher of this period, who preferred λόγος to σοφία. As Johnson points out, his writing reflects negativity towards women: Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, pp. 287–8. See also Adele Reinhartz, ‘The Gospel of John’, Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Schüssler Fiorenza (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 563–5, 574. With insufficient evidence Witherington dismisses the possibility that the female gender of Woman Wisdom contributed to her veiling in the prologue. Witherington, John’s Wisdom, p. 53. 143. Scott is aware of the patriarchal agendas that led later interpreters to suppress Woman Wisdom; however, he argues that for the author ‘The Logos is Jesus Sophia, whose life and ministry mirror so many features previously attributed by the Wisdom writers to Sophia.’ From his perspective, while the author of John ‘almost certainly’ understood Jesus as Sophia ‘the direct identification of Jesus with Sophia cannot be made, because Jesus is a man’, Scott, Sophia, pp. 171–2. 144.  This has fuelled assumptions that the prologue’s origins are from a separate source. See James Charlesworth, ‘Lady Wisdom and Johannine Christology’, Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Wisdom Traditions in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. James Charlesworth and Michael Daise (New York: Trinity Press International, 2003), p. 96. 145. Scott, Sophia, p. 173. 146. Schüssler Fiorenza claims that the preference for ‘Son’ language in the fourth gospel: ‘marginalises and “silences” the traditions of G*d as represented by Divine Woman Wisdom’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 153. See Chapter 4.



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Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology inform the proclamation of who Jesus is in John’s gospel.147 Some scholars argue that the similarities between Jesus and Woman Wisdom in John’s gospel are seen primarily in the themes of closeness with God, dwelling with humanity and being rejected by most.148 While not denying these parallels they are well rehearsed, and there are other significant connections made between Woman Wisdom and the Johannine Jesus that warrant investigation. The priority of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in John’s gospel is evidenced after the prologue in the Johannine Jesus’ first ‘sign’ (2.1–11). The author not only chooses to begin with this ‘domestic’ scene of turning water into wine but underscores its significance.149 The Johannine Jesus is revealed from the outset for who he is, Woman Wisdom, who mixes and shares out the good wine (Prov. 9.5-6; Sir. 24.19-21).150 This proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom continues in the midst of theological discussion with an unnamed non-Jewish woman. Here the Johannine Jesus offers the gift of water that ‘gushes up to eternal life’ (4.14), just as Woman Wisdom offers the water of wisdom to drink (Sir. 15.3).151 This invitation is repeated by the Johannine Jesus and extended to the crowds: ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me’ (7.37-38). This shares further connections with Woman Wisdom, who invites humanity to drink from her (Sir. 24.19-22) and whose wisdom is described like a river (24.25-27, 30).152 147. This is the premise of Scott’s monograph, for a summary see Scott, Sophia, pp. 231–40. Witherington also argues that in John, Jesus the ‘Son’ is imaged as Woman Wisdom, Witherington, John’s Wisdom, p. 55. In contrast, James Charlesworth argues that: ‘…we should not think Wisdom has supplied the framework or provided the model for the Fourth Evangelist’s Christology. Rather, we should imagine that Wisdom has provided many of the paradigms on which Johannine Christology developed’, Charlesworth, ‘Lady Wisdom’, p. 96. Charlesworth does not adequately explain why we ‘should not think’ this and ‘imagine that’. 148. Gathercole, Pre-existent Son, p. 193; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, p. 248; Charlesworth, ‘Lady Wisdom’, p. 97. This focus on Woman Wisdom’s rejection and links with Jesus’ rejection, most graphically reflected in the cross, draw from 1 Enoch 42.2, rather than intertestamental texts that image Woman Wisdom as infusing ‘all things’ (Wis. 7.24, 27; Sir. 1.9-10) dwelling in the holy tent (Sir. 24.8-10), in Torah (Sir. 24.23; Bar. 4.1) and in the thoughts and souls of humanity (Wis. 6.16; 7.27). Fiddes rightly recognizes that too often scholars place emphasis on the Enochian tradition of Woman Wisdom’s rejection: see Fiddes, Seeing, p. 362, also pp. 352–62. See Chapter 5. 149. The abundant wine is poured out on the third day (2.1) and it is emphasized that this is the ‘first’ of Jesus’ ‘signs’ (2.11). 150. See Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 60 and Scott, Sophia, pp. 176–84. 151.  Scott states, ‘Here in the conversation with the Samaritan Woman in John 4 we see Jesus Sophia making the offer of such flowing water to a woman’, Scott, Sophia, p. 189. For further discussion, see pp. 184–98. 152. As Scott states, ‘Sirach even offers us something of a parallel to the words of Jn 7:38, when he says that he has become a channel through which the flow, which is Sophia,

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The image of Jesus as the provider of bread and wine is proclaimed across the synoptics as well as in John’s gospel, in the feeding of the multitudes (Mt. 14.13-21; Mk 6.30-44; Lk. 9.10-17; Jn 6.1-14; Mt. 15.32-29; Mk 8.1-10). However, the Johannine Jesus becomes the bread (6.35, 48) and the ongoing true source of wine, for he is the vine (15.1). This reflects understandings of Woman Wisdom who describes herself as the vine (Sir. 24.17) and invites people to eat of her (Sir. 24.19-21) and her ‘bread of learning’ (Sir. 15.3).153 Ringe imposes a false dichotomy between Woman Wisdom and the Johannine Jesus claiming that ‘Wisdom indeed spreads a banquet for her people, but Jesus becomes their food for life’.154 Woman Wisdom and Jesus both offer themselves as the feast; the difference is that the Johannine Jesus declares that those who feast on him ‘will never be hungry’ and ‘will never be thirsty’ (6.35), while in Sirach those who feast on Woman Wisdom will be left longing for more (24.21). In John the author is not only linking Jesus with Woman Wisdom, but appears to be claiming that the nourishment offered in her embodiment in Jesus surpasses anything that has come before.155 An institution narrative is not included in John; however focus on Jesus’ ongoing gift of nourishment is underscored in the closing of the gospel. Sandra Schneiders provides an analysis of John 21, arguing that it is not an ill-fitting appendix, but rather that ‘chapter 21 is an exploration of the life of those who did not see but who believed … [it] opens with a setting that both establishes continuity with the gospel account and hints at the newness of the situation’.156 can flood out to others (Sir 24:30). This is not dissimilar to the relationship envisioned between the disciple and the Spirit (Jn 7:39), which the evangelist will later show to be the very life of Jesus Sophia in the disciple (20:29)’, Scott, Sophia, p. 118. 153. Scott, Sophia, pp. 116–19; Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 61; J. Massyngbaerde Ford, Redeemer Friend and Mother: Salvation in Antiquity and in the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 126. 154. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 61. 155.  See also Bennema, Power, p. 186. Sandelin argues that here ‘Jesus as nourisher and bread of life does not incarnate the Wisdom of early Judaism but supersedes her … In the Gospel of John the resemblance between Jesus and Wisdom as nourisher has the effective purpose of supplanting the latter’, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 185. This misunderstanding of the text is likely influenced by Sandelin’s unwarranted assumption that it is a ‘fact’ that, ‘in the Gospel of John the Son has a much closer relationship to the Father than Wisdom has to God in any stratum of Jewish wisdom tradition’, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 177. Rather than the Johannine Jesus ‘superseding’ Woman Wisdom, for the author of John it is that as Jesus embodies Woman Wisdom, the actuality of this embodiment begets divine nourishment that, until this point, has not been known. The concept of pleroma, fullness (1.16; see also Col. 2.9) assists in understanding this conviction. The fullness of the embodiment of JesusWoman Wisdom spills over with direct and saving impact upon the Jesus community (1.16; and Col. 1.13-20 in light of Col. 2.9). 156. Schneiders, Written that You, p. 227. In contrast Scott suggests that Chapter 21 reflects later (different) authorial agenda to reinstate the priority of Peter over Mary, Scott, Sophia, pp. 248–9.



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Here amidst the disciples’ despair about Jesus’ death, and confusion and reticence about Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus again appears to followers, inviting them to another meal (9-13). Just as Woman Wisdom invites all to her feast that gives life and insight (Prov. 9.5-6; Sir. 15.3) the bread and fish that the risen Jesus breaks and gives to his followers brings more than physical feeding (13-14). Sharing in this meal, provided by the one who is the bread, brings divine understanding and nourishment for the challenging journey ahead (15-22). The Johannine Jesus is also imaged as Woman Wisdom as s/he brings people into friendship with the divine.157 As elaborated in the farewell discourse, directly after describing himself as the true vine (15.1-10) the Johannine Jesus goes on to declare that the disciples are no longer servants but friends (15.12-15). Woman Wisdom is likewise presented as a vine (Sir. 24.17), and she brings people into friendship with God (Wis. 7.12-14, 27-28). John explicitly links being made friends with God with receiving knowledge of God (15.15). This soteriological conviction is grounded in Wisdom christology. The Johannine Jesus is able to reveal this knowledge of God because he has been with God from ‘the beginning’ (1.1). That is, Jesus is pre-existent Woman Wisdom (e.g. Prov. 3.19; 8.22-31; Wis. 7.22; 8.3-4; Sir. 24.9) who has the words of eternal life (6.68-69; see Prov. 1.23; 3.13-18; 8.35) that birth friendship with the divine (15.12-15).158 From the outset the Johannine Jesus is celebrated as Woman Wisdom, pre-existent and intimate of God who is the light against whom the darkness does not prevail. The first sign of this gospel is sharing the abundant wine. The last action is providing the feast that enlightens, transforms and equips for discipleship. In between, Jesus-Woman Wisdom continues to be utterly self-giving; offering the living water (4.14; 7.38), the bread of life (6.35), the words of life (6.68), and divine friendship even to death (15.13).159 John’s gospel presents a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology that is anchored in Wisdom christology.160 Because Jesus is Woman Wisdom embodied, s/he nourishes with herself in ‘real time’. The crowds on the mountainside are filled (6.12; 6.35) and the frightened disciples are empowered to leave aside the locked room (20.19), the old habits (21.3) and to live differently and boldly, even in the face of persecution (21.18). The Johannine Jesus is Woman Wisdom who actualizes nourishment, transformation and reconciliation within her very being and who will continue to, as s/he abides within those in the Jesus community (15.1-11). This salvation is not theoretical, here it is being claimed that this illuminating, nourishing and befriending are being experienced within the Jesus community, ‘from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace’ (1.16). 157. See Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, pp. 64–83. 158. See Scott, Sophia, pp. 154–5; Bennema, Power, pp. 38, 250–1, see Chapter 3. 159. Scott sees other references to Woman Wisdom particularly in the interactions between Jesus-Woman Wisdom and the woman at Bethany, Mary and Martha, the women at the cross, as well as Mary of Magdala in the resurrection account, Scott, Sophia, pp. 199–234. 160. See Chapter 3.

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Excursus: Ephesians In Ephesians imagery of Woman Wisdom in relation to Jesus is not as obvious as it is in other Second Testament and early church texts. In part, this is because it is in fragmentary texts, interspersed throughout the letter, rather than in one or two concentrated passages.161 However, when Ephesians is read in the context of other Second Testament and the early church texts, Woman Wisdom’s presence comes into focus. There are several indicators and the first is that Jesus is ‘the Beloved’ (1.6). In Mark there are connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom in this language of ‘the Beloved’ (Mk 1.11; 9.7) these are also seen in 1 Clement 59.2, 3 and will be discussed below. Ephesians goes on to state that ‘With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth’ (1.8-10). Like Colossians and 1 Corinthians 8.6 the theme of ‘all things’ is integral. While the Colossians hymn celebrates Jesus as the one ‘in whom the fullness of the deity dwells’ (2.9), in Ephesians it is proclaimed that God has put ‘all things under his [Jesus Christ’s] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all’ (1.22-23). The imagery of ‘filling all in all’, shares resonance with Woman Wisdom (Wis. 7.23-24, 27; Sir. 1.9-10). The understanding of participating in this ‘fullness’ is expressed not only in Ephesians but also in Colossians (2.10). The text states that the purpose of the author was to ‘bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things’ (3.9-10). So that through the church ‘in accordance with the eternal purpose’, the ‘wisdom of God σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ in its rich variety might now be made known’ (3.10). A prayer is then expressed that Christ ‘may dwell in your hearts’ (3.17) and the expansive nature of the love of Christ is celebrated, its ‘breadth and length and height and depth’ (3.18). This description may link Jesus with Woman Wisdom, the one who ‘pervades and penetrates all things’ (Wis. 7.24).162 The hope is then expressed that 161. For discussion of the origins and dating of Ephesians see Christopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticisim and the New Testament, ed. Pieter Willem van der Horst et al., Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, vol. 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 581–6; Margaret MacDonald, Colossians and Ephesians, ed. Daniel Harrington, Sacra Pagina, vol. 17 (Collegeville: Michael Glazier Book-Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 4–15; John Muddiman, The Epistle to the Ephesians, ed. Morna Hooker, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (London: Continuum, 2001), pp. 2–36. Debates continue about Paul’s authorship, and the relationship between Colossians and Ephesians. 162. This is discussed by Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, p. 587. Drawing from ‘Gnostic’ sources they ultimately argue that Jesus is imaged as the kavod, and state: ‘This would mean that the author conceived of Christ as the Image of the invisible God, according to the ‘Logos-Angel’ model encountered elsewhere in the Pauline and



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the community: ‘may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’ (3.19). This language of ‘fullness’ again shares resonance with Colossians (Col. 2.9-10). Convictions about divine heart dwelling in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom are also found in other Second Testament and early church texts.163 In Ephesians, Jesus Christ is the one ‘who descended [and] is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill “all things”’ (4.10). This language of descending and ascending, coupled again with the language of ‘all things’ aligns with understandings of Woman Wisdom (Sir. 24.3-5; Bar. 3.29; Wis. 7.24, 27; 8.1).164 The text goes on to proclaim that the divine gifts the church receives are for ‘building up the body of Christ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God’ (4.12-13). As will be discussed below and in Chapter 3, various Jesus communities celebrate Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the imparter of divine knowledge. The accumulative evidence of Ephesians suggests that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology may be present. 1 Clement The letter of 1 Clement is one of the earliest authenticated texts in the Christian tradition outside the Second Testament, and probably predates the composition of some of these texts.165 It offers insight into the emerging theology of the church deutero-Pauline literature’, Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, p. 593, see also pp. 578–9. Many of the Second Testament sources they cite as proof of this, including John’s prologue, 2 Cor. 3.16–4.6, and the Colossians hymn are texts that celebrate Jesus in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom. Nils Dahl rightly cautions against reliance on so-called ‘Gnostic’ sources. Nils Astrup Dahl, Studies in Ephesians, ed. David Hellholm et al., Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 131 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), pp. 336–7. Within this discussion, Dahl recognizes that Woman Wisdom may be present in Ephesians, Dahl, Studies in Ephesians, pp. 366–9. 163. See Chapter 3. 164. See also Rom. 10.5-9. 165.  1 Clement is addressed to the church in Corinth from the church in Rome and is written in response to disputes. Authorship is not known, though through history it has been attributed to Clement, third Bishop of Rome. Clayton Jefford argues that the internal evidence of the letter, which gives no author, ‘strongly suggests the collective voice of many persons’ and that this text could be from the gathered leaders of the church in Rome; Clayton Jefford, The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), pp. 16–17. Dating of the text is commonly identified around 95 c.e., Bart Ehrman, The New Testament And Other Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 302. Helmut Koester, dates the letter to 96 c.e., Helmut Koester, From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), p. 5. However, the discussion of ongoing practices in the temple (40; 41) would make little sense if the temple had already been destroyed. Furthermore Paul and

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in Rome and the church in Corinth, as perceived by the church in Rome.166 In 1 Clement there are explicit references to Woman Wisdom. She is described as ‘his all-virtuous Wisdom’ (57.3) and she is quoted citing Proverbs (57.3-7; Prov. 1.23-33). The title ‘all-virtuous’ echoes the titles that are given to God: ‘all Holy One’ (35.3), ‘all seeing Master’ (55.6) and ‘all powerful’ (56.6; 62.2). Strikingly, the title ‘all-virtuous’ is also attributed to God, as God’s name is described as ‘all-virtuous’ (45.7; 60.4).167 In this text, Woman Wisdom and God are aligned. While some question the presence of Woman Wisdom in 1 Corinthians,168 in this letter to the church in Corinth written relatively soon after the former, the significant place of Woman Wisdom is indisputable. No explanation is given of who Woman Wisdom is, thus indicating that the author/s of 1 Clement believe that Woman Wisdom is known and honoured in this community. The evidence of 1 Clement upends assumptions that the Corinthian implied readers would not be familiar with Woman Wisdom.169 After describing Woman Wisdom as ‘all-virtuous’, and quoting her speech, the letter instructs: For this reason we should be obedient to his most holy and glorious name, fleeing the dangers foretold by Wisdom, which threaten the disobedient. In this way we will dwell with confidence in the most holy name of his magnificence. (58.1).170

According to this text, it is by heeding Woman Wisdom that one is able to abide in the holy name of God.171 Peter are described as being martyred in our ‘own generation’ (5.1). Jefford concurs with this assessment, dating the letter to ‘after the deaths of Paul and Peter (by tradition during the reign of Nero) but before the fall of the temple in the year 70’, Jefford, Apostolic Fathers, p. 19 (brackets original). Other scholars continue to advocate both early and later dating, including up to c.e. 140, Attridge, Hebrews, p. 7. John Gregg states: ‘with the exception of the New Testament, no piece of literature belonging to the early Church stands on so secure a foundation, as regards to external attestation and MS. authority, as does the Epistle of Clement’, John Gregg Early Church Classics: The Epistle of St Clement (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1915), p. 1. 166. See Jefford, Apostolic Fathers, p. 134. 167. This adds further weight to the possibility that the ‘holy name’ in the Didache is understood in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom, see discussion below. 168. See for example Sampley, ‘The First Letter to the Corinthians’, p. 812. 169. The internal continuity between the letters is seen in the appeal of the author/s of 1 Clement to the letter of 1 Corinthians in an ongoing challenge to live in peace (47.1-2). 170. Translated by Bart Ehrman, New Testament and Other. 171.  1 Clement has a continuity of understanding between Jewish traditions and the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This is evidenced, for example, in its discussion of the destructive role of envy in relation to Cain, Moses and in the treatment of Peter and Paul (4–5). The understanding of Woman Wisdom in relation to the Hebrew traditions (58) is in



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While explicit connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom are not made, there are implicit connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. The first of these may be traced in 16.17’s discussion of Jesus’ yoke. As discussed above, the language of yoke is important for the Matthaean Jesus and has links with Woman Wisdom (11.28-30; Sir. 6.24-31; see also 51.26).172 Later in 1 Clement it is stated: ‘The faith that is in Christ guarantees all these things: For he himself calls to us through the Holy Spirit: “Come children, and hear me; I will teach you the reverential awe of the Lord”’ (22.1). This invitation shares some symmetry with the call of the Matthaean Jesus (11.28-30) and the repeated call of Woman Wisdom to come and learn from her knowledge of God (e.g. Prov. 1.20-23; 8.1-12; 9.5-6). Likewise ‘fear of the Lord’ and attending to Woman Wisdom are linked (Sir. 14.20–15.6; see also Job 28.28). Christ’s call is set in the present tense and reveals the faith of this community. It is not just that Jesus’ spoken words are here being recalled, as they are in other parts of the letter (e.g. 13.1-2). Here, the conviction is expressed that through the Holy Spirit, Christ continues to offer the invitation to come, listen and learn. 1 Clement 36 pauses from discussions of church unity to present a christological and soteriological celebration of who Christ is and what Christ achieves. Jesus Christ is ‘the path, loved ones, in which we have found our salvation’ (36.1). Jesus is the one ‘through whom we gaze into the heights of the heavens’ (36.2) and the one through whom ‘we see the reflection of his [the all Holy One’s] perfect and superior countenance’ (36.2). Each of these claims reflects descriptions of Woman Wisdom. She is celebrated as the one in the highest heavens (Sir. 24.3-4; Wis. 9.10; Bar. 3.29), a ‘reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness’ (Wis. 7.27) and the one who saves (Wis. 10.1–11.4). 1 Clement celebrates that Jesus is the one through whom ‘the eyes of our hearts have been opened’ and through whom ‘our foolish and darkened understanding springs up into the light’ (36.2, see also 59.2).173 Woman Wisdom is likewise presented as the one who offers true understanding and life (e.g. Prov. 1.22; 8.5, 35; 9.4-6; Wis. 9.10-12).174 She is the one who ‘meets them in every thought’ (Wis. 6.16), who ‘passes into holy souls’ (Wis. 7.27) and she is the source of true light (Wis. 6.12; 7.10, 29) who prevails against evil (Wis. 7.30). Here the imagery of Woman Wisdom and the imagery of Jesus overlap. The celebration of Jesus continues ‘through this one the Master has wished us to taste the knowledge of immortality’ (36.2). Likewise Woman Wisdom is presented as the one who offers the feast of nourishment and insight (Prov. 9.5-6; Sir. 15.3; 24.17-22), she brings life (Prov. 8.35) and ‘the assurance of immortality’ continuity with understandings of Woman Wisdom in relation to Jesus Christ, the ‘beloved child’ (59) of God. 172. See also the Didache below, and Thomas, Chapter 4. 173. Here Jesus is celebrated as the gateway to encountering salvific, divine illumination. There are parallels between this passage and Paul’s declaration (2 Cor. 4.4-6). See Chapter 3. 174. Scott, Sophia, pp. 154–5.

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(Wis. 6.18-20). It is then proclaimed that Jesus is ‘the radiance of his [the Most High’s] magnificence, as superior to the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name’ (36.2). This cosmic celebration again correlates with descriptions of Woman Wisdom who is a ‘pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty’ (Wis. 7.25), the one who ‘is radiant and unfading’ (Wis. 6.12) and who is ‘an image of his [God’s] goodness’ (Wis. 7.26). Just as Jesus is ‘superior to the angels’ Woman Wisdom proclaims her priority in the heavenly court (Sir. 24.2-5). In the only chapter that focuses on christology and soteriology in 1 Clement, Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology provide the foundation. Here Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom who is ‘the path, loved ones, in which we find our salvation’ (36.1, see John 14.6 for comparison).175 1 Clement’s Wisdom soteriology proclaims that salvation is actualized through Jesus who is imaged as Woman Wisdom: the radiance of God, and who is the portal to the divine (36.2). Unlike Hebrews 1.3, this proclamation of salvation does not include ‘purification of sins’. While 1 Clement does not proclaim an ‘atonement theology’, the cross of Christ remains integral. The blood of Jesus Christ is ‘given for us’ (21.6) and the community is encouraged to ‘gaze intently upon the blood of Christ and realize how precious it is to his Father’ (7.4). In 1 Clement, Christ’s action in the cross is understood in the context of Jesus’ life and teaching, as an action of humility. This humility of Jesus is set within the wider context of the opposite way of behaving in which ‘jealousy, envy and strife’ dominate and wreak havoc. The destructive power of envy is the repeated focus of Chapters 3 through to 16. Christ’s gentleness and humility in the cross (16.1-17; see also 21.6; 49.6) and in his life and teaching (2.1; 13.1-3) are consistently held up in saving contrast (21.8-9). This christological and soteriological understanding of divine non-retaliation, gentleness and humility share symmetry with other Second Testament texts that celebrate Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s salvation.176 Excursus: Hebrews 1.3-4 and 1 Clement 36 The description of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the ‘reflection of his [God’s] perfect and superior countenance’ (36.2) shares much in common with Hebrews 1.3-4. In both texts Jesus reflects God’s radiance and the name Jesus ‘inherited’ is the name superior to the angels (36.3; Heb. 1.4). In 1 Clement 36.4, like Hebrews 1.5, the text describes the Master speaking: ‘You are my Son; today I have given you birth.’ Focus on the gendered language of ‘Son’ has obscured the presence of Woman Wisdom in relation to Christ in each of these texts. In both these passages, Jesus is understood in relation to Woman Wisdom and Jesus is birthed, or begotten by God. This may give further indication of a primitive Woman Wisdom baptism tradition, in which Jesus hears the voice calling him ‘the beloved’ and is infused with the power and/or 175. The prayers of 1 Clement 59 may also reflect convictions about Jesus-Woman Wisdom and invite further investigation. 176. See Chapter 3.



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presence of Woman Wisdom.177 The language of Jesus ‘inheriting’ a more excellent name (36.2; Heb. 1.4) also aligns with the description of Jesus being chosen by God (1 Clement 64.1) and may give further credence to this.178 The point of difference between Hebrews 1.3-5 and the letter of 1 Clement 36 is that as Christ’s salvation is proclaimed, the language of ‘purification for sins’ is not included in the latter. The closest this chapter comes to such language is in the introduction in which Jesus is described as: ‘the high priest of our offerings’ (36.1). In Hebrews the reason Jesus is superior to the angels, and his inherited name is more excellent, is linked with having ‘made purification for our sins’ (1.3-4). In 1 Clement the reason Jesus is superior to the angels is because Jesus is the ‘radiance of his [God’s] magnificence’ and ‘has inherited a more excellent name’ (36.2). If the author of Hebrews and the letter of 1 Clement drew from the same source, or one another, this addition on the part of Hebrews, or omission on the part of the letter of 1 Clement, provides an interesting insight into these communities.179 Harold Attridge acknowledges that Hebrews and 1 Clement may have shared a common ‘other’ source, yet ultimately argues that 1 Clement is dependent upon Hebrews, because 1 Clement uses ‘precisely the wording of Hebrews’.180 Attridge’s argument could equally be made in the reverse. While in Hebrews the Psalm is drawn from at greater length this does not prove that Hebrews was written earlier. Likewise, the choice of 1 Clement not to include ‘purification of sins’ does not in and of itself confirm literary dependence. Equally the author of Hebrews may have added these words to a common source, or to the text of 1 Clement. The ‘atonement’ theology in Hebrews, as seen in 1.3 and elsewhere (e.g. Heb. 10.1-18), adds weight to the possibility that Hebrews was written after the letter of 1 Clement.181 Regardless of dating, the differing emphasis in the soteriology of 1 Clement and Hebrews is striking in light of their shared Wisdom christology. Didache The Didache, or The Teaching (of the Twelve Apostles), is an early Christian text composed around the time, or earlier than, the composition of some Second 177. See discussion of the Markan baptism above. 1 Clement 59 describes Jesus twice as the Creator’s ‘beloved child’ (59.2, 3) and a third time, in direct speech to God, as: ‘your child’ (59.4). The choice of the non-gendered language of ‘child’ stands in contrast to 36.4 and other Second Testament texts in which the language of ‘son-ship’ is utilized. The Didache also favours the language of ‘child’ (9.2). 178. These understandings may or may not reflect a theology of ‘adoptionism’. If they do, the ‘high’ christology of these passages needs to be accounted for. 179. Jefford points out that the common view that Hebrews predates 1 Clement is often based on the false assumption that the author of Clement was the third Bishop of Rome, Clement, Jefford, Apostolic Fathers, p. 132. 180. Attridge, Hebrews, p. 7. 181. This is underscored by the reality that 1 Clement discusses and affirms the cultic temple practices in Jerusalem ‘for sin and transgression’ (41.2; see Chapters 40–1).

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Testament texts.182 It is not known where the Didache was written. Fragments of the text have been found in many languages, thus suggesting its ‘wide appeal’.183 While debate surrounds the dating and origins of the Didache, it is commonly assumed that the text has a ‘low’ christology.184 While it is true that little explicit attention is given to the christology of the Didache scholars have not given due weight to the presence and significance of Wisdom traditions. In the Didache there are no explicit references to Woman Wisdom, therefore there are no explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. However, there are 182.  Dating of this text continues to be disputed with an increasing number of scholars suggesting its composition in the first century, with some claiming it was composed before the destruction of the temple. Ehrman dates the Didache to around 100 c.e. Ehrman, New Testament and Other, p. 320. Aaron Milavec argues that the Didache was composed between 50 and 70 c.e. and rightly cautions against the assumption that the Didache is dependent upon the written Gospel of Matthew or any other, Aaron Milavec, The Didache: Faith, Hope and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50–70 c.e. (New York: The Newman Press, 2003), pp. 695–739. Jurgen Zangenberg also concludes that the Didache is a ‘quite independent witness’, Jurgen Zangenberg, ‘Reconstructing the Social and Religious Milieu of the Didache: Observations and Possible Results’, Matthew, James and Didache: Three Related Documents in Their Jewish and Christian Settings, ed. H. van de Sandt and J. Zangenberg (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), p. 68. Thomas O’Loughlin argues that a version of the Didache ‘was being committed to memory by groups of followers of Jesus by the middle of the first century – and what we have reflects a very early stage in that text’s life and influence’, Thomas O’Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the earliest Christians (Michigan: Grand Rapids, 2010), p. 26. Enrico Mazza claims that the theology reflected in Chapters 9 and 10 is from ‘the first three or four years after the death and resurrection of Christ’, Enrico Mazza, ‘Elements of a Eucharistic Interpretation’, The Didache in Modern Research, ed. J. Draper (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), p. 283. Jefford argues that elements, including Chapters 9 and 10, emerge from primitive strands of Christianity and reflect pre-Pauline composition, but that the final edition could have been completed as late as 120 c.e, Jefford, Apostolic Fathers, pp. 20–1. 183. O’Loughlin, Didache, p. 24. 184. Overman claims: ‘The Christology of the Didache is somewhere between low and non-existent’, J. Andrew Overman, ‘Problems with Pluralism’, in Matthew, James and Didache: Three Related Documents in Their Jewish and Christian Settings, ed. H. van de Sandt and J. Zangenberg (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), p. 265. Jefford argues that there is a ‘lack of comment upon the nature of Christ’. Jefford, Apostolic Fathers, p. 126. This is not accurate. While the Didache does not elaborate its claims, the premise of this text is that Jesus is ‘Lord’ (e.g. 1.1; 4.2; 9.5; 15.1) and his teachings (e.g. 1.2-7) are the way of life (1.1, 2). Jesus’ ‘lordship’ is understood in relation to his ongoing presence in the Jesus Community (4.1) and his imminent return (16.1ff.). While the ‘nature’ of Christ is not elaborated in these convictions, they indicate that, Jesus Christ, the ‘Lord’, was understood to have different attributes to those of a ‘regular’ person who could be called lord. Furthermore, as will be discussed below, Jesus is understood as the revealer of the ‘holy vine’ and ‘child’ of God (9.2).



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several implicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. The first is in the opening words of the Didache in which ‘the teaching of the Lord’ [Jesus] is ‘the path of life’ (1.1; 2). Woman Wisdom is the teacher par excellence who has the words of life (e.g. Prov. 3.18; 8.8, 34-35; 9.6; Wis. 9.9, 11). The premise of the Didache is that there are two paths, one to life and one to death (1.1-2ff.). In Proverbs the life-giving teaching of Woman Wisdom is placed in contrast to the way of the foolish woman who leads to sheol (Prov. 9.13-18). Here, as it is proclaimed that Jesus’ teaching is the path to life, Woman Wisdom is implicitly imaged. Furthermore, accepting Jesus’ teaching is described as taking on ‘the entire yoke of the Lord’ (6.2), just as Jesus-Woman Wisdom offers his/her yoke that brings rest for the soul (Mt. 11.29; 1 Clement 16.17; Sir. 6.24-31; 51.26). The liturgical prayers of Chapters 9 and 10 reveal further implicit connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. These are variously understood as prayers for a love feast or prayers reflecting a primitive form of eucharist.185 The focus upon what this liturgy apparently lacks, or confuses, creates the danger of masking what this liturgy proclaims. In Chapter 9 this prayer is offered: We give you thanks, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child, which you made known to us through Jesus your child. To you be the glory forever. (9.2)

Here the text celebrates the understanding that the ‘holy vine’ and ‘child’,186 has (have) been revealed ‘through Jesus your child’ (9.2; 10.3). This leads Kurt 185. For an outline of recent scholarly positions, see Paul Bradshaw, ‘Yet Another Explanation of Didache 9–10’, Studia Liturgica 36 (2006) 124–28, Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache, trans. Linda Maloney, ed. Harold Attridge, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 139–67. According to the text this meal is sacred and only for those baptized into Christ (9.5). To share in this meal is to be fed ‘spiritual food and drink’ through the Holy One’s child Jesus (10.3) and the liturgical meal is described as ‘eucharist’ (9.1), a holy meal for holy people (9.5, 10.6). While pointing out that 9.5 may be an editorial gloss, Niederwimmer also concludes that these words add weight to the meal not being a ‘community meal’ but instead that it ‘includes the sacramental celebration of the Lord’s Supper’, Niederwimmer, Didache, pp. 153–54. While some assume that the repetitive nature of aspects of the prayers indicate two meals, or prayer traditions embedded within the text, the text itself presents Chapters 9 and 10 as standing together as prayers for one holy meal. Chapter 9 includes the prayer said before taking part in eucharist (9.1-4), and the prayer of Chapter 10 being used after all have shared in this feast (10.1ff.). Sandelin draws the same conclusion in his extended discussion, see Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 224. 186. It is true that παιδός can be interpreted as servant, and this is done by some scholars, for example Milavec, The Didache, p. 31 and Niederwimmer, The Didache, p.146. However, Ehrman is right to translate παιδός as child in this context in which the Holy One is repeatedly called ‘our father’, Ehrman, New Testament and Other, p. 323. The Didache and the letter of 1 Clement (59) share this preference for the language of ‘child’ for Jesus.

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Niederwimmer to insert additional meaning to the text in order to ‘explain’ this curious claim.187 However, it is likely that this ‘holy vine’, that pre-exists Jesus’ revelation of it, was understood in relation to pre-existent Woman Wisdom. Woman Wisdom is understood as the vine (Sir. 24.17-19) and the one who mixes her wine for the transformative feast (Prov. 9.5-6). Karl-Gustav Sandelin also highlights these connections and points out the close association between Woman Wisdom and David in Jewish texts, including Qumran material, stating: ‘Since the vine in Sir 24.17 is a metaphor for Wisdom, an expression like “the holy vine of David” becomes conceivable as designation for Wisdom.’188 The Johannine understanding of Jesus as Woman Wisdom, the true vine (15.1), underscores the possibility that Jesus is being celebrated as the revealer, or embodier, of Woman Wisdom here.189 Furthermore, the language of ‘your child’ may also reflect understandings of Woman Wisdom.190 The text goes on to celebrate that it is through Jesus who has made known ‘your holy vine’ and ‘your child’, that ‘life and knowledge’ are given (9.3). In these gifts the understanding between Jesus and Woman Wisdom is again underscored, as Woman Wisdom is the one who offers life (e.g. Prov. 3.17-18; 8.35) and who offers knowledge and understanding (e.g. Prov. 1.20-23; 3.13; 9.5-6; Wis. 6.15-17; 9.11; Sir. 1.9-10). The Didache’s christology is not ‘somewhere between low and non-existent’.191 Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are central to this text’s liturgical celebration of who Jesus is, and what Jesus achieves.192 Sandelin 187. Niederwimmer argues that the intended meaning is: ‘… God has shown, has revealed, the holy vine (eschatological salvation) through Jesus, God’s servant’, Niederwimmer, Didache, p. 146 (brackets original). The insertion of ‘eschatological salvation’ is problematic; not only is this open to multiple interpretations, this understanding relies on additional material from silence, for meaning. 188. Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 195, 199. Sandelin also discusses the ways in which Woman Wisdom is understood as ‘holy’, Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 195–98. Betz also sees the connection between Woman Wisdom and this reference to the vine of David, Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 266. While in Hebrew tradition the vine also has connections with understandings of Israel (e.g. Isa. 5.7) here the central understanding of this pre-existent ‘holy vine’ is likely in relation to Woman Wisdom. 189. See also Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 194; Betz, ‘Eucharist’, pp. 266–7. 190.  Drawing from Jewish sources Sandelin argues that it is a ‘very Jewish idea’ for God to be the father of Wisdom, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 212. 191. Overman, ‘Problems’, p. 265. 192. For a detailed discussion of the way in which Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom in the Didache liturgy, see Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 186–228. Joannes Betz also identifies the links between John’s Gospel and the centrality of Wisdom christology within the Didache liturgy, Joannes Betz, ‘The Eucharist in the Didache’, The Didache in Modern Research, ed. J. Draper (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. 255–8, 270. However, Betz commonly chooses to ‘de-sex’ Woman Wisdom, by referring to her as ‘it’, and ‘their’ rather than ‘her’. Betz, ‘Eucharist’, pp. 256–7. This choice to mask the feminine gender of Woman Wisdom and her embodiment in Jesus is further underscored in Betz’s translation of παιδός as ‘son’ rather than ‘child’. Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 257ff.



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argues that it is ‘obvious’ that here Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, yet this is still not recognized by many.193 In such a brief liturgical prayer, which is perceived by many to leave out so much, some specific details are not only included but are repeated. These details may provide further indication of the presence of Woman Wisdom. Directions are included about what to pray ‘with respect to the fragment of bread’ (9.3a). After giving thanks for ‘the life and knowledge’ given through Jesus your child, the prayer continues: ‘… As this fragment of bread was scattered upon the mountains and was gathered to become one …’ (9.4). What fragment of bread and which mountains are being referred to? Some argue that these references reflect the process of seeds being scattered on the mountainside, growing, being harvested, ground and baked into one loaf, thus formerly disconnected people, like grains of wheat are now made into one ‘loaf ’ in the church through Jesus.194 This understanding may be affirmed by the prayer for unity that continues ‘may your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth in to your kingdom’ (9.4). However the reality that the text refers to the ‘fragment of bread’, rather than to seeds that have been scattered on the mountains, makes this less convincing. The fragment (κλάσμα) of bread is twice spoken of in the short liturgy (9.3, 4). It is possible that this fragment may take its reference from another meal setting from within Jesus’ ministry. In each of the six miraculous feeding accounts in the Second Testament this same language (κλάσματα) is used, as Jesus makes an abundant feast for thousands of people (Mk 6.43; 8.8; Mt. 14.20; 15.37; Lk. 9.17; Jn 6.12).195 Across these accounts the fragments are not to be left behind, but gathered up into twelve and seven baskets respectively.196 This reading also underscores the priority of unity (9.4) and has a particular emphasis upon both Jews and Gentiles being included in the miraculous feast of God.197 That the fragment of bread in the Didache points to the miraculous feeding event/s may also be

193. Sandelin works through Proverbs 1–9 to demonstrate that it is ‘obvious’ that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom in 9.3, Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 199–201. 194. See Niederwimmer, Didache, p. 152. Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 262. 195.  In highlighting these potential links I am not suggesting literary dependence upon any of the Second Testament traditions. However, it may be possible that oral tradition, or even recollections of these event/s, led to this expression of eucharist. 196.  In the feeding narratives baskets of twelve, and in Matthew and Mark in the second feeding account baskets of seven, are gathered and filled with the fragments. This number symbolism refers to both the Jewish (twelve tribes) and Gentile (seven as a universal number) elements of the church being gathered together, so that nothing is lost and all things are included. 197. Charles Bobertz also sees these connections between Mark’s feeding narratives and the Didache. He argues that the central focus of both is the inclusion of the Gentiles. Charles Bobertz, ‘Ritual Eucharist Within Narrative: A Comparison of Didache 9–10 with Mark 6:31-44, 8:1-9’, Studia Patristica 45 (2010): pp. 93–9.

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evidenced in the Didache’s reference to mountains, for in Matthew (15.29ff.) and John (6.3) these feeding events take place on mountains.198 The possibility that the miraculous feeding accounts inform the Didache’s liturgy is further strengthened when compared with another detail in John’s miraculous feeding narrative. The Didache states, ‘And when you have had enough to eat, ἐμπλησθῆσαι, you should give thanks as follows ...’ (10.1). These words have contributed to scholars arguing that a meal must have been eaten, and thus an ‘agape’, rather than eucharist, feast is in sight within this liturgy.199 This misunderstands the text.200 In each of the Second Testament feeding narratives reference is made to the people being filled and in John it is stated that the people are satisfied ἐνεπλήσθησαν (6.12). This same language in the Didache likely implies that a full meal has been shared, but there is a deeper reference. Here it is being claimed that, just as the people on the mountainside experience being filled by Jesus’ miraculous feast sharing in his earthly ministry, Didache communities are continuing to experience spiritual filling through the ongoing divine presence of the risen Jesus in this holy feast. This conviction is made explicit a few verses later: not only do the community give thanks for ‘regular food’ (10.3) they go on to give thanks because ‘you graciously provided us with spiritual food and drink and eternal life through your child’ (10.3). This thanksgiving for ‘spiritual food and drink’ is accompanied by thanks ‘for your holy name which you have made reside in our hearts’ (10.2).201 It is not unreasonable to assume that this reference to the ‘holy name’ also refers to Woman Wisdom.202 198. C. F. E. Moule sees the same possibility, C. F. E. Moule ‘A Note on the Didache ix’, Journal for Theological Studies ed. H. Chadwick et al., vol. vi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), pp. 241–2. Sandelin argues that because the gospel narratives refer to a mountain, while the Didache refers to mountains, ‘On the whole, it does seem unlikely that 9.4 owes anything to John 6.3-18’, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 202. This, in and of itself, does not rule out the possibility that there are connections to accounts of Jesus’ miraculous feedings. Language of ἐνεπλήσθησαν may indicate further evidence of connections with the feeding narratives. It is also possible, that despite its brevity, the Didache liturgy may have a surplus of meanings, referring reflexively to accounts of Jesus’ miraculous feedings, to the more routine process of seeds becoming a loaf of bread, and also, as Betz suggests, to the liturgical action of breaking the bread in eucharist, that then becomes a fragment, Betz, ‘The Eucharist of the Didache’, p. 260. None of these possibilities detracts from links between Jesus and Woman Wisdom in this text. 199. For discussion of these views see Bradshaw, ‘Yet Another Explanation’, pp. 124–8. 200. Sandelin also recognizes the falsity of this assumption, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 224. O’Loughlin is suspicious of the existence of ‘love feasts’ at all, O’Loughlin, Didache, pp. 8–9. 201. This language of hearts bears resemblance to Paul (2 Cor. 4.4-6) and to the views of the author/s of 1 Clement (36.2). See Chapter 3. 202.  This understanding shares a parallel with the understanding of the ‘excellent name’ within the letter of 1 Clement 36.2, as well as 59.3, and, possibly, also Hebrews 1.4. Sandelin highlights connections to John 17.26 and also suggests that the ‘holy name’ in 10.2 refers to Woman Wisdom, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 209. Betz also recognizes this possibility, Betz,



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In the Didache eucharist, Jesus is in the image of Woman Wisdom, the one who spiritually nourishes.203 Wisdom christology is the foundation for the proclaimed Wisdom soteriology of this text, as it is celebrated that because Jesus makes known pre-existent Woman Wisdom, life, knowledge, faith and immortality are now received (1.1-2; 9.3; 10.2),204 the ‘holy name’ now resides in ‘our hearts’ (10.2) and spiritual food and drink are now absorbed (10.3). The Didache eucharist does not contain an explicit ‘institution narrative’ and it could be argued that the cross is absent from this liturgy.205 However, the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology of the text may assist in unpacking the complexity of this eucharist. From the Didache’s understanding, sharing in the bread and cup of Jesus in eucharist is a sharing in the body and blood/wine of Woman Wisdom (e.g. Jn 4.14; 7.37-38; 6.35, 51; Sir. 15.3; 24.19-21).206 Here the body and blood of Jesus-Woman Wisdom are present, divine and saving. Justin Martyr Justin Martyr was born in the city of Flavia Neapolis somewhere towards the end of the first century, or early in the second century c.e.207 He was brought ‘Eucharist’, pp. 269–70. In contrast, focusing primarily on the writing of Justin Martyr, but also referring to the Didache and 1 Clement, Hurtado argues that the ‘holy name’ is ‘Jesus’. While this may be the case in Justin, Hurtado does not take into consideration the connections between the ‘holy name’, Jesus and Woman Wisdom in these texts, Larry Hurtado ‘“Jesus” as God’s name’, Justin Martyr and His Worlds, ed. Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 128–36. Considering the important place of Wisdom christology in Justin’s writing (see below) it is possible that for Justin the ‘holy name’ is also understood in relation to Woman Wisdom or Jesus-Woman Wisdom. 203. Sandelin states, ‘The spiritual nourishment is the teaching that God gives through Wisdom’, Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 214. The ways in which this Jesus community experienced spiritual nourishment through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, including teaching, will be investigated in detail in Chapter 3. 204. Sandelin, Wisdom, pp. 199–201, 208–10. Betz also sees the connection between Jesus’ gifts of life and immortality and Wisdom, but relates these to the ‘second creation’ and the community experiencing the ‘paradismal gifts’ in Eucharist, Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 261. 205. Betz points out that the prophets can ‘give thanks as often as they wish’ (10.7) and suggests that this may include an institution narrative, Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 254, though, of course, this may not have been the case. While not within the liturgical passage, later in the Didache it is stated that those: ‘who endure in their faith will be saved by the curse itself ’ (16.5). Paul describes the cross of Christ as the curse that saves (Gal. 3.13-14). 206.  Interestingly, Betz argues, ‘that the fourth Gospel knew and used eucharist prayers and formulations of the Didache tradition, even if from its oral stream of tradition …What the Didache says preliminary and briefly, is amplified and clarified, and more strongly Christologized in the Fourth Gospel’, Betz, ‘Eucharist’, p. 256. 207. Leslie Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 5.

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up a Gentile, became a Christian as an adult and was martyred for his faith between 162 and 167.208 His writing to both Gentiles and Jews offer insight into the ways in which Christian faith was being worked out and proclaimed to diverse audiences in the early Jesus movement. The First Apology is addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his son Verissimus the philosopher, and to Lucius the philosopher. It is thought to have been written sometime in the 150s, with the Second Apology written soon after.209 The Dialogue with Trypho details Justin’s account, or construction, of a debate between Justin and a Jewish arguing partner.210 The Dialogue is commonly dated around 160.211 However more recently Timothy Horner has suggested that the earliest core of the text was written around 135 soon after the ‘supposed dialogue took place’, and that towards the end of Justin’s life he reworked the document making significant expansions.212 Regardless of whether the Dialogue was written in the 30s or the 60s, these writings are some of the earliest apologetics we have outside the Second Testament. In the work of Justin Martyr evidence of Woman Wisdom is found according to each of the four-fold criteria. In the Dialogue there are explicit references to Woman Wisdom and there are explicit connections made between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. As Justin seeks to convince his Jewish dialogue partner/s that Jesus is the pre-existent Holy One, his argument rests on the proclamation that Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate: My statements will now be confirmed by none other than the Word of Wisdom, who is this God begotten from the Universal Father, and who is the Word and Wisdom and Power and Glory of Him who begot Him. (Dial 61)213

Readers are left in no doubt that this ‘Word of Wisdom’ is Woman Wisdom, for Justin goes on to quote Woman Wisdom at length, drawing from Proverbs 8.22-30 (Dial 61). 208.  For further information, see Barnard, Justin Martyr, Life, pp. 8–11; Leslie Barnard, Saint Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies, ed. Walter Burghardt, John Dillon and Dennis McManus, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, vol. 56 (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), p. 3. 209. Barnard, Justin Martyr, Life, p. 19. 210.  Timothy Horner provides a detailed analysis of diverse scholarly opinion regarding Justin’s debate with Trypho, Timothy Horner, Listening To Trypho: Justin Martyr’s Dialogue Reconsidered, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology, vol. 28 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), pp. 15–32. 211. Barnard, Justin Martyr, Life, p. 23. 212. Horner, Listening, p. 32. 213. Translation by Thomas Falls, Writings of Saint Justin Martyr, ed. Thomas Falls, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1965).



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In Chapter 62 Justin again proclaims that pre-existent Woman Wisdom has taken on flesh and come to earth in Jesus, the ‘Offspring’ and ‘Son’: But this Offspring, who was truly begotten of the Father, was with the Father and the Father talked with Him before all creation, as the scripture through Solomon clearly showed us, saying that this Son, who is called Wisdom by Solomon, was begotten both as a beginning before all His works, and as His Offspring. (Dial 62; see also 126)

The claim that Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate is pivotal to Justin’s debate with Trypho. Through Wisdom christology Justin is able to proclaim Christ’s pre-existent divinity at the same time as preserving the sovereignty of God within the meta-narrative of monotheistic Israel. As he seeks to explicate his conviction that Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate, Justin uses the analogy of fire, ‘We can observe a similar example in nature when one fire kindles another, without losing anything, but remaining the same; yet the enkindled fire seems to exist of itself and to shine without lessening the brilliancy of the first fire’ (Dial 61).214 According to the text Trypho acknowledges the biblical evidence of Woman Wisdom: ‘This, sir,’ said Trypho, ‘you have abundantly proved by several arguments’ (Dial 63). The issue that remains for Trypho is ‘that you prove that he condescended to be made man, born of a virgin, according to the good pleasure of his Father, and to be crucified and die, and that he afterwards rose again and ascended up into heaven’ (Dial 63). In Dial 129 Justin again returns to Proverbs 8.1-36 in order to reiterate the place of pre-existent Woman Wisdom in Jewish scripture, and his conviction that in Jesus she has been made flesh. That Justin, as well as the author/s of 1 Clement, preserve lengthy quotes from Woman Wisdom in these texts, underscores the reality that Woman Wisdom was known, and was significant, in some early Jesus communities. In contrast to the Dialogue, in the Apologies Justin does not explicitly link Jesus with Woman Wisdom. However, he repeatedly speaks of Jesus as ‘FirstBegotten’ and ‘in the beginning’ thus revealing this implicit understanding (e.g. Prov. 3.19; 8.22; Wis. 9.9; Sir. 1.4). This is seen in Chapter 23: ‘Jesus Christ alone was really begotten as Son by God, being his Word and First-Begotten and Power, and becoming man by His Will, He taught us these things for the conversion and restoration of the human race’ (1 Apol 23).215 Justin repeats these claims that Jesus 214. Justin lists names in Hebrew tradition that he claims point to Jesus’ pre-existence: ‘for in the prophetic writings He is called Wisdom, the Day, the East, Sword, Stone, Rod, Jacob, and Israel’ (100). This collection of titles may appear to indicate that Wisdom christology only made up a part of Justin’s theological convictions, however Justin’s central argument is drawn from Wisdom christology – that Christ: ‘proceeded before all creatures from the Father’ (Dial. 100). 215. Translation of the Apologies from Barnard, The First and Second Apologies. Here Justin describes Jesus not only as ‘First-Begotten’ but also as ‘Word’ and ‘Power’ of God.

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is ‘First-Begotten’ in Chapters 46, 53, 58 and 63, thus revealing his understanding of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom.216 In Chapter 46 Justin states: We have been taught that Christ is the First-born of God, and we have suggested above that He is the logos of whom every race of men and women were partakers. And they who lived with the logos are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists. (1 Apol 46)

Justin’s repeated claim that Christ is ‘first-born’ is reliant on understandings of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and interstestamental texts. His claim that people have been able to live with the Logos before the incarnation and thus, are already Christians, also reflects implicit connections with Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology.217 It is celebrated of Woman Wisdom that ‘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 person who lives with Wisdom’ (Wis. 7.27b-28; see also Sir. 1.9-10). Because Justin understands Jesus as pre-existent Woman Wisdom made flesh, he is able to claim that the presence of Christ was accessible to those who lived prior to the incarnation. In the 2 Apology Justin is explicit in his belief that Jesus is pre-existent and the one through whom creation was birthed and set in order: His Son, who is alone properly called Son, the logos who is with God and is begotten before the creation, when in the beginning God created and set in order everything through Him, is called Christ, with reference to His being anointed and God’s ordering of all things through him. (2 Apol 6)

This again reflects descriptions of pre-existent Woman Wisdom, through whom creation is birthed and ordered (Prov. 3.19-20; Wis. 8.1; 9.1-2, 9). Much has been This description echoes Paul’s description of Jesus as Wisdom and Power of God (1 Cor. 1.24). 216. Barnard also highlights this, though he chooses to neutralize and de-personalize Woman Wisdom: ‘Especially noticeable is the constant reiteration of the Pauline phrase: “First-Begotten” of all creation; cf. 1 Apol 46; 53; 63; Dial 84; 100; 129; 138. It seems probable that Saint Paul (and Justin) is directly alluding to the Wisdom conception in Prv 8:22 … Justin was well aware of the Wisdom conception’, Barnard, Saint Justin Martyr, p. 131, (fn. 168, brackets original). 217. It is often assumed that Justin’s claim that the Word was implanted in all, even before the birth of Christ (see for example 1 Apol 46, 2 Apol 13) comes from his reliance upon philosophical categories. For a summary of scholarly views, see Barnard, First and Second Apologies, pp. 196–200. However, in view of his explicit Wisdom christology in the Dialogue and his implicit Wisdom christology in the Apologies, Justin’s claims are most usefully understood in relation to his Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology.



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written about the use of Logos in the Apologies and Justin’s reliance (or not) upon Greek philosophical categories for this phrase.218 While Justin employs the philosophically familiar language of Logos to explicate his understanding of Jesus as pre-existent, this does not prove reliance upon such philosophical categories.219 Insufficient focus has been given to the Wisdom christology through which Justin employs the term Logos. Not only is Wisdom christology central for Justin, Wisdom soteriology plays an integral part in Justin’s proclamation of who Jesus is and what Jesus achieves. In 1 Apol 23 Justin claims: ‘Jesus Christ alone was really begotten as Son by God, being his Word and First-Begotten and Power, and becoming man by His will He taught us these things for the conversion and restoration of the human race’ (1 Apol 23). For Justin, conversion and restoration for the human race come through the teaching of Jesus who is ‘First-Begotten’. Here Justin images Jesus as Woman Wisdom who saves and restores through her instruction (e.g. Prov. 1.22-23; 8.35; 9.4-6; Wis. 8.13, 16; 10.9-10; Sir. 6.27-28). This bears affinity with 1 Clement’s and the Didache’s proclamations. This does not imply an ‘exemplarist’ theology, as Leslie Barnard fears.220 Instead, Justin’s claims indicate the depth of 218. See Willis Shotwell The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr (London: SPCK, 1965), pp. 3, 59–62, 108–15. Shotwell rightly concludes that Justin was ‘basically the Christian who used philosophical terms’ rather than predominantly a philosopher. Shotwell, The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr, p. 115. See also Demetrius Trakatellis for a discussion of Philo and Platonic thought in Justin, Demetrius Trakatellis The Pre-Existence of Christ in Justin Martyr: An Exegetical Study With Reference to the Humiliation and Exaltation Christology, ed. Caroline Bynum and George Rupp, Harvard Dissertations in Religion 6 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976), pp. 11–52; Barnard, Justin Martyr, Life, pp. 27–38. For an overview of Justin scholarship in the last century see Michael Slusser, ‘Justin Scholarship: Trends and Trajectories’, Justin Martyr and His Worlds, ed. by Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 13–21. 219. Trakatellis rightly identifies the links between Justin’s thought and Second Testament passages including: Phil. 2.6-11, Jn 1.1-14, Heb. 1.1-12, Col. 1.15-20. In doing so he states, ‘This observation should be emphasized because research has in the past tended to regard the concept of Christ’s pre-existence in Justin’s work as an autonomous notion imported through philosophical speculation, and foreign to early Christian traditions’, Trakatellis, Pre-Existence, p. 173. However, Trakatellis does not acknowledge the presence of Wisdom christology in the passages that he refers to. 220. Barnard states that Justin ‘variously refers to the purpose of the incarnation as the salvation, transformation, purification, and restoration of the human race; cf. 1 Apol 32.7, 63.10… Although Justin here [1 Apol 23] connects soteriology with Christ’s teaching he does not rationalize a doctrine of redemption into an exemplarist theory. Everywhere he places a strong emphasis on the doctrine of the Cross; cf. 1 Apol 32; 56; 63; 2 Apol 13; Dial. 13; 40; 54; 86; 103; 137; 138’ Barnard, Saint Justin Martyr, p. 132 (fn. 169). Barnard misses Justin’s Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, and avoids what the text of 1 Apol 23 does say, by focusing on other texts that speak of the cross. The fear that Justin holds an ‘intellectual view of salvation’ in which Jesus serves as a ‘wise teacher’ is also

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his Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. Justin understands Jesus as Woman Wisdom who reconciles humanity by being pre-existent Woman Wisdom and thus revealing what she has known since the beginning from God. While for Justin, Jesus’ salvation is inextricably linked with Jesus’ teaching (e.g. 1 Apol 23; 2 Apol 10), this is the teaching of pre-existent Jesus-Woman Wisdom who illuminates (Wis. 6.12; 7.25-26, 29-30) and who brings life (Prov. 3.18; 8.35). For Justin something happens in becoming a follower of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as seen in Justin’s description of baptism: ‘we were made new through Christ … this washing is called illumination, as those who learn these things are illuminated in the mind’ (1 Apol 61). The soteriological understanding of Christ’s gift of light and knowledge shares resonance with 2 Cor. 4 and 1 Clement 36, and the Didache 9–10. Across these texts a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology is proclaimed in which Jesus is celebrated as the embodiment of Woman Wisdom who is inwardly illuminating those in the Jesus community and bringing them into intimate knowledge of the Holy One. For Justin the proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is not an intellectual idea employed in the attempt to convince audiences about the relevance of Christian faith and its ancient roots.221 For Justin more is at stake. Justin’s faith conviction is that the ‘whole truth’ is encountered in Jesus: ‘What we have, then, appears to be greater than all human teaching, because the whole rational principle became Christ, who appeared for our sake, body, and reason, and soul’ (2 Apol 10). For Justin, Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate and this changes things. The question is, why in the Apologies does Justin refrain from using the explicit title of Woman Wisdom for Jesus? If one were to follow the usual assumption that Justin wrote the Dialogue after the Apologies it could be argued that as Justin’s christological understanding evolved, his Wisdom christology deepened and became more explicit. However, if Horner’s dating has merit, Justin’s claims that Jesus was Woman Wisdom made flesh come from the earliest stream of his writing.222 Horner’s work casts doubt on the possibility of definitively dating the chapters of the Dialogue in question and thus drawing firm conclusions about a sequential development of Justin’s Wisdom christology. As will be discussed in Chapter 3, it is likely that neither chronology of composition nor christological development influenced Justin’s choices. found in Barnard’s earlier analysis, Barnard, Justin Martyr, Life, p. 85. It is important to note, Justin’s understanding of the cross is different from later Christian understandings. In the 1 Apology, Jesus’ suffering is due to the demons (1 Apol 63). For Justin the cross brings about liberation from cosmic evil (see also 2 Apol 6). In Dial. 85 this soteriological view is also presented, and the cross is seen within the wider context of the salvific narrative of Christ: pre-existent Wisdom, made incarnate on earth, crucified, raised and ascended. The theme of cosmic evil, as it pertains to Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology will be explored in Chapter 3. 221. This is Barnard’s view, Barnard Justin Martyr, p. 85. 222. Horner, Listening, p. 210. In 1 Apol 64 Justin condemns the ‘pagan’ notion of Athena. If what Justin finds ‘absurd’ is that Athena is female, this may give weight to Horner’s claim that the core of the Dialogue was written early in Justin’s career.



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Conclusion This investigation of a wide range of texts has demonstrated the presence of Woman Wisdom and her significance in the development of early church christology and soteriology. Woman Wisdom is described as ‘First-born’, intimate of God and the one through whom ‘all things’ are sustained in various First Testament and intertestamental texts. She is radiant and an image of God, she liberates, saves, and is the source of life, instruction and nourishment. While the texts of Sirach and Baruch contract Woman Wisdom to Torah, the expansive celebrations of Woman Wisdom in Proverbs and Wisdom confront contemporary readers with an ancient monotheism that was able to hold and celebrate the presence of the female divine within its monotheistic meta-narrative. The evidence of some ‘orthodox’ Christian texts composed before the middle of the second century reveal that Woman Wisdom continued to have a significant place. There are explicit references to Woman Wisdom in Luke, Matthew, 1 Clement and Justin’s Dialogue and, drawing from conceptual understandings of Woman Wisdom, Jesus is imaged as her in 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Hebrews, the gospels of Matthew and John, in 1 Clement, the Didache, in Justin’s Dialogue, Apologies, and possibly also in Mark and Ephesians. The evidence of these diverse early Christian texts demonstrates that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were pivotal in many Jesus communities. The reason why Jesus would be understood and celebrated in relation to Woman Wisdom in these early Jesus communities is the subject of investigation in Chapter 3.

3 WHY IS IT SO?

Diverse ‘orthodox’ texts composed before the middle of the second century c.e., reveal that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were pivotal in some Jesus communities as they celebrated and proclaimed who Jesus was and what Jesus achieved. The question is why would multiple authors in various Jesus communities choose to use language and imagery of Woman Wisdom in order to proclaim that Jesus was due, with God, the devotion, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God alone and that this Jesus was salvific?1 Second Testament and early church authors would, presumably, have utilized the most compelling arguments at their disposal to convince others that a man convicted to death as a criminal was actually the ‘God one’.2 From a twenty-first-century perspective, there would appear to be inherent risks in this linking together of Jesus and the female divine. However, evidence from early sources reveals that multiple authors chose to link Jesus and Woman Wisdom, both explicitly and implicitly as they made this proclamation and celebrated that this ‘God one’, Jesus-Woman Wisdom, saves. This indicates that the motivation for linking together Jesus and Woman Wisdom outweighed any, real or imagined, obstacles in this identification. The approach of much biblical scholarship in the last century has been to assume a linear development of claims and creeds in relation to Jesus. From this perspective it can be argued that as people sought to claim a divine understanding of who Jesus was they needed to ‘borrow power’ by adopting existing language and images that could be appropriated for these purposes.3 Therefore because Woman 1. While cumbersome, this phrase safeguards against misinterpretation derived from later christological debates and reflects the ways in which language is utilized in these texts in order to speak of Jesus. See Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 151. 2. Hurtado reflects on the ‘remarkable’ significance attributed to Jesus, ‘a near contemporary’ and one ‘who had suffered a shameful death’, Larry Hurtado ‘Pre-existence’, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, ed. Gerald Hawthorne et al. (Leicester: Inter Varsity Press, 1993), p. 746. 3.  Hurtado summarizes this position: ‘the religious influences were seen as coming only from the surrounding world into early Christianity’, Larry Hurtado One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), p. 9 (italics original).

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Wisdom is described in First Testament and intertestamental texts as pre-existent ‘first-born’ of creation and infusing ‘all things’, it was decided by many authors, perhaps independently, perhaps reliant upon one another, that she was a good match for what they were seeking to claim about Jesus.4 Upon deeper investigation the textual evidence indicates an earlier ignition point. Across early texts in which Jesus is connected with Woman Wisdom, diverse authors celebrate that Jesus communities were sharing in experiences of the divine that were transforming their ‘inner beings’.5 As Hurtado rightly insists, ‘Whether one chooses to consider these particular experiences as hallucinatory, projections of mental processes of the recipients, or the acts of God, there is every reason to see them as the ignition points for the christological convictions that linked them.’6 Despite the potential risks associated with linking Jesus and Woman Wisdom, these early Christian communities were willing to celebrate his divinity in the language of her divinity because of the profundity of these collective transformative and salvific experiences.7 Reticence about religious experience has led scholars to ignore or gloss over the integral place of claimed experience within the early Christian movement. Hurtado rightly acknowledges this and his observations deserve quotation at length: For various reasons the religious experiences described in the early Christian sources have not always been done justice in scholarly studies. From its inception, 4. Thus Hengel argues: ‘Once the idea of pre-existence had been introduced, it was obvious that the exalted Son of God would also attract to himself the functions of Jewish Wisdom as a mediator of creation and salvation … all the functions of Wisdom were transferred to Jesus, for “in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2.3)’, Hengel, Son of God, p. 72. 5. The phrase ‘inner beings’ reflects Second Testament language (Rom. 7.22; Eph. 3.16), and here connotes significant inward transformation. This could be understood as ontological transformation; however because the term ontological is not used by Second Testament and early church writers, and instead is caught up in debates of the later church, it will not be utilized. 6. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 72. 7. Celia Deane-Drummond rightly identifies that Wisdom christology ‘arose out of particular experiences and encounters with Christ’, Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution, p. 127. However she does not explore what these experiences were. While not speaking directly about the presence of Wisdom christology, Hurtado rightly recognizes the priority of experience in the early Jesus movement’s christology: ‘In light of the characteristic reluctance of devout Jews to accord cultic reverence to any figure other than God, it seems likely that those very early circles who took the step of according Christ such reverence would have done so only if they felt compelled by God. That is, in these groups there must have been some who experienced what they took to be revelations sent by God that convinced them that obedience to God demanded of them this cultic reverence of Christ’, Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 72 (italics original). See also Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 11ff. and Bauckham, Jesus and the God, pp. 127–51.



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scholarly study of the New Testament has mainly had theological concerns, mining the New Testament for what it has to say that would inform, support or challenge Christian beliefs. This is the case, whether the scholars in question were sympathetic or antithetic to conventional Christian beliefs. Naturally, therefore, the scholarly traditions, the issues, the apparatus of scholarship, the questions and approaches were all focused heavily on the religious thought of the New Testament and other early Christian texts, and comparatively less attention was given to the nature and importance of the religious experiences attested. Those scholars who were most positively disposed to Christian faith were also inclined to focus on doctrines; those more negatively/critically disposed were usually uncomfortable with the whole idea of religious experience.8

Contemporary bias against the role of religious experience has been propelled by dominant assumptions that find their roots in the Enlightenment.9 Shantz utilizes the term cognicentrism to describe this bias, stating that cognicentrism ‘is rooted in the constructs of scientific enlightenment, especially the idea of objective truth as the product of critical thinking stripped of personal investment’.10 This bias often propels scholars to misread texts, so that the primacy of experience in Second Testament and early church texts is downplayed in favour of ‘rational’ theology.11 Hurtado and Shantz provide an important counterbalance to cognicentric bias 8. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 65 (italics original). 9. James Dunn summarizes the priority of reason that emerges in the Enlightenment and becomes crystallized in modernity, James Dunn Jesus Remembered, Christianity in the Making, vol. 1. (Grand Rapids: William Eedrmans Publishing, 2003), p. 28. For a detailed summary of ‘modern, historical, critical’ approach, paying particular attention to Wilhelm Bousset’s Kyrios Christos, see Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 13–26. Hurtado challenges the claims of both Bousset and the scholarly trajectory that followed. Hurtado argues that scholarly exclusion of the investigation of experience has also been fuelled by reaction against ‘anticritical apologists’, Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 5. Shantz also highlights the agenda of (predominantly Protestant) biblical scholars to ‘show that Christian origins were free of “Catholic” tendencies, including the sacramental and mystical’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 13. For further discussion see Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 13, 20–6. 10. Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 26. Shantz draws the term cognicentrism from Michael Harner and argues that ‘A cognicentric stance purports to arbitrate what counts as acceptable knowledge as well as what counts as acceptable ways of coming to know. Thus, it has come to judge mental health and even intelligence. The use of ASC’s [Altered State of Consciousness], particularly in religious contexts, is only one victim of this prejudice. Although ASC’s are tolerated in Western therapeutic contexts such as hypnosis, where they are controlled by a professional, and even in some meditative practices, their use in virtually every other context is seen as mental weakness at best and pathology at worst Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 26. See Michael Harner, The Way of Shaman (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990), p. xx. 11. See Shantz’ discussion of scholarly ‘misregard’ of experience, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 20–1.

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in their investigations of the priority of experiences in the early Jesus movement. However, they do not investigate the links between claimed experiences in Second Testament and early church texts and the contexts of many of these claims in which Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom. In order to recognize the links between claimed experiences in the early Jesus movement and proclamations of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the role of ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology needs to be excavated and highlighted. Wisdom soteriology is present in various Second Testament and early church texts. However this remains largely unnoticed because Wisdom soteriology does not conform to later, more dominant soteriological understandings. Across various Jesus communities, people claimed that they were now experiencing the collective transformation of their ‘inner beings’ through the risen Jesus who is celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom. This transformation is redemptive: darkened hearts have been illuminated through Jesus-Woman Wisdom (e.g. 2 Cor. 4.4-6; 1 Clement 36.2), spiritual hunger is nourished by Jesus-Woman Wisdom (e.g. Didache 10.2-3; 1 Clement 36.2; Jn 4.13-14; 6.12, 35; 7.38) and the divine has been encountered in Jesus-Woman Wisdom in a way that has created a dynamic portal between humanity and God (e.g. Col. 1.19-20; 2.2-3, 6, 10; Eph. 3.9-12; Jn 1.14, 18; 1 Clement 36.2). For some authors these experiences are set in contrast with deathly cosmic powers, from whom Jesus-Woman Wisdom liberates (e.g. Col. 1.13-20; 2 Cor. 4.3-6). The cross is not absent from these soteriological convictions but is understood within the context of the whole of Jesus’ life and the resurrection. ‘Realized’ Wisdom soteriology is anchored in Wisdom christology. The conviction is that because Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate: the one in whom ‘the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2.9), divine illumination and nourishment, a portal to God, and liberation from cosmic evil are actualized by, and through, Jesus-Woman Wisdom. These convictions do not reflect an absence of hope about the life to come; rather, the profound impact of these collective experiences in the present informs the focus of these celebrations. Contemporary discomfiture with these claimed experiences should not result in the minimization of their centrality in the theology of early church texts. The primary focus of this research is not to defend, nor to neutralize, these experiences.12 Instead this chapter will excavate these claimed experiences and demonstrate their centrality in the ignition of Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology within the early Jesus movement. In order to assess the place of experience in relation to claims about Jesus and Woman Wisdom in the early Jesus movement, sources will be examined according to dominant ways in which Jesus and Woman Wisdom are linked together in Second Testament and early church texts. While not an exhaustive list, five heuristic categories have been identified.13 These begin with those that appear to have the strongest weight of evidence: 12. Likewise Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 9. 13.  For investigation of devotional practices, specifically worship and prayer, in relation



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1. Jesus-Woman Wisdom as radiant imparter of divine knowledge 2. Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the giver of the divine feast 3. Jesus-Woman Wisdom as friend-maker with God 4. Jesus-Woman Wisdom as divine non-retaliatory sufferer 5. Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is ‘First-Born’ and infuses ‘all things’ In each section, investigation of experiences that are attributed to pre-Easter contexts will be followed by investigation of experiences that are attributed to post-Easter contexts. By assessing references to Jesus-Woman Wisdom accordingly, it will be demonstrated that regardless of potential risks, ongoing, collective, transformative experiences propelled various early Jesus communities to identify Jesus with Woman Wisdom in their celebrations of who Jesus was, what Jesus achieved and what Jesus was continuing to achieve.

Experiencing Jesus-Woman Wisdom 1. Radiant Imparter of Divine Knowledge Woman Wisdom and Jesus are imaged as possessing and offering divine, authoritative, life-giving knowledge. Across the gospels Jesus’ authoritative teaching is the subject of repeated focus (e.g. Mk 1.21-22; Mt. 7.28-29; Lk. 4.22; 21.3-38; 24.32; Jn 7.14-15, 46). In John, Peter attributes to Jesus the words of eternal life (6.68). The Matthaean Jesus states, ‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Mt. 11.27). According to First Testament and intertestamental texts Woman Wisdom’s teaching is precious. Her teaching brings life and knowledge of God (e.g. Prov. 3.13-18; 8.4-35; 9.4-6; Wis. 7.7-14; Sir. 51.26). Woman Wisdom states of herself: ‘For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favour from the Lord’ (Prov. 8.35). Jesus’ teaching is not always well received. While causing astonishment, this teaching also elicits consternation and hostility (e.g. Mk 6.3; Mt. 13.57, Lk. 4.28-29; Jn 6.59-60; 7.46-49). According to the voice of Woman Wisdom her teaching is also refused (Prov. 1.24-32; 8.36).14 Various Second Testament and early church authors connect Jesus’ teaching with Woman Wisdom as the imparter of divine life-giving knowledge (e.g. Mt. 11.27-30; Jn 1.1-5, 14, 16-18; 6.35, 68; 15.15; 1 Clement 36.2; Didache 1.1-7; Justin 1 Apol 23, see also Mk 6.1-2).15 While Jesus’ pre-Easter teaching is a significant focus in post-Easter Jesus communities (e.g. Acts 2.42), various early Jesus communities also claim ongoing experiences of receiving divine instruction from the risen Jesus. This is evidenced to early church christology, see Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 217–56; 563–653; Dunn, Worship Jesus, pp. 7–43. 14. In 1 Enoch 42 Woman Wisdom is also rejected, see Chapter 2. 15. See Chapter 2.

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in resurrection accounts (e.g. Jn 21; Lk. 24.13-32) and this is evident in the writing of Paul. While Paul refers to teachings from Jesus’ earthly ministry (e.g. 1 Cor. 7.10-12; 9.14), Paul also makes the astonishing claim that he has continued to receive instruction from the risen Jesus. He is very specific about what this teaching has entailed: ‘For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread …’ (1 Cor. 11.23-26). Paul’s claim is commonly reinterpreted as alluding to the traditions of the early Jesus movement about eucharist.16 However this is not what Paul claims.17 It must be stressed that I am not seeking to assert that Paul received this revelation. What I am arguing is that it deserves to be acknowledged that in the text Paul claims to have experienced this revelation. Despite contemporary cognicentric bias against Paul’s claims about experiencing the risen Jesus’ teaching, this claim is in keeping with other claims that Paul makes about experiencing the risen Christ and receiving the risen Christ’s revelation (e.g. 1 Cor. 9.1; 15.8; 2 Cor. 12.1-10; Gal 1.12). Regardless of whether this experience occurred, or whether Paul was seeking to bolster his own argument by claiming to have had this experience, Paul assumes that his readers in Corinth will trust this claim. In this passage, Paul quotes from this (real or constructed) experience of the Lord’s teaching and assumes that this will put an 16.  For example Hal Taussig claims, ‘It is relatively clear that this tradition is pre-Pauline … Not even the most conservative scholars posit Jesus telling Paul in a vision about the Last Supper’, Hal Taussig In the Beginning was the Meal: Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), p. 132. James Dunn acknowledges in the footnotes that ‘Paul himself raises the question of whether he thought of it as a personal revelation from the Lord’. However, Dunn dismisses this likelihood, in part, by comparing this claim with Gal. 1.12 in which Paul defends his personal encounters with the risen Lord. James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (London: T&T Clark-A Continuum Imprint, 1998), p. 606 (fn. 37). This is not sufficient reason to discount Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians, as the contexts of these claims are entirely different. In Galatians what is at stake is Paul’s credibility because the people are ‘deserting’ him (1.6ff.). Within this context it is essential that Paul assert that his experiences of Christ are real and are authoritative. In 1 Corinthians the context for Paul’s claim is the way in which the community are sharing in eucharist. Like others, Dunn also points to the ‘traditional terminology’ of ‘handed over’ (παρέδωκα) as evidence that this was from the wider tradition of the church and not Paul’s own experience. Dunn, Theology of Paul, p. 606 (fn. 37). Again, this does not close the matter. 17. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor rightly states that this interpretation ‘does violence to the words of Paul’, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 208. Murphy-O’Connor seeks to create a middle way that acknowledges what Paul says and the ‘liturgical colouring’ of the text: ‘Christ is not only the founder of the community of believers, but in a real sense he is the community (6.15; 12.12) because it is through the community that the saving reality of Christ is made effective in the world. What Paul received from the community, therefore, he has received from the Lord’, Murphy-O’Connor, Keys, p. 208 (italics original).



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end to the chaotic and unfair ways in which the Corinth community were sharing in eucharist (11.20-22). Not only did Paul think it was credible for him to claim direct experience of the risen Jesus’ ongoing teaching, he thought that this was authoritative. The reality that Paul makes no further explanation of how, or when, he has received this teaching from the Lord, suggests that the community already know of this and/or other such encounters.18 Contemporary bias against the validity of the place of religious experience, especially in the formation of theology, is not only fuelled by cognicentric bias, but also by the assumption that religious experience is, by its very nature, individualistic. This concern does not find support in the writings of Paul. While Paul does refer to his own religious experiences of the divine (e.g. 1 Cor. 9.1; 15.8; Gal. 1.12; 1 Cor. 11.23-26), he appears reticent to do so in detail (e.g. 2 Cor. 12.2-4). The more important focus for Paul is seen in his bold proclamations about collective experiences. In 2 Corinthians Paul claims that divine light has shone in ‘our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4.6; see also 1 Cor. 12–14; Gal. 3.1-2; 1 Thess. 1.5). However, these claims that Paul makes about collective experiences are regularly recast as a personal experience of Paul’s. Scholars regularly read 2 Corinthians 4.6 through the lens of Acts (9.3-5) and argue that Paul is referring to his own (one-off) ‘Damascus’ experience.19 Hurtado exemplifies this, suggesting that there is ‘an apparent allusion to his [Paul’s] own first experience of the risen Christ’ and that ‘these verses are autobiographical glimpses and suggest that Paul’s conversion vision involved a sight of Christ glorious in appearance, bearing the bright glory of God in unique fullness’.20 There is insufficient reason to justify this common assumption,21 particularly when it relies on the construction of the author of Acts, rather than on Paul’s own words for its validity.22 In 2 Corinthians 4.6 Paul celebrates that the Jesus community has received life-giving, light-filled knowledge of God in their inner beings, ‘our hearts’, through the risen Jesus. It is not impossible that these words may, in part, refer to Paul’s (first) experience of the risen Jesus. However Paul’s choice to use collective language reveals his conviction that a shared experience of illumination has occurred. The reality that Paul has in mind more than himself, and more than a select few co-workers, is demonstrated by the world-view that he expresses a few verses earlier. For Paul this divine illumination of ‘our hearts’ is set in contrast 18. Likewise, reflecting on 2 Cor. 12, Shantz states, ‘Because Paul can take the authenticity and significance of these experiences for granted in his correspondence, he tends not to describe the occasions of his visions’, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 119–20. 19. See for example Thrall, 2 Corinthians: 1–7, p. 298; Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 224. 20. Hurtado, One God, p. 118. 21. Shantz rightly recognizes this, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 46–56. See Shantz’ discussion of the motivations for this choice, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 54. 22. Shantz rightly highlights that what is said about Paul’s ‘conversion’ in Acts does not provide evidence about Paul’s experience, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 49.

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with the blinding darkness that is cast over others by the ‘god of this world’ (2 Cor. 4.3-4). For Paul there are two options operative in the world: there are those ‘who are perishing’ because ‘the god of this world has blinded’ them (4.3) and there are those who see ‘the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’ and are illuminated (4.4-6). The knowledge that this Jesus community has received is not (only) academic for Paul, but has actualized salvation from cosmic darkness.23 The collective nature of this experience of divine illumination in ‘our hearts’ is underscored a chapter earlier. Here Paul is explicit that the Jesus community is sharing in an ongoing, inner transformation. Paul claims that in the Jesus community in Corinth: ‘all of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3.18). Here Paul unflinchingly asserts that the Jesus community is experiencing transformative divine illumination. Furthermore, Paul expresses the hope that this grace ‘extends to more and more people’ (4.15). It is likely that alongside the imagery of Moses (3.12-16), Woman Wisdom is also present in Paul’s language of the community mirroring God’s glory, as Woman Wisdom ‘is a reflection of God’s eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness’ (Wis. 7.26).24 From Paul’s perspective ‘all of us … are being transformed’ through Spirit gifted encounter ‘into the same image from one degree of glory to another’. Paul then links Jesus with Woman Wisdom, ‘the image of God’, who was with God in the birthing of creation and who is now illuminating the hearts of those in the Jesus community (4.4-6).25 Here Paul is proclaiming that the community is being increasingly transformed into the image of God: Jesus-Woman Wisdom. This continues in the celebration of collective, divine illumination of ‘our hearts’ (4.6) in which Paul proclaims a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology. It is Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the one from ‘the beginning’, through whom the illumination of ‘inner beings’ is actualized. Whether these shared encounters were actually experienced in the community cannot be proven or disproved by the text.26 What is evidenced by the text is that Paul thought it credible to make such an extraordinary claim, not only on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of fellow Jesus believers. In John there is further evidence of the pivotal place of experience in relation to convictions about Jesus-Woman Wisdom. Despite the gender paradox, in the prologue Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, the one ‘in the beginning’, through 23. Rowland and Morray-Jones recognize Paul’s priority on collective transformation in Christ in 2 Cor. 3–4 and state, ‘In speaking of life within the messianic community Paul uses language which indicates that those in that fellowship are not merely believers in the Messiah but are in some sense clothed with the Messiah’s person: they put on Christ like a garment (Gal. 3.27; Rom. 13.14)’, Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, pp. 152–3. 24. See Chapter 2. 25. See Chapter 2. 26. Drawing from research into ASC experiences Shantz argues that these were felt experiences, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 204–5.



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whom ‘“all things” came into being’ and who makes known ‘grace and truth’ (1.1-2, 17; see Prov. 1.20-23; 3.19-20; 8.22-31; 9.4-6; Sir. 1.4, 9-10; 24.3-5, 9; Sir. 1.9-10; Wis. 7.22, 23, 24, 27; 8.1; 9.9).27 This cosmic proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom rests on the claim of collective experience, ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory’ and ‘from his fullness we have all received’ (1.14, 18). The prologue does not explain who the ‘we’ who have seen ‘his glory’ are, nor does it elaborate how they saw this ‘glory’ or received ‘from his fullness’, but this does not diminish the centrality of the claim. These claims to have shared in transformative collective experience(s) are integral to the authority of the prologue.28 Convictions about collective experiences of receiving divine knowledge are also evident in 1 Clement. In the only chapter that focuses on christology, Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom, ‘the reflection of God’s perfect and superior countenance’ (1 Clement 36.2; Wis. 7.25-27).29 The letter goes on to celebrate the claim that: ‘through this one the eyes of our hearts have been opened; through this one our foolish and darkened understanding springs up into the light’ (36.2). Like Paul’s convictions in 2 Corinthians, here in this letter Jesus is celebrated as Woman Wisdom who has actualized the experience of receiving divine illumination and understanding in the ‘inner beings’ of those who are part of the Jesus community (e.g. Prov. 1.20-23; 3.13-18; 8.5-12; Wis. 6.12-16; 7.27). In 2 Corinthians and in 1 Clement the link between Jesus and Woman Wisdom is not presented as an intellectual precept to be accepted or rejected. Instead early Jesus communities were celebrating the risen crucified Jesus-Woman Wisdom as they celebrated the experience of receiving divine illumination in their hearts through this radiant one. In the Didache many of these features also coalesce, though in a condensed form. It is likely that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom in this eucharist liturgy, as Jesus makes known the ‘holy vine’ and ‘your child’ (9.2).30 Like 2 Corinthians 4 and 1 Clement, in the Didache, language of ‘our hearts’ again takes priority. The Jesus community are instructed to give thanks ‘for your holy name that now resides in our hearts and for the knowledge, faith and immortality that you made known through Jesus your child’ (10.2, and earlier, for ‘life and knowledge that you have made known to us through Jesus your child’ (9.3)). The text’s emphasis upon these gifts again links Jesus with Woman Wisdom (e.g. Prov. 1.20-23; 3.13, 17-18; 8.35; 9.5-6; Wis. 6.15-17; 9.11; Sir. 1.9-10). It is also likely that the ‘holy name’ that now ‘resides in our hearts’ is understood in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom.31 The Didache liturgy does not expand upon how the community(ies) who use(s) this liturgy experience the ‘holy name’ residing in ‘our hearts’ or how ‘life, knowledge, faith and immortality’ have been received through Jesus. It could be argued that this language does 27. See Chapter 2. 28. The opening of 1 John rests on the same claims of shared collective experience (1 John 1.1-2). 29. See Chapter 2. 30. See Chapter 2. 31. See Chapter 2.

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not connote experientially received gifts, but rather indicates that through accepting particular creeds or beliefs these gifts are ‘guaranteed’ in the future. While this kind of appropriation of Christian faith has come to dominate some spheres of Christian practice, this is not reflected in the text. The liturgy celebrates divine inner abiding happening now and that they have received spiritual nourishment, as distinct from ‘regular’ nourishment (10.3). These claims connote the conviction that something is happening within their ‘inner beings’. Like 2 Corinthians 4 and 1 Clement 36, these convictions in the Didache express a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology. In Ephesians it is likely that Woman Wisdom is present, though in a fragmentary way (e.g. 1.7, 17-18, 3.9-11).32 The author prays that the community will receive: ‘a spirit of wisdom and revelation … so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened you may know what is the hope to which he has called you’ (Eph. 1.17-18). This prayer shares very close symmetry with 1 Clement’s celebration that through Jesus ‘the eyes of our hearts have been opened’ (36.2).33 Rowland and MorrayJones overlook this connection. Instead, they point out that the phrase ‘eyes of our heart’ is: ‘never … in the Hebrew bible, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Qumran scrolls’.34 The reality that this phrase is not found in these sources but is found in both Ephesians and in 1 Clement may indicate literary dependence and (or) that this understanding is distinctive in some early Jesus communities. This feature is associated with Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. In Ephesians there is further prayer for inner enlightenment, ‘I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love’ (3.16-17). This prayer for divine indwelling also shares resonance with the Didache liturgy (10.2). The text goes on to describe Jesus in imagery of Woman Wisdom (3.18-19).35 In Second Testament and early church texts in which Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, the radiant imparter of divine knowledge, Jesus communities celebrate collective experiences of divine light-filled knowledge in their ‘inner beings’ through this risen, radiant one. These texts demonstrate the significance of these collective experiences in the ignition of Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology in the early church.36 32. See Chapter 2. 33. See discussion below regarding this ‘heart’ language. 34. Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, p. 594. Instead, they suggest that there are links between a text about Moses entitled ‘Haggadat Shema Yisrael’ and the Ephesians passage. In this text readers are addressed: ‘You too saw, with the understanding of your heart and your mind and your soul’, Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, pp. 594–5. While a link in understanding may be present in this text, unlike 1 Clement, this text does not speak of the ‘eyes of your heart’. 35. See Chapter 2. 36. In light of these early church celebrations the claim in Hebrews that Jesus is the ‘reflection of God’s glory’ (1.3) may also indicate that the origins of this were experience(s) of, or through, the risen, radiant Jesus-Woman Wisdom.



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The question that remains is if these claimed experiences were actually experienced in early Jesus communities, what constituted these experiences of radiance and divine illumination of ‘inner beings’? Paul is instructive here. In 2 Corinthians Paul indicates that he has received a vision of heaven, but he is unclear, even within himself, about the nature of this experience, ‘whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows’ (2 Cor. 12.3).37 Paul’s own uncertainty, not about the validity of this experience, but about the nature of the experience, provides a helpful caution against too readily seeking to quantify these claimed experiences.38 The repeated focus on the language of radiance and illumination across Second Testament and early church texts may indicate that these collective experiences were largely visionary (e.g. 2 Cor. 4.6; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2, also Jn 1.14). Paul speaks of ‘visions’ before describing his own ‘mystical’ religious experience (2 Cor. 12.1). Revelation indicates that the religious experience that prompted the composition of the text included both auditions and visions (e.g. Rev. 1.9-19; 22.8). In an essay exploring early Wisdom christology James Robinson suggests that first experiences of the resurrection were not ‘monolithic’ but rather were to do with experiences of light: ‘The only New Testament texts written by persons who actually claimed to have had a resurrection experience describe it as luminosity (Paul in 1 Cor. 15.42-53 and Phil. 3.21, and the seer of Rev. 1.12-16).’39 Robinson suggests that this language of luminosity may have too easily been ‘discounted as just an apparition’ and thus the ‘physicality’ of the resurrection was emphasized by the emerging ‘orthodox’ church in order to underscore the ‘actuality’ of the resurrection.40 Ultimately, Robinson links these first luminous resurrection encounters with Jesus-Woman Wisdom: The substantive, theologically relevant aliveness of Jesus after his crucifixion was that of his cause, God’s reign. Or, put in terms of Wisdom Christology, Wisdom 37. With humour Shantz reflects on this, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 96. 38. Shantz discusses scholarly reticence to investigate Paul’s experience as described in 2 Cor. 12, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 87–90. She rightly points out that ‘there is something in the character of the experience itself that triggers Paul’s uncertainty’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 91. Shantz does seek to understand Paul’s claimed experiences through research in neurobiology and religious experience. She indicates that common features of ASC experiences are evidenced in Paul’s description in 2 Cor. 12. Shantz states, ‘researchers have observed during ASCs the shift from brain activity dominated by the left cerebral hemisphere to right hemisphere activity’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 101, and that ‘right-brain activity is distinguished in part by its ineffable, nonchronological, emotional, and holistic perception’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 106. Shantz argues, ‘The neurology of trance also wields significant explanatory power in Paul’s case … There were no words for what Paul heard or saw while he was in ecstasy’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 107. 39. James Robinson, ‘Very Goddess and Very Man: Jesus’ Better Self ’, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism: Studies in Antiquity and Christianity, ed. Karen King (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 2000), p. 123 (brackets original). 40. Robinson, ‘Very Goddess’, p. 123.

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While Robinson seeks to limit the post-Easter presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom to a cognicentric focused ‘ongoing message’, he rightly recognizes the connection between luminosity and Wisdom christology in the early Jesus movement. Discussing research of contemporary neurobiology Shantz points out that visions of radiance are often related to ecstatic religious experiences: ‘the spontaneous and untrained generation of visual phenomena also often includes the sensation of bright and intense light, sometimes perceived as glowing figures’.42 Shantz also points out that in cross-cultural investigations of experiences of Altered States of Consciousness (ASC), visions rather than auditions are more common.43 However, how are we to understand the nature of these claimed ‘visions’? Are these ‘objective’ events that break into everyday life? Or are these claimed visions experienced within the context of other religious or ‘mystical’ experiences? Second Testament texts indicate evidence of both ideas. Visions and dreams play a role in both the Matthaean and Lukan gospels. Joseph, Mary and the wise ones experience visions that intrude into daily life (Mt. 1.19-22; 2.12-13; 3.16-17; Lk. 1.26-38). For Zechariah, his vision occurs in the context of worship (Lk. 1.11-20).44 According to Acts, in the traumatic, liminal space of being killed Stephen receives a vision that leads to prayer (7.56-60). Cornelius receives a vision that intrudes upon his afternoon (10.3-8), and during prayer Peter enters a trance state and has a vision (10.9-16). Likewise, in Revelation, the author was ‘in the s/Spirit on the Lord’s day’ when he received visions and auditions (1.10). The cognicentric bias of contemporary culture lends itself to preference those claimed ‘objective’ visions that intrude, unbidden, into daily life; for example, while on the road to Damascus.45 However, while Paul may have had an experience of an ‘objective’ vision similar to the one described in Acts, he, 41. Robinson, ‘Very Goddess’, p. 125. 42. Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 115. 43. Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 114. 44. See also the Spirit infused experiences and responses of Simeon and Anna in the context of worship (Lk. 2.25-38). 45.  Illustrating this view Shantz discusses Seyoon Kim’s assessment of Paul’s ‘Damascus’ experience. Kim argues that Paul’s descriptions ‘congeal’ around one visionary experience and that this was an ‘objective external event’. Shantz argues that the ‘ideological implications of such a strong position are clear … one can argue that Paul’s theology is equally objective and directly and divinely transmitted’ and that, ‘Whatever claims are attached to conversion are rendered unfalsifiable’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 54. See Seyoon Kim, Origins of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 56.



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himself, writes about ‘mystical’ worship experiences that include visions (e.g. 1 Cor. 15.8; 14.14-15, 18; 2 Cor. 3.17-18; 4.4-6; 5.13; 12.1-4; Gal. 1.15-16, Rom. 8.26).46 As Shantz summarizes, in Paul there are references to ‘ecstatic forms of worship, visions, spirit possession and glossolalia’.47 This challenges those who wish to contain the ‘mystical’ in Paul to a ‘one-off ’ external vision. The experience of both ‘objective’ visions and visions received in the context of other ‘mystical’ experiences, may assist in explaining the ignition of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the early Jesus movement. This possibility is underscored by the connection between the (claimed) experience of luminosity and descriptions of the risen radiant Jesus-Woman Wisdom, who is the image of God.48 However, the category of (‘objective’ and ‘mystical’) visionary experiences does not provide an adequate explanation of many frequent claims in early church texts that celebrate Jesus in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom. References to ‘our hearts’ being illuminated and opened (2 Cor. 4.6; Eph. 1.17-18; 1 Clement 36.2) and of Christ dwelling, and the ‘holy name’ residing in ‘our hearts’ (Eph. 3.17-19; Didache 10.2) need to be accounted for.49 James Dunn discusses language of ‘the heart’ in relation to Paul: ‘It is more characteristically Hebrew, but equally Greek, in both cases denoting the innermost part of the person, the seat of emotions but also of thought and will. Paul’s usage reflects this range of meaning.’50 Dunn rightly goes on to state: ‘It was important for Paul that the experience of God’s grace penetrated to the innermost depths of a person (2 Cor. 1.22; 3.2-3; 4.6; Gal. 4.6; Eph. 1.18; 3.17) and that the corresponding faith was an expression of deeply felt commitment.’51 The difficulty with seeking to write about these early church convictions about divine illumination and divine dwelling within people’s ‘seat of emotion … thought and will’ is that we do not

46. As Shantz argues, ‘ecstasy is actually a significant feature of Paul’s life and impetus to his thought’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 13. 47. Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 2. Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 113. 48. The evidence of Revelation indicates this. In Revelation, visions of the risen Jesus echo descriptions of Woman Wisdom. Jesus’ face is radiant ‘like the sun shining’ (1.16), just as Woman Wisdom is described as radiant (Wis. 6.12) and ‘more beautiful than the sun’ (Wis. 7.29). The risen Jesus is the ‘beginning/origin, of creation’ (3.14) just as Woman Wisdom is (e.g. Prov. 8.22-23; Sir. 24.9). Jesus states: ‘Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you’ (3.19-20a), like Woman Wisdom who calls out (Prov. 1.20) longing to ‘pour out my thoughts to you’ (Prov. 1.23). In Revelation the risen Jesus states, ‘I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Rev. 3.20b), just as Woman Wisdom offers her feast (Prov. 9.1-6). 49.  The significance of this language of collective ‘heart’ experience is also evidenced in Romans, as Paul asserts that ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given for us’ (Rom. 5.5). 50. Dunn, Theology of Paul, pp. 74–5. 51. Dunn, Theology of Paul, p. 75.

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have adequate language to describe these kinds of experiences in contemporary Western context.52 In the absence of such language I would like to propose the term ‘kinaesthetic transformation’. By using this term I am seeking to acknowledge at least three aspects of these Second Testament and early church convictions. The first aspect is that these early Jesus communities were claiming that something was felt to have happened. The second aspect is that this felt experience is described as being located within their bodies. By using the term ‘kinaesthetic’ this felt bodily claim is acknowledged in a way that seeks to guard against literalism.53 The third aspect of this term is that it acknowledges that this felt bodily experience was claimed to be transformative, bringing with it an internal enlightenment, knowledge, faith, divine abiding, expanding love and inner strengthening. Passages in 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Clement and the Didache indicate convictions that go beyond claims about receiving ‘objective’ or ‘mystical’ visions. These celebrations of, and prayers for, ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ also go beyond the idea of an intellectual adoption of a new way of thinking.54 Rowland and Morray-Jones also rightly dismiss the view that this language of the ‘eyes of your heart’ (Eph. 1.18) refers (only) to the ritual of baptism.55 Instead they see that in this language there is ‘an allusion to the illuminative experience of conversion by the power of the Spirit’.56 However, it is important to underscore that ‘this conversion by the power of the Spirit’ was seen by Paul, and other early Christians, as an ongoing process as evidenced in Paul’s convictions (2 Cor. 3.18), in Ephesians (3.16-19) and in the Didache.57 In highlighting the significance of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ in Second Testament and early church texts it is not being suggested that visions, and other ASC events were not part of this ongoing experience. However, it is being argued that the repeated celebration of collective and ongoing ‘heart illumination’ (e.g. 2 Cor. 4.4-6, Eph. 1.18; 1 Clement 36) and ‘heart abiding’ (e.g. Didache 10.2; Eph. 3.17, see also Jn 15.5) indicates the significance of these experiences in their own right. In these texts, it is through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the radiant imparter of divine knowledge, that these felt experiences of heart illumination and divine abiding are actualized. There is a paradigmatic connection between these experiences of ‘kinaesthetic

52. Dunn points to Paul’s holistic approach to mind and heart that challenges later Western perspectives, Dunn, Theology of Paul, p. 75. 53. The language of the texts makes it clear that literalism is inadequate, as evidenced in the phrase ‘eyes of your/our heart/s’ (Eph. 1.18; 1 Clement 36.2). 54. Dunn underscores this in relation to Paul’s convictions about the ‘heart’. Dunn, Theology of Paul, p. 75. 55. Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, p. 594. 56. Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery, p. 594. 57. The ongoing nature of this divine residing and nourishment is evidenced in the language of the Didache liturgy that is to be given thanks for each time Jesus communities share in eucharist.



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transformation’ and the ignition of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the early church. Excursus: Radiant Jesus in Pre-Easter Contexts It is difficult to assess Second Testament accounts of pre-Easter experiences that depict Jesus as radiant imparter of divine knowledge because of the possibility that these events were recast into the narrative of Jesus’ earthly life in post-Easter contexts. However, regardless of when accounts of Jesus as radiant emerged, the textual symmetry between claimed experiences in both pre- and post-Easter contexts deserves acknowledgement.58 In the accounts of the transfiguration, detailed in all three synoptics, Jesus is imaged as dazzling (Mt. 17.1-9; Mk 9.2-8; Lk. 9.28-36). The Lukan Jesus’ ‘face changed’ (Lk. 9.29) and the Matthaean Jesus’ ‘face shone like the sun’ (Mt. 17.2). In this narrative, while Moses imagery may be present in this language of illumination, the reality that Moses (and Elijah) appear before the transfigured Jesus makes it clear that Jesus is not being imaged as Moses in these radiant depictions. Instead, just as Woman Wisdom is more beautiful than the sun (Wis. 7.29), the luminosity of Jesus is greater than that of Moses.59 There are echoes between the ways in which Woman Wisdom and the transfigured Jesus are described (Wis. 6.12; 7.25, 26, 29).60 In each of these Second Testament accounts the command of God is to ‘listen to him’ (Mt. 17.5; Mk 9.7; Lk. 9.35). This too has resonance with Woman Wisdom’s call to listen to her (Prov. 8.34; see also Prov. 1.23; 8.5-6).61 Furthermore, the language of ‘the Beloved’, that is echoed in the baptism accounts, may also have links with Woman Wisdom.62 The transfiguration is again described in 2 Pet. 1.16-19. This is not presented as a flash of nostalgia, but rather as the authoritative experience on which the teaching of the author(s) rests. Interestingly, in this text it is assumed that there will be ongoing collective experiences of inner illumination and the language of ‘hearts’ again takes priority (2 Pet. 1.18-19). … 58. Focus in research according to categories such as ‘Pauline’ and ‘synoptic’ studies has obscured the continuity between the impact of claimed experiences of Jesus in preand post-Easter contexts. While all Second Testament and early church texts emerge from a post-Easter paradigm, I concur with James Dunn that within the gospels, remnant memories of transforming encounters with the earthly Jesus exist. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 129. In order to evenly investigate the potential impact of experiences of Jesus as radiant in early Jesus communities, claims about those encountering the earthly Jesus and claims about those encountering the risen Jesus need to be investigated. 59. Interestingly, Woman Wisdom infuses Moses, thus enabling the rescue of the enslaved people (Wis. 11.16-21). 60. See Chapter 2. 61. The vision of Jesus that is described in Revelation (1.12-16) also shares symmetry with the descriptions of Jesus in the transfiguration. 62. See Chapter 2.

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With no regard for contemporary reticence about the validity of religious experience, various Second Testament and early church authors express the conviction that collective experiences are significant in Jesus communities and that these experiences inform who they understand Jesus to be, what Jesus achieves and what Jesus continues to achieve. The texts of various Jesus communities proclaim the conviction that through the risen crucified Jesus they are receiving in their ‘inner beings’ divine illumination and divine abiding that is transforming, and liberating them.63 These (claimed) experiences in Jesus communities of visions and other ASC events as well as experiences of collective ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ ignited the celebration of the crucified risen Jesus as Woman Wisdom: the one, from ‘the beginning’ who is the radiant image of God and imparter of divine knowledge who saves. 2. Giver of the Divine Feast An important aspect of the remembered ministry of Jesus was that he gave feasts that were shocking in both scale and inclusion. The scale of these events is graphically portrayed in the accounts of the feedings of multitudes (Mk 6.35-44; 8.1-10; Mt. 14.13-21; 15.32-39; Lk. 9.10-17; Jn 6.1-14).64 The Didache eucharist also likely references recollections, or traditions, about these feeding/s.65 Whether miraculous feedings were experienced by those who encountered the historical Jesus, or whether such experiences bore resemblance to those detailed in Second Testament accounts, cannot be resolved. However, to assume that post-Easter experiences or beliefs were ‘always’ retrospectively inserted into pre-Easter narratives is to fall prey to the same kind of ideology that insists that ‘all’ accounts of the ministry of Jesus reflect historical reality, only in reverse.66 At the least, Dunn is right to surmise that underneath this narrative, as found in Mark, ‘lies the shared memory of a large communal meal’.67 Dunn also argues that elements within this account suggest ‘flashes of eyewitness reminiscence’ including the details of the number of fish and loaves of bread (6.38).68 While possible, what can be said with confidence is that the remembered impact of this outdoor meal sharing, whatever form it took, can be traced across all four gospels and in the Didache. Central to this remembered impact was that a diverse multitude were gathered together and all were filled through Jesus’ action (Mt. 14.20; 15.37; Mk 6.42; 8.8; Lk. 9.17; Jn 6.11-12; Didache 10.1, 3). The Johannine Jesus makes this point: ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves’ (6.26). 63. See discussion of liberation below. 64. This is the only miracle to be described across all four gospels. Dunn argues, ‘The only obvious explanation is two oral versions of the same episodes which came to Mark and John independently’, Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 685 (see also fn. 325). 65. See Chapter 2. 66. Likewise Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 646. 67. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 645. 68. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 687.



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In John, this experience led the people to recognize Jesus as ‘the prophet who is come into the world’ (6.14) and it is after this feeding that Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom, revealing him/herself as the bread of life (Jn 6.35; Sir. 24.19-21).69 The experience of being filled by Jesus overflows expectations of Woman Wisdom.70 It is possible that within the pre-Easter experiences of being gathered together and filled by Jesus in meals that were recounted as miraculous in scale – that it was in these experiences of being gathered and filled – that Woman Wisdom was first brought to mind. At the time did these strange experiences recall, for some, stories and imagery of Woman Wisdom? In John and Mark the impact of this feasting incited those gathered to immediately seek to make Jesus their king (Jn 6.15; Mk 6.45-46).71 Similar to John, in Mark, this miraculous feast sharing indicates the profundity of who Jesus is. After Jesus walks on the water and calms the wind the disciples are ‘astounded’ (6.47-52). The author critiques the disciples’ astonishment but does not refer to the Markan Jesus’ prior exorcisms (1.21-28, 39; 3.11; 5.1-20), or healing (1.29-34, 40; 2.12; 3.1-6; 5.25-34). Nor is it mentioned that Jesus has brought the little girl back to life (5.35-43). The author does not even refer implied audiences back to the logical critique of the disciples’ lack of faith; that Jesus has already stilled a storm (4.35-41). Instead the author states, ‘And they were utterly astounded. For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened’ (6.51-52). In Mark, it is the experience of sharing in Jesus’ abundant feast that is a pivotal trigger for recognizing, or conversely misunderstanding, who Jesus is. Interestingly, Dunn argues that in the imagery of the Markan Jesus walking on the water (Woman) Wisdom is present: ‘the scriptural talk of God (or divine Wisdom) walking on the sea has played some part in forming the story’.72 In view of a primitive Wisdom baptism account in Mark and the christological and soteriological discussion of Mark 6, it is possible that the Markan conviction that Jesus’ miraculous meal sharing was indicative of his divine identity also reveals understandings of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom. Jesus is presented sharing feasts that defy scale and defy social boundaries. As Dunn states: Many Pharisees saw their practice of table-fellowship as characterising Israel set apart to Yahweh … Jesus in contrast enacted an open table-fellowship … he was notorious for eating with tax-collectors and sinners. Holiness for Jesus …was not a negative, excluding force, but a positive, including force.73 69. Sandelin, Wisdom, p. 185. 70.  Massyngbaerde Ford recognizes this and argues that the longing that Jesus quenches comes from Jesus’ teaching and in eucharist ‘which meets all their religious longings’, Massyngbaerde Ford, Redeemer, p. 127. See Chapter 2. 71. Dunn argues for the link between John and Mark here, Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 646. 72. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, pp. 686–7 (brackets original). 73. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 603.

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According to the synoptic gospel tradition Jesus’ choice to feast with the ‘wrong’ people is pivotal to his rejection (e.g. Mk 2.16-17; Mt. 9.11; Lk. 15.2). As Kathleen Corley points out, the table fellowship imaged, particularly in Matthew, stands in contrast to the Graeco-Roman world because of its inclusion of women.74 Francis Moloney states: According to the Gospels, Jesus’ contemporaries were staggered by his preparedness to share his own table with sinners (Mark 2.15; Luke 15.1-2), to deliberately visit the tables of tax collectors (Luke 19.5), and to allow a prostitute to attend to him at a table where he was an invited guest. (Luke 7.36-38).75

In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ boundary-transgressing feasting, and subsequent rejection, are linked with Woman Wisdom (Mt. 11.19; Lk. 7.34). The Lukan Jesus states that these deeds indicate that he is a child of Woman Wisdom. The Matthaean Jesus claims that Woman Wisdom’s deeds are embodied and vindicated in this action. Dunn argues that Matthew 11.19/Luke 7.34-35 indicate memory/ies from Jesus’ ministry.76 If this is the case, it would appear that Jesus connected himself with Woman Wisdom in the context of open feasting. While this cannot be proven or disproven, these texts indicate that this connection was soon established in the Jesus movement. The impact of the experience of many being gathered together and of being filled is not limited to pre-Easter experiences of sharing in feasts with Jesus. The Johannine Jesus’ statements also refer to ongoing experiences of post-Easter Jesus communities and these are linked with Woman Wisdom. Not only is this evident in the invitations to eat and drink from Jesus (e.g. 6.35; 7.37), in the farewell discourse Jesus also speaks of the ongoing abiding of both himself and the father (15.4-5) after his death (15.13). Within this discussion, like Woman Wisdom, the Johannine Jesus calls himself ‘the vine’. This Johannine understanding correlates with the Didache’s post-Easter convictions.77 This continuity between recollections of the impact of pre-Easter experiences and ongoing post-Easter experiences of Jesus’ feasts – in which people were gathered together across societal boundaries 74. Kathleen Corley, Private Women, Public Meals: Social Conflict in the Synoptic Tradition (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), p. 185. 75. Moloney goes on to cite other passages in which he sees ‘direct reports of such meals’ (see Mk 2.16-17; Mt. 11.19; Lk. 15.1-2; 19.8). Francis Moloney, A Body Broken for a Broken People: Eucharist in the New Testament (Blackburn: Hendricksons Publishers, 1997), p. 183. 76. Dunn argues that in Mt. 11.19 and Lk. 7.34, coupled with the ‘little parable’ (Mt. 11.16-17; Lk. 7.31-32), ‘there is no difficulty in recognizing here a memory of one of Jesus’ more vivid attempts to signal his own understanding of the difference between his mission and that of John’, Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 454. 77. The Didache claims that Jesus reveals ‘the holy vine’ (9.2) and celebrates collective ongoing experiences of being filled (ἐνεπλήσθησαν) (10.1), of divine abiding (10.3) and spiritual nourishment (10.3). See Chapter 2.



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and in which people were filled – was significant in the ignition and the sustaining of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. The inclusive practice of eucharist in early Jesus communities provided a unique medium through which Jesus’ boundary-breaking table fellowship could continue to be experienced. Hal Taussig argues that ‘the meals [of the early Jesus movement] enacted the new social alternatives so vividly that the meal participants experienced themselves as actually a part of a new social order’.78 1 Peter also shares the conviction that post-Easter Jesus communities continue to be nourished through the risen Jesus.79 The author(s) of this text encourages the Jesus community accordingly: ‘Like newborn infants, long for the pure, (spiritual) λογικὸν milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good’ (2.2-3).80 The language of βρέφος indicates a newborn, neonate baby (see also Lk. 2.12, 16).81 Just as neonate babies instinctively seek out their mother’s breast, the community receiving this text is encouraged to seek out the milk of ‘the Lord’ (2.3).82 The language of λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα (2.2) is problematic for translation. While λογικὸς is not usually translated as ‘spiritual’, the NRSV translates it thus, preferring this over the language of ‘reasonable’ (see also Romans 12.1).83 However, both Peter Elliott and Reinhard Feldmeier are right to see in this phrase a reference back to the ‘word’ within the birth imagery of 1.23; thus this phrase may be translated ‘word-milk’ or ‘milk of the word’.84 In 2.2-3, the Jesus community is being encouraged to long for the word-milk that will transform them. This transformation that comes from the ‘word-milk’ of ‘the Lord’ (2.3) is understood as an ongoing process ‘so that by it you may grow into salvation’ (2.2). It is accepted that ‘the Lord’ in ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ (2.3) is a reference to Christ.85 Despite this, scholars commonly misunderstand the imagery 78. Taussig, In the Beginning, p. 54. Taussig goes on to assert, ‘It is this obviously simultaneous fantasy and transformation inside of the meal participants that made the meals themselves spiritual and enhanced them as social experiments’, Taussig, In the Beginning, p. 54 (italics mine). It cannot be ‘obviously’ known how people in the early Jesus movement experienced these occasions as ‘spiritual’. 79. For a discussion of the origins and dating of 1 Pet. see John Elliott 1 Peter: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, ed. William Foxwell Albright et al., The Anchor Bible, vol. 37b (New York: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 118–38. 80.  It is interesting to note that in 1 Peter 2 the Jesus community is encouraged to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ and in 1 Clement thanksgiving is shared because ‘the Master has wished us to taste the knowledge of immortality’ (36.2). 81. Elliott, 1 Peter, p. 398. 82.  The imagery of being a breastfeeding infant correlates with the claim that they have been born anew ‘through the living and enduring word of God’ (1.23). 83. For discussion see Elliot, 1 Peter, p. 400. 84. Elliott, 1 Peter, pp. 398–400. Reinhard Feldmeier The First Letter of Peter, trans. Peter Davids (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008), p. 125. 85. See Elliott, 1 Peter, p. 403; Feldmeier, Peter, p. 131.

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within these verses, assuming that here Christ is (only) equated with the ‘wordmilk’.86 David Bartlett comes closer to acknowledging the root of the metaphor than others: ‘Now the milk that the believers drink is not only the gift but also the giver; what tastes good is Christ’s own self.’87 In this text, Christ is the Lord who is the giver and the source of the milk that enables growth into salvation. In this text breastfeeding is the core metaphor. While largely overlooked, in 1 Peter within this metaphor Christ is imaged as a breastfeeding woman who sustains and nurtures the growth of the Jesus community with the gift of his/herself. While χρηστὸς is usually translated as ‘good’ in relation to 1 Peter 2.3, χρηστὸς may also be translated as ‘kind, loving and benevolent’. This language is used to describe God in the LXX (e.g. Pss 100.5; 86.5). This is also the language that the Matthaean Jesus uses to describe his yoke: ὁ γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς (11.30). In Matthew 11 Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, the healer, life giver, good news imparter (11.4-6) feast-sharer and deed-doer (11.19), the intimate of God (11.27) and the one who invites all to come and find rest as they take on his/her yoke and learn from him/her (11.28-30).88 In Matthew, the yoke of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is good and in 1 Peter Christ tastes good. It is possible that within the imagery of Christ breastfeeding the Jesus community in 1 Peter, here Christ is imaged as Woman Wisdom who shares her ‘milk-word’ which sustains and nurtures growth into salvation.89 This image of Jesus-Woman Wisdom breastfeeding shares resonance with John. Here Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom and the language of rebirth (3.1-16) and eating and drinking from Jesus’ body and blood (e.g. 6.35-58) are significant features.90 The concept of eating and drinking from the body of Jesus in order to be sustained and given life does not, necessarily, imply the act of breastfeeding. However, such an understanding in the early church may have enabled this kind of language, which could easily be construed as cannibalism and thus offensive (e.g. Jn 6.52, 66), to be more accessible.91 The imagery in 1 Peter 2.2-3 may in turn 86.  Elliott states, ‘Our author employs the metaphorical language of Ps. 33.9 in a unique manner to identify Jesus as the word-milk by whom believers have been reborn and fed …’, Elliott, 1 Peter, p. 404. David Bartlett, ‘The First Letter of Peter: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, ed. Leander Keck et al., vol. xii (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), p. 264. 87. Bartlett, ‘Peter’, p. 264 (italics mine). 88. See Chapter 2. 89. While Woman Wisdom is not presented as breastfeeding humanity in First Testament and intertestamental texts, in Sirach she is ‘like a mother’ (15.2) who nourishes (15.3). Massyngbaerde Ford discusses imagery of Jesus, Woman Wisdom and mother imagery in early Christian texts and highlights that Philo speaks of Wisdom as ‘mother’ and ‘nurse’, Massyngbaerde Ford, Redeemer, p. 132 (see also pp. 47–9). 90. While the birth imagery of John’s Gospel has not been investigated in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom here, this warrants further investigation. 91.  For an overview of the way in which Jesus communities were slandered as cannibals see Jennifer Glancy, in particular her discussion of Tertullian: Jennifer Glancy ‘Temptations



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illuminate the Markan Jesus’ statement: ‘Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it’ (Mk 10.15).92 The reality that in 1 Peter Jesus is imaged as a breastfeeding mother may challenge contemporary Western sensibilities. However, this should not lead to the minimization of this imagery in the text. The imagery of Christ breastfeeding the Jesus community disrupts the assumption that the gender of Woman Wisdom would have (only) been problematic in early Christian circles. This imagery demonstrates that early church understandings of gender and the divine were sufficiently sophisticated to be able to hold together gender paradox in their understandings of the risen Jesus.93 This text indicates that the author of 1 Peter intentionally drew from female imagery in order to give expression to the conviction that the Jesus community continued to experience nourishment in their ‘inner beings’ through and from the risen Jesus. It is not an unreasonable possibility that early church understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom contributed to the emergence of this imagery of the risen Christ breastfeeding the community. One of the ways in which early Jesus communities may have experienced ‘inner being’ nourishment through the crucified risen Jesus was in the practice of sharing in eucharist.94 Debate continues in relation to the ways in which eucharist was first shared in Jesus communities; whether this was over meals, weekly, and what kinds of food and prayers were first utilized. However, key features of the general practice of eucharist can be identified and these stand in some contrast to the wider cultural context. Speaking of the social milieu surrounding the early Jesus movement, Andrew McGowan states: sacrifice was a means not only of establishing and maintaining proper relations among human beings and between humanity and the gods, but also included animals, and their meat in particular, as key elements of that ritual and those relations. Most clearly, sacrifice established cosmic order by making offerings to the gods.95

While McGowan points out that there is evidence of ‘more reflective writers’ from within pagan culture who were uneasy with animal sacrifice, he indicates that the common world-view was that: ‘Without it there seems to have been fear of the Table: Christians Respond to Reclining Culture’, Meals in the Early Christian World: Social Formation, Experimentation, and Conflict at the Table, ed. Dennis Smith et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 230–2. 92. This possibility is strengthened by symmetry with Thomas (22), see Chapter 4. 93.  This sophistication of implied first readers is further evidenced by Paul who images himself as a woman giving birth to Christ in the community (Gal. 4.19). 94. This is not to suggest that early Jesus communities understood themselves to only be spiritually fed through eucharist. 95. Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharist: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals, ed. Gillian Clark et al., Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. 61.

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not only of divine displeasure but also of a crumbling of the fabric of the material world and culture …’96 The practice of animal sacrifice in Jewish tradition is more complex. As Gillian Feely-Harnik points out: ‘Prophets had railed for centuries against the sacrificial practices of the temple (e.g. Ps. 50.7-15; Isa. 1.10-17; Jer. 6.20; 7.21-22; Hos. 6.6; Mic. 6.6-8; Amos 5.21-24), contrasting righteousness, obedience to God’s commandments, with empty ritual.’97 Despite this, the practice of animal sacrifice continued to be an important part of Jewish faith while the temple remained. In direct contrast to the cultural norm of both Gentile society and, to a significant extent, Jewish practice, Jesus communities did not provide food offerings to appease the god(s), or in order to obey God’s commandments. Instead, Jesus communities claimed and celebrated that the ‘God one’ was sharing self: flesh and blood, in this meal for the nourishment and transformation of the community (e.g. 1 Cor. 11.23-26; 1 Apol 66). This early Christian practice embodies a spectacular re-visioning of cosmic reality. The ‘God one’ is celebrated as the nourisher who gives flesh and blood for the Jesus community, rather than requiring the people to sacrifice these self-same things. This re-visioning of cosmic reality in the early church demanded that the stratifications of wider society be levelled so that all people could find a place at the table of this extraordinarily hospitable God. As Wayne Meeks states, ‘This unity [between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female] points to the life of the “new human” now to be manifested in the life of the congregations and, in God’s future, in the world. It is expressed in the ritual meal.’98 It is not being pretended that attempts to live into this re-visioned boundary-transgressing inclusiveness were always successful as 1 Corinthians 11.17-22 makes plain.99 However, despite the dogged persistence of cultural bias and expectation, with varying degrees of success, Jesus communities sought to share open tables because of their convictions about who Jesus was, what Jesus did and what Jesus, the nourisher, continued to achieve. The identification of Jesus with Woman Wisdom, the giver of the inclusive, divine feast that fills and (provocatively) as the very feast itself, grew out of memories and accounts of Jesus’ pre-Easter ministry (Lk. 7.34-35 and Mt. 11.19). Experiences in post-Easter contexts of the nourishing Jesus (e.g. 1 Pet. 2.2-3; Didache 9-10; 1 Apol 66) fuelled this identification. The radical practice of eucharist was an important setting for Jesus communities to celebrate and share 96. McGowan, Ascetic, p. 61. 97. Gillian Feely-Harnick, The Lord’s Table: The Meaning of Food in Early Judaism and Christianity (Washington: Smithsonian Books, 1994), p. 139. 98.  Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 161. 99. Furthermore, slavery was not challenged, see Lillian Larsen ‘Early Christian Meals and Slavery’, Meals in the Early Christian World: Social Formation, Experimentation, and Conflict at the Table, ed. Dennis Smith et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 191–203. See also Meeks’ discussion of Paul’s view of slaves and gender, Meeks, First Urban, pp. 161–2.



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in receiving ongoing spiritual filling from the Holy One. Pre-Easter accounts of Jesus’ boundary-transgressing, filling feasts and ongoing post-Easter experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ in which people claimed to receive spiritual nourishment through the risen Jesus, were a catalyst in the identification of JesusWoman Wisdom. 3. Friend-maker with God According to gospel traditions Jesus made friends with people, both women and men, across ethnic, religious and status boundaries. Without hoping to establish the details of these friendships, or the historical accuracy of them, at least two things can be ascertained: these boundary-breaking friendships were a key feature of the remembered pre-Easter experiences of Jesus and these friendships evoked the condemnation of Jesus.100 Jesus’ willingness to make friends with those that others deemed inappropriate was inextricably linked with his willingness to share tables with these people (e.g. Mk 2.16; Mt. 11.19; Lk. 7.34). As Dunn states: ‘To eat with another was to forge and express a special bond of fellowship. By the same token, to refuse table fellowship was to deny the acceptability of the other.’ Jesus ate with and befriended the ‘wrong’ people and was rejected by ‘this generation’ because of this (Mt. 11.19, Lk. 7.34).101 Reflecting on the claim that Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton in his meal sharing and friendship with the ‘undeserving’, Dunn is right to suggest that: ‘It is scarcely credible that such a critique of Jesus was interjected into the Jesus tradition on the initiative of later disciples.’102 Discussion of friendship features very little in First Testament texts.103 However a distinctive feature of the portrayal of Woman Wisdom in Wisdom is that she brings people into friendship with God (7.14). The paradox is celebrated that while Woman Wisdom is cosmic: ‘she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things’ (7.27), she is also intimately accessible: ‘In every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets’ (7.27). Friendship with her is ‘pure delight’ (8.18). Woman Wisdom’s invitation to all to come to her is well established (e.g. Prov. 1.20-22; 9.1-6; Sir. 24.19-22). The similarity between accounts of Jesus’ pre-Easter open friendships and Woman Wisdom’s inclusive friend-making are clear.104 The question is when did such links between Jesus and Woman Wisdom begin to be made? It may have been that identification between Jesus the friend-maker and Woman Wisdom the friend-maker was a post-Easter construction based on the symmetry between 100. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, pp. 599–600. 101. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 602. 102. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 527. 103. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 71. 104.  Johnson argues, ‘The identification of Jesus with Sophia was probably based in the first place on the experience of salvation in him – to know and follow him was to become a friend of God’, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 276.

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the ways in which Woman Wisdom is described and the ways in which Jesus acted.105 However experiences of friendship with Jesus in pre-Easter contexts may also have contributed to this linking. If, as Dunn argues, Matthew 11.19 and Luke 7.34-35 contain elements of eyewitness recollections, the possibility is strengthened that people began making connections between Jesus and Woman Wisdom during Jesus’ ministry.106 The evidence indicates that new and ongoing experiences of friendship with God (and one another) in post-Easter Jesus communities were significant. In John, the impact of becoming friends with Jesus is central to the gospel’s Wisdom christology.107 The Johannine Jesus explains that followers are now friends because Jesus, the Word, has shared knowledge of God (Jn 15.15).108 The reality that this divine friendship is understood to be ongoing in the post-Easter community is indicated by the Johannine Jesus’ statement that after he has ‘gone away’ he will send ‘the Advocate’ (16.7) to continue to guide and teach the Jesus community.109 The Johannine community’s self-understanding as a non-hierarchical community of friends is informed by its gathering around the friend, the crucified and risen Jesus-Woman Wisdom, who is the one who shares knowledge of God and who fills. Cornelis Bennema also recognizes the soteriological importance of friendship in John and how this relates to understandings of Jesus, Woman Wisdom and the Spirit.110 Bennema rightly underscores John’s ‘realized’ soteriology: This intimate saving relationship between the believer and the Father and Son is realised (and naturally sustained) by means of the Spirit-Paraclete as the bond of union. Moreover, the concept of friendship also has soteriological overtones, and the Paraclete functions as the bond of friendship between Jesus and the believer.111 105. Johnson states, ‘The tradition of personified Wisdom was ready to hand when communities of Jewish Christians started to reflect on the saving significance and identity of Jesus of Nazareth’, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, p. 276. 106. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 454. 107. Ringe argues, ‘at the heart of the picture … is a model of accompaniment that is seen paradigmatically in Jesus’ life as it embodies dimensions of Wisdom and friendship’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 5. 108. See Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 5. 109.  As Ringe states, ‘The Paraclete will continue to enable friendship to be the lifestyle of the community, which sustains them and establishes a mode of divine presence in their midst’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 90. 110. Bennema argues that Jesus and the Spirit are identified with Woman Wisdom: ‘Jesus, as Wisdom incarnate, is the source of salvation … and the Spirit is the agent of salvation …’, Bennema, Power, p. 38. Within this discussion Bennema identifies key links between the Spirit and Woman Wisdom in Proverbs, Sirach, Wisdom, Philo and the Qumran material, Bennema, Power, pp. 51–99. 111. Bennema, Power, p. 225 (brackets original).



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He rightly states that ‘Salvation is not simply an intellectual adherence to a particular set of propositions … salvation is essentially relational, in that the believer participates in the divine life in relationship with the Father and Son through the Spirit.’112 John is not the only text to claim the possibility of an ongoing post-Easter experience of Jesus’ friend-making. However, this reality can be obscured by language. In First Testament texts, language of kin and neighbour are utilized instead of friend.113 Grounded in this tradition, Paul often utilizes language of fictive kinship when he speaks of the community being inwardly transformed into ‘friends with’ God, for example in Romans they are now ‘children of God’ who are liberated from fear (e.g. Rom. 8.14-17, see also Gal. 3.26). The experience of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ that comes from this new intimacy with God, through Christ, is a repeated feature of Second Testament texts (e.g. Gal. 4.4-7; Eph. 1.3-14; 3.8-12; Heb. 2.11-18). The veracity of these claimed experiences are not able to be proven. However the confidence with which these claims are made on behalf of both authors and implied audiences is notable. Talk of inward transformation and intimacy with God may be suggestive of an individualistic faith. However, early textual evidence suggests that these (claimed) new experiences of intimacy with the divine led directly to new expectations of, and experiments in, how to do community. Reflecting on Paul’s frequent use of fictive kinship language Wayne Meeks states: ‘The natural kinship structure into which a person has been born and which previously defined his place and connections with the society is here supplanted by a new set of relationships.’114 Paul also favours the language of koinonia, κοινωνία, to express this (e.g. Rom. 15.26; 1 Cor. 1.9; 10.16; 2 Cor. 6.14; 8.4; 9.13; 13.13; Gal. 2.9; Phil. 1.5; 2.1; 3.10; Phlm. 6). Dunn reflects on Paul’s use of the phrase koinonia pneumatos (e.g. 2 Cor. 13.13 112. Bennema, Power, p. 251. Bennema identifies the realized nature of this soteriology and that this is not simply intellectual; however his cognicentric bias interferes with his explication. For Bennema the Spirit is ultimately ‘a life-giving cognitive (and affective) agent who creates and sustains a life-giving relationship between the believer and the Father and Son (salvation)’, Bennema, Power, p. 250 (italics and brackets original). He argues, ‘the Spirit enables a person to come from sensory to cognitive perception and understanding through mediation of saving wisdom-truth present in Jesus’ revelatory life-giving teaching’, Bennema, Power, p. 250. This cognicentric bias is further evidenced in his discussion of Paraclete who should ‘be interpreted in terms of the Paraclete being in close relationship with the believer [like Father and Son are], rather than the Paraclete physically indwelling the person’, Bennema, Power, p. 222. This assumption is not adequately justified, particularly in light of John’s own emphasis upon the ‘abiding’ of Christ and the Spirit within the ‘inner beings’ of disciples (e.g. 14.16-17, 21, 23; 15.4-11). 113. Ringe points out, ‘the language of the Hebrew Bible has no specific word for ‘friend’. Biblical writers spoke rather of neighbours and kin’, Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, p. 71. Interestingly, when Woman Wisdom is celebrated as friend-maker, it is also celebrated that ‘in kinship with Wisdom there is immortality’ (Wis. 8.17). 114. Meeks, First Urban, p. 88.

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ἡ κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος) and that this is usually translated ‘fellowship of the Spirit’. He rightly states: that the basic meaning of the phrase is better given in translation like ‘participation in the Spirit’… It was awareness that their experience of the Spirit was one in which others had also shared which provided the bond of mutual understanding and sympathy… community grew out of the shared experience of the Spirit.115

Dunn emphasizes that Paul assumed that this koinonia would result in collective practical service for one another, which extended beyond the immediate geographic location and local congregations.116 Reflecting on Second Testament use of the term koinonia Jeffrey Kloha makes a similar point: ‘We do not create κοινωνία. It is an event that God creates, including all the elements: the individuals called to participate, the actions by which the κοινωνία is expressed, and to the “common thing” in which all share; all of it is God’s doing.’117 Evidence of Second Testament and early church texts demonstrates that Jesus communities were celebrating the experience that God had created a new fellowship, a new participatory experience of friendship. This ongoing experience was enabling them to live in radically open ways within, and across, their communities. Paul’s calls to live in communal love, in response to this experience of divine love, are well known and do not need to be rehearsed.118 Less familiar texts assist in highlighting this causal link. In the letter of 1 Clement the connection between inner experience and the outworking of this in the life of the community is made explicit: ‘The one who experiences love in Christ should do what Christ commanded’ (49.1). Justin Martyr defends Christian faith and in doing so gives a vivid account of the boundary-breaking Jesus community that he is now a part of. His account was composed for apologetic purposes, and may paint an overly positive presentation of this early Christian community.119 However, his description of a community made up of formerly disparate groups is nonetheless salutary: we who once valued above everything the gaining of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and share with everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and would not share the same 115. Dunn, Theology of Paul, pp. 561–2. 116. Dunn, Theology of Paul, p. 709. 117. Jeffery Kloha ‘Koinonia: Life and the New Testament’, Concordia Journal 38, no. 1, Winter (2012), p. 30. 118. For example, 1 Cor. 12.12–13.13; Rom. 12.9-21; Gal. 5.16–6.10. 119. While Second Testament and early church texts claim that communities are living differently, there is also acknowledgement that this way is difficult, goes against the grain of nature – ‘the flesh’, – and can fail (e.g. Gal. 5.16-21; 25-26; 1 Cor. 11.17-22; 1 Clement 1.3–3.4).



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hearth with people of a different tribe on account of their different customs, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies. (1 Apol 14)

The early evidence demonstrates that the motivation for linking Woman Wisdom and Jesus together as the divine friend-maker go beyond instances of textual symmetry in the language of friendship. The experiences and recollections of Jesus’ boundary-breaking friendship in pre-Easter encounters motivate the linking together of Jesus and Woman Wisdom. The (claimed) post-Easter experiences of ‘kinaesthetically transformative’ intimacy with God, through Jesus, also motivate this decision. The ongoing transformative presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom also motivates and empowers Jesus communities to try and live into this new and radical self-giving koinonia in which societal boundaries are dissolved. For these communities Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the divine friend-maker who has opened a portal to the divine. Friendship with God is now experientially available and through this communities are being enabled to begin to make real this wide, open friendship in their lived experience. 4. Divine Non-retaliatory Sufferer The role of suffering in Jesus’ life is made most clear in his death. The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the few things about the historical Jesus that can be claimed with certainty.120 The horror of the cross of Jesus in the Common Era is difficult to convey because this symbol has been so thoroughly domesticated in Western culture. However, those in early Jesus communities had to account for the fact that the one who was the focus of their faith and proclamation had been killed by the equivalent of the electric chair. Paul does not try and gloss over this shocking reality.121 Instead this became central to his convictions about both God and about cosmic reality. As Meeks states: ‘The belief in the crucified Messiah introduces a new and controlling paradigm of God’s mode of action … The novelty of the proclamation, which violates or at least transcends expectations based either on reason or on Jewish traditions (1 Cor. 1.18-25), permits it to serve as a warrant for innovation.’122 What has been insufficiently recognized are the ways in which Woman Wisdom is linked with non-retaliatory suffering, and how this influences understandings of Jesus’ suffering in Second Testament and early church texts, including Paul’s.123 In order to explore the link between Jesus and Woman Wisdom in relation to non-retaliatory suffering, the theme of suffering and Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and intertestamental texts must first be highlighted. In Luke, Jesus 120. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 765. 121. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 766. 122. Meeks, First Urban, p. 180. 123. The focus on non-retaliation in the Matthaean Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (5.38-48) invites further investigation in light of Matthew’s Wisdom christology.

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quotes Woman Wisdom: ‘Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”’ (11.49). In Matthew Jesus speaks the same words; however, instead of the author attributing these words to Woman Wisdom, the Matthaean Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom: ‘Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town’ (23.34). The Wisdom source that the Lukan and the Matthaean Jesus draw from expresses the conviction that this suffering is not approved of by God. This suffering is the result of the violence of the ‘crowds’ who seek to destroy the prophetic ones sent by Woman Wisdom. The original source tradition for these texts is not (currently) known. What can be gleaned is that there was a tradition concerning Woman Wisdom and suffering, and that the authors of Luke and Matthew assumed that this was sufficiently familiar for implied audiences to be quoted in first and second person without further explanation. As well as these Woman Wisdom ‘suffering source/s’, the Wisdom of Solomon provides further understanding of suffering from the perspective of Wisdom theology. Suffering, the origins of suffering, and God’s role within suffering, are all explored in the ‘parable’ of the righteous one (1.16–2.24). In this ‘parable’, the crowd is incited to violence towards this man because he challenges the crowds’ unjust behaviour (2.10-12, 16). According to the mob this righteous one has claimed intimate knowledge of God (2.13) and boasted that God is his father (2.16, see also 18). The crowds detest this man who has ‘became to us a reproof of our thoughts’ (2.14) and ‘the very sight of him is a burden to us’ (2.15). The parallels between this man and the ways in which Jesus is presented across the gospels are striking. Jesus claims familial relationship with the divine (e.g. Mt. 11.25-27; Jn 14.6-7). Jesus also challenges those who behave unjustly (e.g. Mt. 23.23-28; Mk 11.15-19). In the Wisdom ‘parable’ God does not desire suffering (2.22-24). Instead the suffering that this righteous one is threatened with comes as a result of violence of the crowd. The crowds jeer: ‘But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless’ (2.11). The contrast between the crowds’ ‘might is right’ mentality and the man is underscored: ‘Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance’ (2.19).124 Ultimately, the crowd wants this man dead: ‘Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected’ (2.20). In light of the shameful death that awaits Jesus in the gospel narratives, it is difficult not to be reminded of Jesus when reading these words. In Matthew during Jesus’ crucifixion the chief priests, scribes and elders call out in a similar manner to the violent mob of the Wisdom ‘parable’: ‘He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, “I am God’s son”’ (27.43). The Wisdom ‘parable’ suspends without introduction or conclusion in the book. It presents insight about the collective impulse to scapegoat, and underscores that God does not condone or desire this violence (2.22-24). What the 124. While using different language, it is striking that gentleness is a key indicator of both the righteous one and of Jesus-Woman Wisdom (Mt. 11.29).



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Wisdom ‘parable’ does not make clear is how this righteous and persecuted man relates to Woman Wisdom. In light of Woman Wisdom’s words that the Lukan Jesus quotes and the Matthaean Jesus speaks, perhaps traditions about the righteous man and understandings of the persecuted ‘prophets and apostles’ or ‘prophets, sages and scribes’ who Woman Wisdom has sent to humanity (Lk. 11.49; Mt. 23.34), emerge from the same Wisdom traditions.125 These conceptual links between the Wisdom ‘parable’ and the Matthaean Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s lament, in turn invite a reconsideration of the parable of the vineyard owner and the wicked tenants.126 The Wisdom ‘parable’ and Woman Wisdom’s words of woe in Luke and Matthew provide insight into Paul’s language of the cross and of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in 1 Corinthians.127 Too often a false dichotomy is inserted into Paul’s thinking, so that Woman Wisdom is positioned on one side, and the cross on the other.128 However, as the text indicates, for Paul these are intimately linked: but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the w/Wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor. 1.23-25)

Paul’s language here directly challenges the ‘mob’ mentality reflected in the Wisdom ‘parable’ that ‘might is right’, by proclaiming that what appears to be useless, foolish and weak non-retaliation is in fact God’s power and w/Wisdom 125. This understanding of rejection aligns with 1 Enoch 42 in which Woman Wisdom can find ‘no dwelling place’ on earth (1 Enoch 42.2). 126. The Matthaean Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants (21.37-38) not long before speaking as Woman Wisdom (23.34-39). Here, as Woman Wisdom has sent her ‘prophets, sages and scribes’ the vineyard owner (note the connection to the vine) sends his servants and then his son. All endure undeserved collective violence. In Matthew 21 Jesus then quotes from Psalm 118.22-23: ‘Have you never read the scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the corner stone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes?”’ (21.42). In some manuscripts Jesus then goes on to state, ‘The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls’ (21.44). In Sirach Woman Wisdom is also described as a stone, ‘She will be like a heavy stone to test them, and they will not delay in casting her aside’ (6.21). Despite gender differences, this parable of the vineyard owner and the wicked tenants shares strong connections with Jesus-Woman Wisdom. 127. Morales also highlights connections between Wisdom and 1 Corinthians, in particular between 2.22 and 1 Cor. 2.7. Morales rightly argues that the ‘mystery’ that Paul refers to ‘should be read as a case of biting irony, in which he continues to affirm that the only wisdom he preached to the Corinthians was Christ crucified. The mystery of Wisdom, both Solomon’s and Paul’s, is that the righteous sufferer will be vindicated’, Morales, ‘The Spirit, the Righteous’, p. 72. 128. See Chapter 2.

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revealed (1.23-25). For Paul, Wisdom christology and his soteriological understanding of the cross are not independent of one another; on the contrary, they are integral to one another. Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom and it is Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is non-retaliatory and who thus embodies God’s saving power.129 As Paul states: ‘He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us w/Wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1.30). Jesus-Woman Wisdom embodies God’s saving power in pre-existence (8.6), in life and in death (1.23-24). The shameful cross graphically discloses the mystery of the ‘un-power’ of God. According to Paul, in the cross the dominant world-view of ‘the crowds’ is proved utterly wrong. When Paul’s Wisdom soteriology of non-retaliation in the cross is recognized, not only does this make clear the text of 1 Corinthians but also enables the Colossians hymn to be read coherently. In Colossians Jesus is celebrated in cosmic terms as Woman Wisdom (Col. 1.15-17).130 In this hymn it is the same Jesus-Woman Wisdom through whom ‘all things in heaven and earth were created’ (1.16), through whom ‘all things hold together’ (1.17) and through whom ‘God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross’ (1.20). In Colossians, it is by cosmic Jesus-Woman Wisdom shedding blood on the cross that the reconciliation of all things is wrought.131 In 1 Corinthians and Colossians Jesus-Woman Wisdom brings peace by embodying God’s paradoxical ‘un-power’ that is revealed in non-retaliatory divine suffering.132 While often ignored, across these texts Wisdom soteriology is dominant; JesusWoman Wisdom saves through being the ‘God one’ who embodies God’s ‘weak’ and ‘foolish’ non-retaliation. In this, collective violence – which is graphically portrayed in the mob mentality in the Wisdom ‘parable’ – is exposed for the lie that it is. A Girardian Reading of Divine Non-retaliation One way of explicating the profundity of the Wisdom ‘parable’ and the Wisdom soteriology in 1 Corinthians and the Colossians hymn is through the work of René Girard. Girard identifies and deconstructs humanity’s predisposition to scapegoat individuals, a cycle of violence that is seen echoed across cultures and mythologies. Girard explicates the inner workings of this mechanism and highlights its confronting commonality. As elucidated in The Scapegoat the force of violence pushes at humanity so that when crisis grows to a head in community, a scapegoat is demanded in order to purge the crisis and restore ‘peace’, a peace that is always transient and false: The community must effectively be emptied of its poisons. It must feel liberated and reconciled within itself … The perpetual conjunction in myths of a very 129. See Chapter 2. 130. See Chapter 2. 131. This reconciliation involves the disarming of cosmic forces (2.14-15). See below. 132. Phil. 2.1-11 also invites further consideration.



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guilty victim with a conclusion that is both violent and liberating can only be explained by the extreme force of the scapegoat mechanism.133

Girard argues that this violent mechanism is ritualized and sacralized across time and cultures in myths and histories. From witch-hunts, to Aztec sacrifice, from Native American myths to the scandalizing persecution of Jews by Christians, the same predictable pattern spins: the one deemed different is held responsible and through their death the pollution is seen to be expelled. In history and mythology, the victim, we are told, is guilty and therefore the violence is permissible.134 What is more this violence, ad nauseam, is condoned by the god(s).135 Girard argues that this is the case until we come to the revelation of the gospels that builds upon this growing revelation within Hebrew tradition. Girard works in detail through various gospel texts in order to illuminate that what appears on the surface as yet another story of the scapegoat mechanism – the blaming of one who is innocent – is actually its opposite. In the gospels, readers are told about the events not from the perspective of the winners, the perpetrators of violence, but from the viewpoint of the victim. What is more, God is found to be on the side of the victim rather than on the side of the perpetrators. Girard states: This system collapses in the world of the Gospels. There is no longer any question of softening or sublimation. Rather, a return to truth is made possible by a process which, in our lack of understanding, we consider primitive simply because it reproduces the violent origin once more, this time in order to reveal it and thus make it inoperative.136

Unequivocally Second Testament texts are clear that this victim, Jesus, is not to blame and does not deserve the violent murder that confronts him. In the gospels the game is up as it becomes clear that the collective victim is actually innocent: The Passion reveals the scapegoat mechanism, i.e., that which should remain invisible if these forces are to maintain themselves. By revealing that mechanism and the surrounding mimeticism, the Gospels set in motion the only textual mechanism that can put an end to humanity’s imprisonment in the system of mythological representation based on the false transcendence of a victim who is made sacred because of the unanimous verdict of guilt.137

Girard points to the use of the Psalms in the Second Testament and argues that they are not simplistically inserted into Second Testament texts in the hope of 133. René Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 42. 134. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 12–44. 135. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 44. 136. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 166. 137. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 166.

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adding valour to Jesus’ shameful death. Instead, he argues that they are intentionally utilized to underscore that this one who is persecuted is actually innocent and is ‘hated without cause’.138 In this acknowledgement of the truth, the unravelling of the system of violence is begun. Girard argues: ‘The Gospels constantly reveal what the texts of historical persecution, and especially mythological persecutors, hide from us: the knowledge that their victim is a scapegoat …’139 What is striking is that the Wisdom ‘parable’, that shares so much in common with accounts of Jesus, explicates this scapegoat mechanism with precision.140 Here the reality of the crowd’s desire to lynch the one deemed different is writ large, the innocence of the victim is not hidden but unambiguously revealed (2.21-24) and, thus, in this ‘parable’ violence is not sacralized. Furthermore, the text goes on to explicitly state that God has nothing to do with this cycle of violence: Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls; for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity. (2.21-23)

There are four movements in the scapegoat mechanism according to Girard, and the Wisdom ‘parable’ reflects each of these four stages.141 In the Wisdom ‘parable’ 138. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 102–7. 139. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 117. Girard does not pretend that violence ceases in the ‘real world’ as a result. Instead in the primary revelation of the gospels, and in the ongoing retelling of the Christ event, humanity’s predilection to violence can begin to be decoded as we learn more and more authentically that the victim is innocent. Girard argues that the ongoing deconstructing power of the passion can be traced through the centuries as there have been increasingly humane attitudes towards, and treatment of, those who are deemed ‘other’. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 204–8. Clearly, as violence continues to be perpetrated across the globe, at times in the name of Christ, there is still further deconstruction to do. 140. While Wisdom was written before the gospels, it cannot be ascertained whether it was written after, or before, the cross of Jesus. If Wisdom was written after, the textual commonality may suggest that the cross of Jesus cast a nurturing shadow over its composition. If the text was written before the cross of Jesus it acts as an unnervingly accurate summary of what was to come. 141. According to Girard first there must be a crisis that has the impact of ‘generalised loss of differences’ i.e. a catastrophe such as plague. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 12–16. Second the scapegoat must be accused of crimes that appear to ‘eliminate differences’. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 24. By accusing the scapegoat of acting in one of these ways the crowd asserts its belief that the scapegoat has caused the lack of differentiation that is now confronting society: ‘they must begin the destruction of difference’. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 15. Third, the scapegoat must possess marks that suggest a victim; signified by some ‘difference’, for example physical deformity. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 18, 21. The fourth movement is the violence itself. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 24. In the concise Wisdom ‘parable’ each of these movements can be traced. The crisis for the crowd is precipitated not by death through



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the origin of this deathly violence is attributed to the devil. More specifically, it is explained that this violence is the by-product of the devil’s mimetic desire: ‘but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it’ (2.24). While ‘devil talk’ is unfashionable in the academy, and beyond, Girard again offers insight. In his work to excavate the roots of violence, Girard argues that the origins of the scapegoat mechanism are found in conflictual mimetic desire: the incessant desire for what others have. Mimetic desire, according to Girard, is not simply the copying of another, instead it is the unconscious response to want what others want. Girard argues that in looking beyond ourselves we learn from one another what we ‘ought’ to desire and in turn become possessed by this longing.142 Girard claims that this mimetic pursuit for the ‘other’ is central to both human behaviour and to conflict: ‘Mimeticism is the original source of all man’s troubles, desires, and rivalries, his tragic and grotesque misunderstandings, the source of all disorder and therefore equally of all order through the mediation of scapegoats.’143 Within this paradigm of conflictual mimetic desire, Girard argues that the terms demonic and mimetic plague, but through death more existentially, in the shock of their own mortality (2.4). Here the perceived abyss that death brings precipitates the collapse of differences as their voice and intent merge: ‘Let none of us fail to share in our revelry; everywhere let us leave signs of our enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this is our lot (2.9).’ The crisis that mortality brings to this crowd has brought a ‘generalized loss of differences’. In the Wisdom ‘parable’ the victim is not accused of breaking human social codes of relationship; instead this ‘other’ is accused of breaking human-divine codes of relating, as he ‘boasts that God is his father’ (2.16c). Here is the second movement of the scapegoat mechanism. Girard makes clear that the reasons for being chosen as a scapegoat vary. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 86. The marks of ‘victimhood’ for the righteous one are his life choices (2.14-15). As Girard states: ‘Whoever reproaches men for their desire is a living scandal for them, the only thing in their opinion that keeps them from being happy’, Girard, Scapegoat, p. 145. In this making of a victim the third movement of the scapegoat mechanism is evidenced. What cannot be ascertained from the Wisdom ‘parable’ is whether the fourth movement, the violence, is to be understood as enacted or only threatened. What is certain is that this violence is desired (2.20). 142. Despite passages in which Girard could be construed as claiming that all mimetic desire is conflictual this is not the case. Girard states, ‘the idea that mimetic desire itself is bad makes no sense’, René Girard, ‘The Goodness of Mimetic Desire’, in The Girard Reader, ed. James. G. Williams (New York: Crossroad, 1996), p. 63, see also pp. 62–6. For Girard desire is mimetic, but this mimeticisim is not always negative: ‘It is everything. It can be murderous, it is rivalrous; but it is also the basis of heroism, and devotion to others, and everything’, Girard, ‘The Goodness’, p. 64. 143. Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 165. William Schweiker restates Girard’s mimeticism accordingly, ‘The triangle of desire of subject, object, and mediator/rival is what Girard takes to be the true meaning of mimesis. The curious origin and shape of desire mean that the subject and mediator of desire are unaware of their triangular situation’, William Schweiker, Mimetic Reflections: A Study in Hermeneutics, Theology and Ethics (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), p. 23.

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desire are interchangeable: ‘By acknowledging the existence of the demon we recognize the force of desire and hatred, envy and jealousy, at work among men.’144 In Second Testament and early church texts, the theme of enslaving cosmic forces is significant.145 In these sources the defeat of cosmic forces is integral to much early soteriology (e.g. Col. 1.13; Gal. 1.3-5; 4.8-9; 1 Cor. 15.24; 2 Cor. 4.3-4; Heb. 2.14-15; Jn 12.7-32; 1 Apol 45). This is often ignored, or downplayed, in contemporary context. Girard’s insights enable the presence of cosmic forces in these texts to be acknowledged and provides tools that enable them to be decoded.146 For many Second Testament authors, despite appearances to the contrary, something happens on a cosmic scale because of Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s non-retaliatory suffering in the cross. The paradoxical ‘un-power’ of God liberates from the powers of cosmic evil. Colossians makes this conviction clear. Just before celebrating Jesus as cosmic Woman Wisdom (1.15-20) the text states, ‘He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins’ (1.13-14). The disarming of cosmic forces is again celebrated in Colossians 2.14-15.147 Language of rescue and disarming, and elsewhere of ransom (e.g. Mk 10.45; 1 Tim. 2.6), indicate the dualistic world-view of many Second Testament authors. People are either enslaved by cosmic evil or are rescued through the crucified, risen Jesus 144. Girard, Scapegoat, p. 195. The Wisdom ‘parable’ not only illustrates the scapegoat mechanism in its four stages, but also clearly states that the source of this violence is conflictual mimetic desire, ‘the devil’s envy’ (2.24). At each point this ‘parable’ illustrates what Girard deconstructs. 145. Second Testament understandings of enslaving cosmic evil are evidenced in the various exorcism accounts in the gospels (Mk 5.1-20; Mt. 8.28–9.1; Lk. 4.31-37; 8.26-39; 9.37-43). This is also exemplified in stories such as binding the strong man and the parable of the grain (Mt. 12.22-32; 12.43-45; 13.18-19; Mk 3.20-30; 4.14; Lk. 11.14-26). In the epistles convictions about the reality of a framework of cosmic evil that exists in battle with the faithful appears in many places; see Gal. 1.3-4; 4.8-10; Eph. 6.10-18; Col. 1.13-14; 2.15-20; 2 Thess. 2.9-12; Jas 4.7; 1 Pet. 5.7-10; 1 Jn 1.13-14; 3.8-10; Jude 8-9, 23; Rev. 20.7-10; see also Rom. 7.14-25. As Archie Wright argues, ‘by the turn of the Common Era there was in place a world-view within Judaism in which the activity of autonomous or semiautonomous evil spirits was regarded as a reality. This view is exemplified, for example, in the ministry of Jesus as described in the Synoptic Gospels’, Archie Wright The Origins of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6.1-4 in Early Jewish Literature, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, Reihe; 198 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), p. 1. 146. For further discussion of Girard’s understanding of conflictual mimetic desire and Second Testament understandings of cosmic forces see my article, ‘A Decoding of Evil Angels: The Other Aetiology of Evil in the Biblical Text and its Potential Implications in our Church and World’, Colloquium vol. 45, no. 1. (2013), pp. 42–60. 147. Richard DeMaris also recognizes the centrality of the disarming of cosmic forces for the writer of Colossians. Richard DeMaris, The Colossians Controversy: Wisdom in Dispute at Colossae, ed. Stanley Porter et al., Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 96 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 137–8.



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and are enabled to live in the ‘energy field’ of the kingdom of God.148 This is Paul’s position, as evidenced in his conviction that the Jesus community is experiencing illumination while others are perishing (2 Cor. 4.3-4). … The ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology of various Second Testament and early church texts not only proclaims that Jesus-Woman Wisdom is illuminating with divine knowledge that is transforming Jesus communities, that Jesus-Woman Wisdom is spiritually nourishing Jesus communities with very self and that Jesus-Woman Wisdom is making people into friends with God and with one another. Early Jesus communities also proclaim the ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology that the non-retaliatory suffering of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the cross has exposed the lie of ‘might is right’ (1 Cor. 1.23-25) and in doing so, paradoxically, disarmed the powers of cosmic evil through this divine powerlessness (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.28; Col. 1.13-14; 2.15). For early Jesus communities this meant that, through Christ, Jesus communities now had a ‘portal’ to God (Eph. 3.10-12, also 1 Clement 36) and were transferred from enslavement by cosmic forces into God’s ‘energy field’ (Col. 1.13). As a result of this transfer into God’s realm within the midst of life the community was now being empowered by God’s Spirit to live, more and more, into God’s non-retaliatory divine being and ‘energy field’ that endures rather than inflicts (e.g. Gal. 5.16-25; Col. 1.11-14; 1 Cor. 13.4-8; 2 Cor. 3.18, 1 Clement 16.1-17, 49.1-6). This understanding of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom the non-retaliatory sufferer may have first emerged from within the earthly ministry of Jesus if, as Matthew and Luke both state, Jesus did quote from sources that depict Woman Wisdom sending her people who were then persecuted. While this understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory, saving sufferer may be surprising in contemporary context, this understanding correlates with the accumulative ways in which Jesus and Woman Wisdom were already being identified. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the radiant, divine knowledgeimparter, divine feast-giver and divine friend-maker. If Jesus embodied Woman Wisdom in life and resurrection, it only makes sense that Jesus would embody Woman Wisdom in death. It is difficult to analyse the role of direct experience of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory divine sufferer in post-Easter contexts, because it is difficult to quantify what kind of experiences would constitute this. However, early church claims to have shared in such experiences, whatever they were, cannot be discounted. The author(s) of 1 Clement claim that because of directly experiencing the ‘beauty’ of God’s love in Christ, community members should go on to share this non-retaliatory love with others: 148. DeMaris rightly states in relation to Colossians 1.16, 18; 2.10 and in particular 2.15, ‘Such language makes it impossible to regard the cosmic forces as neutral or positive; the letter writer thought they were inimical to God’s rule and thus had to be conquered (cf. 1 Cor. 15.24)’, DeMaris, Colossians Controversy, p. 138.

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The one who experiences love in Christ should do what Christ commanded. Who can explain the bonds of God’s love? Who is able to recount the greatness of its beauty? The height to which love leads is beyond description. Love binds us to God; love hides a multitude of sins; love bears all things and endures all things. There is nothing vulgar in love, nothing haughty. Love has no schism, love creates no faction, love does all things in harmony … Because of the love he had for us, our Lord Jesus Christ gave his blood for us, by God’s will – his flesh for our flesh – his soul for our souls (1 Clement 49.1-6).

While the exact nature of what it means to be ‘one who experiences love in Christ’ cannot be ascertained, this should not diminish the validity of these convictions.149 Regardless of whether people began linking Jesus and Woman Wisdom as non-retaliatory sufferer in pre- or post-Easter contexts, the impact of this understanding of the cross was significant in early Jesus communities. In Second Testament and early church texts the priority of non-retaliatory gentleness is underscored (e.g. Mt. 5.38-48; Rom. 12.12-21; 1 Cor. 13.4-7; Didache 1.3-7). This repeated focus does not reflect a sub-category of ethical teachings. Instead, calls to live in non-retaliatory suffering emerge from within christological and soteriological convictions. This is evidenced in 1 Clement in which there are many calls for the community to (again) live in non-retaliatory patterns of gentleness and humility (1.2, 5-8; 13.1-4; 14.3; 16.1-17; 21.8-9; 30.8; 44.3; 49.1-6; 56.1; 57.2; 58.2; 62.1-2). In 1 Clement the call to ethical living is a call to live out the teachings and actions of Jesus: ‘You see, beloved men, the example that he has given us. For if the Lord was humble-minded in this way, what shall we ourselves do, who through him, have assumed the yoke of his gracious favour?’ (16.17). The reason the community is to live in Jesus’ way is because Jesus is the ‘radiance of his [the Master’s] magnificence’ (36.2) Woman Wisdom, and this is how Jesus acts and saves (36.1). In 1 Clement Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, the one who embodies the nature of God: a God who ‘feels no anger toward his entire creation’ (19.3). As the letter boldly claims: ‘We should treat one another kindly, according to the compassion and sweet character of the one who made us’ (14.3). In early texts it is celebrated that Jesus is the Wisdom and ‘un-power’ of God that exposes the foolishness of violence and disarms the powers of evil. Because of this, these communities understood themselves to be freed to live into the same non-retaliatory ways. Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the one, who was due with God, the praise, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God, was the image of God in life and in death and in resurrection. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the one who in non-retaliatory suffering and gentleness makes God, and God’s power known (1 Cor. 1.23-26) and accessible (Eph. 3.9-12). For those who were part of Jesus communities they were liberated from the powers of cosmic envy and violence and now dwelt within the ‘energy field’ of God’s kingdom (Col. 1.13). In which, despite all the challenges, the fruits of the Spirit were beginning to grow in 149. In the introduction to the Philippians hymn Paul makes a similar connection between experiencing Christ’s love and living in Christ’s ways (2.1-8).



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community life (e.g. Gal. 5.16-26), as they became transformed more and more into the image of God (2 Cor. 3.18): Jesus-Woman Wisdom (2 Cor. 4.4-6). 5. First-Born and Infusing ‘All Things’ While it is one thing to proclaim the conviction that a person who was crucified has been brought back to life, it is of a different order entirely to claim that this person was actually the cosmic one from ‘the beginning’, the radiant image of God through whom ‘all things’ come into being (e.g. 2 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.16-17; Jn 1.3). As Hurtado rightly underscores, this cosmic identification of Jesus, which is found in early hymn and prayer fragments, runs contrary to faithful Jewish practice.150 In these cosmic proclamations Jesus is repeatedly imaged as Woman Wisdom, who is ‘first-born’ (e.g. Col. 1.15, 17; Jn 1.1-2; see also Rev. 3.14; Justin Martyr Dial 62; 100; 129; see also 126), image of God (e.g. 2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15, 19; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2) and who infuses ‘all things’ (e.g. 1 Cor. 8.6; Col 1.17; Heb. 1.3; Jn 1.1-2).151 What could have prompted this identification of Woman Wisdom’s cosmic role with Jesus? It could be assumed that the decision to link Woman Wisdom’s cosmic attributes with Jesus emerged out of a process of accumulation. Early Jesus communities were claiming to experience Jesus-Woman Wisdom in other spheres: in receiving divine, illuminating knowledge, spiritual nourishment and friendship with God, as well as in the experience(s) of receiving Christ’s non-retaliatory love that liberated from cosmic evil. From this perspective it may have been ‘logical’ to also link Jesus with Woman Wisdom and her other cosmic features. However, given the shocking nature of this cosmic celebration of a man who was killed in a state-sanctioned murder within the meta-narrative of monotheistic Israel, this is an inadequate explanation. ‘Mystical’ experiences including visions and experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ were significant features of shared life in Jesus communities. It is likely that these experiences of encounter with the risen, radiant Jesus and of ‘inner being’ illumination and restoration, through the risen, radiant Jesus ignited the bold identification of Jesus with Woman Wisdom in all her cosmic proportions. Similarly, Hurtado argues that in Jesus communities, encounter was: ‘with a figure recognized as Jesus but also exhibiting features that convinced the recipients that he had been clothed with divinelike glory and given a unique heavenly status’.152 However, it is not necessarily that all Jesus communities believed that Jesus had been ‘given a unique heavenly status’ as Hurtado claims. While some texts may indicate this view (e.g. Mk 1.9-11; 1 Clement 36.4; 64.1), other texts indicate the conviction that Jesus already had this heavenly status and that this had now been revealed to humanity (e.g. Jn 1.1-18; 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-17; Phil. 2.15-20; Didache 9.2). Regardless of when Jesus is understood to have ‘divinelike glory’ 150. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 72. 151. See Chapter 2. 152. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 72.

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various texts indicate that these experiences revealed the glory of God (e.g. 2 Cor. 3.16-18; 4.6; Jn 1.14; 2 Pet. 2.16-17; Rev. 1.12-16). Whether these claimed experiences were primarily in the form of visions, auditions, glossolalia, trance, or ‘kinaesthetic transformation’, all of which feature in Second Testament and early church texts, or whether it was the combination of these experiences that led to this identification, cannot be ascertained. However, the dramatic impact of these experiences is attested to by the texts themselves. Jesus communities were left with no other option but to draw the conclusion that the risen, radiant Jesus was actually the ‘God one’, from the beginning, the image of God, and in whom ‘all things’ hold together. To put this more precisely, it was the impact of these experiences that led Jesus communities to celebrate Jesus as Woman Wisdom.

Conclusion Jesus is imaged, both explicitly and implicitly as Woman Wisdom in various Second Testament and early church texts that proclaim that Jesus was due, with God, the devotion, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God alone. From the perspective of contemporary context this may appear strange. Not least, because in the patriarchal context this is an inherently troublesome proclamation. Despite this, Jesus communities chose to image Jesus as Woman Wisdom in their celebrations of who Jesus was, what Jesus achieved and what Jesus continued to achieve. The motivations for identifying Jesus and Woman Wisdom were more compelling than any real, or imagined, risks. This chapter has demonstrated that transformative collective experiences, including ‘mystical’ ASC events such as visions and experiences of ongoing, collective ‘kinaesthetic transformation’, ignited the proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology. Various Second Testament and early church texts celebrate that Jesus-Woman Wisdom had actualized salvation through divine illuminating knowledge of God, spiritual nourishment, divine friendship with God and through the non-retaliatory suffering of the cross that looked like weakness from the outside, but was the ‘un-power’ of God that disarmed the cosmic forces. Jesus communities celebrated that they were now experiencing freedom and were being empowered by the Spirit to live into the ‘realm’ of Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s divine gentleness. These experiences also led them to conviction that Jesus was the ‘God one’ from the beginning and infusing all things. While religious experience may be confronting in contemporary Western context, the evidence reveals that transformative experiences within Jesus communities ignited and fuelled the remarkable identification of Jesus and the female divine. The following chapter will investigate the motivations for the veiling of JesusWoman Wisdom in the subsequent development of christology and soteriology in the second and third centuries.

4 W H E R E SHA L L W I SD OM B E F O U N D ?

‘Orthodox’ texts composed before the middle of the second century reveal that Jesus was being celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom. While Jesus-Woman Wisdom was central to early expressions of christology and soteriology the evidence indicates that in the second half of the second century and in the third century Jesus-Woman Wisdom began to be moved from the centre to the margins of articulations of Christian faith. This chapter will explore the reasons why. First, the ‘obvious’ reason for the minimization of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology will be investigated: the issue of gender in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom within the patriarchal context. The impacts of ‘Gnosticism’ and the impacts of the apologetic imperative to increasingly Gentile audiences will then be investigated. This exploration will then turn to the question of the place of experience in an increasingly stratified church. It will be demonstrated that for those seeking to control and contain authority within the early church, Jesus communities that continued to claim direct experience of JesusWoman Wisdom challenged this agenda. Primary sources written before the end of the third century will be considered, with many sources written in the second century.1 This investigation does not pretend to offer a comprehensive history of the second and third centuries. Rather, within the confines of the chapter, each of these factors that led to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom will be discussed and illustrated by the work of key Christian writers from this period.2 In doing so, 1. The exception is the writing of Epiphanius, who preserved and utilized second and third-century sources, but wrote in the fourth century. 2.  Other texts likely written before, or around, the middle of the second century include 2 Clement (different author from 1 Clement) and the Letter of Barnabas. In each the focus is on Christian living rather than christology, though in Barnabas Jesus ‘the son’ and ‘lord’ is pre-existent at creation (5.5; 6.12). In the Shepherd of Hermas a woman in ‘radiant clothes’ (2.2) appears in visions (Chapters 2–24). This woman is ‘the church’ (8.1) and it is stated that God ‘by his unique wisdom and foreknowledge created his holy church’ (3.4). Here Wisdom christology and/or Wisdom ecclesiology may be present. In the Epistle of the Apostles Wisdom christology may also be present as Jesus states that he ‘put on the wisdom of the Father’ while passing by the heavens (13.1). The confines of space limit further investigation of these texts.

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the complex, multivalent, and at times overlapping, motivations for the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom will be disentangled and examined.

Gender Bias in the Patriarchal Context Despite the gender paradox, many Second Testament and early church texts proclaim understanding that Jesus was due with God the devotion, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God alone, and they do this by utilizing Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. However, while Jesus-Woman Wisdom is present and pivotal in many Second Testament and early church texts, this reality is at times obscured, even within these texts. The trajectory of the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is evidenced early. John opens with the proclamation that Jesus is the incarnate one, and this is proclaimed in the imagery of Woman Wisdom σοφία. Yet in this text that resounds with Wisdom christology Jesus is named as the Word λόγος rather than Wisdom σοφία.3 The extent to which Jesus-Woman Wisdom is silenced in John is open to debate.4 The subse3. Schüssler Fiorenza states: ‘Unfortunately, this Wisdom matrix of the Fourth Gospel remains almost completely hidden in a cursory reading of the text …’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s, p. 155. Joan Chamberlain Engelsman argues that in John’s Gospel ‘… Sophia was superseded by Logos, and then Logos was identified as Christ’ … ‘It was moving toward its transformation from a feminine hypostasis of God into a masculine one’, Joan Chamberlain Engelsman, The Feminine Dimension of the Divine (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1979), p. 107. The veiled presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is also evident in Hebrews, Beavis, ‘Hebrews and Wisdom’, p. 218. 4.  For an analysis of the prologue and the possible motivations for utilizing Logos instead of Sophia see Chapter 2. Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that the replacement of Woman Wisdom with Logos in the early church arises directly out of issues of gender and power, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 117. Reflecting on the process of the displacement of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, Radford Ruether argues that a male-dominated construct of reality is theologized, ‘All is integrated into one vast hierarchy of being. Just as the Logos of God governs the cosmos, so the Christian Roman Emperor, together with the Christian Church, governs the political universe; masters govern slaves and men govern women’, Radford Ruether Sexism and God-Talk, p. 125 (italics original). Joan Chamberlain Engelsman also argues that the suppression of Woman Wisdom occurred in the early church as a result of gender, Chamberlain Engelsman, Feminine Dimension, p. 95. Chamberlain Engelsman argues that this process of suppression occurs early in the Jesus tradition. She states that in: ‘Paul and Matthew, [this] involved the direct identification and then substitution of Christ for Sophia’. Chamberlain Engelsman, Feminine Dimension, p. 107. Chamberlain Engelsman draws from the work of Martin Hengel in this assumption. She argues: ‘To summarise the position of Paul, it is clear that he identifies Christ with (and substitutes him for) Sophia in terms of agency and efficacy.’ Chamberlain Engelsman, Feminine Dimension, p. 110 (brackets original). This claim dismisses the possibility that these authors may have understood



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quent veiling of the identification of Jesus with the female divine in the early history of the church is clear. In order to assess the impacts of gender and patriarchy in the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom within the first centuries of the Jesus movement, the cultural and theological milieu of this context need to be sketched. Schüssler Fiorenza argues that the process of the canonization of early Christian texts occurred as ‘different parts of the church were engaged in a bitter struggle for or against women’s leadership’ and that ‘This struggle was engendered by the gradual patriarchalization of early churches.’5 Second Testament texts such as 1 Corinthians 14.34-40 and 1 Timothy 2.8-15 demonstrate that at least in some early communities the issue of women’s leadership was already contentious.6 The limits placed on women’s leadership, teaching and speaking in Jesus communities in these preserved texts indicates at least two things: that the condemnation of women’s leadership was a powerful voice within the early church and that women were offering leadership and teaching, thus prompting this condemnation.7 Evidence from a variety of sources indicates Jesus as the manifestation of Woman Wisdom: ‘the early Christians replaced her [Woman Wisdom] with Jesus and within a few decades of his crucifixion, all her powers and attributes had been ascribed to Christ. This was either done directly, as in Paul’s letters and Matthew’s Gospel, or indirectly, as in John, which identified Christ with the Logos, a masculine figure similar to the one developed by Philo. Ultimately, Sophia’s powers were so totally pre-empted by Christ that she herself completely disappeared from the Christian religion of that time.’ Chamberlain Engelsman, Feminine Dimension, pp. 119–20. The suppression of Woman Wisdom in the early church is not being questioned, nor is the role of the patriarchal gender bias in the subsequent suppression of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. However, the claim that Second Testament authors sought to suppress Woman Wisdom, in the first instance by importing her power and presence onto Jesus, misunderstands these texts. In the first Jesus communities the primary problem was not that Woman Wisdom needed to be silenced and that Jesus provided the vehicle for this suppression. Neither was the primary problem that faith claims about Jesus needed a christological ‘lift’ and that Woman Wisdom was the convenient catapult. Instead, as demonstrated in Chapter 3, the issue for several Second Testament and early church authors and communities was that they experienced Woman Wisdom in Jesus, in both pre- and post-Easter contexts. Later in the history of the church, for those wishing to establish exclusive lines of authority based on ‘maleness’, these claimed experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom presented a considerable problem. 5. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 53. 6. Whether Paul is the author of 1 Cor. 14.34-45 in which women are instructed to be silent, is debated. If Paul did not author these words, final redactors soon felt able to attribute such words to him. In relation to 1 Timothy, as Ute Eisen states, ‘the general tendency of the Pastorals … [was to] attempt to effect a drastic reduction in the authority and functions of women within communities’, Ute Eisen Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies (Collegeville: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, 2000), p. 207. 7. As Karen Jo Torjesen states: ‘There seems to be no doubt that women figured

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that women were leaders in the early church. Drawing from both epigraphical and literary sources, Ute Eisen argues that there is evidence that women in the early church occupied a variety of leadership roles including that of apostles, prophets, teachers of theology, presbyters, enrolled widows, deacons, bishops and stewards.8 Torjesen, Eisen and McKechnie argue that the ‘private’ nature of the very early church enabled women to offer such leadership.9 Paul Paul’s views about the leadership roles of women in the church are not straightforward. In the letter to the Romans, Paul acknowledges female ‘co-workers’ in Christ, including Junia an ‘apostle’ (Rom. 16.7).10 Perhaps as Schüssler Fiorenza and Torjesen suggest, the historical reality of such women meant that Paul had prominently in Jesus’ life and ministry, both during his lifetime and after his resurrection when the first communities were formed and his message began to spread. If these accounts of women’s important participation hadn’t been grounded in intractable fact [as seen in such texts as Col. 4.15, Acts 16.15, Rom. 16], they would not have survived in such a male-dominated culture.’ Karen Jo Torjesen, When Women Were Priests, Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1993), p. 37; see also pp. 22–38. See Eisen, Women Officeholders, p. 102; Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 56. 8. Eisen, Women Officeholders, pp. 47–224. For further evidence of the active role of women as ‘hosts, teachers, and leaders’, see: Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. Macdonald with Janet H. Tulloch, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006), pp. 157–250. See also Torjesen, When Women, pp. 9–50; Ben Witherington III, Women in the Earliest Churches, Society for New Testament Studies, Monograph Series 59 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 116, 125. Eisen discusses ‘bishop’ Theodora, Eisen, Women Officeholders, p. 200, and Paul McKechnie’s view of Theodora, Paul McKechnie The First Christian Centuries: Perspectives on the Early Church (Leicester: Apollos, 2001), p. 205. 9. As Torjesen states: ‘So long as church leadership continued to model itself on the familiar role of household manager, there was no cultural barrier to women assuming leadership roles. First- and second-century Christians, familiar with the authority and leadership role of the female head of household would have perceived women’s leadership within the church as not only acceptable but natural. The early church’s specific leadership functions posed no barriers to women, whose skills and experiences as managers amply prepared them to assume the duties of teaching, disciplining, nurturing, and administering material resources. This would have been the case as long as Christian communities remained closely identified with the social structures of the private sphere’ Torjesen, When Women, p. 82. McKechnie, First Christian, pp. 208–9. Eisen, Women Officeholders, pp. 206–7. 10.  For discussion of Junia the apostle, and attempts of the later church to eradicate her femaleness by transmuting her name into a male name, see Eisen, Women Officeholders, pp. 47–9.



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little option except to do so.11 In 1 Corinthians, Paul appears to express contradictory views about the role of women. First, Paul acknowledges the role of female prophets in the church (11.5). Later in the letter he declares that women ‘should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak’ (14.34).12 It is possible that in these contradictions readers not only witness the historical reality of women leaders and Paul’s bias against women. These contradictions may (also) bear witness to Paul’s internal struggle to come to terms with his cultural expectations about women’s leadership roles, as he admits himself (1 Cor. 11.16) and the reality that Paul recognizes that the Spirit is infusing Jesus communities (1 Cor. 12.4-6) with the result that women, as well as men, are being empowered by the Spirit to be leaders, prophets and co-workers, all to the glory of God through Christ.13 Despite the negative attitudes towards women’s leadership in the church that Paul expresses, at times, in the opening chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul relies on Wisdom christology in order to proclaim who Christ is, the w/Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1.24, 30; also 2.7; 8.6). Paul’s intermittent attempts to limit the roles of women did not extend to the displacement of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. In the same way that Paul was able to, at times, accept the Spirit-infused experiences and leadership gifts of women, Paul’s self-confessed ‘mystical’ encounters with the God of Jesus Christ, whom he experienced as Wisdom (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.30; 2.7, 10-13; see also 2 Cor. 3.17–4.6) also informed his decision to retain the proclamation that Jesus was (incarnate) Wisdom from God. Montanists In the second century there is evidence to indicate that the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom was, at times, directly motivated by patriarchal agenda. This is demonstrated by reactions against a female prophet within the Montanist movement. Unlike various ‘Gnostic’ movements, Montanists claimed the same central tenets of faith as the emerging ‘orthodox’ church.14 Epiphanius acknowledges that ‘They use the Old and New Testaments, and likewise affirm the resurrection of the dead’ (Panarion 49.2, 1).15 The difference in emphasis for Montanists was their focus on

11. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 50. Torjesen, When Women, p. 37. 12. Whether Paul authored these words or not cannot be proved or disproved, and so here they are considered as part of the whole text. 13. As Eisen points out, ‘In Christian communities in which the Spirit was more important than theological and social norms that denigrated women and attempted to restrict them to domestic activity it was evidently not problematic that women had authority in the Church’, Eisen, Women Officeholders, pp. 207–8. 14. As W. H. C. Frend states: ‘Montanus’s message was difficult to refute. Apocalyptic was the contrary to Gnosticism and was not unorthodox’, W. H. C. Frend, The Early Church (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), p. 81. 15. See also Epiphanius, Paranion 48.1, 3; 49.2,1.

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apocalyptic and their claimed experiences of the active presence of the Spirit.16 Epiphanius recorded various beliefs and sayings of the Montanists as he sought to condemn them. These unknown source/s that Epiphanius quotes are considered to originate from the late second and early third centuries.17 Within one of these accounts Epiphanius describes a vision that was likely received by Priscilla,18 one of this movement’s most prominent prophets (Panarion 49.2, 1).19 Epiphanius states: but one of them [Priscilla or Quintilla], as I said, slept in Perpuza, and Christ came to her and slept beside her under the following circumstances, as the deluded woman said: “Christ came to me dressed in a white robe,” she said, “in the form of a woman, imbued with wisdom and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that Jerusalem will descend from heaven here.” (Panarion 49.1, 2–3)20

In this female prophet’s revelation there are links between Jesus and Woman Wisdom. Christ appears in female form. The female Christ is dressed in a bright robe; similarly Woman Wisdom is described as radiant (e.g. Wis. 6.12; 7.25-26) and Jesus is imaged as radiant Woman Wisdom (e.g. 2 Cor. 3.18; 4.4-6; 1 Clement 36.2; Rev. 1.12-16; 3.14-20).21 Furthermore, this female Christ is imbued with wisdom. Here in this faith community it is likely that Christ is not only linked with Woman Wisdom, but in this revelation Christ may be understood as Woman Wisdom.22 The issue for Epiphanius is the role that women have in this Christian group. Not only did Montanists accept female prophets, they also recognized the gifts of 16. As Schüssler Fiorenza states, ‘Like Montanus, the women prophets claimed that the Paraclete or Holy Spirit spoke directly to and through them. This claim was based on faith in the revelations given by the Holy Spirit to women and men in prophetic ecstasy’, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 300. Lössl states: ‘Its adherents believed that the New Jerusalem was going to descend literally near Perpouza, a town in Phrygia. It was led by charismatic (‘spirit-filled’) prophetic leaders, many of them women, who propagated a strongly enthusiastic and ascetic life style’, Josef Lössl, The Early Church: History and Memory (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 105–6. 17. Ronald Heine points out that ‘Epiphanius indicates that he uses both oral and written sources in his section on the Montanists (Pan 48.15)’, Ronald Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, Patristic Monograph Series 14 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1989), p. x. 18. Epiphanius states that he is not sure whether Priscilla or Quintilla received this vision; in either case, he describes her as ‘the deluded woman’ (Panarion 49). 19. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 301. 20. Translated by Frank Williams The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Books II and III, Nag Hammadi and Manichean Studies (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994). 21. See Chapter 2 and below. 22. While not the focus of this monograph, there may be interesting implications for Queer and Transgender Studies in relation to christology that flow from this.



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women for leadership positions in the church and argued that there was scriptural warrant for this practice. After acknowledging that this group shares the same Christian faith Epiphanius goes on to state: They cite many texts which have no relevance, and give thanks to Eve because she was the first to eat from the tree of wisdom. And as scriptural support for their ordination of women as clergy, they say that Moses’ sister was a prophetess. What is more, they say that Philip had four daughters who prophesied. (Panarion 49.2, 2)

Epiphanius does not question the core faith of Montanists; his central concern with this group is that: They have woman bishops, presbyters and the rest; they say that none of this makes any difference because “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.” (Panarion 49.2, 5)

Epiphanius attempts to discredit this group’s understanding of women’s ecclesial leadership in Christian community by referring to Genesis 3.16; 1 Timothy 2.12-14 and 1 Corinthians 11.8 (Panarion 49.3, 2–4). Against the express desires of Epiphanius, who claims to have squashed this ‘toothless, witless’ Montanist group ‘like a gecko’ with his writing (Panarion 49.3, 4), his writing has actually preserved access to this second century vision of Jesus imaged as a woman of wisdom, or as Woman Wisdom, as well as this community’s inclusive expression of Christian ecclesiology.23 Other sources from this period also preserve condemnation of this Montanist group, and in particular, Priscilla.24 Schüssler Fiorenza states, ‘The considerable body of anti-Montanist literature focuses its attack on the leadership of women in particular.’25 Epiphanius’ condemnation adds weight to this conclusion. Eisen is cautious about concluding that anti-Montanist positions originated from issues of gender, and

23. This Montanist group’s focus upon the claim that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3.28) may not only reflect ecclesiological meaning, but also christological import. For this community male and female have been merged in Jesus Christ, and those in leadership within the church will naturally be made up of people who are male and people who are female. See discussion of Thomas 22 below. 24. Heine gathers sources from the second, third and fourth centuries including Epiphanius, that discuss the Montanists. These sources seek to condemn this Christian group, at times by discrediting the key leaders as seen in the late second-century writing of Apollonius, Heine, The Montanist Oracles, pp. 23–7. Writing in the late second and early third century Bishop Serapion of Antioch sought to condemn Montanists, and in his work included a document signed by various bishops that describes Priscilla as ‘the demon’, Heine, The Montanist Oracles, p. 27. 25. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 301.

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points out that several orthodox writers affirmed female prophets.26 However Eisen appears to take insufficient consideration of the reality that Montanists not only affirmed female prophets, but also allowed women to have ecclesial authority as teachers and presiders. It was this that fuelled consternation.27 The female prophet and leader in this faith community who proclaimed visionary experience of Christ embodied as a woman, imbued with wisdom, likely JesusWoman Wisdom, presented a problem to the increasingly patriarchal church. The reality that this vision was received within a Christian community in which women were ordained, and held positions of authority, would have only underscored the problematic nature of this christology and soteriology for those seeking to establish church leadership roles exclusively for people of the male gender. The shrill tone of Epiphanius’ description of this group: ‘What prolific error there is in this world!’ (Panarion 49.3, 4), underscores the threat that this expression of Christian faith posed to those invested in patriarchal translations of church power. Jesus-Woman Wisdom, and both women and men who sought to receive and share her wisdom, could have no place in the emerging ‘mainstream’ church. Tertullian Tertullian provides a further test case for the displacement of both women and Jesus-Woman Wisdom. He was born somewhere towards the end of the second century, possibly around 170 c.e., and is associated with the North African city of Carthage.28 Around 32 treatises written in Latin by Tertullian are preserved.29 It is generally agreed that the latest dating of his work is 212 c.e.30 As Carly Daniel-Hughes summarizes, Tertullian was ‘deeply educated in Latin rhetoric and perhaps also the law’.31 Among many other things, Tertullian reveals (at least some) preserved perspectives about Christian women, as well as understandings of christology and soteriology from the decades following the composition of 26. Eisen, Women Officers, pp. 70–3. 27. This is reflected in Epiphanius’ writing. While not speaking specifically about women in leadership, Geoffrey Dunn also recognizes that understandings of authority and leadership in Montanism were the central issue of concern for other parts of the church, ‘Montanists claimed to be inspired by the Paraclete, which tended to give them a bad reputation with bishops, who wanted to be the sole source of authority within a community’, Geoffrey Dunn, Tertullian, ed. Carol Harrison, The Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 6. 28. Daniel Hoffman, The Status of Women and Gnosticism in Irenaeus and Tertullian, Studies in Women and Religion, vol. 36 (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), pp. 145–6. 29. Tertullian was also able to write in Greek. 30. Hoffman, Status of Women, p. 146. 31.  Carly Daniel-Hughes The Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 6.



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Second Testament texts. He is understood to have become a Montanist in the latter part of his life. However it is becoming increasingly clear that creating delineation between Montanists and the ‘mainstream’ church may reflect scholarly agenda rather than historical reality.32 Tertullian wrote with passion and polemic. As a result, his attitudes to women in the Christian community continue to elicit argument, and vastly contrasting conclusions.33 The diversity of readings of Tertullian is contributed to by the diversity of statements that Tertullian makes. However, Tertullian’s emotive language lends itself to the assumption that, despite his connections with Montanism, he had a very low estimation of those of the female gender.34 He famously describes women as ‘the Devil’s Gateway’ in the first chapter of On the Apparel of Women (1.1.2). Perhaps less known, but equally emotive, within his Treatise on the Incarnation, Tertullian describes the womb in the following fashion: Beginning then with that nativity you [Marcion] so strongly object to, orate, attack now, the nastiness of genital elements in the womb, the filthy curdling of moisture and blood, and of the flesh to be for nine months nourished on that same mire … Christ, there is no doubt of it, did care for the sort of man who was curdled in uncleannesses in the womb, who was brought forth through organs immodest, who took nourishment through organs of ridicule. (4)35

This leads Daniel-Hughes to argue that: in order for Christ’s redemptive act to work, the filth associated with human birth must be displaced entirely onto Mary and, implicitly, onto women as well … He is quickly disentangled and washed free of the gunk and filth of the sordid womb that fed, nourished, and sustained him those long months, while 32. As Dunn states: ‘The notion that Tertullian’s Montanism meant that he ever left the church is one that does not seem sustainable today … the Christian community in Carthage contained a wide cross-section of opinion and practice, Montanists included.’ Dunn, Tertullian, pp. 6–7. Dunn continues: ‘I am not inclined to see two distinct phases in his literary life. There was no dramatic or sudden catharsis’, Dunn, Tertullian, p. 9. 33. For example Carly Daniel-Hughes argues that Tertullian’s attitudes to women’s clothing originate from his soteriological construct in which women’s flesh is ‘the privileged indicator of human sordidness’, Daniel-Hughes, Salvation of the Flesh, p. 78. In contrast Daniel Hoffman argues that: ‘Tertullian’s views towards women, when considered within his own cultural and theological context, were not unusually negative, but were relatively positive’, Hoffman, Status of Women, p. 148. 34. Recognizing Tertullian’s aptitude for rhetoric Dunn points out that Tertullian may well have ‘recast Montanism to suit his own inclinations’, Dunn, Tertullian, p. 6. 35. Translated by Ernest Evans, Tertullian’s Treatise on the Incarnation: The Text Edited with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary (London: SPCK, 1956).

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Mary’s body leaks it from her breasts and her vagina. (Marc. 3.11.7-9 and Carn. Chr. 4.1-3)36

In light of the offensive tone of Tertullian’s description of the womb, it is appealing to favour Daniel-Hughes’ assessment of the passage, and therein, accept that Tertullian possessed extremely negative attitudes towards women.37 However, Daniel-Hughes appears to have taken insufficient account of the arguing partner that Tertullian is wishing to confront and defeat. According to Tertullian, Marcion is revolted by the idea of fleshly birth. Earlier in the same passage Tertullian states: Draw a picture of the womb getting daily more unmanageable, heavy, selfconcerned, safe not even in sleep, uncertain in the whims of dislikes and appetites. Next go all out against the modesty of the travailing woman, a modesty which at least because of danger ought to be respected and because of its nature is sacred. You shudder, of course, at the child passed out along with his afterbirth, and of course bedaubed with it. You think it is shameful that he is straightened out with bandages, that he is licked into shape with applications of oil, that he is beguiled with coddling. This natural object of reverence you, Marcion, bespittle: yet how were you born? You hate man during his birth: how can you love any man? (4)38

Tertullian’s central concern in both this passage, and throughout Incarnation, is to demonstrate that Jesus was the incarnate one and was born, like all humanity, as a baby, lived, actually suffered, was crucified and died. Throughout the text Tertullian seeks to demonstrate the rightness of this view and the foolishness of Marcion’s dismissal of the fleshly incarnation and the suffering of Christ. When this is understood, the purpose of Tertullian’s evocative rhetoric becomes clear. According to Tertullian, Marcion believes that all birth is ‘shameful’. Tertullian does not seek to argue that this is not the case. In contrast, he underscores and emphasizes this view describing the womb as ‘the filthy curdling of moisture and blood’ (4). However he does so in order to build his own argument. After giving the impression of agreeing with Marcion’s view of the flesh, Tertullian flips the argument on its head, not in order to deny the flesh, but in order to underscore the love of God, who in Christ, takes on human flesh: For his [those born from the womb] he came down, for his sake he preached the gospel, for his sake he cast himself down in all humility even unto death, yea, the death of the cross … If these are the constituents of man whom God has 36. Daniel-Hughes, Salvation of the Flesh, p. 71. 37. Despite Daniel-Hughes’ assumptions, it is less than clear whether Tertullian is referring specifically to Mary within this discussion, or rather Christ’s nativity along with the beginnings of all human life, in the wombs of women. 38. Italics added.



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redeemed, who are you to make them a cause of shame to him who redeemed them, or to make them beneath his dignity, when he would not have redeemed them unless he loved them? (4)

Tertullian utilizes Marcion’s negative views of the flesh, which fuelled the latter’s rejection of the fleshly incarnation, in order to emphasize Christ’s gratuitous love in taking on flesh. Daniel-Hughes recognizes that Tertullian ‘ruminates on the sordid nature of the flesh in order to reveal all the more starkly the miraculous nature of Christ’s redemptive act’.39 However, she does not appear to consider that this might be a rhetorical device on the part of Tertullian, rather than representative of his own opinion. This is despite the fact that within the passages quoted above, Tertullian indicates that he does not share Marcion’s attitude by emphasizing ‘you shudder’, ‘you think it is shameful’ and ‘This natural object of reverence you, Marcion, bespittle’. In explicating Tertullian’s rhetoric, I am not seeking to justify his appalling description of the womb, and by implication, women’s bodies and value. Furthermore, despite the distinctions he draws between his own and Marcion’s views, he may have ultimately subscribed to much of the grotesque imagery that he utilizes. However, acknowledging the place of rhetorical flourish in Tertullian’s writing is necessary if he is to be read contextually. While cautioning against Daniel-Hughes’ assessment of Tertullian that interprets his writings as evidence of his misogyny, Hoffman’s more positive appraisal of Tertullian’s attitudes to women also overstates the situation. Hoffmann states: Although Tertullian did not allow full role interchangeability between genders in church ministry positions, his affirmation of women, created in the eternal likeness of God, ministering in the community and church in many ways, could have provided ‘a powerful alternative’ to repressive attitudes elsewhere.40

Hoffman’s assessment takes insufficient account of Tertullian’s negative portrayal of women. Amidst the variety of polemical statements that Tertullian makes regarding women, their bodies and how they should dress, Tertullian’s understanding of the place of people of the female gender in relation to people of the male gender, and in relation to God, is revealed in a passing statement within Veiling of Virgins. Within Tertullian’s rhetorical attack upon women who are virgins and who will not veil in worship, first Tertullian argues that being a virgin woman is not worthy of as much honour when compared with the honour of men who do not ‘take’ women’s virginity, ‘For virginity endures by favour, selfcontrol by true virtue’ (10.3).41 Tertullian then states, as a matter of fact, without 39. Daniel-Hughes, Salvation of the Flesh, p. 71. 40. Hoffman, Status of Women, p. 182. 41. Translated by Dunn Tertullian. Dunn draws from and emends Dekkers’ translation in Corpus Christianorum.

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shrill flourish, that men ‘belong more to the image [of God]’ (10.3). Within the world-view that Tertullian presents there could be no room for understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. For Tertullian men are made more in the image of God, therefore, Jesus as the image of God must be male, and the incarnate (male) Logos of God.42 While Tertullian is able to acknowledge female prophets,43 his fundamental world-view is that women are lesser.44 In Tertullian’s writing the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is evident. Central to Tertullian’s christology is his understanding of Jesus as the Word of God. Tertullian’s understanding of Jesus as Word is indebted to Wisdom christology, and yet Wisdom is allowed no place in this proclamation. This is illustrated by his discussion of the soul in Incarnation: In fact, however, what it [the soul] has learned from Christ, is not what it looks like but how it is saved. For this cause did the Son of God come down and submit to having a soul, that soul might obtain knowledge, not of itself in Christ but of Christ in itself. For it was through ignorance, not of itself but of the Word of God, that it was in peril of its salvation. (12)

Here Tertullian proclaims that Christ is pre-existent and from God, just as Woman Wisdom is (e.g. Prov. 8.22-30; Wis. 9.9; Sir. 1.1-4). Furthermore, like Woman Wisdom, Christ is proclaimed as the one who imparts knowledge of the divine (e.g. Prov. 8.32-35; Wis. 7.27; 9.10-12; Sir. 1.19-20) and thus Christ is ‘the Word’ who saves. As seen above and, repeatedly elsewhere, Tertullian utilizes the language of the Word in order to proclaim this Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology (e.g. Incarnation 12; 16; 17; Chapters 18–19 include a discussion of John’s prologue). Yet throughout these statements Tertullian does not allow Woman Wisdom to be named. Within Incarnation in a passage comparing Adam with Christ, and Eve with Mary, Tertullian relegates Jesus-Woman Wisdom even further to the margins as he underscores the maleness, not only of Jesus, but of the pre-existent Word. Here he states: So then, God brought down into the womb his own Word, the good brother, that he might erase the memory of the evil brother [Adam]: for the salvation of man Christ must needs come forth from that organ into which man already under condemnation had entered. (17) 42. See discussion below. 43. For example Tertullian details what a ‘certain sister of ours’ has heard in a vision from an angel (Veiling 17.3). 44. Torjesen rightly points out that Tertullian’s views about women were in part motivated by his ‘cultural assumptions about honour and shame’, stating: ‘For Tertullian a veiled virgin could continue in her position of prestige, authority, precedence, and honour because she was publicly demonstrating her concern for shame, for sexual exclusiveness’, Torjesen, When Women, p. 167.



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Tertullian’s theological argument, that connects Adam and Christ, Eve and Mary, relies on the maleness of the divine Word. The pre-existent Word is ‘the good brother’ who overcomes the sinful action of Adam, the ‘evil brother’. This emphasis on the Word’s maleness may indicate the extent of Tertullian’s patriarchal gender bias against women and his culturally conditioned understanding of the feminine as inherently lesser and shameful, as other texts indicate. However, it is interesting to note that in this passage Tertullian claims that Adam is evil, rather than simply Eve, as he does in Apparel of Women.45 This inconsistency may be explained through the changing perspectives of Tertullian. However given Tertullian’s proclivity for punchy rhetoric these contradictory perspectives may more accurately reflect Tertullian’s production of theology to fit perceived circumstances and contextual agenda. In Incarnation, Tertullian needed to emphasize the Word’s maleness in order to undo the work of the male Adam within the scheme of salvation he was creating.46 All this Tertullian elaborates in order to achieve yet another affirmation of the fleshly birth of the Word, through Mary, which is his overriding agenda in this treatise. Tertullian’s Word christology and Word soteriology are anchored in Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology: the Word is pre-existent, comes down from heaven and saves through the gift of knowledge (Incarnation 12). However within the theological landscape that Tertullian was carving out, there could no longer be any explicit place for Jesus-Woman Wisdom. In John there is only a thin divide between Jesus-Word and Jesus-Woman Wisdom, as evidenced in the prologue and also, for example, in the Johannine Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s invitation, to eat and drink from him/her (e.g. Jn 4.14; 6.35, 37; Sir. 24.19-21, 29-30; Prov. 9.1-6).47 For Tertullian there is now a chasm. Not only is Jesus male, now the maleness of the pre-existent Word is underscored. The functions of Jesus Woman-Wisdom are retained. However Jesus-Woman Wisdom is sublimated by Tertullian’s theological agendas and patriarchal world-view. While the choice of the author of John’s prologue to name Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the Word may, or may not, have been a direct result of gender and patriarchal concerns, the work of Tertullian indicates that by the end of the second century issues of gender and patriarchy contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. 1 Clement The reality that issues of gender and patriarchy motivated the veiling of JesusWoman Wisdom in the early church is further underscored by evidence from the 45. In Tertullian’s ‘Devil’s gateway’ passage, he states, ‘Don’t you know that you are an Eve? … Don’t you know that you are the Devil’s Gateway? All too easily you destroyed so easily God’s image, man. Because of your deed – namely, death – even the Son of God had to die!’, Apparel of Women 1.1.2. 46. This comparison dovetails with Tertullian’s pairing of the ‘evil’ Eve with the saving Mary. 47. See Chapter 2.

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letter of 1 Clement. However in this text, the evidence runs in the opposite direction. As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom in 1 Clement. The letter of 1 Clement also celebrates the active and important role of women in Jesus communities, and provides a counterpoint to the bias against women in other preserved texts of the early church. In contrast to texts such as those by Tertullian that veil Jesus-Woman Wisdom and present negative attitudes towards women more generally, the evidence of 1 Clement is that Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom and women are honoured as active and faithful participants in Jesus communities. This is not to suggest that Woman Wisdom was utilized in order to bolster convictions about women’s value, leadership or active participation in early communities in 1 Clement. The emergence of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the earliest communities was ignited by pre- and post-Easter experiences of Jesus as Woman Wisdom. The evidence of 1 Clement suggests that because the authorial agenda was not to suppress women and women’s active and faithful participation and contribution in Jesus communities, Jesus-Woman Wisdom was allowed to remain as the text’s primary expression of christology and soteriology. In 1 Clement 12 it is underscored that women can prophesy. First the letter discusses the faithfulness of Rahab (Josh. 2) that finds allegorical links to Christ: ‘And they proceeded to give her a sign, that she should hang a piece of scarlet from her house – making it clear that is through the blood of the Lord that redemption will come to all who believe and hope in God’ (12.7). The letter then reflects on Rahab, affirming that this woman possessed both faith and prophetic gifts, ‘You see, loved ones, not only was faith found in the woman, but prophecy as well’ (12.8). It is quite a stretch to identify the draping of some cloth with the gift of prophecy. However 1 Clement makes this stretch. This emphasis in the text on Rahab’s ‘prophecy’ appears to be speaking into a wider conversation about whether women can prophesy in faithful communities.48 1 Clement contributes to this debate with an affirmation ‘you see loved ones’ there is a precedent for faithful and prophetic gifts among women. Later in 1 Clement appropriate behaviour for wives in Jesus communities is detailed. In this text, women’s speech is not forbidden. Instead 1 Clement states, ‘Let them manifest the gentleness of their tongues through how they speak’ (21.7). This command to speak may refer to the private realm. However, verses 3–6 address issues in the wider context of the public faith community and its disputes, and includes instructions regarding leaders, the elderly, youth and wives, thus indicating that the context is less than clear. Kim Haines-Eitzen points out that manuscripts record this verse regarding women’s speech differently. In the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus these words are rendered, ‘let them manifest their gentleness of tongues by their voice’. In the eleventh-century Codex Hierosolymitanus, these words are rendered, ‘let them manifest the 48. Despite Paul’s acknowledgement of women’s prophecy in his first letter to this community (1 Cor. 11.5), calls for women’s silence later in the text (14.34-36) may have come to dominate.



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gentleness of their tongues by their silence’.49 The controversial nature of this commendation, to speak or to be silent, is demonstrated by the conflicting ways in which this text is construed in these manuscripts. Haines-Eitzen points out that ‘the Syriac, Latin, and Coptic contain “silence” instead of “voice”, and the writing of the second-century Clement of Alexandria quotes this passage and does so with “silence”’. This evidence, alongside other early texts that advocate women’s silence leads Haines-Eitzen to suggest that ‘silence’ may be the original rendition of this passage.50 However, considering the polemical nature of debates regarding women’s leadership, teaching and speaking in the early church, it is unsurprising that more numerous copies of 1 Clement that preserve the instruction for women to keep ‘silent’ are evident. Despite the numerous copies of ‘silence’ Haines-Eitzen also points out that: ‘our earliest Greek manuscript of 1 Clement accords it scriptural status and at 1 Clement 21.7 offers wives voice’.51 In 1 Clement 55 the active faithful role of women is again affirmed, this time within the context of persecution: Among ourselves, we know many who put themselves in prison in order to ransom others; many placed themselves in slavery and fed others with the purchase of price they received. Many women were empowered by the gracious gift of God to perform numerous ‘manly’ deeds. (55.2-3)

In this chapter there is a passing reference to unnamed courageous kings and rulers (55.1), the passage then names Judith and Esther and expands upon their faithfulness and courage (55.3-6). As in 1 Clement 12, Chapter 55 appears to be contributing to a wider conversation about the role of women, and underscores that ‘many women’ were thus empowered by God (55.3). The patriarchal construct from which this text emerges is indicated by the way in which women are celebrated as being strong by describing their courage as ‘manly’. However, when the wider context of Graeco-Roman culture is taken into consideration it becomes apparent that the text of 1 Clement is bearing witness to a stark alternative to prevailing gender bias. Torjesen details and dissects dominant attitudes to gender in the Graeco-Roman world: Maleness itself functioned as a cultural symbol for honour. Male honour was signaled by manliness, courage, authority over family, willingness to defend one’s reputation, and refusal to submit to humiliation. … A woman, however, demonstrated her honourability by comporting herself with shame, signifying that she understood her sexual vulnerability, and avoiding all appearances of indiscretion. Femaleness functioned as a cultural symbol for shame.52 49. Kim Haines-Eitzen, The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 4–7. 50. Haines-Eitzen, Gendered Palimpsest, pp. 4–5. 51. Haines-Eitzen, Gendered Palimpsest, p. 5. 52. Torjesen, When Women, p. 137. Radford Ruether argues that this view of women

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In the wider context in which women were associated with inherent shame and weakness, the text of 1 Clement is striking. Here women are honoured as faithful and courageous in their own right. 1 Clement underscores the precedence of a woman’s prophecy (12). This text, at least in some manuscripts, encourages women’s speech (21).53 This text also emphasizes the precedence of women’s faithful, courageous action (55). This repeated emphasis in 1 Clement upon the active and faithful roles of women provides insight into this text’s ‘arguing partners’: those who were dismissing or denying such possibilities for women in Jesus communities on the basis of arguments about women’s inherent inferiority or sinfulness. This reality is underscored in 1 Clement 33. Here the first creation story of Genesis 1.26-27 is quoted and the equality of women and men is emphasized: And with his holy and perfect hands he formed the one who was preeminent and superior in intelligence to all, the human, stamped with his own image. For as God says, “Let us make a human according to our own image and likeness. And God made the human; male and female he made them.” When he had finished all these things, he praised and blessed them, and said “increase and become numerous.” (33.4-6)

This stands in contrast to 1 Timothy 2.13-15, as well as 1 Corinthians 11.8-9. Both these texts rely on an interpretation of the second creation story (Gen. 2.3-24) to justify the limitations they wish to place over women. In light of the reality that 1 Clement, like Paul’s letter, was directed to the community in Corinth, this emphasis upon the first creation story and the equality of women and men, rather than Paul’s emphasis upon the second creation account, is striking. 1 Clement’s emphasis upon the first creation story that presents women and men as equally made in the image of God, as well as 1 Clement’s emphasis upon the positive, active and faithful roles of women in Chapters 12, 21 and 55, presents a corrective to increasingly negative attitudes to women in the early church. 1 Clement explicitly names and quotes Woman Wisdom (57.3-7) and implicitly celebrates Jesus as Woman Wisdom embodied (1 Clement 36). It is likely that the affirmations that women and men are equally made in the image of God, that a woman can prophesy, that women are encouraged to speak, that women are celebrated as faithful and courageous and the acknowledgement of Woman Wisdom, and the celebration of Jesus in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom in this text, is not a coincidence. Rather these elements coalesce. Because an agenda of this text is not to denigrate people of the female gender, or to limit was also translated into early church theology, ‘While allowing woman baptism, patriarchal theology stressed her “greater aptness” for sin and her lesser spirituality’, Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, p. 94. 53. In pointing out that some manuscripts encourage women to speak it is not being argued that this is a call for women to prophesy, though, the authors believe that it is possible for women to faithfully prophesy (12).



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their activities based on androcentric readings of the biblical text, there is no need to veil Jesus-Woman Wisdom. The evidence of 1 Clement confirms that issues of gender and patriarchy contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the early church. In this text, because these agendas did not predominate, JesusWoman Wisdom remained central. Diverse evidence from the Jesus movement, including from the Montanists, Epiphanius, Tertullian and 1 Clement indicates that the leadership and prominence of people of the female gender became increasingly problematic for the stratifying church in the second and third centuries. This gender bias against women contributed to the veiling of the early Jesus movement proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom.

‘Gnosticism’ Tracing links between ‘Gnosticism’ and Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the early church is made difficult because of the lack of agreement about what (if anything) constituted ‘Gnosticism’ in this period.54 As Alastair Logan states: What evidence is there that such a movement really existed? Research has been bedeviled by the lack of concrete evidence, sociological and archaeological, beyond the primary and secondary texts for the existence of the kind of groups the early heresiologists claimed to identify, as well as by the evident lack of precise correlation between the groups and names found in the heresiologists and Nag Hammadi texts.55

Contemporary views about so-called ‘Gnostics’ are diverse. The enigmatic nature of the material and lack of archaeological evidence contributes to this diversity of interpretation. So too do contemporary agendas.56 The discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 has, and will continue to, challenge assumptions about the early church, the ‘Gnostics’ and the context in which these traditions, whether understood as intimately linked or separate entities, evolved. As James Robinson points out, until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, knowledge of the ‘Gnostics’ was almost only accessible through ‘the myopic view of heresy-hunters, 54. In this work, the choice to speak of ‘Gnosticism’ seeks to reflect this ambiguity. 55. Alastair Logan, The Gnostics: Identifying an Early Christian Cult (London: T&T Clark, 2006), p. 8. See also Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), p. 8. 56. Logan describes, and disparages, the reality, as he sees it, that: ‘To most people the term “Gnostics”, if they recognise it, probably refers to radical, anti-authoritarian sects in the early Church, with some link to the Gospel of Thomas and alleged support of feminist ideas, or to contemporary “New Age” type movements, usually found in California – not really Christian at all, but more likely devotees of an alien religion influenced by Eastern ideas.’ (Logan, Gnostics, p. 57)

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who often quote only to refute or ridicule’.57 While the discovery of these texts is shedding new light upon both the ‘Gnostics’ and the early church, the risk of myopic vision continues as scholars vie to claim, or rescue, the ‘Gnostics’ from, and for, various contemporary agendas. The diversity of views about the ‘Gnostics’ is perhaps best illustrated by the ongoing debate regarding the origins of ‘Gnostic’ texts. Birger Pearson argues that: ‘it is more likely that ‘Gnosticism’ arose out of a Jewish milieu, and only subsequently came into contact with Christianity, than that it arose from within early Christianity’.58 In direct contrast, Logan argues that ‘they are not to be considered a pre-Christian heterodox sect of Judaism but a cult arising within Christianity’.59 Three decades ago Robinson suggested something of a middle way in his introduction to the first English translation of the Nag Hammadi Library: ‘Some of the Gnostic essays do not seem to reflect Christian tradition … It may be that there is a vestige of historical truth to the view of Christian heresy-hunters that some Christian heresies go back to Jewish sects.’60 Robinson also points out that ‘There are some texts in the Nag Hammadi library that seem more philosophic and Neoplatonic in orientation than Christian or Jewish.’61 It is not the purpose of this work to contribute to the debate about who the ‘Gnostics’ belong to, either historically, or in contemporary context. However by highlighting the diversity of views about the origins of these sources, both the complexity of the materials and the fluid nature of their interpretation, are underscored. ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom Despite unresolved questions about the origins and nature of ‘Gnostic’ materials the explicit presence of Woman Wisdom in ‘Gnostic’ texts is commonly recognized. There are similarities and differences in the ways in which Woman Wisdom is presented in these texts, when compared with her presentation in First Testament, intertestamental and Second Testament texts, as well as in other early church texts. The Apocryphon of John is considered to be an ‘important work of mythological Gnosticism’.62 Within this text Woman Wisdom, Sophia, plays a pivotal role in the formation of the cosmos. She decides to ‘bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit – he had not approved – and with her consort and without his consideration’ (Apocryphon John 9).63 The consequences of Woman Wisdom’s decision are dire, ‘because of the invincible 57. James M. Robinson ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1981), p. 3. 58. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, p. 11. 59. Logan, Gnostics, pp. 8–9. 60. Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, p. 7. 61. Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, p. 8. 62.  Frederik Wisse, ‘The Apocryphon of John’, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James Robinson (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1981), p. 98. 63. Translated by Wisse, Nag Hammadi Library.



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power which is in her, her thought did not remain idle and a thing came out of her which was imperfect …’ (Apocryphon John 10). She called him Yaltabaoth and he ‘is the first archon who took a great power from his mother … And he joined with his madness which is in him and begot authorities for himself ’ (Apocryphon John 10). In this text, Woman Wisdom is responsible for the birthing of the evil and destructive ‘first archon’. ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom in Against the Heresies Irenaeus of Lyons provides an important link in the Christian story as he ‘was one of the last Christian writers who could plausibly claim to have learned directly from someone who had known the apostles, that someone being Polycarp of Smyrna’.64 In his writing Irenaeus preserved many ‘Gnostic’ traditions as he sought to refute them. Irenaeus travelled from the east, immigrated to Lyons and was bishop there in the 180s.65 Lyons was a cosmopolitan centre, and the church community would have reflected this and included immigrants: ‘it was a Greek speaking community in a Latin-speaking city nestled in the midst of Celticspeaking countryside’.66 Within this diverse context Irenaeus composed the first volume of Against the Heresies over some years, probably between 180 and 190 c.e.67 In this volume, he describes a ‘multitude of Gnostics’ who have ‘shot out of the ground like mushrooms’ (Against the Heresies Book 1, 29.1).68 Irenaeus goes on to detail the central beliefs of these ‘Gnostics’. The connections between Irenaeus’ description of ‘Gnostic’ beliefs about Woman Wisdom and her description in the Apocryphon of John, as well as other ‘Gnostic’ texts, adds weight to the possibility that, to some extent, Irenaeus was accurately presenting ‘Gnostic’ beliefs of this period.69 According to Irenaeus, the ‘Gnostics’ believe that Woman Wisdom played a pivotal and destructive role in the cosmos. Woman Wisdom (again) begets the ‘First Ruler’: ‘They claim that this her work was the First-Ruler, the Maker of this creation’ (Heresies, book 1.4) and that ‘Since he is Ignorance, he made those Powers which are inferior to himself and the Angels and the firmament and all earthly things. Next, they say, he was wedded to Boldness and begot Wickedness, Jealousy, Envy, Discord, and Lust’ (Heresies, book 1.4). Woman Wisdom then 64. Sara Parvis and Paul Foster, ‘Introduction: Irenaeus and his Traditions’, Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy, ed. Paul Foster and Sara Parvis (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), p. 1. 65. Paul Parvis, ‘Who was Irenaeus? An Introduction to the Man and his Work’, Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy, ed. Paul Foster and Sara Parvis (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), p. 13. 66. Parvis, ‘Who was Irenaeus?’, p. 15. 67. Dominic Unger, Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, Book 1, Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), pp. 3–4. 68. Translated and annotated by Dominic Unger. 69. Giovanni Filoramo, A History of Gnosticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 4.

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withdraws in grief and ‘After she had departed, he [First-Ruler] thought he was the only one in existence, and so he said: I am a jealous God, there is no one besides me. Such are the lies that these people tell’ (Heresies, book 1.4). In both Irenaeus’ ‘Gnostic’ tradition and in the Apocryphon of John, Woman Wisdom is responsible for the creation of the ignorant and terrible ‘First-Ruler’, the ‘false’ God of the universe who is a significant feature of ‘Gnostic’ cosmology.70 Is This the Same Woman Wisdom? The prominence of Woman Wisdom in these ‘Gnostic’ traditions, alongside her presence in various Second Testament and early church texts discussed above, adds further weight to the possibility that there were widespread traditions about Woman Wisdom in this period. However Woman Wisdom’s transmutation within these ‘Gnostic’ traditions is curious. As discussed in Chapter 2, in First Testament and intertestamental texts, Woman Wisdom is celebrated as being in intimate relation with God and with creation, she is first begotten, and is imaged as saving, enlightening and delighting in humanity (e.g. Prov. 8.1–9.6; Wis. 6.12–11.1, Sir. 1.9-10; 6.24-31). In contrast, within the narrative of both the Apocryphon of John, and the ‘Gnostic’ tradition that Irenaeus recounts, while Woman Wisdom is from the heavenly realms, she is recast as the primary cause of evil on earth.71 The difference in characteristics is so distinct that it is valid to ask whether it is fair to compare the Woman Wisdom of First Testament and intertestamental texts with the Woman Wisdom of these ‘Gnostic’ myths.72 70. Filoramo summarizes ‘Gnostic’ belief in the ‘demiurge’ and that this is ‘generally identified with the God of the Old Testament’, Filoramo, History of the Gnosticism, p. 77. Logan describes ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom’s actions in this myth as ‘the pre-temporal fall of Sophia’, Logan, Gnostics, p. 57. 71. Karen King summarizes Woman Wisdom’s portrayal in the Apocryphon of John, ‘When gender imagery is used with regard to the creation of the lower world, it is the feminine (in the guise of Sophia) that is consistently made responsible for deficiency and is associated with the corruption of the material realm’, Karen King, ‘Sophia and Christ in the Apocryphon of John’, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity Press 2000), p. 173 (brackets original). Commenting on this disjuncture, Filorama states, ‘The paradox is just this: Biblical Wisdom has here become the most complete expression of divine deficiency’, Filoramo, History of Gnosticism, pp. 67–8. Contrasting with these views, Deirdre Good argues that ‘Accounts of this tragedy do not attribute it solely to Sophia. They are, in fact, surprisingly reticent about assigning blame to a specific aeon. It is subsequent interpreters and transmitters of the text who have blamed Sophia’, Deirdre J. Good, Reconstructing the Tradition of Sophia in Gnostic Literature, Society of Biblical Literature – Monograph Series, no. 32 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), p. 78. 72. Pearson assumes that it is the same Woman Wisdom, ‘The Gnostic treatment of Sophia is very complicated, but clearly involves reinterpretations of previously existing Jewish speculations on the figure of Hokmah-Sophia … the glory of Wisdom in Jewish



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While it is likely that it is the same Woman Wisdom represented in these divergent traditions, why is Woman Wisdom transmuted in ‘Gnostic’ texts?73 Whether ‘Gnostic’ tradition emerged from Jewish or Christian tradition, or both, this question remains. Karen King concludes that Graeco-Roman patriarchal culture played a role in the recasting of Woman Wisdom in ‘Gnostic’ traditions.74 Women may, or may not, have had more opportunity to exercise leadership in ‘Gnostic’ communities, if, and however, these communities existed. However, the transmutation of Woman Wisdom from saving, intimate divine into the foolish source of destruction raises questions about the value placed on women more generally by the ‘Gnostic’ world-view preserved in these texts.75 In light of the textual evidence it is probable that within communities that held these texts to be important, issues of gender and patriarchy also predominated. Reflecting on the portrayal of Woman Wisdom in these ‘Gnostic’ texts Douglas Parrott suggests, terms, that is, her role in creation of the world, becomes for the Gnostics her shame. Sophia, as mediatrix of creation in her role as mother of the Demiurge, is viewed as a fallen being.’ Pearson goes on to argue that, ‘On the other hand, as a repentant fallen being she can play a role as mediator of saving gnosis elect’, Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, p. 110. In contrast, while Logan recognizes the presence of ‘Gnostic’ Sophia mythology in ‘Jewish Wisdom’ texts he questions whether this mythology existed in Judaism, stating, ‘It was the Gnostics who created it’, Alastair Logan, Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: A Study in the History of Gnosticism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 32. The application of the description ‘Gnostic’ Sophia mythology makes it difficult to decipher which images of Sophia Logan is referring to, either in their existence, or exclusion from, Jewish texts and traditions. 73. This issue is made more complex by the divergent ‘Gnostic’ manuscripts. King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, p. 159. 74. King states, ‘The fact that a female aeon, Sophia, is responsible for the production of the deficiency is a reflection of general Hellenistic patriarchal views that associate the female with materiality and reproduction’, King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, p. 171. However King goes on to argue that the ‘concept of salvation’ is not understood along gender lines in the Apocryphon of John but ‘seems more closely tied to the theme that the process of generation is a process of degeneration. The root of the deficiency is ignorance, not gender’, King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, pp. 171–2. Pheme Perkins argues that changes to ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom emerge because ‘Neither Judaism nor Christianity in their “orthodox” forms had the symbolic or mythic resources to image the crisis of roots, generation, and family reflected in the Sophia stories’, Pheme Perkins, ‘Sophia as Goddess in Nag Hammadi Codices’, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen King, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity Press 2000) p. 112. While interesting, there is insufficient evidence to support this claim. 75. While King argues that texts such as the Apocryphon of John reveal that ‘salvation itself has no relation at all to gender or real sexuality’, she does acknowledge that in this text, ‘All acts are to take place only with the consent of the Father. Deficiency is caused by the female working alone. Salvation comes when male and female work in concert, though always with the male/Father in a position more primary than that of the female/Mother, both in terms of sequence and in terms of power’, King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, pp. 167–8.

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‘The constant emphasis on the defect of the femaleness, and the like, and the use of the image of an out-of-control female to talk about the soul, must have been a special burden to them [women].’76 At the conclusion of the Apocryphon of John the Pronoia hymn is included in which Christ is given the central role of praise and is the instigator of anointing. King argues that within this ‘Christian’ hymn there is evidence of an originally composed hymn in praise of the female saviour, at times understood as Sophia.77 This leads King to suggest that changing cultural patterns within ‘Gnostic’ communities are likely reflected in this alteration. The female saviour is no longer the anointer but the male Christ, thus: ‘One cannot but speculate that this change may reflect movement towards a superior social status for men within the group at the expense of women.’78 While recognizing ‘clear evidence of patriarchalism’ John Turner is hesitant to draw conclusions about changing social structures within ‘Gnostic’ communities.79 What is striking is that within this discussion, neither King nor Turner consider potential imagery from other early Christian texts in 76. Douglas Parrott, ‘Response to “Jewish and Greek Heroines in the Nag Hammadi Library” by Madeline Scopello’, Images of the Feminine, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. Karen King, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity Press 2000), p. 94. In contrasting ‘orthodox’ views and ‘Gnostic’ views, Parrott argues that while some within the ‘orthodox’ tradition read the second creation story as an indictment against women (e.g. 1 Tim. 2.11ff.) more generally male and female ‘were both sinners, in need of divine grace. There was no negative characteristic, branded as feminine, that was enshrined in the cosmic order’, Parrott, ‘Response to Jewish’, p. 95. While this may be technically true, the extent of patriarchal bias against women in the early church, reflected in texts like Tertullian’s that emphasize the second creation story, cautions against overly positive assessments of understandings of women in ‘orthodox’ circles in this period. 77. The passage to which King refers is found in the longer version of the Apocryphon of John in Nag Hammadi Codex II. King states: ‘In Nag Hammadi Codex II, the entire hymn is put in the mouth of Christ. But inside the hymn itself, the saviour claims, “I am the Pronoia of the pure light; I am the Thought of the virgin Spirit” (NHC II 31.12-13). The figure is the perfect Pronoia of the All and remembrance of the pleroma. Nothing is more clear than that Christ has appropriated a hymn that originally belonged in the mouth of the female saviour, Pronoia … Nag Hammadi Codex II’s Christology has led to the figure of Christ taking over the roles belonging to female saviour figures, Sophia, Epinoia, and Pronoia’ (King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, pp. 169–70 (italics original)). John Turner concurs with this assessment: ‘Dr. King discovers, in my opinion, correctly, that the Codex II version displaces and devalues the feminine in favour of the masculine’, John D. Turner ‘A Response to “Sophia and Christ” by Karen King’, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen King, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity Press 2000), p. 182. 78. King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, p. 172. King goes on to cautiously argue that this may suggest that women practised baptism, King, ‘Sophia and Christ’, p. 172. 79. Turner, ‘Response to Sophia’, p. 185.



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which, paradoxically, Jesus is understood as the male embodiment of the female divine, Woman Wisdom.80 Deirdre Good provides an analysis of the portrayal of Woman Wisdom in ‘Gnostic’ texts and traces the complexity and diversity of these presentations. Good points out that in relation to Christian ‘Gnostic’ texts Woman Wisdom is presented in varying degrees of saving power and deficiency and that thus, ‘Christian responses to the Sophia myth are far more complicated than has been generally understood.’81 The complexity of the portrayal of Woman Wisdom in Christian ‘Gnostic’ texts is illustrated by the text the Sophia of Christ, which in turn was drawn from the (likely) non-Christian text Eugnostos the Blessed.82 Within the Sophia of Christ, Woman Wisdom is described as the ‘consort’ of the ‘immortal, androgynous man’ (101). The text goes on to state, ‘He created for himself gods and angels archangels, myriads without number for retinue. (This is) from that light and the tri-male spirit, which is that of Sophia’ (102).83 Similar to the myth of Apocryphon of John, the text goes on to associate Woman Wisdom with guilt: I desire that you understand that Sophia, the Mother of the Universe and the consort, desired by herself to bring these to existence without her male (consort) and … the consequence might follow every aeon and chaos so that the defect of the female might live, and she (the female) might exist, although Error fights against her. (117–18).

While there is divergence in ‘Gnostic’ texts, presentations of Woman Wisdom variously image her as proud, foolish and deficient, as consort of Christ and complex male Spirit. ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom is the guilty protagonist whose actions introduce the evil demiurge into the cosmos. If, as Irenaeus states, ‘Gnosticism’ was rapidly gaining momentum, there would have been an equally momentous need for the early church to create distance between ‘Gnostic’ understandings of Woman Wisdom and early church Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology.

80. Similarly, Pearson does not recognize this possibility within early Christian tradition, Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, p. 12. 81. Good, Reconstructing, p. 60. 82.  Parrott states, ‘Eugnostos the Blessed is in form a religio-philosophical epistle written by a teacher to his disciples; the Sophia of Christ is a revelation discourse given by the risen Christ to his followers. Despite their different forms, these tractates are two versions of the same original document. The former is without apparent Christian influence, while the latter is heavily Christianized’, Douglas Parrott, ‘Eugnostos the Blessed (III.3 and V.1) and The Sophia of Jesus Christ (III.4 and BG 8502.3) Introduced and translated by Douglas M. Parrott’, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James Robinson (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981), p. 206. 83. Translated by Douglas Parrott, The Nag Hammadi Library in English.

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Proof of the Apostolic Preaching Irenaeus’ Proof of the Apostolic Preaching adds weight to the thesis that the popularity of ‘Gnosticism’ and its various transmutations of Woman Wisdom contributed to the displacement of explicit references to Jesus-Woman Wisdom within early church christology and soteriology.84 Proof was written after the Against Heresies,85 yet a primary focus within this text continues to be the proclamation of ‘orthodox’ convictions over against ‘Gnostic’ understandings.86 Within this text Irenaeus proclaims the incarnation, and is reliant upon Wisdom christology in order to do so. However, while utilizing Wisdom christology, Irenaeus expresses these convictions using the language of the Word: he is himself the Word of God Almighty, who in his invisible form pervades us universally in the whole world, and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth – for by God’s Word everything is disposed and administered – the Son of God was also crucified in these, imprinted in the form of a cross on the universe; for he had necessarily, in becoming visible, to bring to light the universality of his cross, in order to show openly through his visible form that activity of his: that it is he who makes bright the height, that is, what is in heaven, and holds the deep, which is in the bowels of the earth, and stretches forth and extends the length from East to West, navigating also the Northern parts and the breadth of the South, and calling in all the dispersed from all sides to the knowledge of the Father. (Proof, 34)87

Here Christ, the Word of God, is celebrated like Woman Wisdom, as infusing all (e.g. Wis. 7.23-27; Sir. 1.9-10; see also 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.6-17; Heb. 1.3). Christ the Word, like Woman Wisdom, is the one who ascends and descends (e.g. Sir. 24.2-6; see also Eph. 3.18-19). Christ the Word, like Woman Wisdom, is also the one who shares knowledge of God with humanity (e.g. Prov. 3.13-20; Wis. 6.17-20; 9.9-10; Sir. 15.3; see also 1 Cor. 2.6-16; 2 Cor. 4.4-6; 1 Clement 36; Didache 9.2-3; 10.2). Within this proclamation of Jesus as the incarnate one, here and elsewhere, Irenaeus consistently describes Jesus as the Word of God, but utilizes 84. This text is also known as Demonstration [Proof] of the Apostolic Preaching, and Epidexis. 85. Irenaeus refers to Against the Heresies in Chapter 99 of the Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. He may not have completed each of the volumes at the time of writing, but this indicates that at least the initial composition of Heresies predates that of the Proof. 86. In his introduction to Proof Joseph Smith highlights Irenaeus’ frequent references to the First Testament and argues that these do not come as a result of a Jewish audience. Rather this focus is in response to ‘Gnostic’ claims that create a rupture between the ‘true’ God and the God of the Old Testament, Joseph Smith ‘Introduction’, Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, trans. Joseph Smith (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1952), pp. 14, 25. 87. Translated by Smith.



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Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in order to give meaning to this title. Irenaeus relies on John’s prologue in order to emphasize the appropriateness of this choice: To this purpose also his disciple John, telling us who God’s Son is, who was with the Father before the world was made, says also, that it was through him that all creatures were made, as follows: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God; all things were made by him, and without him was made nothing, most plainly declaring, that all things were made by the Word who was in the beginning with the Father, and that is his son. (Proof 44)

It is possible that issues of gender contributed to Irenaeus’ choice to utilize Word rather than Wisdom language in order to proclaim his Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. His emphasis upon the designation ‘Son’ perhaps indicates this. However it is likely that the rapid growth of ‘Gnosticism’, with its transmuted Woman Wisdom, was a significant factor in this decision. Despite the transmutation of Woman Wisdom in ‘Gnostic’ traditions, within Proof Irenaeus does speak of Woman Wisdom as she is understood in Hebrew Tradition. However, as he does so Irenaeus firmly distances Christ and Woman Wisdom by specifically referring to Woman Wisdom in relation to the Holy Spirit: Hence, since the Word “establishes,” that is, works bodily and consolidates being, while the Spirit disposes and shapes the various “powers,” so the Word is fitly and properly called the Son, but the Spirit the Wisdom of God. (5)

Likewise: This God, then, is glorified by his Word, who is his Son for ever, and by the Holy Spirit, who is the Wisdom of the Father of all. (10)

The reality that Irenaeus chose to retain explicit references to Woman Wisdom at all in Proof is testament to the ongoing importance of Woman Wisdom within his theological matrix. Irenaeus’ choice to create distance between Jesus and Woman Wisdom was influenced by ‘Gnostic’ tendencies to identify Woman Wisdom as Christ’s consort and as the root of evil. By explicitly affirming Hebrew understandings of Woman Wisdom and by linking her with the Spirit, Irenaeus was able to protect understandings of Christ from ‘Gnosticism’, and at the same time still honour Jewish-Christian traditions about Woman Wisdom. The work of Irenaeus indicates that within the early church, alongside issues of the patriarchal bias against the female gender, the transmutation of Woman Wisdom in ‘Gnostic’ traditions contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in early church christology and soteriology.

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Thomas The Gospel of Thomas has gained both popular and scholarly attention in recent decades and provides another way into questions of ‘Gnosticism’ and the place – and displacement – of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the early church. A complete version of Thomas was discovered in 1945 among the Nag Hammadi collection in Egypt.88 The nature of this text continues to be debated among scholars. As Bart Ehrman summarizes: Some scholars have maintained that the sayings of Thomas, may be closer to what Jesus actually taught than what we find in the New Testament; others, however, have pointed out that the theology implicit in the more Gnostic teachings cannot be dated with confidence prior to the beginning of the second century.89

There are difficulties with gaining traction in the moving debate regarding this gospel’s ‘Gnostic’ status, not least because views about what constitutes ‘Gnostic’ are a matter of ongoing dispute. The accuracy of the label ‘Gnostic’ when applied to Thomas is becoming increasingly questioned.90 Thomas does not include discussion of the ‘Gnostic’ demiurge.91 Furthermore statements that may indicate ‘Gnostic’ tendencies, as Ehrman summarizes, may also reflect other theological concerns, including, as will be explored below, Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in which it is Christ who enlightens.92 The ambiguous nature of the imagery in the text at times contributes to the potential for diverse interpretations. At the least, this ambiguity shares commonality with ‘Gnosticism’. Dating Thomas is equally debated.93 88. Bart Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It Into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 19. 89. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, p. 20. 90. See April DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel, ed. Mark Goodacre, Early Christianity in Context, Library of the New Testament Studies, 287 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), p. 3; Stevan Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom (New York: The Seabury Press, 1983), pp. 18–35. 91. Risto Uro, Thomas: Seeking the Historical Context of the Gospel of Thomas (London: T&T Clark, 2003), p. 51. As Davies astutely states, ‘The “gnostics” who wrote the Gospel of Thomas show a maddening tendency to leave Gnosticism out of their document’, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 28. 92. Ehrman highlights that sayings 11, 22, 33, 39, 37, and 80 are cited as potentially ‘Gnostic’ because of their focus on receiving ‘knowledge necessary for salvation’, Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, p. 20. 93. As DeConick states, ‘Scholars have been divided on this issue. Those arguing for independence are for earlier dates (50 to 140 c.e.) while those for dependence later dates (140 onwards). Many scholars wish to remain sceptical about the compositional history of Thomas’, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 7.



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In Thomas, Woman Wisdom is not explicitly named and Jesus is not explicitly linked with Woman Wisdom. However at various points throughout this text Jesus is implicitly linked with Woman Wisdom, and Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are dominant. Indeed, as will be shown below, the primary christology and soteriology expressed is Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. The first evidence of this is found in saying 13 in which it is stated that: ‘Jesus said to his disciples, “Speculate about me. Tell me, who am I like?”’ (13.1).94 After Simon Peter and Matthew have responded to this question the text states: Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth cannot attempt to say whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your master. After you drank, you became intoxicated from the bubbling fount which I had measured out.” (13.4-5)

The Thomasine Jesus’ response here has resonance with the Johannine Jesus’ description of his gift of the ‘spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ (Jn 4.14). This imagery in John draws from Woman Wisdom imagery (e.g. Sir. 15.3; 24.2331).95 Regardless of whether the author of Thomas had access to John’s Gospel, in both texts Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom; the one who empowers with living water.96 In Thomas it is stated that Jesus saw little babies being breastfed and said to his disciples, ‘These little ones nursing are like those who enter the kingdom’ (22.1-2). This positive depiction of breastfeeding, and by extension, women’s bodies, stands in contrast to Tertullian’s, perhaps rhetorical, denigration of female bodies, birthing and nourishing of infants. The linking together of breastfeeding and Christ is not a peculiarity of Thomas, as 1 Peter encourages the community to be like infants, longing to be breastfed from Christ (1 Pet. 2.2-3).97 Indeed 1 94. Translated by DeConick unless otherwise stated. 95. See Chapter 2. 96. As Davies states, ‘It is not correct to say that Jesus in Thomas is filled with such a spirit of Wisdom; he is Wisdom’, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 94, see also pp. 91–9. Davies sees links between this saying and Paul’s language of drinking from Christ (1 Cor. 10.2-3) and suggests that baptismal references to Jesus-Woman Wisdom may stand behind saying 13, as well as saying 22, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, pp. 134–5. DeConick acknowledges the potential for this understanding of the saying but states that beyond Wisdom christology, ‘Jesus has also been given the ineffable unpronounceable divine Name, Yahweh. He was, in fact, Yahweh Manifest’, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 84. However, the expansive nature of the Wisdom christology expressed in Thomas in this and other, sayings, as well as in other early church texts, indicates an extremely high understanding of the incarnation (e.g. Col. 1.15-20; 1 Cor. 1.24; Jn 1.1-5, 14; Heb. 1.3-4; 1 Clement 36.2-4; Didache 9.2-10.3; see discussion of the holy name in 10.2 in Chapter 2). According to this high Wisdom christology Jesus can be both Woman Wisdom and because of this is ‘Yahweh manifest’. 97. See Chapter 3.

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Peter assists in illuminating Thomas 22. Not uncommon assumptions that the Thomasine Jesus’ reference to infants infers a call to return to an asexual ‘Eden like’ innocence are misplaced.98 Like the call in 1 Peter, the Thomasine Jesus’ call is not focused on sexual innocence, but has to do with becoming like babies who rely on their mother for nourishment and growth. In this imagery, disciples are called to surrender their own efforts and, instead, depend on the divine. Like 1 Peter, the imagery of becoming like a breastfeeding baby is likely drawn from Wisdom christology.99 Those who drink from the milk of Jesus-Woman Wisdom are made whole, as Jesus-Woman Wisdom is, and thus enter [the kingdom].100 Or, as 1 Peter puts it, those who breastfeed from Christ are enabled to ‘grow into salvation’. In Thomas directly after calling people to be like breastfeeding babies, the disciples ask: ‘Will we enter the Kingdom as little babies?’ In response: Jesus said to them: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single being, with the result that the male is not male nor the female female … then you will enter [the kingdom].” (22.4-5, 7)101

It may be that these words, and the words of Galatians 3.28, reflect aspects of baptismal liturgy.102 These words (along with Jesus’ words to Mary in saying 114) are commonly interpreted in relation to sexual ethics and attitudes towards gender, with it again being argued that understandings of a primordial Adamic

98. DeConick argues, ‘The person is admonished to become a “little one”, which is understood to be the androgynous primal Adam’, DeConick, Original Gospel, pp. 115–16. Uro discusses saying 22 in relation to saying 37 and highlights common assumptions that the call of saying 22 to become childlike is a call to asexuality, Uro, Thomas, pp. 72–4. 99. See Chapter 3. 100. This understanding may have implications for the Markan Jesus’ call to become like a ‘little child’ (10.13-16). 101.  The author of 2 Clement cites a very similar saying: ‘For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said: “When the two are one, and the outside like the inside, and the male with the female is neither male nor female”’ (2 Clement 12.2); similarly, the Gospel of the Egyptians quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 92, 2-93, 1; trans. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures. 102. Wayne Meeks ‘Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity’, History of Religions 13, no. 3 (February 1974), pp. 166, 204–8; Dennis MacDonald There is No Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism, ed. Margaret Miles et al., Harvard Dissertations in Religion, no. 20 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 8–10.



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setting, or to a ‘masculofeminine’ Adam are evident.103 This is not the interpretation of 2 Clement.104 When saying 22 is read contextually new insight is gained. Wayne Meeks rightly suggests that ‘If in baptism the Christian has put on again the image of the Creator, in whom “there is no male and female,” then for him the old world has passed away and, behold! The new has come.’105 However, he does not appear to recognize who the ‘image of the Creator, in whom there is no male or female’ is in Thomas. While aware that I am presenting a provocative reading, from the perspective of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in saying 22 the Thomasine Jesus describes himself. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the one who is the ‘image of God’ and thus ‘the image of the creator’ (as reflected in Second Testament and early church texts 2 Cor. 4; Col. 1.15-17; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2) and the one who makes the ‘two one’ within the incarnation. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the one who embodies ‘outside’ the inner divine realities of God – the ‘inside’. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the one who makes ‘the above’– the heavenly, manifest in the ‘below’– as JesusWoman Wisdom encamps on earth. The language in this saying that speaks of ‘the male and the female’ being made ‘into a single being’ so that ‘the male not be male nor the female female’, does not primarily reflect attitudes to sexual conduct, but instead, is an accurate description of who Jesus-Woman Wisdom is: he is her and she is him. To understand the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology at the heart of saying 22 does not dismiss this saying’s call to disciples to be reunified and enter [the kingdom]. Nor does this dismiss the potential baptismal context of this saying. The saying holds meaning that reflexively points to both Jesus as Woman Wisdom who is union and to disciples who are called to enter into this union. 103. DeConick, Original Gospel, pp. 115–16. Hoffman, Status of Woman, pp. 38–40. Macdonald, No Male and Female, pp. 48–50. Meeks discusses 22, particularly in relation to Gal. 3.28: as well as Col. 3.10; Eph. 4.24, ‘Androgyne’, pp. 165–208. He argues that Genesis 1.26-27 is alluded to in 22 and this ‘presupposes an interpretation of the creation story in which the divine image after which Adam was modeled was masculofeminine’, Meeks, ‘Androgyne’, p. 185. In contrast to the view that celibacy is in view in 22, in a later text Davies argues that ‘Since the main thrust of saying 22 has to do with male and female losing their distinctive characteristics … [this] may refer to positions of sexual intercourse’, Stevan Davies, The Gospel of Thomas: Annotated and Explained (Woodstock: Skylight Paths Publications, 2002), p. 32. 104. The author of 2 Clement provides interpretation of this cited text: ‘Now “the two are one” [means] when we speak truth to one another … And “the outside like the inside” means this: the “inside” refers to the soul and “the outside” to the body … so too your soul should be clearly seen in your good deeds. And the words “the male with the female is neither male nor female” mean this, that a brother who sees a sister should think nothing about her being a female and she should think nothing about his being male’(2 Clement 12.3-5). Authenticity and continuity between thoughts and good deeds are integral for this author, as is respect for people regardless of gender. 105. Meeks, ‘Androgyne’, p. 207 (italics added).

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Here again ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology is proclaimed. Like Paul, who refers to being ‘in Christ’ (e.g. Gal. 3.26, 28) and putting ‘on Christ’ (Rom. 13.14), and calls for the community to let ‘the same mind be in you as was in Christ’ (Phil. 2.5), here in Thomas followers are invited to become like Jesus-Woman Wisdom.106 Stephen Patterson rightly recognizes the links between Paul’s ‘mystical’ Christ language and Thomas 22: ‘Finally, Thomas is familiar with the idea, seen also in Paul, that the transformation one seeks is ultimately, to become like Jesus himself.’107 However, Patterson does not recognize that in Thomas Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom and thus the community are called to become like him/her. Saying 22 indicates that entering this union is made possible by becoming like a little baby; that is, by relying upon, and spiritually drinking from, the divine mother Jesus-Woman Wisdom.108 If sayings 13 and 22 provided the only textual evidence of the presence of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Thomas, it could be argued that this interpretation of saying 22 was fanciful. However, there is further evidence that in this gospel Jesus is understood as Woman Wisdom: Jesus said: “I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them drunk; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul suffered in pain for human beings, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see. For they, empty, came into the world, and they, empty, seek to leave the world. For the moment, they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent.” (28.1-4)

Here, just as Woman Wisdom is pre-existent (e.g. Prov. 3.19; 8.22; Wis. 9.9; Sir. 24.9), Jesus’ pre-existence is proclaimed.109 Like Woman Wisdom who offers lifegiving wine and water (Prov. 9.1.5; Sir. 15.3; 24.19-21), the Thomasine Jesus seeks those who are thirsty.110 In Thomas, Jesus finds all drunk. This intoxication may 106.  It is possible that Paul’s language in Gal. 3.28 may also be informed by his Wisdom christology, this invites further exploration. 107. Stephen Patterson, ‘The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Beginnings’, Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity: The Social and Cultural World of the Gospel of Thomas, ed. Jon Asgeirsson et al., Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, vol. 59 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p. 14. 108. Patterson rightly recognizes Thomas’ and Paul’s emphasis on becoming a child of God and religious ‘mystical’ experiences in the early Jesus movement. Patterson, ‘Gospel of Thomas’, pp. 14–15. DeConick recognizes the transformative process implied and rightly sees connections between Thomas and Paul’s language of being changed from one degree of glory into another (1 Cor. 3.18) by the Lord the Spirit, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 116. 109. DeConick recognizes 28’s synergy with John 1.10, 14 (as well as 1 Tim. 3.16), DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 134. 110.  Davies rightly identifies that Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 77; Gospel of Thomas, Annotated, p. 40.



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also have resonance with Woman Wisdom; in Proverbs while she offers the good wine, those who are wicked partake in the ‘wine of violence’ (4.14-17).111 Directly following this lament, it is stated that: Jesus said: “If the flesh existed for the sake of the s/Spirit, it would be a miracle. If the s/Spirit (existed) for the sake of the body, it would be a miracle of miracles! Nevertheless, I marvel at how this great wealth settled in this poverty.” (29.1-3)

Ehrman understands this text to represent: ‘the Gnostic view, in which people are understood to be spirits who have fallen from the divine realm and become entrapped in matter (i.e. in the prisons of material bodies)’.112 DeConick assumes that saying 29 reflects a world-view in which the body is understood only negatively.113 However, it is likely that neither interpretation reflects the whole story. Instead, in saying 29 the Thomasine Jesus marvels at the extravagant gift of the incarnation.114 Paul makes a similar comparison of wealth and poverty in relation to the incarnation: ‘For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for our sakes became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8.9). Rather than the Thomasine Jesus condemning the body, in a ‘Gnostic’ (or ‘orthodox’) manner in saying 29, here the Thomasine Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom made flesh. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the great wealth that settled in this poverty with humanity (see also Jn 1.14). In saying 61 the Thomasine Jesus states, ‘I am he who exists from the undivided. I was given some of the things of my father.’115 This saying reflects Hebrew understandings of Woman Wisdom who is from the beginning (e.g. Prov. 8.22-30; Wis. 7.27; Sir. 1.9-10),116 and Matthaean understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom who, uniquely, knows the father (11.27-28).117 Evidence of Wisdom christology in Thomas is further underscored in saying 77: 111. In Proverbs intoxication is linked with allowing oneself to be seduced by another woman (Prov. 5.20). DeConick does not recognize the links to Woman Wisdom in Hebrew tradition here; instead she argues that this language of intoxication shows influence from Hermetic traditions, and thus Jesus and Hermes are linked, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 133. 112. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, p. 20. 113. DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 134. 114. Uro also recognizes this, Thomas, p. 63. 115. Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin in James Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, third edn (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998). 116.  A similar echo of Woman Wisdom may be traced in saying 50 in which Jesus states: ‘If they ask you, “What is the sign of the father in you?” say to them, “It is movement and repose.”’ This movement and repose is also reflected in descriptions of Woman Wisdom (Wis. 7.27). Davies recognizes this: Davies, Gospel of Thomas, pp. 52–3. 117. While acknowledging the parallel with Mt. 11.27, Philippians and Johannine texts, DeConick overlooks the presence of Woman Wisdom within these claims. Instead, DeConick again sees evidence of the ‘Jewish–Hermetic’ story, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 202.

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Jesus said: “It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” (77)118

The Thomasine Jesus claims both to be the light and the source of ‘the all’. Woman Wisdom is described as the one who ‘pervades and penetrates all things’ (Wis. 7.24; Sir. 1.9-10), who founds ‘all things’ (Prov. 3.19), who ‘orders all things well’ (Wis. 8.1), and who reflects the divine light (Wis. 6.12; 7.26, 29-30). This provocative ‘I am’ saying is established in and framed by Wisdom christology. Here Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom.119 Interestingly, it is worth considering that accompanying the expansive Wisdom christology that Jesus proclaims in saying 77, here the Thomasine Jesus may also be referring to the more specific ‘piece of wood’ of the cross, and ‘stone’ of the tomb.120 From this perspective, Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the crucifixion and the resurrection are inextricably bound together. Such an interpretation disrupts the view that Thomas is essentially ‘a sapiential Christianity unadulterated by cross theology or apocalyptic thinking’.121 The primary place of Wisdom christology is again evident as the Thomasine Jesus invites all to take on his yoke: Jesus said: “Come to me, for my yoke is mild and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves.” (90)

This invitation reflects the invitation of the Matthean Jesus (11.29) who speaks as Woman Wisdom (Sir. 6.24-30; 51.26; see Wis. 8.16 for her gift of rest).122 Regardless of whether the author of Thomas drew from Matthew, the reverse, or 118. Translated by Lambdin. 119. Davies rightly recognizes this, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 54. Uro argues that in saying 77 the author, along with the author of Dialogue of the Saviour ‘want to present the Saviour-Jesus as the manifestation of this primordial light or Logos, who was the agent of creation’, Uro, Thomas, p. 45. Uro does not acknowledge that this ‘light’, ‘logos’ and ‘agent of creation’ is actually Woman Wisdom in Thomas. In contrast Uro argues that for Thomas, ‘There is no substantial difference between Jesus and his true followers’, Uro, Thomas, p. 45. Uro relies on saying 108 to make this claim; see below for further discussion. 120. DeConick recognizes that the language of wood and stone may have links with the cross and tomb, DeConick, Original Gospel, pp. 238–9. However, she argues that this latter part of saying 77, found in the Coptic, was later than the Greek, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 238. Her argument for this dating is based on the assumption that christology rose through accretion, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 239. 121. DeConick thus characterizes ‘the desires in many scholars’ works, particularly those working in North America’, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 7. Illustrating this, see Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, p. 19. 122. Jesus’ yoke is also spoken of in 1 Clement and the Didache, see Chapter 2.



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whether a shared or independent source lies behind this saying, like Matthew, here in Thomas Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom.123 Towards the end of Thomas, the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology of the text are once again highlighted: Jesus said: “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am. I myself will become that person, and what is hidden will be revealed to him.” (108)

Here the Thomasine Jesus offers the drink of his very self and claims that it will bring transformation. In Sirach, Woman Wisdom claims that she ‘came forth from the mouth of the Most High’ (24.3) and she offers herself to humanity to drink and to eat from (24.19-21).124 This invitation is also given by the Johannine Jesus (e.g. Jn 4.14; 6.35, 51, 56), who is imaged as Woman Wisdom.125 In Thomas drinking from Jesus’ mouth is linked directly with the receiving of hidden things.126 In First Testament and intertestamental texts Woman Wisdom is celebrated as the one who reveals the hidden things of God, including God’s desires for humanity (e.g. Wis. 9.9-12), and who offers life to those who find her (e.g. Prov. 8.35). Because she was the one who was beside the Holy One in creation, her instruction about God can be trusted (Prov. 8.22-36).127 Here Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom, who transforms through the pouring out of very self, through his/her mouth. In this intimate sharing, knowledge of the divine is revealed. Saying 108 does not provide evidence of a ‘Gnostic’ sect who believed that they had ‘secret knowledge’. Nor does this passage suggest, as Risto Uro argues, that in the Thomasine context there is no difference between Jesus and those who ‘drink from his mouth’.128 The claims of the Thomasine Jesus in this passage are shaped 123. As Davies states: ‘In this passage [Mt. 11.25-30] Jesus speaks as Wisdom, just as he does in Thomas’ parallel Logion 90’, Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 122, see also p. 39 and Davies, Gospel of Thomas: Annotated, p. 112. DeConick argues that the Thomasine version of the saying is independent of, and older than, Matthew’s version, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 259. While DeConick concludes her assessment of saying 90 with citations from Sir. 6.19; 6.27-28; 24.19-20; 51.23, 26-27, she does not make explicit the connection between the words of the Thomasine Jesus and Woman Wisdom in this passage, nor does DeConick acknowledge the presence of Woman Wisdom in Mt. 11, DeConick, Original Gospel, p. 259. 124. Davies also recognizes Woman Wisdom within these words of Jesus, and along with Sirach, he points to Baruch in which Woman Wisdom is described as a fountain (Bar. 3.10-14). Davies, Gospel of Thomas, p. 93. Interestingly, Proverbs also speaks of wisdom and mouth: ‘The Lord gives wisdom: from his mouth come knowledge and understanding … for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul’ (2.6, 10). 125. See Chapters 2 and 3. 126. See saying 13, and discussion above. 127. See Chapter 2. 128. Uro, Thomas, p. 45.

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by Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology.129 The ‘orthodox’ nature of this Thomasine conviction is demonstrated when read alongside the writing of Paul. In 1 Corinthians Paul links the same elements of hidden things being revealed through Jesus, who is the w/Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1.21-25; 1.30; 2.7-9).130 For Paul, this claim is based on his (and others’) experiences of the Spirit indwelling them (1 Cor. 2.4-5, 10-13).131 Furthermore, the Thomasine Jesus’ claim that those who drink of him ‘will become like me’ resonates with Paul’s language that those who have these experiences of Christ through the Spirit – and who thus receive divine w/Wisdom – ‘have the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2.16). Saying 108 does not reflect a relativising of Jesus, but rather, like Paul’s language, this reflects the ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ that Jesus communities were claiming to experience. In Thomas there are two distinct ‘I am’ proclamations: ‘I am he who exists from the undivided. I was given some of the things of my father’ (61) and ‘It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth and unto me did the all extend …’ (77). It is striking that in both these proclamations the Thomasine Jesus speaks as Woman Wisdom. Furthermore in the ‘I am not’ statement of saying 13, Jesus again speaks as Woman Wisdom who measures out the bubbling spring. The evidence reveals that Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology provide the primary grid that underpins this gospel’s theology. Numerous questions are spawned by this reality. Why is Jesus not explicitly named as Woman Wisdom in Thomas? In view of the lack of definitive evidence that Thomas is ‘Gnostic’ in the sense of wider ‘Gnostic’ cosmology of the demiurge, aeons and the human ‘elect’, why was it preserved amidst a ‘Gnostic’ library? Furthermore, why was Thomas not included in the canon, or found in various extant copies elsewhere? It is possible that the answers to these questions are inextricably linked with understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. Like other early Jesus communities, Thomas reveals both knowledge of, and appreciation for, Woman Wisdom in Hebrew traditions in its christological and soteriological proclamations. However, the popularity of ‘Gnostic’ movements in which Woman Wisdom is transmuted from saving intimate of God into the root cause of suffering, as well as Christ’s consort, may have contributed to the decision to not explicitly name Jesus as Woman Wisdom in Thomas. As reflected in the work of Irenaeus, the risk of ‘Gnostic’ pollution may have necessitated that Woman Wisdom not be explicitly named and linked with Jesus. This said, implied 129. While there is insufficient evidence to prove that the christology in saying 108 is the product of a ‘later Christianity’ as DeConick argues, she rightly points to possible eucharistic overtones within this passage and the ‘mystical transformative properties of the elements’, DeConick, Original Gospel, pp. 287–8. DeConick’s assumption that these ‘mystical transformative properties’ belong to ‘later eastern Christianity’ dismisses the evidence of the role of experience in the early Jesus movement. 130. The author of Ephesians makes similar claims (1.8-10; 3.8-10). 131. In this passage Paul also speaks of those who are ‘unspiritual’ and who have not received these spiritual insights (2.14-16).



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readers of Thomas from a Jewish background would have recognized Woman Wisdom within the Thomasine Jesus’ repeated descriptions of himself as her. The appeal of Thomas to at least some ‘Gnostic’ groups is reflected in its preservation in the Nag Hammadi library. Despite the fact that Thomas does not reflect the attributes of other ‘Gnostic’ texts in terms of its cosmic world-view, as the work of scholars continues to indicate Thomas can be interpreted in ‘Gnostic’ ways. In particular the Thomasine Jesus’ emphasis upon revealing hidden knowledge, and becoming as he is, likely contributed to the appeal of this text as ‘Gnostic’, in both the first centuries of the Common Era and in contemporary context. Ironically, in the early church, it is likely that Thomas’ appeal to ‘Gnostic’ groups contributed to its rejection by the wider church, despite the fact that the Thomasine Jesus’ claims were not ‘Gnostic’, but rather, like various Second Testament and early church texts, were informed by Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. The evidence of the Apocryphon of John and Against the Heresies demonstrates that in ‘Gnostic’ texts Woman Wisdom is transmuted and associated with the demiurge, suffering and evil. The popularity of such ‘Gnostic’ understandings in the second and third centuries contributed to the veiling of earlier proclamations of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. In Proof, Irenaeus retains the importance of Woman Wisdom but distances her from Jesus by associating her with the Spirit. Thomas continues to utilize Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, but does not explicitly name Jesus as Woman Wisdom, thus contributing to the ambiguity of this text.

The Apologetic Imperative The impact of changes in audience within the early church likely contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. For centuries it has been assumed that the transformation of the early church from predominantly consisting of Jewish-Christian participants to predominantly consisting of Gentile-Christian participants occurred very early.132 However, ongoing research is challenging this assumption, with some arguing that Jewish Christianity was a significant factor in Christianity until the fifth century.133 The diversity of opinions about the 132.  See for example Helen Rhee, Christ and Culture in the Second and Third Centuries: The Apologies, Apocryphal Acts and Martyr Acts, Early Christian Literature: Routledge Early Church Monographs (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 9. Rodney Stark summarizes this common scholarly assumption: Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 50–1. As Joel Marcus points out, at times, anti-Semitism has contributed to the ignoring of the Jewish origins of Christianity, Joel Marcus, ‘Jewish Christianity’, The Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine, ed. Margaret Mitchell and Frances Young, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 87. See also Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, pp. 105–6. 133. Marcus argues that there is ‘widespread presence of Torah-observant Jewish Christianity in the first several centuries of the Christian era’, Marcus, ‘Jewish Christianity’,

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Jewish-Gentile make-up of early Jesus communities indicates that it cannot be assumed that there would be a lack of familiarity with Hebrew Woman Wisdom, because of rapidly growing Gentile churches. What can be traced in the first centuries of the Common Era is the apologetic imperative to reach out to Gentile audiences, and the impact of this upon those seeking to share their convictions about Jesus in ways that were accessible. Justin Martyr The apologetic imperative to communicate to Gentile audiences may well have influenced the choice of many early church writers to veil Jesus-Woman Wisdom. The writing of Justin Martyr provides distinct evidence of this. In separate volumes Justin addresses both Jewish and Greek audiences,134 and utilizes different christological language when addressing an implied Jewish audience, compared with when he is addressing an implied Greek audience. Within the Jewish context of the Dialogue Justin explicitly proclaims that Jesus is Woman Wisdom, the pre-existent one, and Proverbs 8 is a key text (e.g. Dial 61; 62; 84; 100; 129).135 In the Apologies, in which the implied audience is Gentile, Justin utilizes the same understanding of Jesus as Woman Wisdom in order to proclaim the incarnation. However, instead of referring to Jesus as Woman Wisdom, and explicitly quoting from Hebrew scripture in order to ground these claims, Justin utilizes the language of Word to make these claims (1 Apol 23). Here Christ, like Woman Wisdom, is pre-existent, the ‘First-Begotten’ (e.g. Prov. 8.22; Wis. 9.9; Sir. 1.4, 9-10). This is also reflected in 1 Apol 46, 53, 58 and 63. Aspects of Wisdom soteriology are also present as people are saved and restored through Christ’s salvific teaching (Prov. 1.20-23; 8.1-14, 32-35; see also 2 Apol 10). In 1 Apol 23 the description of Christ becoming human and dwelling with humanity also reflects Woman Wisdom, and Jesus imaged as her (Sir. 24.8-12; see Jn 1.14). In the Second Apology Justin reflects the same concern for his implied Gentile audience. While continuing to draw from Wisdom christology in order to proclaim the pre-existence of Christ, and Christ’s role in creation, Justin continues to utilize the language of Word (2 Apol 6). Here again, Christ, the Word, is ‘in the p. 99. Stark argues: ‘that Jews continued as a significant source of Christian converts until at least as late as the fourth century and that Jewish Christianity was still significant in the fifth century’, Stark, Rise of Christianity, p. 49. Stark utilizes sociological methods including ‘cultural continuity’ and ‘networks’ to argue this, Stark, Rise of Christianity, pp. 57–63. He also discusses the Marcion controversies, arguing that the rejection of Marcion’s views indicates close and ongoing connection with Judaism within the church, and recent archaeological evidence, Stark, Rise of Christianity, pp. 64, 68. Frances Young supports Stark’s sociological analysis, Morna Hooker and Frances Young, Holiness and Mission: Learning from the Early Church about Mission in the City (London: SCM Press, 2010), pp. 45–7. 134. As discussed in Chapter 2, the dating of the Apologies and, at least, core strands of the Dialogue is now less certain. 135. See Chapter 2.



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beginning’ like Woman Wisdom (Prov. 3.19; 8.22; Sir. 1.1-4), and through Christ the Word, God arranged creation, like Woman Wisdom (Prov. 3.19; Wis. 7.27; 8.1).136 Furthermore, Justin aligns his Wisdom christology with Greek philosophy, arguing that philosophy actually has its origins in Christ, the eternal Word: For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated according to their share of logos by invention and contemplation. But since they did not know all that concerns logos, who is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. (2 Apol 10)

Justin’s writing to implied Jewish and Greek audiences reveals the centrality of Jesus-Woman Wisdom within his christology and soteriology. Justin’s writing also reveals his evangelical commitment. For Justin the message of Christ, the pre-existent, saving one, Jesus-Woman Wisdom, remains central. The medium through which he communicated this message was open to change. When Justin wrote to an implied Jewish audience he chose to explicitly refer to Jesus as Woman Wisdom. When Justin was writing to an implied Gentile audience he chose to veil references to Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the language of Word/Logos that was more familiar to this audience.137 The writing of Justin Martyr demonstrates that as well as the impacts of gender bias in the patriarchal context and the impacts of ‘Gnostic’ contamination, the apologetic imperative to share the gospel with Gentile audiences contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom.

Experience in the Stratifying Church The final arena of investigation in the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the impact of changing experiences in the increasingly stratified church in which power was being contracted to the select few and knowledge and practices were increasingly controlled. Collective transformative experiences ignited Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology in early Jesus communities. As experiences of being in the church changed in the second and third centuries, so too did expressions and understandings of christology and soteriology. In order to undertake this investigation the criteria of Chapter 3 will be re-utilized. First, Jesus-Woman Wisdom as radiant imparter of divine knowledge; second, JesusWoman Wisdom as the giver of the divine feast; third, Jesus-Woman Wisdom as friend-maker with God; fourth, Jesus-Woman Wisdom as divine non-retaliatory sufferer and finally, Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is first-born and infusing ‘all things’. 136. See Chapter 2. 137. It is possible that Justin’s choice not to explicitly name Jesus as Woman Wisdom when writing to Gentile audiences was in part influenced by ‘Gnostic’ understandings of Woman Wisdom. As Gentiles may have been more familiar with ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom, than with Hebrew understandings of Woman Wisdom.

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Radiant Imparter of Divine Knowledge In Second Testament and early church texts it is celebrated that Jesus communities, and individuals therein, were being inwardly illuminated by divine knowledge. In these texts Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of radiant Woman Wisdom (e.g. 1 Cor. 2.7-16; 2 Cor. 4.4-6; 1 Clement 36.2; Didache 10.2, Col. 1.15-20; 2.2-3; see also Heb. 1.3; Rev. 1.12-16; 3.14-20; Eph. 3.9-19).138 These collective experiences are not adequately explained by the categories of visions and other ‘mystical’ ASC events. While these claimed experiences likely included such ‘ecstatic’ elements, various texts also celebrate collective experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ in which the ‘inner beings’ of those in Jesus communities were being illuminated and changed through Jesus-Woman Wisdom.139 In the early Jesus movement, claims of collective ‘mystical’ experiences of the divine were significant. As Schüssler Fiorenza rightly states: The members of the early Christian missionary movement understand themselves as pneumatikoi, Spirit-filled persons. According to the Pauline literature, speaking in tongues, visions, miracles, prophecy, as well as agape, mutuality, and solidarity, were actualizations of the creative life-power of the Spirit. Women as well as men received such prophetic gifts … 1 Clement still knows that the Spirit is poured out on all Christians.140

In the first and early second century these experiences were not understood to be the domain of particular people occupying exclusive positions of church authority. Instead, these experiences were understood to be received across the community. As Schüssler Fiorenza states: ‘Christian conversion and baptism led persons into a community which was the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Within this community the gifts and endowments of the Spirit were experienced and actualized.’141 While, in the early second century there were people in particular positions within the church, Josef Lössl indicates that these positions were not yet stratified to the degree they would later be. Drawing from sources such as Polycarp, Acts, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and 1 Clement, Lössl describes the dominant understanding of church structure in this period and its ongoing emphasis upon the Spirit: The more widespread view around the early second century seems to have been that presbyters, bishops and deacons formed a college of equals. Any chief leader would have been first among equals, and his authority would have been 138. See Chapter 3. 139. See Chapter 3. 140.  Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 295. Shantz argues that ecstatic experiences were important ‘in attracting people to the movement’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 207. See also Hurtado, Lord Jesus, p. 588. 141. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 295.



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more of a charismatic, rather than institutional, hierarchical or ceremonial, nature.142

He states, ‘They [early Jesus communities] organised their lives, including their social lives, around their liturgies … A church leader drew authority from spiritual charisma.’143 However, by the end of the second century more formalized understandings of church authority and access to divine knowledge were being established. This is seen in the introduction of a lengthy catechumenate.144 While extant homilies for the purpose of preparing catechumens reveal that this teaching could be conducted by highly educated lay teachers, as Lössl points out: ‘From the third century onwards this role was taken over almost exclusively by clerics.’145 This process of stratifying access to divine knowledge in the church necessarily required that the place of direct experiences of divine illumination in Jesus communities be minimized and censored.146 As Schüssler Fiorenza states, ‘The second and third centuries were characterized by the struggle of the prophetic and the local ministry for authority in the church. It is not the canon … but the episcopal hierarchy which replaced early Christian prophecy.’147 Within the context of the stratifying church in which clerics came to be understood as the source of ‘right’ knowledge, the celebration of directly receiving divine knowledge through Jesus-Woman Wisdom posed a threat to those in appointed positions of teaching and authority.148 This is evidenced in reactions against 142. Lössl, Early Church, p. 195 (italics added). 143. Lössl, Early Church, p. 195. 144. As Lössl indicates, ‘The practice of pre-baptismal instruction is briefly mentioned in the Didache (7.1) and in Justin (Apology 61.2) in the early and mid-second century. But the more organized and structured practice of the “catechumenate” … is known only from the end of the second century onwards’, Lössl, Early Church, p. 149. 145. Lössl, Early Church, p. 149. However, evidence of this formal teaching does not by necessity, indicate that more informal teaching ceased within the context of worship, and that this may have been offered by a variety of people who were believed to have the appropriate spiritual gifts. 146. As Schüssler Fiorenza states, ‘It seems, in the second century, that the gift of prophecy was claimed first to strengthen the authority of the local bishop, then it was occasionally assumed that the bishop possessed the gift of prophecy, and then finally the authority of the bishop came to replace that of the prophet. In later centuries only the official hierarchy could claim to speak “with God’s true voice”’, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 302. 147. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 302. 148. Various expressions of Christianity, including so-called ‘Gnostic’ sects, were flourishing in this period and may have contributed to the stratifying church seeking to insist upon unity and ‘right’ doctrine. Francis Sullivan claims that the stratifying of the church was a direct result of response to ‘Gnostics’ and argues that ‘Christian writers, such as Hegesippus, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen responded by appealing to the tradition

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the Christian Montanist group that celebrated both the ongoing role of divine knowledge being poured into its community and that celebrated that one of their prominent female prophets received a vision of Jesus Christ as a woman imbued with wisdom, likely Jesus-Woman Wisdom.149 The central strategy employed by those in the church invested in stratifying power structures was to negate these claimed experiences by recasting them as deluded, heretical and evil.150 Increasingly, divine knowledge would be understood to be legitimate only when derived from officially appointed, male clerics, and increasingly, only those male clerics in hierarchical positions of power.151 This contraction of access handed down from the apostles by the succession of bishops in the churches’, Francis Sullivan, From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church (New York: The Newman Press, 2001), pp. 229–30. However, Sullivan’s claims do not take account of the complexities of the situation, complexities that are evidenced in seeking to determine what is ‘Gnostic’ in the Common Era. Furthermore, the complexity of the writings of authors is downplayed by Sullivan. This is demonstrated as he cites Tertullian’s work as evidence of the affirmation of church authority resting on bishops, Sullivan, From Apostles to Bishops, pp. 154–8. In the passages that Sullivan quotes, Tertullian’s argument rests on churches having continuity with the apostles and the apostles’ teaching. While Tertullian, at times, speaks of bishops his greater point is to contrast ‘orthodox’ churches that share the teachings of apostolic tradition with new and conflicting faith traditions, such as Marcion’s, who do not. Furthermore, as indicated above Tertullian also affirmed the divinely inspired knowledge of those others than bishops, including (non-ordained?) female prophets. While it is easy to label such an affirmation as an expression of his ‘Montanist’ leanings, like Paul, Tertullian’s affirmation of female prophets is most accurately seen within the context of the early church in which it was understood that the Spirit’s gifts were experienced by many, including those who were not men and those who did not hold positions of church authority. Ritva Williams also identifies the limitations in Sullivan’s assessment: ‘[Sullivan] treats schism and heresy as if they resulted from external threats rather than intramural conflict’, Ritva Williams, Stewards, Prophets, Keepers of the Word: Leadership in the Early Church (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), pp. 2–3. 149. See above. 150. For example, Epiphanius, Panarion, 49 and Bishop Serapion of Antioch in Heine, The Montanist Oracles, pp. 27, 155. See discussion above. 151. Reflecting on this development in the mid-third century W. H. C. Frend states: ‘Individual councils and communities were jealous of their authority … accepted patterns of behaviour were emerging. Once assembled, bishops would not usually step out of line from the policy of their chief … Tests of orthodoxy resided in collective documents. The creeds of the early church combined the christological affirmations of the Rule of Faith with the formal interrogations put to the convert at baptism’ W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), pp. 398–9. Hamilton Hess draws from the writings of Cyprian (Ep 17; 19; 30; 43) to emphasize that there is evidence that the ‘laity’ had some role in church forums in the middle of the third century. However he recognizes, ‘The late second and early third century were a period of transition … By the early third century …bishops were becoming aware of their collective



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to divine knowledge not only became confined to particular men in specific positions of power, this divine knowledge was increasingly only to be found in the designated ‘right’ doctrines of the ‘mainstream’ church. As W. H. C. Frend states: ‘By the middle of the third century many major communities had their own statements of belief set out in creedal form. These were being used increasingly as tests of orthodoxy where deviation was suspected.’152 Claimed individual and collective experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the radiant imparter of divine knowledge who actualized ‘kinaesthetic transformation’, needed to be discredited and repudiated in order to reinforce the boundaries being erected around access to divine knowledge within the church. Within this context, Jesus-Woman Wisdom the radiant imparter of divine knowledge could have no place. Radiant Jesus-Woman Wisdom in Origen Origen provides further evidence that the experience of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as radiant imparter of divine knowledge contributed to her veiling in the stratifying church. However, the evidence of Origen flows in the opposite direction. Origen both affirms the place of ‘mystical’ experiences for all and he speaks of Jesus as Woman Wisdom, who is the brightness of God who enlightens.153 Origen was born around 185 c.e., into a Christian home, likely in Alexandria.154 Hans Urs von Balthasar argues that Origen’s own experiences of the ‘mystical’ informed his theology.155 In contrast to the stratifying church around him, central to Origen’s understanding of Christian faith is the conviction that direct experience of divine illumination is open to all Christians. In opposition to Celsus, who purportedly believed that only people with philosophical education could access knowledge of God, Origen underscores that uneducated Christians have direct access to the divine: But even the unlettered Christians know for certain that every place in the world is a part of the all, and that the whole universe is God’s temple. Praying “in every place” (Mal. 1.11; 1 Tim. 2.8), shutting the eyes of the senses and elevating those of the soul, they transcend the whole world. Nor do they stop identity and their collective authority and responsibility to resolve the ecclesiastical issues of the day … what we seem to see is the development of the inter-ecclesial synod or council from the intra-ecclesial assembly through the solidification of monepiscopal government and a resulting diminution of the role of presbyters, deacons and laity.’ Hamilton Hess, The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica, ed. Gillian Clark et al., Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 22–4. 152. Frend, Rise of Christianity, p. 399. 153. See below. 154. G. W. Butterworth in Henri DeLubac, Origen: On First Principles (New York: Torchbook Edition, Harper and Row, 1966), p. xxiii. 155. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings, trans. Robert J. Daly (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), p. 10.

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even at the vault of heaven, but, guided by the divine Spirit, they come in spirit to the super-heavenly place, and standing as it were outside the world, send their prayers up to God. (Against Celsus, Book 7.44)156

Origen’s view that all people can directly experience God is grounded in his conviction that God desires this: ‘But, from a desire to implant in us the blessedness which comes to our souls as a result of knowing Him, he is concerned to enable us to obtain friendship with Him through Christ and the constant indwelling of the Word’ (Against Celsus, book 4.6).157 Here Origen uses the language of friendship to express his understandings of salvation. Divine friendship is an important theme in Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology and it is likely no accident that Origen uses this language. In On First Principles, Origen addresses the question of who Christ is. The foundation of Origen’s christology is that Jesus is Woman Wisdom incarnate: Our first task therefore is to see what the only-begotten Son of God is, seeing he is called by many different names according to the circumstances and beliefs of the different writers. He is called Wisdom, as Solomon said, speaking in the person of Wisdom … He is also called Firstborn, as the apostle Paul says: “who is the Firstborn of all creation”. The Firstborn is not, however, by nature a different being from Wisdom, but is one and the same. Finally, the apostle Paul says: “Christ, the power of God and the w(W)isdom of God”. (On First, Book 1, 2.1)158

Origen continues to expand this Wisdom christology. In section 5 he quotes the Colossians hymn (attributing this to Paul), Hebrew 1.3 and Wisdom 7.25-26 in order to affirm his understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. He concludes by stating: Now as we said above, the Wisdom of God has her subsistence nowhere else but in him who is the beginnings of all things, from whom also she took her birth. And because he himself, who alone is a Son by nature, is this Wisdom, he is on this account also called the “only-begotten”. (On First, Book 1, 2.5)

Within Origen’s commentary on John’s Gospel, Origen also explicitly links Jesus with Woman Wisdom, and argues that those who embrace Wisdom share in Christ.159 156. Translated by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen: Spirit. 157. Translated by Henry Chadwick, Origen Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 158. Translated by Butterworth, Origen: On First, (brackets added). 159. Origen states, ‘But we must not pass over in silence that he does indeed happen to be the ‘w(W)isdom of God’ (1 Cor. 1.24), and therefore is also called such. For the w(W)isdom of the God and Father of us all (cf. Eph. 4.6) is not reducible in substance to mere fantasies, somewhat like the phantasms of human thought … But all wise persons, to



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Origen’s Wisdom christology is intimately linked with his Wisdom soteriology. It is through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, who is the brightness of God, that humans are able to encounter the divine light: the Son, in emptying himself of his equality with the Father, and showing to us a way by which we may know him, becomes an “express image” of God’s substance; so that, through this fact of his becoming to us the brightness, we who were not able to look at the glory of pure light while it remained in the greatness of his godhead, may find a way of beholding the divine light through looking at the brightness. (On First, Book 1, 2.8)

In sections 9 to 12, that directly follow this passage, Origen reflects on the description of Woman Wisdom in Wisdom 7 and explores how these descriptions all relate to Christ as the pre-existent one from God who illuminates. Origen’s place in the early church was disputed at the time of his writing, and has continued to be.160 Robert Daly recognizes that reaction against Origen in his own context came, in part, as a consequence of the stratifying church: ‘Origen’s adventurous mind and somewhat charismatic stature as Christianity’s premier scholar inevitably brought him into conflict with a conservative bishop making strong efforts to solidify the monarchical episcopate in Alexandria.’161 Both Origen’s Wisdom christology in which he imaged Jesus as Woman Wisdom and his Wisdom soteriology which proclaimed that in Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the light of God was directly accessible for all humanity, stood in direct conflict with the stratifying church.162 the extent that they embrace w(W)isdom, have a share in Christ, in that he is w(W)isdom’ (Com John, 1, 39, trans. Balthasar, Origen: Spirit (brackets added). Balthasar does not capitalize Origen’s descriptions of Jesus as Wisdom, despite acknowledging the First and intertestamental texts that Origen draws from. This is inconsistent with his choice to capitalize Word as WORD every time that Origen uses this title for Christ. 160. As Henri De Lubac states: ‘Apologies for him multiplied apace with the attacks against him’, Henri De Lubac, Origen: On First Principles, ed. G. W. Butterworth (New York: Torchbook Edition, Harper and Row, 1966), p. vii. 161.  Robert Daly, Origen: Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and His Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son and the Soul, ed. Walter J. Burghardt et al., The Works of the Fathers in Translation, no. 54 (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), p. 3. 162. Butterworth argues that the evidence suggests both misunderstanding of Origen’s thought and that the jealousy of those in ecclesial authority in the stratifying church fuelled hostility towards Origen, Butterworth, in De Lubac, Origen: On First, p. xxiv. Furthermore, Origen’s understanding of ‘universal’ salvation elicited debate and misunderstanding in his own context and continues to. See Henri Crouzel, Origen, trans A. S. Worrall, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), pp. 257–66; Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom; Prayer; First Principles: Book IV; Prologue to the Commentary on the Song of Songs; Homily XXVII on Numbers, ed. Rowan Greer, The Classics of Western

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Epiphanius, who sought to discredit the Montanists, also turned his sights upon Origen. Central to his condemnation of Origen, was his claim that Origen understood Christ to be created rather than begotten (Panarion 63.8, 1–8). Epiphanius refers to Origen’s Wisdom christology as he seeks to show proof of Origen’s ‘low’ christology: But let us see by the four Gospels through which the divine Word, when he came, revealed our whole salvation, whether Christ has ever said, “God created me,” or, “My Father created me!” (Panarion 63.9, 1)

Here Epiphanius draws from Woman Wisdom’s speech about herself (Prov. 8.22) that Origen utilizes as he gives expression to his Wisdom christology. Whether wittingly or not, Epiphanius misinterprets Origen’s ‘high’ Wisdom christology, in order to instead argue that in this there is proof of false teaching about Christ’s lesser place. Epiphanius states: And even if you ventured to steal it from somewhere and distort it – even so, you nut, you cannot change the good sense of the godly into judgment as poor as this! Both your intent and your argument are against you; as I said, no created thing is worthy of worship. But if it is worthy of worship, then, since there are many other created things, it will not matter that we worship them all along with the one creature; they are its fellow servants, and in the same category. (Panarion 63.8, 7–8)

Epiphanius’ language of ‘stealing and distorting’ suggests that he is aware that Origen’s christological convictions are grounded in scripture. However, in Epiphanius’ view Origen’s understanding of Jesus as Woman Wisdom is a distortion of scripture and he passionately condemns Origen.163 In light of Epiphanius’ condemnation of the Montanists, it is not unreasonable to suggest that a contributing factor in his attempt to insist that Origen’s christology makes Christ a creature, is his goal to discredit Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. Not only was the centrality of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Origen’s work misunderstood in the early church, but Origen’s Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology continue to be minimized in the current context.164 Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), p. xiv. The extent to which Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology underpinned Origen’s understanding of the ‘universal’ salvation of ‘all things’ invites further consideration. 163. Epiphanius states of Origen, ‘But in his position on doctrines, about faith and higher speculation, he is the wickedest of all before and after him’ (Panarion 63.5, 7). 164.  The minimization of Origen’s Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology is seen in various contemporary writers’ insistence upon emphasizing Word over Wisdom. This is reflected above in the use of the capitalization of Word, and WORD (Balthasar), rather than Wisdom in various translations. This is also seen in introductions to Origen’s work that speak almost exclusively of his Word theology, for example, Balthasar, Origen: Spirit; Origen: An Exhortation; Butterworth, Origen: On First.



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… In the stratifying church of the second and third centuries, evidence of reactions against the Christian Montanist group and reactions against Origen’s Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology indicate that claimed experiences and understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the radiant imparter of divine knowledge were recast as heretical. Experiences and understandings of JesusWoman Wisdom as the radiant imparter of divine knowledge who illuminates the gathered community were significant features in the early Jesus movement, as reflected in Second Testament and first century church texts. However, these same claims did not fit with the agendas of those seeking to contract divine knowledge and power to the appointed, male, few. Changes in access to ‘permissible’ divine knowledge within the early church contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. The effects of this contraction of boundaries around divine knowledge would in turn beget further contractions. Over time, as divine knowledge began to be associated only with ‘right’ teachings of particular men in leadership positions, the earlier Christian celebration of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the radiant imparter of divine knowledge who actualized ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ within Jesus communities, would come to make little sense in the gathered community. Giver of the Divine Feast The linking together of Jesus and Woman Wisdom as the divine feast-giver who nourishes with very self, emerged out of the experiences of boundarytransgressing, life-filling sacred meals, both in pre-Easter contexts with Jesus and in post-Easter contexts as meals were shared in Christ’s name (e.g. Prov. 9.1-6; Sir. 24.19-21; Mk 6.35-44; 8.1-10; Mt. 14.13-21; 15.32-39; Lk. 9.10-17; Jn 6.1-14; 6.35-59, 1 Pet. 2.2-3; Heb. 6.5, Didache 10.1-3).165 The textual evidence of the Second Testament, the letter of 1 Clement and the Didache indicate that sharing in the bread and wine in the name of Jesus was a central feature of early Jesus communities.166 In the early Jesus movement it is likely that eucharist occurred within the context of meals in homes, as Maxwell Johnson states: ‘our earliest documents (1 Cor. 11 and Didache 9 and 10) confirm that the “Eucharist” was, initially, a literal meal, held most likely in the evening within a domestic, i.e. “house-church”, setting, with the contents of the meal provided by members of the assembly themselves.’167 165. See Chapter 3. 166. See Lössl, Early Church, p. 137; Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory, p. 165. 167. Maxwell Johnson, ‘Worship, Practice and Belief ’, The Early Christian World, ed. Philip Esler, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 480. As Andrew McGowan states: ‘The fact that the eucharist was eventually not a substantial meal but token in nature does not mean that it was always so. Liturgical historians have often tended to see the earliest eucharists as specific acts involving token foods within a meal, in part because of squeamishness about the possibility that the eucharistic bread and wine might have been eaten in

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The text of 1 Corinthians 11.17-22 indicates both the meal setting of eucharist, and that it brought together formally disparate people. This text also indicates that seeking to make Jesus’ inclusive table fellowship an ongoing reality in the post-Easter Jesus community was difficult: ‘For when it comes time to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk’ (11.21). Despite failed attempts at this meal sharing, these sacred, inclusive meals were significant for those in Jesus communities. This experience of eucharist in homes created the space in which commitment to Jesus’ fictive kinship could be attempted, and to some extent, realized in the practice of worshipping and sharing together in the Jesus feast. The Didache indicates that in the experience of the ingathering of formally disparate people to share in this bread and wine in Jesus’ name, there was an experience of being ‘filled’ (9.4; 10.1).168 It was this meal that nourished physically and spiritually (10.3).169 In at least some settings in the second century, eucharist continued to be shared in less formal ways. Reflecting on Justin Martyr’s description of eucharist in the First Apology (65; 67) Lössl states: ‘It is a very simple ritual without any pre-formulated prayers. The office holders whom Justin mentions – “readers”, “presiders”, “deacons” – seem to be unassuming, unlike the bishops, presbyters and deacons in later sources.’170 However home church eucharists and the ‘simple ritual’ reflected in Justin Martyr came to be replaced with formalized expressions of eucharist in the third century. The practice of eucharist changed as the context of church worship changed. As Christian communities grew in number, so too did their wealth. These factors contributed to the place of worship moving from the private sphere of homes and into more public, formal settings that were procured for this purpose. As Frances Young states: ‘it is generally reckoned that by the end substantial quantities’, McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, p. 11. Wayne Meeks argues that ‘The wine and bread in the early years were always part of a full meal’, Wayne Meeks ‘Social and Ecclesial Life’, The Cambridge History of Christianity, Origins to Constantine, ed. Margaret Mitchell et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 165. 168. Within the Didache liturgy there are boundaries around this inclusive filling feast as only those who are baptized are allowed to participate (9.5). Meeks notes the link between the Didache’s ‘being filled’ to Jn 6.12, and rightly sees references in the Didache eucharist to the miraculous feedings (e.g. Jn 6.12-13). However he does not expand this and assumes that the ‘filling’ in the Didache simply indicates that in this community ‘eucharist was celebrated as a full meal still’. Meeks, ‘Social and Ecclesial Life’, p. 165. The language of being filled in eucharist held both physical and spiritual content within the Didache community, see Chapter 3. 169. As discussed in Chapter 3 Taussig claims that this experience of fictive kinship was the source of the experience of spiritual nourishment in these meals, Taussig, In the Beginning, p. 54. This takes insufficient account of claimed ‘mystical’ experiences, including ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ evidenced in Second Testament and early church texts, as illustrated in the Didache’s celebration of the ‘holy name’ residing in their hearts (10.2). 170. Lössl, Early Church, p. 141.



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of the third century Christians constituted 10 per cent of the population, based mainly in the cities, but now owning property, meeting in buildings converted for church use and often led by prominent citizens’.171 By the third century, in the context of meeting halls, codified prayers were becoming the norm and, increasingly, only people officially appointed could facilitate in the leadership and, even, distribution of eucharist.172 Describing the later part of the third century, Frend summarizes the stratifying church, stating that there was: The growing standardisation of Christian worship and hierarchy … The ceremonial in the Eucharist remained simple, prayers being said standing or kneeling, the palms outstretched or folded upon the breast. There was, however, little scope for any out-of-the-ordinary administration of the Cup by a “prophet” or for extempore prayers and singing by a layman such as referred to by Tertullian (Apol 39). Everything was being done in accordance with tradition. The clerical order had been elaborated to include teachers who read the lections and various grades of deacon who read the Gospel, presented the elements at the Offertory and kept discipline in the church.173

Experiences of sharing in ‘spiritual food and being filled’ (Didache 10.1, 3) in eucharist, in homes over meals with diverse people, who could speak if inspired by the Spirit, were being codified and contracted. Within this context, claimed experiences and understandings of the inclusive nature of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the giver of the feast that filled would no longer correspond to the lived reality of the majority of those in the church. The consequence of this trajectory was that the likelihood of recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the sharer of the boundary-breaking, filling and divine feast would wane. Friend-maker with God In the early Jesus movement an important feature of understanding Jesus as Woman Wisdom, was the claimed experience of being made friends with God in both pre- and post-Easter contexts (e.g. Wis. 7.14, 27; 8.17-18; Mt. 11.19; Lk. 7.34; 171. Young in Hooker and Young, Holiness and Mission, p. 63. Lössl states that this process ‘led to the growth of larger hierarchical structures and to the establishment of more dominant episcopal sees, some of which later became “patriarchates”’, Lössl, Early Church, pp. 198–9. 172. This formalizing process is reflected in the third-century text of the Apostolic Tradition, in which, as Lössl highlights ‘the offices are more developed, the tasks of the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons are more clearly defined’ and ‘pre-formulated prayers’ for Eucharist are included, Lössl, Early Church, p. 141. 173. Frend concludes, ‘The clergy had become a caste apart, and like most closed corporations were not interested in stirring up trouble with the powers that be’, Frend, Early Church, p. 123, see also Rise of Christianity, pp. 407–9.

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Rom. 8.15-17; 1 Clement 49.1; see also John 15.15).174 This friendship, or koinonia, transgressed all kinds of boundaries, as attested to in gospel accounts about Jesus making friends with women, men, rich, poor and with those outcast people who found themselves on the wrong side of respectability in society. The Lukan and the Matthaean Jesus identify this choice to share open friendship with ‘sinners’ as pivotal to his rejection and identify this choice with the righteous actions of Woman Wisdom (Mt. 11.19; Lk. 7.34-35). In post-Easter contexts, Jesus communities claimed that the ongoing experience of this inclusive love enabled these communities to attempt to live into this new and radical self-giving koinonia (e.g. Rom. 8.15-17; Eph. 2.13-21; 3.14-19; Phil. 2.1-11; 1 Clement 49.1-50.2). In the Jesus movement this experience of divine friendship was not confined to the theoretical or linguistic. It was expected that communities not only experienced this internally, but that they would live into this way of openness and love towards others (e.g. Gal. 5.13-6.2; 1 Cor. 12.12-13.7; 1 Clement 49.1-50.2).175 It was even proclaimed that ‘normal’ societal boundaries regarding gender, class, status and ethnicity were nullified through Christ (e.g. Gal. 3.26-29; Eph. 2.14-15). It is not being pretended that the Jesus movement was successful in manifesting all of these claims in the way in which they organized their communities, as evidenced in relation to gender equality and equality for slaves.176 Yet, in early Jesus communities attempts were being made to live out at least some elements of this radical friendship and these attempts were, apparently, noticeable in the wider society, as Justin Martyr argues (1 Apol 14).177 Reflecting on the Jesus movement’s commitment to inclusion and love of the ‘other’ Stark states: The Christian teaching that God loves those who love him was alien to pagan beliefs … Equally alien to paganism was the notion that because God loves humanity, Christians cannot please God unless they love one another … such responsibilities were to be extended beyond the bonds of family and tribe.178

Justin’s writing suggests that (some) Jesus communities continued to be open to the ‘other’ in terms of cross-cultural practices of friendship in the early to mid-second century. However, by the end of the second century, limits were actively being placed around those who were welcome and those who were not.179 174. See Chapter 3. 175. See Chapter 3. 176.  1 Clement indicates authorial agenda to defend women’s participation; however this contrasts with other early texts (e.g. 1 Tim. 2.11-15) and the later exclusion of women from church leadership. Frend discusses the early church’s lack of challenge to the culture of slave ownership. Frend, Rise of Christianity, pp. 419–20. 177. During the first and early second century some boundaries to full inclusion in Jesus communities existed, as evidenced in the Didache’s decree that only the baptized could participate in eucharist (9.5). 178. Stark, Rise of Christianity, p. 86 (italics original). 179. Lössl, Early Church, p. 149.



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By the end of the second century and beginning of the third century, evidence of the lengthy catechumenate reveals that prohibitions for baptism into the community were now in place and many could be barred. These included, as Lössl summarizes: not only people of doubtful moral repute such as actors, prostitutes or eunuchs, but also people who had to perform pagan rituals in the context of their professions. This included imperial and local officials, soldiers, people employed at temples, craftsmen (such as painters and sculptors who produced images or sculptures used in pagan worship) and grammar teachers, who taught the pagan classics.180

Lössl rightly indicates that it cannot be assumed that all churches adhered to these prohibitions.181 However, as well as people involved in certain professions being barred (theoretically and/or practically) from inclusion in Christian community, those who participated in ‘normal’ societal activities could also be excluded from Christian community. As Carolyn Osiek points out, for Tertullian ‘attendance at any of the public spectacles (theatre, races, gladiatorial events) is something that Christians do not do (Apol 38, 4)’ and thus, ‘all public and many private social occasions included acts of religious worship that were off limits for conscientious Christians’.182 Osiek rightly indicates that the length of Tertullian’s argument probably indicates that ‘not everyone agreed’.183 However, Tertullian’s desire to create tight limits around inclusion and exclusion within Christian community are in accord with the trajectory of the church in the second and third centuries, as it sought to establish exclusive patterns of church leadership and authority based on gender, ecclesial position and ‘right’ knowledge of God. Earlier understandings of, and attempts at, inclusive koinonia were being contracted as new boundaries for inclusion and exclusion were being articulated and established. While Jesus-Woman Wisdom had made friends with the ‘wrong’ people, and the experience of this divine friendship in post-Easter communities had continued to inspire radical inclusive fictive kinship, by the end of the second century this boundary-breaking friendship was being recalibrated in the face of the church’s changing self-understanding. Earlier proclamations of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the expansive friend-maker with God, and with one another, did not correlate with the agendas of those at the helm of this changing church. As reflected in condemnations of Origen’s convictions about Jesus-Woman Wisdom and God’s welcome of all, Jesus-Woman Wisdom the friend-maker with God was 180. Lössl, Early Church, p. 149 (brackets original). For further discussion see also Carolyn Osiek, ‘The Self-Defining Praxis of the Developing Ecclesia’, Origins to Constantine, ed. Margaret Mitchell et al., The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 287. 181. Lössl, Early Church, p. 149. 182. Osiek, ‘Self-Defining’ p. 287. 183. Osiek, ‘Self-Defining’, p. 287.

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a direct threat in this context. As a consequence, the earlier experiences in the Jesus movement of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as friend-maker were being corroded by new kinds of experiences of church as an excluding and increasingly stratified institution. Claimed experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as friend-maker no longer matched the experience of church for the populace. In this context, pressures from ‘above’ reflected in stratifying church hierarchy and the lived reality from ‘below’ of the local church members eclipsed the presence of JesusWoman Wisdom the friend-maker with God. Divine Non-retaliatory Sufferer Understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory sufferer who saves were significant in the soteriology of the early Jesus movement (e.g. Wis. 1.16–2.24; Mt. 11.29; 23.34; Lk. 11.49; 1 Cor. 1.23-25, 30; Col. 1.15-20). The foundation of this Wisdom soteriology was Wisdom christology. Because of who these communities understood Jesus to be, ‘the w/Wisdom’, ‘the image’ and ‘radiance’ of God (e.g. 1 Cor 1.23-25, 30; 2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2), the cross and resurrection were understood as the ultimate embodiment of the divine, and the divine’s non-retaliation that, paradoxically, overcame death and cosmic evil (e.g. Col. 1.12-20; 2.14-15; 1 Cor. 1.23-25, 30; 2 Cor. 4.4-6).184 This Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology had implications for the ways in which Jesus communities understood themselves to be called to relate to others, including those who mistreated them. In the first and second centuries non-retaliation, gentleness and humility were key markers of Christian identity (e.g. Rom. 12.14-21; Mt. 5.38-48; Lk. 6.27-36; 1 Clement 1.2, 5-8; 13.1-4; 14.3; 16.1-17; 21.8-9; 30.8; 44.3; 49.1-6; 56.1; 57.2; 58.2; 62.1-2; Didache 1.3-5; 2.7; 3.8-9; Justin Martyr, 1 Apol, 16). Christology, soteriology and ethics were interwoven: as Jesus-Woman Wisdom embodied non-retaliatory gentleness, and death and evil were overcome, people in Jesus communities should and could – through the grace of the Spirit – embody these same qualities, and experience liberation from evil (e.g. 1 Clement 49.1–50.1; Eph. 5.21; see also Phil. 2.3-11; Gal. 5.16-25). Veneration for martyrs sprang from this interwoven understanding that was undergirded by the conviction that death and evil did not have the final word.185 However, while martyrs were honoured, gradually, the implications of their non-violent example no longer necessarily translated into the lives of people of Christian faith. As Lössl states, ‘In many respects the stories of the martyrs represented an exaggerated version of the Christian life and could be as much a distraction from its real challenges as a help to focus the mind and to gather courage.’186 By reifying the martyrs, their qualities of radical gentleness and 184. See Chapter 3. 185.  Lössl highlights the ways in which martyrs were honoured within early Christianity and the ways in which this practice contrasted with older, non-Christian traditions, Lössl, Early Church, pp. 132–3. 186. Lössl, Early Church, p. 133.



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non-violence could be distanced from the expected norm, and instead heralded as examples of the astounding faithfulness of the select few. In the third century, some commitment to the practice of non-violence continued in expressions of Christian faith. This is reflected in the prohibition against being a Christian and being an active soldier. As Osiek points out in her discussion: Soldiers are a special case. They can be accepted if they are willing not to kill, even under orders, or to the military oath that was considered an act of worship of a foreign God. These two prohibitions would in fact make it very difficult to continue to be a soldier, and any catechumen or believer who is not a soldier but wishes to become is rejected. (Trad Ap. 16)187

However, while taking up physical arms to kill was still prohibited in this period, ‘violent’ discourse was gaining momentum as Christian writers, representing the interests of various groups, pitted their views against one another. This is evidenced in attacks against ‘Gnostic’ groups,188 and those who represented alternate understandings of Christian faith, such as the Montanists.189 The combative nature of such discourse was amplified in this period by the increasingly dominant view in (what was to become) the ‘mainstream’ church, that ‘right’ knowledge was to be found in specific documents, and from those few, officially appointed, men, rather than in collective, spirit-infused Jesus communities.190 While not yet taking up physical arms against one another, violent polemic and excommunication were increasingly becoming part of the landscape of the church.191 Within this context, earlier understandings of the centrality of gentleness, non-retaliation and non-violence necessarily had to be moved to the margins.192 The understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the gentle non-retaliatory sufferer, who called followers to practise the same gentleness and to share in the experience of non-retaliatory suffering was displaced, in order to affirm the newly emerging drive for unity, and the associated cost of this imposed unity, combative 187. Osiek, ‘Self-defining’, p. 287. 188. Tertullian compares ‘Gnostics’ to the ‘great evil from the small scorpion’, Antidote for the Scorpion’s Sting 1.1. 189. Epiphanius suggests that the power of his own argument against the Montanists is like the crushing of a ‘witless gecko’, Panarion, 49.3, 4. See above. 190. As Lössl states, ‘the bishop of a church held the magisterium, the teaching authority. This development of a combination of religious and doctrinal authority in the second century had far-reaching consequences for the development of the kind of religious power exercised by Christian bishops in the third to the fifth centuries’, Lössl, Early Church, p. 158. 191. This is evidenced by the excommunication of Origen in the second century, Butterworth, Origen: On First, p. xxiv. 192. Mt. 18.15-17 may refer to excommunication – the way in which the Matthaean Jesus treats tax collectors and Gentiles makes this ambiguous – regardless the pastoral imperative is reintegration.

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conduct. While space does not permit further investigation, suffice to say, this trajectory gathered pace in the fourth century. Under Constantine, the soteriological understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory sufferer would become transmuted, as both Christ, and the cross were reframed in the language of kingship and battle.193 First-Born and Infusing ‘All Things’ A significant feature of Second Testament and early church texts is the audacious claim that Jesus is ‘first-born’ and the ‘image’ of God through whom ‘all things’ come into being (e.g. Col. 1.15, 17; 1 Cor. 8.6; 2 Cor. 4.4; Jn 1.1-2; Heb. 1.3; see also Rev. 3.14; 1 Clement 36.2; Justin Martyr Dial 62; 100; 129; 126). These cosmic proclamations of Jesus repeatedly image Jesus as Woman Wisdom, who is ‘First-Born’ (e.g. Prov. 3.19; 8.22-30; Sir. 1.4; 24.9; Col. 1.15, 17; Jn 1.1-2; see also Rev. 3.14; Justin Martyr Dial 62; 100; 129; see also 126), image of God (e.g. Wis. 7.25-26; 2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15, 19; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2) and who infuses ‘all things’ (e.g. Wis. 7.24-27; 8.1, 4; Sir. 1.10; 24.3-4; 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.17; Heb. 1.3; Jn 1.1-2).194 These are shocking claims, especially given the fact that Christianity emerged from within monotheistic Israel. It is likely that ‘mystical’ experiences, including visions of the risen and radiant Jesus and ongoing experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ in which communities found themselves being inwardly transformed, fuelled the bold identification of Jesus with Woman Wisdom in all her cosmic proportions.195 While in the first and earlier second century ‘mystical’ experiences continued to be accepted and celebrated, in the later second and third centuries the stratifying church had little tolerance for such experiences. Those who continued to claim to have visions, or the gift of prophecy, or experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’, in which they directly received divine knowledge and illumination, were a threat to those seeking to contract access to the divine, and they were often condemned.196 It is interesting that of all the language and imagery of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the early church, it is these cosmic celebrations of Jesus-Woman Wisdom that were retained by the stratified church. This is seen in the Nicene creed which declares that Jesus is ‘eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, through him all things were made’. The reason that these cosmic celebrations were retained, and other aspects of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were veiled, may be a consequence of their implications. While the implications of cosmic Jesus-Woman Wisdom are, now, beginning to be recognized in relation

193. See Young in Hooker and Young, Holiness and Mission, p. 69. 194. See Chapter 2. 195. See Chapter 3. 196. The shrillness of this condemnation, as evidenced in relation to the Montanists and Origen, indicates the perceived level of this threat.



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to care for the earth,197 these implications were ignored by most, at least in the West, until the last few decades. However, as this chapter has demonstrated, there were immediate implications for convictions about Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the radiant imparter of divine knowledge, the divine feast-sharer and friendmaker across all kinds of boundaries of status and hierarchy, and Jesus-Woman Wisdom the non-retaliatory sufferer. Each of these convictions demanded radical departure from stratified, exclusive and violent ways of being. By detaching those ‘heavenly’ aspects of Wisdom christology from other central aspects of early Christian Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, Jesus-Woman Wisdom was placed at a ‘safe’ distance in the heavenly stratosphere, dislocated from the radical hospitality that the early Jesus movement celebrated that s/he both embodied and enabled.

Conclusion The veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the early church came as a result of multivalent and, at times, overlapping factors. Early experiences and expressions of christology that understood Jesus as Woman Wisdom were a threat to those engaged in establishing patriarchal interpretations of church authority that sought to exclude people who were women from positions of authority. The flourishing of ‘Gnosticism’, in which Woman Wisdom was transmuted into the cause of evil and the consort of Christ, ran the risk of contaminating Jesus-Woman Wisdom with ‘Gnostic’ understandings and contributed to the veiling of JesusWoman Wisdom. Furthermore, the apologetic imperative to Gentile audiences less familiar with Hebrew understandings of Woman Wisdom, also motivated this veiling. Alongside these issues, this chapter has demonstrated that in the second and third centuries, experiences and understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the inclusive, boundary-breaking radiant imparter of divine knowledge; giver of the expansive feast, friend-maker with God and with others – across status and gender divides – all stood in antipathy with a church seeking to establish stratified understandings of, and access to, the church and to the divine. Soteriological understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory sufferer, who called followers to live into the same kind of gentle non-violence, would also come to contradict an increasingly aggressive church engaged in imposing unity. The stratifying church sought to discredit direct and diffuse experiences of the divine as it gathered authority to itself. In the process the presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, who was so significant in the early Jesus movement, was veiled. This veiling also occurred by osmosis, as these changes left little space for experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the context of worship and community life. Before long, congregations would no longer be able to recognize Jesus-Woman Wisdom in their midst. 197. For example see Edwards, Jesus, the Wisdom; Ecology, and Deane-Drummond, Creation; Christ and Evolution.

5 R E - R E C O G N I Z I N G J E SU S - W OM A N W I SD OM

The scandal of the scandal of particularity is that Jesus is celebrated in the language and imagery of the female divine in various Second Testament and early church texts. It has been demonstrated that the ignition of this early Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology lay in transformative experiences, in both pre- and in post-Easter Jesus communities. In post-Easter contexts these claimed experiences included ‘mystical’ visions, auditions, prophecy and glossolalia, as well as ongoing collective experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ gifted through the divine who was found to be the gentle non-retaliatory sufferer who saves. These transformative experiences, in turn, enabled new inclusive, non-violent friendships to be formed with the ‘other’. In the second and third centuries, understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom began to be problematic for the increasingly patriarchal church that sought to exclude people of the female gender from positions of authority. The presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom was further problematized by the impacts of ‘Gnosticism’ and the imperative to communicate Christian faith to Gentiles, less familiar with Hebrew Woman Wisdom. Furthermore, as the stratifying church sought to contract access to the divine and recalibrate its selfunderstanding, claimed experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom became a threat and s/he was veiled. Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were never entirely displaced in the Christian tradition. However the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom that is evident in the second century, and that gathered pace in subsequent centuries, has made it difficult to recognize Jesus-Woman Wisdom in our midst. By employing the unconventional language of ‘re-recognizing’, the reality that Jesus-Woman Wisdom never completely disappeared is acknowledged. In this chapter the validity of ‘re-recognizing’ Jesus-Woman Wisdom in a contemporary context will be investigated. In order to examine the ways in which ancient expressions of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology may authentically, faithfully and usefully contribute to contemporary understandings of Christianity, David Ford’s interrogative field will be utilized. In Self and Salvation Ford proposes six ‘interconnecting questions’ as tools for assessing any Christian understanding of salvation in contemporary context. In summary, these are as follows: 1. Can this theology of salvation go to the heart of Christian identity? How can an approach to salvation act as a focus for the gospel story in its biblical setting while also having universal implications?

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2. Can this theology of salvation be widely accessible today, and related to imaginative, intellectual, emotional and practical concerns? 3. Is it possible to focus on self and salvation through a few symbols, images or metaphors, or even one, which is primary? A theology of salvation needs intensity and gripping power. 4. How conceptually rich is this understanding of salvation? Can the work’s concepts help in interpreting the Bible, tradition and life as a whole, in relating the range of doctrines to salvation, and in linking various fields of study to this topic? Can these concepts have heuristic value, inspiring a diversity of investigations and discussions, acting as a framework for creativity, encouraging a new look at familiar problems, ambiguities and dilemmas, and opening fresh lines of dialogue with other soteriologies? 5. Does this theology have practical promise of fruitfulness in the three main dynamics of Christian living: worship and prayer; living and learning in community; and speech, action and suffering for justice, freedom, peace, goodness and truth? 6. Are my suggestions defensible against diverse attacks, and are they able to anticipate and deal with the main criticisms and alternatives?1 Through exploration of each of these questions it will be demonstrated that the scandal of the scandal of particularity – that in many earliest communities Jesus was experienced, understood and celebrated as the embodiment of the female divine – offers a faithful, provocative and compelling expression of Christian faith in the twenty-first century.

Facing Ford Before embarking upon this investigation, David Ford’s monograph Self and Salvation needs to be discussed. In this monograph, written as part of the Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine, the central theme of Ford’s soteriological exploration is the face: of being faced with the face of Christ, who is the ‘glory of God’, and through this, being turned to face the ‘other’ with compassion.2 Within this process of being faced in love by Christ and facing the ‘other’, Ford emphasizes the shared place of both joy and responsibility.3 In this extended essay Ford sensitively engages with the work of Levinas, Ricoeur and Jüngel in order to explore and test this soteriology.4 He also seeks to ground this understanding 1. Ford, Self, pp. 5–7. 2. Ford, Self, pp. 24–5, 166. 3. For Ford the imagery of feasting, and thus his understanding of eucharist, is central to the two halves of this emphasis upon joy and responsibility, Ford, Self, p. 25. 4. Ford, Self, pp. 43–104. Ford enters into ‘open’ dialogue with each of these scholars, highlighting resonances and disconnections with his own hypothesis. Maurice Wiles makes the comment that ‘The expression of positive affirmations in a tentative mode [in



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of ‘facing’ in the lives of two saints: Thérèse of Lisieux and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.5 Ford’s exploration seeks to take seriously lived reality (including suffering), significant scholars in the West, ‘contemporary’ saints and the biblical text.6 As L. Gregory Jones states in his review of Self and Salvation: One of David Ford’s distinctive, and in our time all-too-rare, gifts is to make profound theological connections across diverse disciplines and spheres of life. We have come to expect from Professor Ford learning that is broad and deep as well as insights that help us see God and human life in new and renewed ways.7

I concur with the assessment that this text provides ‘insights that help us to see God and human life in new and renewed ways’. However, what is significant is that the Christ, who Ford argues we are ‘faced by’, looks like Jesus-Woman Wisdom, but at no point does Ford acknowledge this. The veiled presence of the face of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in Self and Salvation is evidenced in a variety of ways throughout the text. Ford emphasizes the feast, as the central way of understanding Christ and Christian vocation: ‘Christian vocation can be summed up as being called to the feast of the Kingdom of God. The salvation of selves is in responding to that invitation.’8 He summarizes Self and Salvation by stating that it has ‘focused on a theology of the face of Jesus Christ leading into a spirituality of feasting before that face’.9 Central to Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Second Testament and early church texts, is the understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the giver of the feast, a hospitable and open feast that includes the gift of the divine self as source of the nourishment.10 Given that Ford makes feasting with, and on, Christ the priority of his soteriological exploration, it is surprising that Ford does not acknowledge this, even in the footnotes. Self] carries more conviction than they would have done had they been voiced in more a self-confident tone’, Maurice Wiles ‘Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, Review’, Journal of Theological Studies 51, no. 1 (2000), p. 396. In his review of the monograph John Sachs states, ‘In each of these chapters [that engages with the work of these scholars] one finds ideas that are truly illuminating’, John Sachs ‘Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, Review’, Theological Studies 62, no. 1 (2001), p. 163. 5. Ford, Self, pp. 216–65. 6. As Wiles states, ‘its admixture of demanding philosophical argument, reflection on religious practice and particular lives, and meditations (including hymn and poetry) is clearly a scholarly and academic book, but one that reflects its religious subject matter more directly than most theological writing’, Wiles, ‘Self and Salvation, Review’, p. 395 (brackets original). 7. L. Gregory Jones, ‘Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, Review’, Modern Theology 18, no. 1 (2002) p. 125. 8. Ford, Self, p. 272. 9. Ford, Self, p. 272. 10. See Chapters 2, 3 and 4.

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Ford also emphasizes the priority of gentleness in the Second Testament and in Christian discipleship.11 He draws from Matthew 11 to do so: ‘It was peacemaking centered on a God of generous compassion, and at its heart was Jesus’s self-identification in calling people to himself: ‘I am gentle and lowly in heart’ (Mt. 11.29).’12 The Matthaean Jesus’ invitation to come and find rest and the declaration of being gentle, are expressions of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology (e.g. Sir. 6.24-31; 51.23; Wis. 2.17-20).13 Ford rightly emphasizes the centrality of the Matthaean Jesus’ self-identification as gentle; however he again does not acknowledge the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology from which these claims emerge. Throughout Self and Salvation Ford explores the idea of suffering for the ‘other’ and argues that in Christ, God suffers with, and for, us, enabling those who are transformed by Christ to do the same.14 As excavated in previous chapters central to Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Second Testament and early church texts was the understanding of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the non-retaliatory, divine sufferer (e.g. Wis. 1.16–2.24; Mt. 23.34-35; 1 Cor. 1.21-25; Col. 1.15-20; 1 Clement 16.1-17). When seeking to signify the importance of who Christ is in Second Testament texts Ford turns to several passages that speak of Jesus and underscores their ‘high’ Christology: He states: In the New Testament he was not seen as just the occasion for this event of God’s new self-determination [the resurrection]. He was seen as intrinsic to it. This was strikingly so in some of the earliest writings (e.g. 1 Corinthians 8.6), and by the later documents the conviction has been developed further (John 1, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, Ephesians 1). Seeing Jesus Christ as intrinsic to who God is in creation and in the whole history is a clear implication of New Testament faith in the resurrection.15

While Ford rightly identifies the ‘striking’ nature of these proclamations, it is striking that he does not acknowledge the Wisdom christology that is shot through each of the passages to which he refers.16 The biblical passages that Ford returns to the most in Self and Salvation are 2 Corinthians 3.18 and 4.6. With attention turned towards 3.18, Ford effectively uses Paul’s imagery of ‘unveiled faces’ and being ‘transformed … from one degree of glory to another’ to explore his central concept of being faced by God in Christ, and in turn facing ‘others’ in compassionate responsibility.17 In 2 Corinthians 11. For example Ford, Self, pp. 124, 135–6. 12. Ford, Self, p. 187, see also p. 136. 13. See Chapters 2, 3 and 4. 14. For example Ford reflects on God’s suffering in the cross and practices of eucharist, Ford, Self, p. 147. 15. Ford, Self, p. 212 (brackets original). 16. See Chapter 2. 17. Ford, Self, pp. 214–15, see also pp. 24, 102–3, 204.



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4.4 Paul’s description of Christ as the image of God (an understanding of Christ also reflected in Col. 1.15, Heb. 1.3 and 1 Clement 36) is steeped in Wisdom christology. Furthermore, Paul’s description of the divine illumination that the community is experiencing through Christ, the image of God, who has ‘shone in our hearts’ is an expression of Wisdom soteriology anchored in Wisdom christology.18 Despite Ford’s focus on 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 he does not acknowledge the Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology that are integral to Paul’s thought in these passages. Ford also seeks to distance Paul from his own claims that the community is experiencing God’s light ‘shone in our hearts’ (2 Cor. 4.6). While acknowledging the centrality for Paul of this divine light, Ford argues that: ‘The event that unifies that verse [2 Cor. 4.6] is the raising of the crucified Christ by God from the darkness of death to the light of the new creation.’19 While not dismissing the centrality of the cross and resurrection for Paul, Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 4.6 reveal convictions about more immediate, ongoing experiences within the Jesus community. Here Paul is speaking about something that is happening in the community, experiences that are continuing to reveal the face of the crucified and risen Christ, and that are giving inner illumination and knowledge of God that is transforming them. The text proclaims collective experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’. Reticence to acknowledge such experiences is also seen in Ford’s discussion of Paul ‘in Christ’ language. Relying on the work of Kenneth Grayston, Ford concurs with Grayston’s claim that: ‘Paul is not a mystic, since for him Christ is the Kyrios who stands face to face with the believer and is always distinguishable from him.’20 This reflects an inadequate understanding of both the ‘mystical’ and an inadequate understanding of the complexity of Paul’s ‘in Christ’ language, in which Paul reflexively honours Christ’s ‘otherness’ and yet, also proclaims the union with Christ that those in Jesus communities are experiencing and being transformed through.21 Ford acknowledges the importance of Christ’s ‘radiance’.22 He also discusses the Johannine Jesus’ gift of friendship.23 However, in each case, Ford again does not acknowledge that central to Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as radiant with divine light (e.g. Wis. 6.12; 7.26, 29; Jn 1.1-5; 2 Cor. 4.4-6; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36.2), and as the one who brings people into friendship with God (e.g. Wis. 7.27, 8.17-18; Jn 15.15). Furthermore, in Self and Salvation Ford rightly emphasizes the importance of

18. See Chapters 2 and 3. 19. Ford, Self, pp. 214–15. 20. Ford, Self, p. 118. Ford cites Kenneth Grayston, Dying We Live: A New Enquiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1990). p. 383. 21. See Chapters 3, 4 and below. See also Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 206. 22. Ford, Self, p. 146. 23. Ford, Self, p. 160.

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God ‘delighting’ in humanity,24 but does not recognize the connection here with Woman Wisdom who delights in humanity and is delighted in by God (Prov. 8.30-31; it is also claimed that friendship with Woman Wisdom brings ‘pure delight’ Wis. 8.18). Both the christology and the soteriology that Ford offers in Self and Salvation are reliant upon Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology for their content. However, he does not acknowledge this. Ford is right to claim that ‘Paul’s complex naming of God is inseparable from the naming of Jesus Christ as Lord, one in whose face the glory of God is faced, and who is trusted to relate to all other faces too.’25 However, Ford does not identify the face to which he continues to point. This disconnection between what Ford argues, and the reality of JesusWoman Wisdom in the texts he relies upon, is starkly seen as he states, ‘This face is affirmed as the face of the one who taught, ate, drank and died.’26 Each of these statements affirms integral attributes of Jesus-Woman Wisdom: the imparter of divine knowledge, the giver of the divine feast, and the divine non-retaliatory sufferer. In Self and Salvation Ford recognizes the priority of the divine face, but does not recognize whose face this is. In the numerous Second Testament texts that Ford draws from, this face is the face of Jesus-Woman Wisdom.27 24. For example, Ford, Self, pp. 99, 214. 25. Ford, Self, p. 104. 26. Ford, Self, p. 179. 27. Ford explores Wisdom christology in subsequent monographs; however, in these studies of w/Wisdom and Christ he continues to minimize the reality of Woman Wisdom. Building on the work of Self and Salvation Ford published Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love. Here Christian Wisdom is the focus, yet Ford continues to distance understandings of Jesus and Woman Wisdom, even as he discusses a ‘w/Wisdom christology’. This is evident in the summary of his thesis regarding Jesus and w/Wisdom, ‘The result is a conception of Jesus as teaching and embodying a prophetic wisdom that integrates law, history, prophecy, wisdom (in the narrower sense of a biblical genre) and praise. He represents a transformation of desire in orientation to God and the Kingdom of God, deeply resonant with Job’s God-centered desire’, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 7 (brackets original). In this text Ford focuses on Luke’s gospel, rather than Matthew’s in which Jesus is understood as Woman Wisdom, and states: ‘… Jesus has been identified as filled with wisdom, a child of wisdom, greater than Solomon, and even as the very wisdom of God (the only one to know the Father), this death is a wisdom event, a further definition of wisdom’, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 33 (brackets original). Ford does discuss John’s prologue and acknowledges the presence of Woman Wisdom in this text, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 56. However Ford does not pause to consider the strangeness of this author’s choice to identify Jesus with the female divine Woman Wisdom. Instead Ford states, ‘This might be described as a Jesus Christ-centred wisdom interpretation of the bible’, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 56. Perhaps reliant upon Johannine expression, Ford then directly goes on to emphasize an androcentric reading of the incarnation: ‘This affirms the priority, ultimacy and comprehensive involvement of God and also the intimacy with God opened up through the relationship of Father and Son; it also indicates the mystery of God visible



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Ford states of Jesus: ‘The feast of the Kingdom of God is described (and acted out) by him as generously inclusive beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.’28 As it turns out, the expansiveness of this feast appears to be beyond Ford’s dreams, for in many Second Testament and early church texts it is Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is recognized as the giver of the feast and the one who transcends boundaries, including the boundaries of gender. While Ford is right to point to the ‘scandalous’ nature of this face,29 he does not acknowledge how ‘scandalous’ this face is. It is Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is the giver of the feast, and who lives and dies and is raised in radiance, and it is the paradoxical face of Jesus-Woman Wisdom who can both challenge and comfort, with a fresh yet ancient, expression of christology and soteriology in the current context.

Six Interconnecting Questions While Ford does not explicitly recognize Jesus-Woman Wisdom, his focus in Self and Salvation on the face of Christ, being faced by God in Christ, and facing the other, make an important contribution to contemporary theology. As Jones concludes in his review of the text, ‘Facing David Ford’s theology is an exercise that yields abundant gifts for the reader, for modern theology, and for the and invisible, revealed and hidden’, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 57 (italics added). Ford’s emphasis upon ‘Father-Son’ language to speak of God, the incarnation and salvation is underscored in his ‘conclusions: maxims of wisdom christology’. Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 190. In his article ‘Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God’ Ford states, ‘In his ministry Jesus might be described as a “prophetic sage” (Witherington), teaching a God-centered wisdom and even perhaps being identified with, among other many other things, wisdom. The conception of him as wisdom personified is intensified by his resurrection. The risen Christ can be described by Paul as “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1.30), by the later Pauline tradition of Colossians as one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2.3), by John as the Logos (whose relationship to wisdom is much debated, but seems to me close) …’, David Ford ‘Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God’, Reading Texts, Seeking Wisdom eds. David Ford and Graham Stanton (London: SCM Press, 2003), p. 10 (brackets original). While here Ford does acknowledge that Second Testament texts understand Jesus as Woman Wisdom, this acknowledgement is cautiously qualified: ‘even perhaps … among many other things’. Furthermore, amidst this acknowledgement, the ‘womanliness’ and personhood of Woman Wisdom in First Testament and intertestamental understandings is not discussed, and instead is muted by describing her as ‘wisdom’ rather than Wisdom, Woman Wisdom, Lady Wisdom or Sophia. 28. Ford, Self, p. 269 (brackets original). 29.  Ford states in relation to the Last Supper and Christ’s cross, ‘It gives a particular face to the law. It makes communion with him [Christ] the embracing commandment. There is an astonishing scandal of particularity, as the remembering of this person through this event [the cross] becomes the context of one’s vocation and the bond of one’s community’, Ford, Self, p. 146.

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church.’30 My work represents a sharpened focus upon this divine face. While, perhaps, ironic, it is Ford’s six-fold criteria for assessing expressions of christology and soteriology that provides the apparatus to do so. Ford’s ‘interrogative fields’ take seriously both the importance of embracing what is core to Christian faithfulness, as reflected in earliest traditions and the importance of finding meaningful and compelling ways to communicate and live out this ancient faith. By utilizing these criteria the validity of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom and re-engaging with Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, in contemporary context will be demonstrated. 1. Can this theology of salvation go to the heart of Christian identity? How can an approach to salvation act as a focus for the gospel story in its biblical setting while also having universal implications? At the heart of Christian identity is Jesus. Within Christian communities through time, and across continents, the conviction has been that in this particular human Jesus, God has been (uniquely) encountered. The language utilized to give expression to this conviction varies, and understandings of how Jesus can be this ‘God one’, and the implications of this, have continued to be debated within and beyond the church for almost as long as this conviction has been sung.31 Interpretations of Jesus’ birth, life, miracles, teachings, death, resurrection and salvific power, all spin out from, and diverge in relation to, understandings of this core conviction. The conviction, that in Jesus, God is uniquely encountered is central to articulations of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Second Testament and early church texts. The language in these texts repeatedly describes Jesus as the one in whom God, and God’s energy, are revealed and experienced. Jesus the Christ is described as the ‘image of God’ (e.g. Col. 1.15; Heb. 1.3, 2 Cor. 4.4), the one whose ‘face’ reveals ‘in our hearts … the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’ (2 Cor. 4.6, 1 Clement 36.2, Didache 10.2) the ‘reflection of God’s glory’ (Heb. 1.3, 1 Clement 36.2); this is the one who ‘became flesh and lived among us’ (Jn 1.14) and the ‘radiance of his magnificence’ (1 Clement 36.2).32 The reality that Jesus is understood to uniquely bear God in this early Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology has been increasingly recognized and continues to stimulate debate.33 In recent work, Paul Fiddes seeks to give further 30. Jones, ‘Self and Salvation: Being Transformed, Review’, p. 127. 31. As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2 hymn fragments reveal the earliest strands of christology. 32. See Chapters 2 and 3. 33. Many scholars recognize that in early church texts Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, for example, Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom of God’, pp. 275–6; Wainwright, Shall We Look? p. 77; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, pp. 232–3, 274–5; Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, pp. 52–3; Scott, Sophia, pp. 94–234; Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, pp. 51–2; Pheme Perkins ‘Jesus: God’s Wisdom’, Word and World: Theology for Christian Ministry, vol. vii (1987) 273–80; Deane-Drummond, Creation through Wisdom, pp. 48–71. Schüssler



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priority to Wisdom christology in contemporary context.34 Fiddes highlights early church texts in which Jesus is understood in relation to Woman Wisdom stating that: Above all, however, the New Testament presents Christ as the wisdom of God … Torah makes wisdom available by contracting its spaciousness into its own bounds, and thereby acquiring its own spacious quality. It is just in this way, declare New Testament writers, that Christ is wisdom contracted to a span.35

Fiddes seeks to define and quantify the way in which ‘Christ is wisdom contracted to a span’. He argues that ‘Jesus Christ is thus so perfectly attuned to the love, wisdom, and glory of God that he can be called wisdom itself. But this is not because he is indwelt by some divine wisdom “principle”. Wisdom is not a divine “nature” to be added onto a human nature.’36 Fiddes’ emphasis upon a non-dualistic reading of the world and the divine, propels his certitude about the internal nature of how Jesus is (and is not) w/Wisdom: ‘So Christ is the bodily text which gives the clue to whole text and body of the world. This is not because he is a cosmic mediator, bridging a gap between two worlds, but because the pattern visible in the actions and words of Christ is the rhythm in which the world comes to its fullness.’37 Fiddes’ concern to safeguard against dualistic readings of the divine and the earthly is valid. Likewise, he rightly challenges the assumption that there was a dominant myth of Woman Wisdom being ‘hidden in heaven’ in Hebrew traditions, stating: ‘there is no ancient myth of hidden wisdom lying behind the classical wisdom literature of Israel, though such a myth does emerge within apocalyptic circles, and particularly in 1 Enoch 42’.38 Fiddes also rightly disputes the interpretation of w/Wisdom in Hebrew traditions in which ‘there are Fiorenza tends to interpret Wisdom texts as reflecting early church convictions that Jesus is a ‘messenger’ or ‘child’ of Woman Wisdom, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, pp. 142–3. This may be influenced by her desire to safeguard the cross from understandings of divinely sanctioned violence: ‘Jesus’ execution was not intended or willed by Sophia-G*d but is rather the outcome of his prophetic ministry and mission’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 143. As has been demonstrated, divinely sanctioned murder is not the end point of a ‘high’ Wisdom christology. In contrast when Jesus is understood as Woman Wisdom, rather than as her envoy, this indicates that the divine is the one who endures violence, rather than the one who sanctions violence. 34.  ‘There seems an enormous potential for Christology in the way that wisdom crosses the boundaries between divine and human …’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 387. 35. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 342. Fiddes goes on to reflect on John’s prologue and the presence of (Woman) Wisdom dwelling with humanity, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 343. 36. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 389 (italics original). 37. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 346. 38. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 362. See also pp. 352–62. While acknowledging this, both Enochian understandings and ‘classical’ understandings of Woman Wisdom may have influenced early Jesus communities.

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two kinds of wisdom in view – a transcendent wisdom which belongs to God, and a wisdom immanent in the world that can be practised by human beings; there is a hidden kind of wisdom and an available kind.’39 The concurrently expansive and intimate presence of Woman Wisdom in texts such as the Wisdom 7.22–8.1 collapses dualistic notions of divine Wisdom and ‘earthly’ wisdom. This text emphasizes both the transcendent nature of Woman Wisdom; she is ‘emanation of the glory of the Almighty’ (7.25) and her immediacy to, and within, humanity, ‘in every generation she passes into holy souls, and makes them friends of God’ (7.27). The Second Testament texts that celebrate Jesus as Woman Wisdom continue to underscore the collapse of such dualistic thinking between the world on the one hand and the divine on the other. While it is not always recognized, this is seen within the repeated refrain that ‘all things’ hold together in Christ (e.g. 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.16; Jn 1.3).40 From the perspective of these texts, dualistic thinking that seeks to read the world and the divine as separated can have no place, for ‘all things’ are infused with, and held by, the divine. Fiddes rightly recognizes early church understandings of Jesus as Woman Wisdom and the importance of reclaiming Wisdom christology in contemporary context. However, Fiddes’ proposal that Jesus is either ‘indwelt’ by ‘some divine wisdom principle’ or Jesus is ‘perfectly attuned to the love, wisdom and glory of God’ is problematic.41 His rejection of ‘indwelling’ and preference for being ‘attuned’ gives the impression that he dismisses the possibility that some early Jesus communities understood Jesus to be Woman Wisdom incarnate. Who is to know how early Jesus communities understood Jesus to be Woman Wisdom and whether their proclamation of Jesus as Woman Wisdom implied, or in contrast, rejected, the understanding that Jesus was ‘indwelt’ by Woman Wisdom. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that understandings in early Jesus communities of how Jesus was Woman Wisdom may have been diverse.42 In recognizing that Jesus was celebrated as Woman Wisdom in early Jesus communities, a degree of openness needs to be maintained with regard to how this paradoxical proclamation of Jesus was understood in these contexts that existed prior to christological debates regarding hypostasis and ontology. To acknowledge the possibility that some early Jesus communities understood Jesus to be indwelt by, or the incarnated embodiment of, Woman Wisdom, does not necessitate a dualistic understanding of the divine, or of divine Wisdom, set in contrast with humans and human wisdom. Nor does this necessarily create a paradigm between a ‘non-wise’ humanity and the ‘all wise’ Jesus. This is because these early communities recognized Jesus-Woman Wisdom as Woman Wisdom is depicted in Hebrew traditions. The Wisdom they recognized in Jesus was not 39. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 361. 40. See Chapter 3. 41. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 389. 42. Diverse understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom may be present in the primitive baptism account in Mk 1.9-11 when compared with the Colossians hymn and John’s prologue. See Chapter 2.



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an abstract Greek, or other, philosophical construct that was ‘foreign’, ‘up there’ and thus to be obtained. This was Hebrew Woman Wisdom, the radiant one, the sharer of knowledge, the feast, and friendship, the gentle one, who was being recognized in Jesus. That is, this Wisdom was not far off and now made close in Jesus. Instead, Woman Wisdom is already intimately close to humanity for she is the one ‘who penetrates all things’ (Wis. 7.24), who ‘renews all things’ (Wis. 7.27) and who ‘passes into holy souls and makes them friends with God’ (Wis. 7.27), and she was now being recognized and experienced in Jesus, in pre- and postEaster contexts, in a vividness that was changing people’s lives. The difference in Christ was not the ‘otherness’ of a hidden Wisdom that Jesus now revealed.43 Jesus-Woman Wisdom stands in continuity with the prophets and all those who loved Woman Wisdom (e.g. Mt. 23.34-36; Lk. 11.49-52). The difference, as it were, in Jesus, is the fullness, τὸ πλήρωμα, of Woman Wisdom that was being encountered. This is a fullness not just in terms of ‘the pattern visible in the actions and words of Christ [that] is the rhythm in which the world comes to its fullness’,44 but a fullness that radiates within Jesus-Woman Wisdom, as well as in Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s actions and words, death and resurrection. Early Jesus communities testify to encountering a shimmering fullness that fills up, overflows and pours out in Christ (e.g. Col. 1.19-20; Phil. 2.7-8; Eph. 3.16-19; Jn 1.3-5, 14, 16) with profoundly liberating consequences. Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology go to the heart of Christian identity. Across early Jesus communities, in the language and imagery of Woman Wisdom, the conviction is celebrated that God is uniquely encountered in Jesus. Re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context not only embraces what is at the heart of Christian identity, this also offers an approach to salvation that acts as a focus for the gospel story in its biblical setting. This is, perhaps, most poignantly illustrated in the imagery of feasting, that is so central to both the image of Woman Wisdom in Hebrew traditions (e.g. Prov. 9.1-6; Sir. 24.17-22) and to Jesus in pre- and post-Easter contexts (e.g. Mk 2.15-17; 6.35-44; 8.1-10; 14.22-25; Mt. 11.19; 14.13-21; 15.32-39; 26.26-29; Lk. 7.34-35; 9.10-17; 22.14-23; 24.28-35; Jn 6.1-14; 21.1-14; Didache 10.3).45 Ford rightly emphasizes the priority of the feast in relation to Jesus and what this ‘feasting Jesus’ communicates about God.46 43. 1 Cor. 2.6-11 could be read to indicate an understanding of ‘far off ’ w/Wisdom now being revealed in Christ, as Paul speaks of hidden wisdom now being revealed through the Spirit. However this is to misunderstand the contrast that Paul is seeking to make in this passage between the so-called wisdom of those who have status and power in the world, ‘the rulers of the age’, and the humble, yet paradoxically powerful Wisdom of God that is revealed through the Spirit. In this passage for Paul there is dualism, but it is between the dynamic of the all-too-human ‘power over’ ways of relating, and the ‘self-giving’ power of God. 44. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 346. 45. See Chapters 2, 3 and 4. 46.  As Ford states, ‘The metaphysics of feasting is first of all about the reality of that God who transcends all our categories; then about the ‘logic of superabundance’ which might be

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To emphasize Jesus-Woman Wisdom as the sharer of the feast is not to dismiss the place of the cross in an approach to salvation that acts as a focus for the gospel story. Rather by acknowledging the priority of the feast of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in early Jesus communities, the cross is read within the context of Jesus’ life, ministry and resurrection, rather than abstracted from it. The narratives of Second Testament texts repeatedly recall that Jesus-Woman Wisdom refuses to scapegoat the ‘other’, instead Jesus-Woman Wisdom stubbornly insists on welcoming the scapegoated ‘other’ to the table. In both Luke and Matthew Jesus identifies himself with Woman Wisdom in this befriending feasting with ‘outcasts’ and states that this is central to the reason s/he is rejected (Mt. 11.19; Lk 7.34-35).47 Jesus-Woman Wisdom embodies a challenging understanding of a God who is not on the side of ‘good’ or the elite and who does not wield power to garner acquiescence. Just as early Jesus communities recognized what God was like in Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s feasting, the cross of Christ continued to communicate the nature of God, in another of the most extreme ways. The cross of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the gentle one, is not simply a lesson in self-awareness for humanity, something of a visual aid about the priority of non-violence. In Second Testament and early church texts, it is claimed that something has happened at a cosmic level because of this divinely embodied gentleness. Because of who these communities understood Jesus to be, the cosmic ‘first born’ Woman Wisdom of God, the cross was recognized as the reality of God’s ‘foolish’, vulnerable, non-retaliatory power (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.23-24; Col. 1.15-20; Phil. 2.5-8; Jn 1.10-11): a power that paradoxically un-did the strength of evil, including cosmic evil, even as it endured it (e.g. Col. 1.13). In post-Easter ‘mystical’ and ‘kinaesthetically transformative’ experiences that Jesus communities continued to share in, the truth that violence, including cosmic violence, does not have the final word was being encountered through the risen Jesus, who continued to illuminate, nourish, befriend and forgive, and thus enable Jesus communities to live into this same gentle divine dynamic (e.g. Gal. 1.3; 5.16-26; Col. 2.15).48 Re-engaging with Jesus-Woman Wisdom offers significant potential in communicating the expansive implications of Christian faith. Over the last two millennia the dominant language for the conviction that, in Jesus, God is uniquely encountered, has been that Jesus is the ‘Son’ of God. This focus on ‘Son’ language has led to unfortunate consequences. One of these consequences is that the conviction that God is uniquely encountered in Jesus can be obscured by this language. discerned in creation and history; and finally about the orientation of the divine economy that is appropriately described in, among other things, the figure of feasting’, Ford, Self, pp. 270–71, see also pp. 267–9. 47. Both the ‘scapegoated’ and the ‘scapegoaters’ are befriended (e.g. Lk. 19.1-10) thus collapsing ‘us’ and ‘them’. This pattern of boundary-breaking inclusion continues in Jesus communities in post-Easter feasting experiences in Jesus’ name (e.g. 1 Cor. 11.17-23 and Justin, 1 Apol 14). 48. See Chapters 3 and 4.



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Instead of conveying this radical claim, Jesus can be understood to be the relative of God, the divine ‘once removed’ so to speak, rather than the divine made flesh among us. By re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context and re-engaging with the language of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the radical conviction of the early church can be liberated from ‘relativism’. Another unfortunate consequence of this emphasis upon ‘Son’ language, together with Father language, has been the assumption that the gender of the divine correlates with human constructs of gender, and thus God is understood to be male. Re-recognizing early understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom and re-engaging with Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context holds fast to the conviction that in Jesus, God has been uniquely encountered, but this expression of Christian faith has the potential to be authentically far wider in its universal implications than dominant renditions of the faith. In the language of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, people of female gender, over half the world’s population, are finally recognized within the embodiment, rather than in the footnotes, of this good news of Jesus Christ. 2. Can this theology of salvation be widely accessible today, and related to imaginative, intellectual, emotional and practical concerns? The significance of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in early Jesus communities has been overlooked, perhaps, intentionally and unintentionally, for centuries. Reclaiming this theology of salvation in contemporary context has the potential to be widely accessible today. However, this process of reclamation may take time. Despite the important work of scholars such as Schüssler Fiorenza, Johnson, Wainwright, Scott and Edwards, it is curious that in numerous studies of Second Testament and early church texts in which Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom the ‘womanliness’ of Jesus-Woman Wisdom continues to be denied or downplayed. This is demonstrated in the work of Ford, as discussed above, but also, for example, in Hurtado’s discussion of Second Testament and early church cultic texts,49 and in scholarly analysis of the work of Justin and Origen.50 Others seek to continue to deny the presence of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in Second Testament texts, because of the gender of Woman Wisdom.51 Fiddes does acknowledge that Second Testament texts that speak of Jesus as Wisdom understand Jesus in relation to Hebrew Woman Wisdom.52 However he does not give adequate attention to the paradox that in these texts the male 49. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 147–8. 50. As discussed, Barnard recognizes the presence of Woman Wisdom in Justin’s thinking but chooses to neutralize and de-personalize her even as he acknowledges her presence, Barnard, Saint Justin Martyr, p 131. With regard to Origen, see Balthasar’s choice to emphasize WORD over Woman Wisdom, despite Origen identifying Jesus as Woman Wisdom, Balthasar, Origen: Spirit; Butterworth, Origen: On First. See Chapter 4. 51. For example Gathercole, Pre-existent Son, p. 202. 52. See Fiddes, Seeing, p. 343.

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Jesus is being understood in relation to this female divine.53 Fiddes does discuss Russian orthodox theology and, in particular, Bulgakov’s writing about Sophia. Here, Fiddes highlights what he sees as the ‘danger of thinking about Sophia as a “fourth hypostasis”, or “fourth person”’ in the triune God.54 This assumption reveals, among other things, Fiddes’ refusal to entertain the possibility that Jesus was (or can be) recognized as the divine person Woman Wisdom. When this understanding is taken seriously, the risk of ‘four persons’ dissolves in Jesus, who is Woman Wisdom. From this perspective there can only be ‘three persons’ in the Trinity.55 53. Fiddes acknowledges Second Testament texts that understand Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom; for example he discusses John’s prologue and rightly states: ‘Christ … is the word and light of wisdom become flesh (v. 14) so that we have seen his glory’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 363. However, he tends to create distance from her female embodiment in the way in which he describes her. This is reflected in the above citation and also, for example, as he states, ‘the complexity of divine wisdom has been contracted into a human person’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 343. For someone reading this statement who was unfamiliar with Jewish traditions about Woman Wisdom, the reality that she is personified, and personified as a woman, in this tradition is obscured. In his discussion of ‘hopeful universalism’ Fiddes does acknowledge Woman Wisdom but reveals his conviction that Jesus is superior, ‘In his obedience the Son of God has followed to the end the path that leads humanity away from God, assuming and surpassing in an extravagant way the journey of Lady Wisdom through the world’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 369. In Fiddes’ discussion of Russian Orthodox traditions of Sophia, he states, ‘The bodily nature of wisdom, even its female embodiment, was expressed poetically by the elder statesman of these theologians of Sophia, Vladimir Solov’ev’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 381 (italics added). Fiddes affirms the centrality of Wisdom christology in the concluding pages of his monograph; however, his hermeneutical preference for androcentric language predominates: ‘The activity and relations of the man Jesus are indirectly identical with wisdom, because the movement of his “sonship” occupies space within the “field of force” in God which is wisdom … and occupies it so well that Christ’s life, death and exaltation become the means for all human participation in God’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 390 (italics original). 54. Fiddes argues that: ‘this problem arises because Bulgakov thinks of the three divine hypostases, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as “persons” in the sense of being personal subjects, selves or agents. When Sophia is regarded as personal, it seems that she must have the same kind of identity (at least “in the image of a hypostasis”), and so we end up with danger of four persons’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 385 (brackets original). 55. In contrast, Fiddes proposes the following: ‘I have been arguing throughout this study for an understanding of persons in the Trinity as movements of reciprocal relationship rather than subjects’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 385. Fiddes’ desire to have ‘movements of reciprocal relationship’ rather than ‘persons’ within the Trinity gives inadequate attention to the testimony of early Jesus communities. Early Jesus communities recounted and celebrated the experiences of encountering Christ, through the Spirit, and of thus experiencing ‘kinaesthetic transformation’: inner illumination, nourishment and befriending, with a personal God. The ignition point for many Jesus communities was personal encounter with



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Beyond labels of ‘feminist’ or ‘anti-feminist’ these early texts provoke audiences to engage with a living paradox: that the female divine Woman Wisdom was recognized in the male earthly Jesus. It is in taking seriously these convictions of early Jesus communities that divine Woman Wisdom had made camp among them in the human person Jesus (e.g. Jn 1.14), that a widely accessible (and wildly accessible) understanding of salvation is offered. Most obviously, but not exclusively, re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom immediately opens up the question of the gender of the divine.56 Taking seriously the early church’s provocative proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom disrupts androcentric assumptions about the divine, both within, and beyond, the church. As Johnson states, ‘This leads to the realization that as Sophia incarnate Jesus, even in his human maleness, can be thought to be revelatory of the graciousness of God imaged as female … The creative, redeeming paradox of Jesus-Sophia points the way to a liberating, unified diversity.’57 Edwards reflects on this early Christian understanding of JesusWoman Wisdom, and, affirming Johnson’s insights states, ‘This has the effect of breaking the stranglehold of androcentric thinking and points to the God-with-us in Jesus as beyond male and female, but inclusive of both.’58 Re-recognizing JesusWoman Wisdom may alienate those who are comfortable within the current Christian context in which male imagery for God largely remains the norm. However for those within, and beyond, the church who are disenchanted with the current androcentric context, re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom makes the good news of Jesus infinitely more accessible. The significance of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom is not limited to issues of gender. Re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom is related to a wide array of intellectual, emotional and practical concerns. Perhaps at their core is the issue of apologetics. In the contemporary West, many assume they know what Christianity is about, and are confident that it holds little in the way of meaning or relevance in their own lives. This is exemplified on the popular level by Richard Dawkins, who summarizes, and enthusiastically rejects, what he understands to be the core of Christian faith: this personal God. While such claimed experiences may appear unsophisticated in the light of later complex debates regarding being, person and subject, at the least, these testimonies need to be acknowledged within discussion of contemporary Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. 56. This is not to suggest that a primary focus in early Jesus communities was the overturning of assumptions about the gender of God. The divine ‘gender’ issue may not have been significant in this context in which Jesus communities were surrounded by a variety of female deities. As consistently argued, the impetus for this proclamation derived from collective experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in early Jesus communities. The significance of these experiences overtook (assumed) concerns about the priority for a male God and the male gender of Jesus. 57. Johnson, She Who Is, p. 165. 58. Edwards, Ecology, p. 57. For further discussion see Johnson, ‘Jesus, the Wisdom’, pp. 276–94; Wainwright, Shall We Look, pp. 82–3, 119–20; Deane-Drummond, Creation, p. 134.

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But now to the sado-masochism. God incarnated himself as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be tortured and executed in atonement for the hereditary sin of Adam … I have described the atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity.59

Contemporary understandings of Christian faith, both within and beyond the church, are often merged with simplistic notions of divine reward and punishment systems, accompanied by images of an elderly, bearded man on a cloud (in Dawkins’s appraisal demanding blood). These images bear closer resemblance to secular ditties about Santa than to the God of Jesus proclaimed in early Jesus communities. However their dominance persists. Re-recognizing JesusWoman Wisdom in contemporary context challenges the easy assumption that Christianity is already known, and found to be wanting, and confronts simplistic renditions of Christian faith with the grace and gratuity of the one who infuses ‘all things’ with light and life (e.g. Jn 1.1-5; 1 Cor. 8.6; Col 1.15-17) and prepares the feast for all, especially those who have not been ‘good’. To re-engage seriously with Jesus-Woman Wisdom requires imaginative openness, and intellectual investigation, both of ancient texts and their contemporary implications. Intellectual presumptions about the divine are broken open when ancient understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom are taken seriously and a myriad of practical and emotional implications will result from this re-engagement, including the ways in which people conduct their day-to-day relationships. Ford points to some of these implications as he reflects on Jesus’ feasting as the central expression of Christian faith: The combination of sharing and celebrating is, perhaps, the most radical of all the implications of the teaching and practice of Jesus. Feeding the hungry is not a matter of the well-fed offering handouts and getting on with their private feasting: the vision is of everyone around the same table, face to face. Even to imagine sitting together like that gently but inexorably exposes injustice, exploitation, sexism, hardheartedness, and the multiple ways of rejecting the appeal in the face of the other.60

When the face of the host of this feast is actually recognized as the face of JesusWoman Wisdom, the ‘injustice, exploitation, sexism, hardheartedness, and the multiple way of rejecting the appeal in the face of other’ are exposed, in the worldwide church and in the wider community, in a way that goes to the marrow of our collective being. It is Jesus-Woman Wisdom who offers the feast and it is s/he who challenges us to see ourselves, and one another, through her compassionate gaze and thus to make space at the table for all. 59. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006), pp. 252–3 (italics original). 60. Ford, Self, p. 269.



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3. Is it possible to focus on self and salvation through a few symbols, images or metaphors, or even one which is primary? A theology of salvation needs intensity and gripping power. The emphasis upon visual communication in contemporary context challenges those who seek to offer an accessible articulation of Christian faith to take this medium seriously. Ford acknowledges the risks inherent in having images of Christ.61 However, he argues for the potential place of ‘inspired representations of the face of Jesus Christ’ within the context of worship: ‘It is by no means necessary that these media explicitly render a face identifiable as his … Yet it should also not be ruled out that such media might serve worship more directly, and that one of the expressions of that service might be through inspired representations of the face of Jesus Christ.’62 While it may be acknowledged by some that God is beyond gender, the dominance of male imagery for God in Western culture has fuelled the popular assumption that God is actually male. Artwork that images the divine in ways that challenge gender confines is an important corrective. Within this context, re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary visual imagery offers an understanding of salvation with both intensity and gripping power.63 The context of worship and theology is of key significance here. While in the art world images of a female Jesus may at times be created in order to shock or garner attention, images that spring from ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology and that arise for, and from, the context of worship may have the power to awaken, engage and invite the viewer into reassessment, and deeper contemplation, of who God is and how God relates to humanity and to ‘all things’. In her discussion of the Trinity, Sarah Coakley rightly underscores the powerful place of art in Christian theology: there is a revelatory irreducibility about visual symbolism that will not simply translate without remainder into the verbal. “The symbol gives rise to thought”, as Paul Ricoeur’s memorable slogan reminds us … art does not simply illustrate a doctrine as a kind of anodyne teaching aid for something already settled 61. Ford sketches the suspicion within the history of Hebrew and Christian traditions regarding the place of visual images in faith communities, including images of Jesus, Ford, Self, pp. 181–4. Ford is also alert to the risk of ‘imperialism’, in which one image of the face of Christ is given precedence over others. However Ford counters this objection, arguing that, ‘an abundance of representations might be as effective a safeguard against “fixing” this face in one interpretation or one period as is the attempted rejection of all representations’, Ford, Self, p. 183. 62. Ford, Self, p. 183. 63. Deane-Drummond discusses the importance of imagery of Jesus-Woman Wisdom and argues that ‘the feminine serves to transform images of God as father and Jesus as Son and even the Spirit as neutral or male … it allows feminine imagery to be incorporated into God as Trinity in a way that serves to present a richer, fuller and more holistic understanding of the nature of who God is’, Deane-Drummond, Creation, p. 134.

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theologically elsewhere. No, theological art at its best can enable – in a way that on this supposition only the arts can – doctrine’s creative new expression, animus, and efficacy.64

Such an artwork that gives creative expression to ancient understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, and that speaks with intensity and gripping power, is one made by Janet McKenzie. The piece is entitled Jesus of the People (Figure 1.1) and was the 2000 winner of the US National Catholic Reporter’s competition for a new image of Jesus.65 This image presents Jesus as man, but the model for the painting was a woman, thus the image holds something of both male and female energy within its embodiment of Christ. This painting of Christ simultaneously challenges assumptions about race, gender and the divine.66 The level of response that McKenzie has received, both positively and negatively, indicates the power of such imagery. While visual imagery of a female Jesus may be confronting for some in contemporary context, it is not without precedent. As examined by Caroline Walker Bynum, in the medieval period understandings of Jesus as mother were not isolated.67 Walker Bynum argues that these understandings were significant in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. She also demonstrates that while this imagery is evidenced in the work of theologian Julian of Norwich, this imagery of Jesus as mother was not only utilized by women.68 In contrast, ‘The first flourishing of this image after the patristic period, however, appears to have come in the twelth 64. Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 191 (italics original). Coakley quotes Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 347–57. 65.  This prize was judged by Sister Wendy Beckett see: http://www.janetmckenzie.com/ joppage1.html (accessed 12 July 2014). 66.  Writing in the mid-1990s Schüssler Fiorenza identified that feminist theology had not adequately addressed or acknowledged the ‘Gestalt of a black Divine Woman nor reflected on the implications of this for Christian sophialogy and self-understanding’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 162 (italics original). Schüssler Fiorenza makes this comment drawing from her assumption that Woman Wisdom was reliant upon Egyptian Wisdom theology of Isis-Sophia. Regardless of Woman Wisdom’s origins Schüssler Fiorenza rightly identifies the need to take seriously black images of JesusWoman Wisdom. A paragraph later Schüssler Fiorenza states, ‘Feminist theology must rearticulate the symbols, images, and names of Divine Sophia in the context of our own experiences and theological struggles in such a way that the ossified and absolutized masculine language about G*d and Christ is radically questioned and undermined and the Western cultural sex/gender system is radically deconstructed’, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, Miriam’s, p. 162. Jesus of the People offers an example of such a rearticulated symbol. 67. Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 110–69. 68. Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 111.



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Figure 1.1  Jesus of the People. ©1999. Janet McKenzie Vermont, USA www.janetmckenzie.com

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century in the works of men’,69 including the Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux (1153) and the Benedictine, Anselm of Canterbury (1109).70 As discussed by Walker Bynum, Anselm ‘describes the consoling, nurturing Jesus as a hen gathering her chicks under her wing (Mt. 23.37) and suggests that mother Jesus revives the soul at her breast’.71 Visual imagery of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context not only offers potentially gripping power but also, as Coakley indicates, such imagery offers a surplus of meaning and theological insight.72 Another ancient symbol within the church may provide further potential richness in relation to images of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. Extant evidence reveals that a predominant image in the early church was the stuff of Jesus’ pre- and post-Easter feasts: the imagery of bread and fish.73 This imagery of bread and fish reflexively speaks of Jesus’ miraculous feasting, both on the mountains with the multitudes (Mk 6.35-44; 8.1-10; Mt. 14.13-21; 15.32-39; Lk. 9.10-17; Jn 6.1-14;) and of post-Easter encounters with the risen Jesus (Lk. 24.42-43; Jn 21.1-14).74 As established, central to early recognition of Jesus as Woman Wisdom in Jesus communities was the experience of such remembered feasts and of continuing to be filled and nourished through the Spirit in gathering and feasting in Jesus’ name (e.g. Didache 10.1-2).75 Re-engaging with these ancient symbols of bread and fish, together with images of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the host of this feast, could present potent images for understandings of salvation that connect with ancient Christian symbolism. Interestingly, in the seventeenth-century Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio painted The Supper at Emmaus (1601) that presents an image of the risen Jesus with a ‘womanly’ face, presiding over a feast of bread, fruit and meat. Images of Jesus-Woman Wisdom presiding over a feast that include ancient 69. Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 111–12. 70. Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother, pp. 111–12. 71.  Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother, p. 113. See Anselm, prayer to St Paul, Opera Omnia 3.33 and 39–41. 72. Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 191. 73. As Robin Jensen states, ‘The fish is one of the earliest and most distinctive of Christian figures. …’, Robin Jensen Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), p. 70. Jensen also states, ‘Fish also show up frequently in meal iconography, with bread and wine’, Such imagery is evidenced in the depiction of fish and loaves together in the third-century Catacomb of Callixtus, Rome, Jensen, Baptismal Imagery, pp. 74–5. See also Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 237. 74. As Jensen states: ‘The ancient inclusion of fish in images of sacred meals or funeral banquets is a sign of its significance. Christ ate fish with the disciples at postresurrection meals, and it is possible that later meals of fish, bread, and wine (perhaps at funeral banquets) carried an eschatological significance the fish symbolised the risen Lord’, Jensen, Baptismal Imagery, pp. 70–1. 75. See Chapters 2 and 3.



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Figure 1.2  Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus (1601) © The National Gallery, London. Presented by the Hon. George Vernon, 1839

symbolic elements of fish and bread could give vivid expression to Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in contemporary context. Engaging with early church understandings of Jesus-Woman Wisdom and medieval imagery of Jesus as mother, offers further potentially gripping imagery of Jesus-Woman. The language of 1 Peter 2.2-3 and Thomas 22 ignite the possibility of images of a breastfeeding Jesus-Woman Wisdom.76 In 1 Peter the audience is encouraged to long to drink Christ’s breastmilk, ‘the pure spiritual milk’ in order to ‘grow into salvation’ (2.2). The Thomasine Jesus states that to enter the kingdom is to become like a breastfeeding infant (22). Again, I am not speaking of images created in order to shock or to disturb, but rather of images of Jesus-Woman Wisdom that emerge from theology and from, and for, the context of worship. An image of Jesus-Woman Wisdom as breastfeeding mother with her baby, that emerges from this context, could have significant intensity, untold gripping power and be a witness, calling the viewer, or pray-er, into deeper contemplation of what it is to accept Jesus’ invitation to come and find rest (Mt. 11.28-29) and to become like a child in order to enter the kingdom (e.g. Mk 10.15; Mt. 18.2-3; Lk. 18.15-17; Thomas 22).77 76. See Chapters 3 and 4. 77. Despite Ford’s non-articulation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, in Self, Ford includes a poem by Saint Ephrem the Syrian, in which Woman Wisdom is celebrated, ‘but if it be joy,

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Figure 1.3  Crucifixion, Shoalhaven (1979–80) Arthur Boyd Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of the Bundanon Trust

This discussion of the potent richness and power of visual imagery of JesusWoman is concluded with a painting of the crucifixion made by Arthur Boyd, in that inebriates and sustains, how greatly will the soul be sustained on the waves of joy as its faculties suck the breast of wisdom’, Ford, Self, p. 27. Ford describes Saint Ephrem, who died in 373, as ‘perhaps the greatest theologian poet before Dante’, Ford, Self, p. 25. See Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, Introduction and translation by Sebastian Brock (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), Hymn IX, pp. 138ff. Jensen discusses other early church references to breastfeeding from Christ, including within the work of Clement of Alexandria. Clement addresses Christ as follows, ‘heavenly milk pressed from the sweet breasts of the bride, gracious gifts of your wisdom’, Paed., Hymn 40–50. Jensen also points out that Origen refers to breastfeeding from Christ in his comments regarding Mt. 18.10; Origen, Comm Matthew 13.27, Jensen, Baptismal Imagery, pp. 122–6.



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1979–80. Set in the river of the Australian bush, a female Jesus hangs from the cross. As Kim Power states this ‘full figured’ female Christ is ‘hinting at fecundity’.78 As excavated in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, the Wisdom soteriology of Second Testament and early church texts understands and celebrates the cross of Jesus as embodying the gentle and non-retaliatory suffering of the divine that, paradoxically, births new life and liberation (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.23-25; Col. 1.13-20).79 In light of this Wisdom soteriology, Boyd’s image of the (possibly pregnant) female Jesus on the cross shimmers with potency.80 4a. How conceptually rich is this understanding of salvation? Can the work’s concepts help in interpreting the bible, tradition and life as a whole, in relating the range of doctrines to salvation, and in linking various fields of study to this topic? Because Wisdom soteriology does not fit the patterns of later soteriologies, it is often overlooked. When it is acknowledged, at times it is assumed that Wisdom soteriology is primarily pedagogical.81 However, as elaborated over the previous chapters, this is not the case. The starting point of Wisdom soteriology in the early church is Wisdom christology. This may appear obvious; however, this stands in contrast to the development of many other soteriologies in which the intellectual establishment of a ‘problem’ is the starting point, into which Jesus, or perhaps the cross of Jesus, is retrofitted as the solution.82 In contrast, within early Jesus communities the ignition point of this conceptually rich understanding of salvation was transformative encounter with, and in the name of, Jesus in preand post-Easter contexts. This understanding of salvation was not predicated upon presuppositions about ‘original sin’, ‘fallen’ humanity, or a depraved earth. 78. Kim Power ‘Embodying the Eucharist’, Reinterpreting the Eucharist: Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics, ed. Anne Elvey et al. (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2013), p. 174. 79. As Johnson states, ‘Christ crucified and risen, the Wisdom of God, manifests the truth that divine justice and renewing power leavens the world in a way different from the techniques of dominating violence’, Johnson, She Who Is, p. 159. 80. As Johnson states in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom, ‘As such, the cross is part of the larger mystery of pain-to-life, of that struggle for the new creation evocative of the rhythm of pregnancy, delivery, and birth so familiar to women of all times’, Johnson, She Who Is, p. 159. 81. For example see Barnard’s discussion of Justin, Barnard, Saint Justin, p. 132. Ford appears to suggest this, ‘Jesus embodies a God-centered, prophetic wisdom and love in which we are invited to participate by learning it and embodying it’, Ford, Christian Wisdom, p. 190. 82.  E. P. Sanders rightly points out that Paul’s own starting point was his experience and conviction that Jesus saves. For scholars to assume that Paul began with an anthropological problem that needed a solution, and then to impose a particular problem upon Paul’s writing, is to misunderstand Paul’s priorities, E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1981), pp. 442–6.

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Nor were these understandings of salvation limited to hopes regarding life after death, though convictions about life beyond this life were part of the fabric of their faith story, as reflected in the lives and deaths of early martyrs. In various Second Testament and early church texts, Jesus communities celebrated that they were now receiving a new life in the Spirit, through Jesus-Woman Wisdom: they were inwardly experiencing ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ as they were being illuminated, nourished and befriended by none other than a gentle, non-retaliatory God. These communities were celebrating the experience of a ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology, through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, that was enabling them to live in entirely new ways of being in their relationships with God, themselves, others, and in particular, those who were formally the ‘enemy other’. This ancient soteriology does not provide a ready-made cure-all for contemporary understandings of salvation. Instead, re-engaging with this ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology has the potential to expand the parameters of exploration. Wisdom soteriology and Wisdom christology enable the bible, tradition and life as a whole to be interpreted with, simultaneously, ancient and fresh eyes. Re-engaging with this understanding allows First, intertestamental and Second Testament texts to be read together, and also takes seriously the ongoing witness of earliest, extant expressions of Christian faith. One of the implications of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context is that because of whom Wisdom christology understands Jesus to be, Wisdom soteriology challenges both those who seek to dismiss the place of the cross in theology, as well as those who only understand the cross in relation to forms of ‘atonement’ theology. From the perspective of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology it is more than God’s agent who gently goes to the cross; it is the one in whom the ‘fullness of God was pleased to dwell’ (Col. 1.19). The cross of Jesus is the living and dying evidence of the gentleness – and foolishness – of God, evidence that arises at the pointed end of human collective violence (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.23-25).83 As a consequence of this, early Jesus communities understood God very differently and also understood themselves very differently, as being called to live into the self-same radical gentleness of God.84 Implications for life and tradition flow from this early understanding of God and of salvation and provide an important source for contemporary understandings of soteriology, non-retaliation, apologetics, peacemaking and discipleship. 4b. Can these concepts have heuristic value, inspiring a diversity of investigations and discussions, acting as a framework for creativity, encouraging a new look at familiar problems, ambiguities and dilemmas, and opening fresh lines of dialogue with other soteriologies? Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology offer a surplus of heuristic value. From the perspective of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology the 83. Edwards, Ecology, p. 42. 84. For example 1 Clement 49.1-6. See Chapters 3 and 4, and below, for further discussion.



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goodness of creation is underscored: ‘all things’ are held together by, and in, Jesus-Woman Wisdom (e.g. Col. 1.16; 1 Cor. 8.6; Eph. 1.22-23; Heb. 1.3; Jn 1.3). Reflecting on the implications of this Edwards states, ‘Everything in the universe is transfigured in Christ-Wisdom, the icon of the invisible God.’85 Re-recognizing these audacious claims has potent relevancy in contemporary context. In particular this ancient Wisdom understanding of salvation speaks into contemporary discussions of climate change, and care for the earth. If all things are held and infused by Jesus-Woman Wisdom, in some mysterious way, the imperative to care for all things; water ways, endangered species, bugs, and to take seriously issues such as resource consumption and global wealth distribution, sit alongside the imperative to care for one’s human neighbour.86 As Edwards rightly argues: ‘To follow Jesus-Wisdom is to see every sparrow as held and loved by God. It is also to see every sparrow and every great soaring tree as created in the Wisdom of God that is made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.’87 This conviction that all things are held together by, and in, Jesus-Woman Wisdom also injects a note of hope into climate change debate, for this conviction reminds, and challenges, contemporary faith communities with the claim that the divine is present and moving within all, to energize, re-birth and renew.88 As discussed above, early convictions about Jesus-Woman Wisdom necessitate reassessment of assumptions, both latent and explicit, about the gender of God and about decisions regarding appropriate leadership within the life of the church that are based on the priority of people of the male gender. The fruit of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in the fields of gender studies, theology and church is already evidenced in the work of scholars including Schüssler Fiorenza, Johnson and Wainwright.89 Inclusive worship leadership will be discussed further below. While Ford and Fiddes do not sufficiently acknowledge the presence of Woman Wisdom within Second Testament and early church Wisdom christology and 85. Edwards, Ecology, p. 56 (italics original). 86.  Deane-Drummond explores implications of Wisdom theology in relation to ecology and science, Deane-Drummond, Creation, pp. 137–52, 226–48. She discusses Ford’s ‘facing’ and rightly states that this ‘facing’ includes ‘a wider concern for the whole created order, including the memory of those others now captured in the evolutionary record’, DeaneDrummond, Christ and Evolution, p. 279. 87. Edwards, Ecology, p. 110. Edwards states, ‘The God of radical compassion revealed in Jesus can be understood as a God who knows each creature’s experience, delights in each, suffers with each, and embraces each in love’, Edwards, Ecology, pp. 94–5. 88. See also Edwards, Ecology, p. 109. Edwards discusses the key markers of a contemporary ‘mysticism of ecological practice’ that includes both action and hope, Edwards, Ecology, pp. 115–18, see also: pp. 52–60, 82–123 and Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom, pp. 69–87. Deane-Drummond discusses ‘theodrama’ as a metaphor that seeks to honour the freedom of ‘creatures’ but also that God is working in creation, Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution, pp. 49–50, 281–3. 89. See for example, Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s, pp. 131–90, Johnson, She Who Is, pp. 150–69, Wainwright, Shall We Look, pp. 67–100.

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Wisdom soteriology, they do still utilize Wisdom christology in order to offer new approaches to soteriology in contemporary context.90 Among other things, for Ford this means a reinvestigation of Christian faith within a multi-faith context.91 Fiddes draws from Wisdom christology to reflect on learning and pedagogy within the university setting, and how this may be transformed so as not to simply retain, and replicate, dominant power structures.92 Furthermore, the Girardian interpretation of the ‘parable’ of the righteous man in Wisdom and in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom, offered in Chapter 3, seeks to open dialogue about fresh understandings of the cross and cosmic forces through Wisdom soteriology.93 Wisdom soteriology is a ‘realized’ soteriology. While each of the areas referred to above has significant implications, it is perhaps this that deserves the most attention in contemporary context, for it appears to have received the least attention in scholarly circles to date. In Second Testament and early church texts various groups celebrated that they were experiencing God, and thus their own lives, differently through the Spirit in Jesus-Woman Wisdom. In the West the place of experience in much of the church has been considered suspicious, or at the 90. Ford, Self, pp. 107–215. Here Ford explores the ‘implications of a life trusting that reality is in fact in the hands of a God who is shockingly hospitable to all’ and that: ‘To live before this face is to be challenged by an embodiment of non-coercive power whose principles are articulated in his teaching’, Ford, Self, pp. 185–6. Here Ford comes close to a Girardian reading of the cross. Also Fiddes, Seeing, pp. 342–69. 91. Ford poses the following challenge, ‘Christians need to try to imagine what the implications might be of Jesus being guest as well as host in relation to Mohammed, the Buddha and other founders and their followers. What might be involved in hospitality between religious communities that might give substance to such imaginings? What are the appropriate anticipations of the feasting of the Kingdom of God? What ethic of communication of the gospel is in line with the face on the cross? How can conversations engaging with crucial matters of meaning, truth and practice be sustained? What new shapes of Christian and other communities might there be if imaginative hospitality helped to generate honest confrontations and new understandings? Where do Christians fall into the temptation of being less generously welcoming than God? How can they come to realise their Christian self ‘as another’– Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist or whatever? And what happens if guests become friends?’. Ford, Self, p. 270. See also Ford, Christian Wisdom, pp. 273–393. 92. Fiddes states: ‘A major concern of late-modern approaches to pedagogy is to resist the reduction of education to making either teacher or pupil a mere master of information (the “representative” approach), who simply reinforces the structures and boundaries of power in the institutions of learning. A related concern is the formation of a person through the process of learning, whose “care of self ” includes sensitivity to others. These are aims we have seen to be reflected, in their own way, in the urging of ancient wisdom towards relation with wisdom (hokmah) herself, and then in the New Testament towards relation with Christ. All this also has affinities with the traditional Christian understanding of wisdom (sophia)’. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 365, see also pp. 345–69. 93. See also my article: ‘De-coding Evil Angels’.



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least, irrelevant, to theological engagement for centuries. While re-engaging with Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in contemporary context challenges understandings of gender, the divine, the cross, the earth, our multi-faith global context, approaches to pedagogy and cosmic forces, this understanding of salvation also invites re-engagement with the place of experience in contemporary christology, soteriology and discipleship. 5. Does this theology have practical promise of fruitfulness in the three main dynamics of Christian living: worship and prayer; living and learning in community; and speech, action and suffering for justice, freedom, peace, goodness and truth? Re-engaging with Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, as expressed in early Jesus communities, has the potential to make fruitful contributions within the dynamics of Christian living. In the context of worship and prayer, early texts claim that people were encountering the radiance of the risen Christ, and intimacy with the Spirit, within their hearts, and this was vivifying and transforming them for justice and hospitality, personally and collectively. While these ancient convictions about ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ may be unsettling, these claims challenge contemporary bias against religious experience and challenge contemporary expressions of Christian worship and prayer especially when these no longer expect, encourage or create space, for such transformative experiences.94 Coakley investigates the significance of spiritual experiences in the early church and rightly highlights how these experiences contributed to emerging trinitarian understanding.95 Reflecting on Romans 8.18-21, Coakley states: What this underscores is the extraordinary ripple effect of prayer in the Spirit 94. For discussion of bias against religious experience see Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 65–70, Shantz, Ecstasy, pp. 20–66. This is (surprisingly) evident in a recent article by Coakley that explores experiential liturgical ‘knowing’ in worshipping communities. Sarah Coakley ‘Beyond Belief’, The Vocation of Theology Today: A Festschrift for David Ford, ed. Tom Greggs, Rachel Muers and Simon Zahl (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), pp. 131–45. Within this article Coakley dialogues with William Alston’s work Perceiving God, arguing that Alston’s emphasis upon ‘unmediated experiences’ of God: ‘implicitly valorizes thereby a Jamesian reading of “religious experience” which is sporadic, elevated, and supposedly self-authenticating.’ Coakley, ‘Beyond Belief’, p. 135. She goes on to describe this as the ‘zapping’ factor, Coakley, ‘Beyond Belief’, p. 135. This amusing, but belittling, phrase sits ill at ease with Paul’s claims that Jesus communities are directly experiencing new life, in Christ, through the Spirit (e.g. Eph. 3.16-21; Gal. 5.16-25; 1 Cor. 2.7-13; Chs 13–14; 2 Cor. 3.18; 4.5-6; 2 Cor. 12.2-10; Rom. 8.9-17); see also the claims of other Jesus communities (e.g. 1 Clement 36.2; Didache 4.1; 10.1-3). Bias against ‘mystical’ or ‘unmediated experiences’ is also seen in Ford’s work, even though he engages with the mystical in his extended discussion of Thérèse of Lisieux, Ford, Self, pp. 216–40, see also p. 118. 95. Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 120.

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– its inexorably social and even cosmic significance as an act of cooperation with, and incorporation into, the still extending life of the incarnation. It gives the lie, by implication, to any falsely “privatized” or “subjectivized” associations of prayer with mere self-cultivation which may have accrued in the modern period.96

Coakley rightly indicates that a contributing factor in contemporary bias against religious experience is the assumption that personal experiences of God are, by their nature, individualistic, self-absorbed and/or pietistic.97 However, this assumption is unfounded, as the evidence reveals that such experiences were very often collective (e.g. 1 Cor. 2.12-13; 2 Cor. 3.18-4.6; Eph. 3.14-21; 1 Clement 36; Didache 9.2-3; 10.2-3); and that these claimed experiences were transformative, and in turn, were enabling Jesus communities to live into radically new, inclusive and hospitable ways (e.g. 1 Cor. 12.1-13.7; Eph. 2.13-21; Col. 3.12-17; Gal. 3.27-29; 5.1–6.1; Rom. 12.1-21, 1 Clement 49.1–50.1).98 Experiences of worship and prayer began to change in the second and third centuries.99 The understanding in earliest Jesus communities that divine knowledge and illumination were given to the diversity of people in the Jesus community by the Spirit began to be replaced with understandings of ‘right’ knowledge that could only be accessed and taught by certain men in the ‘right’ ecclesial positions. Home-based eucharist meals that gathered formerly disparate people to share in Jesus’ hospitality, became increasingly contracted while an abundance of rules multiplied regarding who could preside, assist, speak and distribute the eucharist elements. This contracted and codified practice of worship continued to dominate across the worldwide church for centuries. While at various times, and in various places, experience has again risen as a priority in Christian communities, it was perhaps not until the twentieth century that the place of experience, including ecstatic or ‘mystical’ worship experiences, rose in prominence across denominational and ethnic divides in the form of the Pentecostal movement.

96. Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 114. Coakley goes on to highlight that ‘the use of the “birth pangs” metaphor by Paul for this whole unfolding event of cosmic gestation “genders” the picture of prayer in a striking way, figuring the entire Christic event as the groanings of a woman in labour (Rom. 8.22-23)’. Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 114. In view of Paul’s Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, examined in Chapters 2 and 3, this female imagery in relation to prayer and ‘kinaesthetic’ and cosmic transformation, invites further exploration. 97. Shantz also rightly observes, ‘In the first half of the twentieth century, mysticism was frequently portrayed as devoid of ethical content and as mere sentimentality’, Shantz, Ecstasy, p. 27. 98. See Chapters 3 and 4. Interestingly, Coakley discusses sociological research regarding contemporary ‘cults’ and ‘mystical’ groups and states, ‘The “mystic” type does not withdraw [from society] but more commonly disturbs and galvanizes the more settled patterns of its surroundings, whatever they may be’, Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 161. 99. See Chapter 4.



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Ford and Hardy summarize this movement,100 and acknowledge that it is open to corruption: ‘As always, the power of the real thing is paralleled by awful examples of what its imitations and perversions can do.’101 However, they argue that at its best: What is offered is not an alternative to word and sacrament but a new life and power to both of these, with an atmosphere that actualizes the “logic of over-flow” in various ways: in the expectation that God will act and speak, in the freedom to express adoration in a wide range of bodily as well as verbal behaviour … and in the exercise of various gifts.102

The language of an ‘actualized logic of overflow’ comes close to the experience that various Second Testament and early church communities write of in their celebration of Jesus as Woman Wisdom. While the influence of the Pentecostal movement is clear, it has been countered by rejection and dismissal in many parts of the church. Ironically, this movement has likely reinforced suspicion and rejection of the place of experience in the wider context of Christian worship and prayer. I am neither promoting nor dismissing the contemporary Pentecostal movement. Its significance as one expression of the reclamation of experience of, and encounter with, the divine in contemporary context is simply being acknowledged.103 While, perhaps, not as obvious at first sight, there are also other ways in which the priority of experience in collective worship and prayer is being regained in the worldwide church. Re-engagement with Christian contemplation and meditation practices across ecumenical divides is one such example.104 This is seen 100. Ford and Hardy state, ‘Since 1906 the movement is estimated to have grown to over two hundred and fifty million world-wide, and from the 1950’s has had an increasing influence on other major Churches, notably the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist’, David Ford and Daniel Hardy Living in Praise: Worshipping and Knowing God (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005), p. 24. 101. Ford and Hardy, Living in Praise, p. 26. 102. Ford and Hardy, Living in Praise, p. 25. 103. Ford and Hardy identify a two-fold challenge, ‘For Pentecostals it is the same as that facing the early Church: a choice between conversion in depth, which inevitably means tackling the intellectual and scientific questions; or remaining an enthusiastic sect, however large. For other Christians the challenge is about their expectation of God, their willingness to risk having such things happen, and also their openness to conceiving God appropriately’, Ford and Hardy, Living in Praise, p. 87. For an insightful investigation of aspects of theology in Pentecostalism, see Coakley’s discussion of her research with members of charismatic groups in relation to their understandings, and experiences, of the Trinity, Coakley, God, Sexuality, pp. 163–89. 104. For further discussion of the contemplative in contemporary context, see Thomas Keating Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Path (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002); William Johnston Mystical

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in the re-awakening of practices such as Lectio Divina,105 and Ignatius of Loyola’s imaginative ‘composition of place’,106 as well as the prayer mantras of the World Community for Christian Mediation.107 The growing use of the chants of the Taizé community and the rise in popularity of Labyrinth walks both speak of contemplative practices in which voices and bodies are included in the gathering up of the whole self before God in attentiveness. At the core of these diverse contemplative practices is the trust that the God of Jesus Christ actually communicates in love and healing, through the Spirit, which is why becoming still and listening are integral.108 Second Testament and early church claimed experiences of JesusWoman Wisdom – of experiencing illuminating divine knowledge, spiritual filling and befriending with God – are important components of such contemporary contemplative practices that draw people into union with the divine.109 Theology: The Science of Love (London: HarperCollins, 1995). Ford and Hardy discuss the contemplative silence of Quakers, Ford and Hardy, Living in Praise, pp. 27–8. 105. See Mary Margaret Funk for an introduction to this ancient practice recommended by Saint Benedict in the fifth century, Mary Margaret Funk, Lectio Matters: Before the Burning Bush, Through the Revelatory Texts of Scripture, Nature and Experience (New York: Continuum Books, 2010). Within this text Funk summarizes Lectio accordingly and in doing so emphasizes the role of inner experience of God, ‘Lectio Divina is a sustained immersion into a revelatory text. Lectio Divina is an encounter with God … This encounter with God is to listen with the ear of your heart’, Funk, Lectio Matters, p. 3. Funk goes on to describe this encounter in ways that have strong resonances with the ways in which early Jesus communities described their experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s illumination, ‘This way of personal prayer becomes our way of life, a culture of God consciousness. This method depends on the Holy Spirit enlightening our minds and filling our hearts with desire’, Funk, Lectio Matters, p. 4. 106. As Ignatius states, ‘the composition consists in seeing through the gaze of the imagination’. Saint Ignatius of Loyola Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters, The Spiritual Exercises, trans. Joseph Munitiz and Philip Endean (London: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 294, see also pp. 295–6. 107.  For an introduction see, John Main, Essential Writings: Selected with an Introduction by Lawrence Freeman, Modern Spiritual Masters Series (New York: Orbis Books, 2003). 108. Coakley discusses the priority of contemplative prayer as the place of transformation, ‘In the “impossibility” of the prayer of contemplation, in which the Spirit cracks open the human heart to this new future, divine desire purgatively reformulates human desire. It follows that all the other problems of power, sex, and gender with which contemporary theory struggles so notably cannot be solved, I dare to say – whether by human political power, violent fiat, or even subversive deviousness or ritualized revolt – without such prior surrender to the divine’. Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 59. While using exclusive language, John Main, similarly emphasizes the priority of contemplation. Main, Essential Writings, p. 167. 109. Main writes of the contemplative, ‘The experience of prayer is the experience of coming into full union with the energy that created the universe. What Christianity had to proclaim to the world is that that energy is love and it is the wellspring that gives each one



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Ford and Hardy suggest that in the integration of ‘spontaneity’ and ‘silence’ (or perhaps it could be said, the charismatic and the contemplative) ‘immense possibilities’ will unfold.110 Coakley’s research into charismatic congregations identifies that contemplative aspects of experiential prayer resided within the prayer lives of those she interviewed.111 This was the case even though many of those interviewed would not have articulated their prayer in such a way.112 Celtic Christian spirituality, which has experienced something of a renewal in recent decades, offers an expression of worship and prayer within, not excluded from, the context of experience and which holds both the ‘spontaneous’ and the ‘contemplative’. Twee versions of Celtic Christianity can predominate. However, the evidence of ancient Celtic prayers in the Carmina Gardelica reveals the pervading sense of God’s immediacy.113 Interestingly, various aspects of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology, discipleship and ethics are prominent in Celtic Christianity.114 These prayers transcend the imposition of false dichotomies between the individual and the collective, and challenge assumptions that personal experiences of God are the domain of self-centred, non-ethical concerns. Just as the early church celebrated the ongoing experience of encounter with Jesus-Woman Wisdom, in these prayers the ongoing experience of the intimate presence of cosmic Christ in daily life suffuses both supplications and praise. As well as renewed interest in charismatic, contemplative and Celtic modes of prayer and worship each, in their own way, reclaiming the place of experience, in recent decades the experience of eucharist has also become more participatory in some contexts. This is seen in practices in which the whole congregation gather around the table, rather than just the presider and assistants. At times this is accompanied with the sharing of a full loaf of bread, rather than tokens. While these changes only go part of the way in recalibrating eucharist to something more akin to inclusive feasts celebrated in Jesus’ name in the early church, those of us the creative power to the person we are called to be – a person rooted and founded in love’. Main, Essential Writings, p. 87. 110. Ford and Hardy, Living in Praise, pp. 27–8. 111. Coakley, God, Sexuality, pp. 170–5. 112. As she summarizes, ‘only a few of my informants were beginning to take note of the parallelism in charismatic and contemplative traditions’, Coakley, God, Sexuality, p. 175. 113.  Composed over centuries, and recorded, and preserved, by Alexander Carmichael in the 1800s, prayers for every aspect of life are recorded. For an introduction to these prayers and to Carmichael see Esther de Waal, ed., The Celtic Vision: Prayers and Blessings from the Outer Hebrides, Selections from the Carmina Gadelica (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1988), pp. 1–16. For broader discussion see also Ian Bradley, Colonies of Heaven: Celtic Models for Today’s Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000), pp. 68–9. 114. The earth is celebrated as infused with the goodness of Christ: e.g. 1, 39–41 in de Waal, The Celtic Vision, p. 29. Christ is understood as cosmic friend and liberator: e.g. 1, 77 in de Waal, The Celtic Vision, p. 106, 1, 73; in de Waal, Celtic Vision, p. 96. Followers appeal to Christ for assistance to be able to love their enemies with the self-same love that Christ does, e.g. 1, 231; in de Waal, Celtic Vision, p. 74.

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who share in such Jesus feasts will likely integrate these experiences of worship with different understandings of self, God and others.115 Coakley argues that what is distinct in liturgy is ‘the way that bodily movement, sensual acuity, affective longing, and noetic or intellectual response, are intricately entwined and mutually implicated in what is occurring’ and that these ‘deepen capacity to respond to the risen Christ’.116 Accordingly, it is essential that our practices of liturgy reflect what is core in relation to christology, soteriology and thus, from the perspective of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, inclusion and ecology.117 Essential components of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the context of contemporary worship are the place of experience; of attending together to the presence of the divine ‘in our hearts’ and of sharing together in Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s inclusive, transformative feasts. Alongside, not antithetical, to the important place of experience, is re-recognizing that such experiences are intimately related to the ways in which Jesus communities are called and empowered to live differently in the church and in the world. There is significant practical promise of fruitfulness in living and learning in community through re-engagement with Jesus-Woman Wisdom. Early church experiences of receiving and sharing divine knowledge were increasingly limited in the stratifying church.118 Now, in re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context the priority of patterns of inclusive, dialogical learning demand to be re-recognized. Part of the inherent transition into being such learning communities within the church is the expectation, from both leaders and lay people, that all are encouraged to continue to learn and that all can receive divine knowledge and illumination.119 This is not simply a refrain of the importance of the Pentecostal church’s emphasis upon the Spirit directly inspiring congregational members in various ways. While this may be part of the reclamation of a Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in contemporary Jesus 115. Issues of full inclusion continue across various strands of the worldwide church, with people of the female gender excluded from presiding in some denominations and some Christians excluded from the table by other Christians. For discussion of women and eucharist see, Elizabeth Dowling and Veronica Lawson ‘Women, Eucharist, and Good News to All in Creation in Mark’, Reinterpreting the Eucharist: Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics, ed. Anne Elvey et al. (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2013), pp. 78–90, and Anne Elvey’s discussion of ‘communion without communion’, Anne Elvey, ‘Living One for the Other: Eucharistic Hospitality as Ecological Hospitality’, Reinterpreting the Eucharist: Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics, ed. Anne Elvey et al. (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2013), p. 193. 116. Coakley, ‘Beyond Belief’, pp. 143–4. 117. Elvey discusses eucharist in relation to ecology and justice and rightly argues that eucharist ‘can enable us to understand and live, from the deep knowledge that we are inextricably part of the Earth community’, Elvey, ‘Living One for the Other’, p. 186. 118. See Chapter 4. 119. Fiddes affirms the view of ‘God in all human wisdom and the participation of all human wisdom in God’, Fiddes, Seeing, p. 366.



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communities, the changes go further, speaking into the systemic structures within Christian living and learning communities. Across most Christian denominations the pattern of community life and worship (including Pentecostal) is structured so that one person (or a small group of people) is appointed as the ‘teacher’, or ‘leader’, ‘priest’ or ‘minister’ and when they speak the gathered community is expected to listen, usually without right of reply, or space for dialogue at the time. This ‘model of monologue’ is dominant and its structure, in and of itself, denies the multivalent voices of the Jesus community, and thus in effect also denies the possibility that divine knowledge is being poured directly into hearts of the whole community. When Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are taken seriously the ways in which living and learning occur will be structured differently. The dominant ‘model of monologue’ may, at times, be undergirded by understandings of the priority of proclamation of ‘the w/Word’ however, when it is recognized that the ‘Word’ is Jesus-Woman Wisdom this precipitates a re-evaluation of how this Word is communicated. Jesus-Woman Wisdom, who refuses to limit knowledge, feasting and nourishment, friendship and illumination invites Jesus communities into ways of being that are modelled on the same kinds of patterns of inclusion and hospitality. Not only in theological academia, but also in preaching, worship, bible studies and meetings, the challenge is to live into new ways that create space for all voices.120 Rather than this, necessarily, creating communities in which the shared currency is ignorance, by including the voices of all, rigorous communities of learning and exploration may develop. Part of cultivating such communities of learning, would be the creation of space for genuine questions and expressions of doubt, both of which are features of the ways in which people interacted with Jesus according to Second Testament accounts. In contemporary Jesus communities this may precipitate a shift away from reliance upon the predominant model of ‘rationalist’, didactic lecture (whether from pulpit or the lecture hall) and herald the greater inclusion of the mediums of story, parable, tricky questions and multi-voiced conversation (perhaps more often over meals) as the basic forms of living and learning in Christian community. Such space is sorely needed within contemporary context in which often the polemical opposites of ‘religious faith’ and ‘rational doubt’ are set against one another, rather than held together. As the central role of JesusWoman Wisdom is acknowledged, the ways in which Jesus is recorded as having communicated may be taken more seriously in Christian living and learning. Through re-engaging with ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology there is practical promise of fruitfulness in speech, action and suffering for justice, freedom, peace, goodness and truth. In the early Jesus movement because of the way in which Jesus was understood in relation to Woman Wisdom, action and speech that were grounded in hospitality, inclusive befriending, gentleness and suffering for justice, were integral to understandings of salvation. From the 120.  See Fiddes’ exploration of education in the university setting in relation to wisdom Christology, Fiddes, Seeing, pp. 347–50.

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perspective of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, christology, soteriology, discipleship, ethics and justice coalesce. Early Jesus communities were reflexively experiencing and seeking to live into Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s gracious hospitality, even when they were failing in their attempts to do so (e.g. 1 Cor. 11.17-22; Gal. 5.13-26, 1 Apol 14). With varying degrees of success, hospitality has continued to be a feature of Christian life.121 Acts of hospitality and friendship may appear as less than heroic ways of manifesting Christian faith in contemporary context. However, in light of the contemporary ‘attention economy’, in which competition infiltrates all aspects of life and people struggle to be seen and thus to ‘exist’,122 perhaps it is in re-recognizing the priorities of open hospitality and friendship that some of the most fruitful speech and action can be actualized. The potential ‘anti-heroic’ power of hospitality and friendship, as embodied and enabled by Jesus-Woman Wisdom is recognized when those of the least status in society are considered. Just as JesusWoman Wisdom was condemned for making friends with the ‘wrong’, outcast people (e.g. Mt. 11.19; Lk. 7.34), Jesus communities are invited to make friends with people who are on the fringes and who are ‘outcasts’.123 As Luke Bretherton states, ‘The imperative to welcome the weak and the vulnerable serves as a constant reminder to see and hear those members of society who are most easily marginalized, oppressed and rendered invisible.’124 In contemporary Western culture this includes, but is not limited to, people who are homeless, people who are mentally ill or facing addiction, people who have disabilities and people who are refugees. Bretherton rightly points out that there is a significant difference between tolerating ‘the stranger’ and sharing Christian hospitality with ‘the 121.  Luke Bretherton argues: ‘As a social practice hospitality has always been central to shaping relations between the church and its neighbours and has taken many forms in the Christian tradition. Care for the sick and the suffering-dying, hospitality to immigrants, educational initiatives, and peace-making endeavours are all examples of the ways in which the church hosts the life together of its neighbours and enables that life to bear witness to its eschatological possibilities’, Luke Bretherton Hospitality as Holiness; Christian Witness Amid Moral Diversity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), p. 197. While affirming a central place of the church’s hospitality in ‘shaping relations’, at times the church’s neighbours have also experienced judgement, exclusion and abuse in their ‘shaping relations’ with the church. 122. Social media analyst Danah Boyd describes our current context as an ‘attention economy’ and argues that within the realms of social media people are driven by the need to be seen by others, ‘Interestingly, fear on social media isn’t just employed by marketers, pundits, and politicians. Friends, family, and colleagues increasingly use fear to get attention because it works … Attention is indeed the currency of contemporary society’, Danah Boyd ‘Whether the Digital Era Improves Society is Up to Its Users – That’s Us’ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/21/digital-era-society-socialmedia (accessed 12 July 2014). 123. Bretherton, Hospitality, p. 148. 124. Bretherton, Hospitality, p. 148.



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stranger’.125 Jesus-Woman Wisdom invites Christian communities to embody the kind of radical, gracious, divine hospitality that transforms strangers into friends. Second Testament and early church texts reveal that in early Jesus communities there is no division between understandings of soteriology and understandings of ethics. Jesus-Woman Wisdom is the ‘God one’ who embodies God’s strength as s/he endures human induced violence and suffering, a paradoxical strength that strangely overcomes this evil even as it endures it (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.22-31; Col. 1.13-20; Jn 1.1-5, 10-14; see also Eph. 4.1-10).126 For early Jesus communities, the incessant call to live in humility and gentleness (e.g. Mt. 5.1-48; Rom. 12.9-21; 1 Cor. 13.4-7; Gal. 5.22-26; Phil. 2.1-8; 1 Clement 1.2; 13.1–14.3; 16.1-17; 51.2; Didache 1.3-4; 2.7; 3.8), does not reflect the desire of early church leaders to create submissive church groups that will attract the least attention with the authorities of the wider Graeco-Roman world. The repeated, and difficult, call to turn the other cheek, to live in humility, to suffer rather than inflict suffering, comes from the wellspring of Jesus’ incarnation, Jesus’ teaching, Jesus’ living, Jesus’ dying and Jesus’ rising. Early Jesus communities did not believe themselves to be simply instructed by JesusWoman Wisdom’s words, life and death. They also believed that something of the risen Jesus-Woman Wisdom’s non-violent power was directly accessible through the Spirit and was enabling Jesus communities to be changed and empowered to live into this ‘energy field’ of God’s paradoxical gentleness that was stronger than all violence and evil (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.30; 2.12-16; Gal. 1.3-4; 5.16-26; Col. 1.11-20; Eph. 2.8-10; 3.14–4.7; 1 Clement 49.1-6). This understanding confronts contemporary Jesus communities with the shocking challenge to still live in the gentleness of Christ. Jesus-Woman Wisdom invites followers to choose non-violence, and suffering for justice, for good, for freedom and truth, rather than to choose the way of might, arrogance and force, even in the name of these same ends.127 Not only does this challenge Jesus communities to reflect on how they act and speak in ‘the world’, but also how they act towards and speak with (and about) other Christians. This is no small matter. The cross is not the substitute for suffering according to Wisdom christology and 125. Bretherton, Hospitality, p. 148. 126.  As Johnson states, ‘Guided by wisdom categories, the story of the cross, rejected as passive, penal victimization, is re-appropriated as heartbreaking empowerment’, Johnson, She Who Is, p. 159. 127. Those in Jesus communities, in ancient and contemporary context, are not asked to suffer like Christ in their own strength. The challenge, and promise of fruitfulness, in contemporary context comes in re-engaging with the ancient claim that in Christ a new ‘energy field’ has been opened. Through this, Jesus communities are enabled by the Spirit to live, more and more, in, and with, the mind of Christ (e.g. 2 Cor. 3.18). This fruitfulness is not propelled by human effort; it is about allowing self, and the whole Jesus community, to be dependent upon, fed and shaped by, Jesus-Woman Wisdom who is gentle and who saves. Of course, the challenge of this, is whether contemporary Jesus communities can entertain the possibility that the divine ‘energy field’ of gentleness remains open, accessible and, strangely, efficacious by grace.

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Wisdom soteriology. The cross is the gateway into humans joining with the suffering of God for the world, not just metaphorically, but also sometimes literally.128 6. Are the suggestions defensible against diverse attacks, and are they able to anti­cipate and deal with the main criticisms and alternatives? The kinds of attacks and criticisms that reclaiming ancient Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology in contemporary context may attract are diverse. In light of space constraints, only three areas of potential critique will be investigated. The first is that the claim that Jesus-Woman Wisdom was significant for early Jesus communities is a recent invention, or comes as a result of massaging texts, rather than having its origins in earliest expressions of christology and soteriology. The second criticism is that Wisdom soteriology takes insufficient account of the cross, and places too much emphasis upon the place of experience, both in ancient and contemporary contexts. The third potential criticism is that this Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology do not address trinitarian theology, and potentially present a binitarian understanding of salvation. While an increasing number of scholars recognize the presence and priority of Jesus-Woman Wisdom within Second Testament and early church texts, there are those who continue to deny that Woman Wisdom was significant for early Jesus communities in their understandings of Jesus.129 Others contribute to the denial of Jesus-Woman Wisdom through their consistent backgrounding of her presence in their discussions of both Second Testament and early church texts. This is achieved in a variety of ways. The language of Logos is given priority, and the choice is made to capitalize ‘Word’ (or even WORD) in analysis of early understandings of Jesus.130 Surprisingly, when scholars do acknowledge the presence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom her ‘womanliness’ continues to be disguised or downplayed. This is seen in the choice to speak of wisdom, rather than Woman Wisdom, lady Wisdom or Sophia, even as it is personified Woman Wisdom who is being discussed.131 This choice to deny, or to downplay, the personified ‘womanliness’ of Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and early church texts, has the impact of making the re-recognition of Jesus-Woman Wisdom more difficult. As demonstrated in Chapters 2 and 3, Jesus-Woman Wisdom is present and significant in Second Testament and early church texts. This reality challenges 128. From the perspective of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology this invitation into suffering is not to glorify suffering for its own sake, but to labour with God to free all things from oppression, so that all things may be birthed into the way and energy of the God whom Jesus embodies (e.g. 1 Cor. 13.7; Rom 8.22-25). 129. See Gathercole, Pre-existent Son, pp. 200, 202. 130. As evidenced in discussion of Origen; see Balthasar, Origen: Spirit; Butterworth, Origen: On First. This is despite Origen explicitly understanding Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom (e.g. On First, Book 1, Commentary on John’s Gospel, 1). See Chapter 4. 131. Ford and Fiddes exemplify this in their discussion of Wisdom christology that minimizes Woman Wisdom, see above.



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understandings of gender and the divine. However, it is crucial to recognize that Jesus-Woman Wisdom is present in various Second Testament and early church texts as these texts say something about christology and soteriology. To re-engage with Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context is to take seriously the gender of Woman Wisdom as faith communities revisit their received understandings of Christ, God, the cross, salvation, ecclesiology, self, the ‘other’ and Christian discipleship. For those who have no desire to revisit dominant understandings of Christ, God, the cross, salvation, ecclesiology, self, the ‘other’ or Christian discipleship, there is an obvious motivation to deny, or to downplay, the presence of Woman Wisdom in Second Testament and early church texts that speak of Jesus in relation to her. The second potential criticism, that Wisdom soteriology takes insufficient account of the cross, and places too much emphasis upon experience, both in ancient and contemporary settings, warrants further investigation. In contemporary context the impetus to either emphasize the cross, or conversely to deny the place of the cross, fuels many interpretations of early church texts, as well as claims regarding Second Testament texts and their original, or earliest, strands.132 This polemical debate appears to often fall captive to the assumption that there is only one understanding of the cross in early texts: an ‘atonement’ soteriology that is either to be affirmed or dismissed. This assumption, and the ‘either/or’ polemic in contemporary context that accompanies this understanding, is inadequate. Many of the Second Testament and early church texts under consideration in this research including hymn and prayer fragments, were written in the shadow of living memory of the cross. This is not to indicate a nostalgic argument that some authors or communities were witnesses to this event. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, what is being highlighted is that the killing of Jesus in a horrific, but common, state-sanctioned murder, had occurred too recently to be able to be put to one side in Jesus communities’ self-understanding. In this early context the cross could not simply be ignored. This event was an integral part of the Jesus story, as were the life, actions and teachings of Jesus, and the various post-Easter experiences of Jesus that Jesus communities were claiming to share in. In Second Testament and early church texts that speak of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, the soteriology of the cross is understood through christology. Jesus, who is the Wisdom of God – the radiance of the divine’s magnificence – is the one who endures the violence, hate and rejection of crucifixion. When the cross is understood through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, understandings of God are reversed. God is the one who is ‘foolish’ by human standards, as Paul states (1 Cor. 1.25). God is the one who does not communicate in shows of power or fury (1 Clement 19.2-3). God is the one who goes about emptying self for the sake of all things (Phil. 2.6-7; Col. 1.20). The cross, understood through Jesus-Woman Wisdom, not only recalibrates understandings of who God is, but what God desires (e.g. 1 Clement 16.1-17; Rom. 12.9-21; Phil. 2.1-12). 132.  As demonstrated in contemporary debates regarding the dating, pre-eminence (or not), author/s and audience of Thomas, see Chapter 4.

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In light of contemporary polemical discourse it is important to underscore the implications of this Wisdom soteriology. From the perspective of this early Wisdom soteriology, the cross is not understood as simply a vivid morality tale in which the higher value of non-violence is promoted. These early communities were claiming that Jesus embodied God and, as God endured collective violence in the cross, the powers of evil were strangely, but actually, bound (Mt. 12.2842). While introducing the topic of cosmic forces may appear as an ancient, and redundant, remnant, as investigated in Chapter 3, when the work of Girard is utilized in order to read these cosmic forces, both understanding cosmic forces and recognizing the collective proclivity to violence are made possible. This understanding of the cross will not satisfy those who believe that only an ‘atonement’ soteriology will do. However, one of the gifts of re-recognizing JesusWoman Wisdom in contemporary context is that this ancient understanding of the cross slices open contemporary polemics. Essential to re-engaging with this understanding of the cross is recognition that in early Jesus communities the cross was not the end of the story. This leads us to the question of experience. Early Jesus communities celebrated ongoing experiences of transformation through the presence of the killed, risen, radiant Jesus, in whom all things were held. These experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom were intimately linked with their understanding of the cross: Jesus who was the Wisdom of God endured collective violence to the point of death, was not defeated by this, but was instead continuing to radiate healing, nourishment and liberating gentleness within the communities that gathered in Jesus’ name. This ‘risen energy’ was in turn enabling these communities to live into the same kind of gentleness, even as they endured all kinds of external violence and pressure. While this ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology may elicit criticism from those who are suspicious of the place of experience in the religious context, bias against experience is insufficient reason to discount these claims made by early Jesus communities. The third potential criticism is that this ancient understanding of salvation does not take account of trinitarian theology. This criticism raises important considerations. Hurtado argues that earliest expressions of worship in Jesus communities were binitarian in nature.133 Unsurprisingly, as many earliest expressions of worship in Jesus communities are found in texts in which Jesus is imaged as Woman Wisdom, something of the same pattern is evident in earliest expressions of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology. In most Second Testament and early church texts it is Jesus who is understood in relation to Woman Wisdom, as Jesus is celebrated as due, with God, the praise, proclamation and obedience usually reserved for God alone (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.24, 30; 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-20; Mt. 11; Jn 1.1-18; 6.35; Heb. 1.3; 1 Clement 36; Didache 9.2; 10.2; Justin Martyr, Dial, 61-2). The Spirit is not absent from discussion of Woman Wisdom in early texts, for example Irenaeus explicitly links the Spirit and Woman Wisdom (Proof 10). However, it is likely that his motivation for doing this was not drawn from trinitarian theology, but rather in order to safeguard understandings of Jesus 133. Hurtado, Lord Jesus, pp. 134–53.



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from ‘Gnostic’ Woman Wisdom. Regardless of Irenaeus’ motivation for identifying the Spirit and Woman Wisdom, his choice to do so does not necessarily aid in the development of a Wisdom trinitarian theology. Instead this identification stands in some contrast to other Second Testament and early church expressions in which it is Jesus who is identified with Woman Wisdom. Despite the dominant choice in Second Testament and early church texts to identify Jesus and Woman Wisdom, a degree of fluidity is present as evidenced in Paul’s thinking in 1 Corinthians. In this letter Paul describes Jesus as the w/Wisdom of God in Chapter 1. He goes on to claim that through God’s grace ‘… we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory’ (1 Cor. 2.7), and argues that ‘these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God’ (1 Cor. 2.10). Paul’s description of the Spirit searching ‘even the depths of God’ has parallels with Woman Wisdom in Hebrew traditions (e.g. Wis. 7.25; Sir. 24.3). According to Paul the w/Wisdom of God is bestowed on those who are ‘spiritual’ (1 Cor. 2.15), through Christ and by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2.12-13). Paul’s conviction that Jesus is the w/Wisdom of God and that God’s w/Wisdom is now given to humanity in a new and intimate way through the Spirit indicates embryonic trinitarian understandings. However, Paul’s convictions about the interplay of Jesus, the Spirit and Woman Wisdom do not adequately address the problem of how Jesus can be understood in relation to Woman Wisdom and as so too the Spirit. Fiddes expresses concern that focus on Woman Wisdom runs the risk of creating a ‘fourth person in the Trinity’.134 The evidence of Second Testament and early church texts perhaps runs a risk in the opposite direction, as these texts potentially offer a different kind of ‘binitarian’ theology in which the second and third persons of the Trinity are collapsed into one: Woman Wisdom. The reality that Second Testament and early church texts that speak of Jesus in relation to Woman Wisdom do not articulate a clear trinitarian self-understanding is not, in itself, an insurmountable problem. Across the early Jesus movement this is the same, as convictions about Christ and the Spirit are not clearly enunciated in a trinitarian doctrine. However, what is evidenced in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 is the claim that some early communities were experiencing the Spirit and the risen Christ, and understood these experiences in relation to Woman Wisdom. It was from the ground-bed of such experiences that later trinitarian theology arose.135 Re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom does not imply the adding, or subtracting, of a person of the Trinity. Rather, re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom challenges Christians in the twenty-first century to revisit questions about the persons, and nature, of the Trinity and to re-evaluate the place of experience in contemporary faith communities. More recent engagement with trinitarian understandings has 134. Fiddes, Seeing, p. 385, see above. 135.  Johnson also sees the priority of experience in trinitarian understanding, Johnson, She Who Is, pp. 197–201. Focusing on Rom. 8.18-27 Coakley rightly argues that Paul’s religious experiences fuelled his trinitarian understandings, Coakley, God, Sexuality, pp. 111–15.

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emphasized the relationality and interconnectedness within the triune God; this in turn has resonances with ancient understandings of Woman Wisdom, in whom all things are infused (Wis. 7.24) and renewed (Wis. 7.27) and the self-giving relationality and hospitality embodied by Jesus-Woman Wisdom in life, death and risen life.136 The potential interplay between ancient understandings of JesusWoman Wisdom and contemporary expressions of trinitarian theology invite further investigation.

Conclusion The work of Ford has provided a hermeneutic lens through which to investigate the potential promise, risks and challenges of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the current context. Re-engaging with Jesus-Woman Wisdom honours the heart of Christian identity, as the incarnation is central and it is Christ who saves. Yet in re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom ancient claims about Christ are able to be liberated from cultural habits of seeing that diminish their audacity. Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology are widely, and wildly, accessible. Images and symbols of Jesus-Woman Wisdom have the potential to communicate with intensity and gripping power, as they dissolve within themselves humanly constructed dualisms, between the divine and the earth, between male and female and between the church and the world. Wisdom soteriology is conceptually rich as it emerges from Wisdom christology: the incarnation, life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus are held together rather than interpreted as discreet components, that can be read apart, or discarded. The heuristic value of this understanding is already evidenced in the work of scholars engaging with ecological, feminist and christological discourse in relation to Jesus and Woman Wisdom. Because ancient Wisdom soteriology is a ‘realized’ soteriology, re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom necessitates a revaluing of experience in contemporary Jesus communities. This has simultaneously exciting, and challenging, implications in the spheres of worship and prayer, living and learning, and in speech, action and suffering for justice and peace. Revaluing the 136. Johnson states, ‘Through Holy Wisdom’s approach in incarnation and grace, then, we are enabled to speak about the reality of her own inner relatedness in terms of the livingness or unoriginate Mother, her beloved Child, and the Spirit of their mutual love … or Sophia’s eternal communion in personal mystery, hidden, uttered and bestowed … Holy Wisdom’s livingness in three distinct movements, shapes, manners of subsistence, hypostases, modes of being, persons, has as its correlative a benefit and blessing for all who are lost and forsaken. For through the solidarity created by Wisdom incarnate on the cross and the liberating praxis set loose by Wisdom’s Spirit, those who suffer are connected with divine life, the ultimate ground of hope’. Johnson, She Who Is, p. 215. See also DeaneDrummond, Creation, pp. 126–31. She highlights the ‘potential significance of the wisdom tradition in bringing together insights both from Orthodoxy and contemporary feminist writing’, Deane-Drummond, Creation, p. 131.



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significant place of Jesus-Woman Wisdom will attract criticism, particularly from those who are satisfied with the status quo. However this ancient understanding of salvation is defensible, faithful and breathtakingly poignant in contemporary context. It is in re-recognizing the ancient scandal of the scandal of particularity – that in early Jesus communities Jesus was experienced, understood and celebrated as the female divine – that contemporary christology, soteriology, apologetics, ecclesiology and discipleship will be vivified.

6 S C A N DA L OU S I N V I TAT IO N S

Christological debates of the twenty-first century propelled the desire to examine proclamations of Jesus in Second Testament and early church texts. Through the process of excavation it was startling to discover that Jesus-Woman Wisdom is not present as a footnote in Second Testament and ‘orthodox’ early church texts. In contrast, as Chapter 2 demonstrates, the evidence of Second Testament and early church texts reveals that Jesus was proclaimed, imaged, celebrated and worshipped as Jesus-Woman Wisdom from the earliest strands of the Christian tradition, and that this was occurring across a variety of early Jesus communities. This evidence demonstrates that Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology were of vital importance in the primitive church. The prominence of Jesus-Woman Wisdom within these texts composed within the patriarchal context of the Common Era demanded explanation. As Chapter 3 demonstrates, Jesus-Woman Wisdom was not constructed over time, in response to the desire to give the earthly Jesus a christological lift. The evidence reveals that, despite twenty-first-century bias against religious experience, in the early Jesus movement claimed ongoing, collective, transformative experiences ignited early church proclamations of Wisdom christology and ‘realized’ Wisdom soteriology. While these claimed experiences likely included visions and other ASC experiences, in Second Testament and early church texts experiences of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ are repeatedly celebrated. In early Jesus communities people were claiming to now experience new life: the gift of divine inner illuminating knowledge, spiritual filling, friendship and liberation from cosmic darkness, through Jesus-Woman Wisdom. These ‘mystical’ experiences were not individualistic or self-serving. In contrast it was in the experiences of communally receiving the hospitality of Jesus-Woman Wisdom that early Jesus communities were being infused and enabled to, falteringly, live into the self-same patterns of inclusion, generosity, gentleness and compassion. It would be easy to assume that patriarchal gender bias was the motivating factor for the sublimation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the second and third centuries. However the evidence reveals that there were multivalent motivations that led to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in this period. As Chapter 4 demonstrates, patriarchal gender bias against women contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom, so too, did the desire to protect Christian understandings

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from ‘Gnostic’ contamination. The apologetic imperative to communicate the ‘good news’ in an accessible way to Gentile audiences less familiar with Hebrew Woman Wisdom also contributed to the veiling of Jesus-Woman Wisdom. The evidence reveals that the other significant factor in the sublimation of JesusWoman Wisdom was the stratifying church. In the early Jesus movement direct transformative experiences of the divine were celebrated, and expected, across Jesus communities. In the second and third centuries as the church began to contract access to divine knowledge, formalize practices of eucharist, and to erect rigid – and increasingly violent – boundaries around inclusion and exclusion, ongoing direct experiences of Jesus-Woman Wisdom were recast as dubious, heretical and, ultimately, disallowed. The proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom who poured out divine knowledge, illumination, spiritual nourishment, and who offered gentle, inclusive friendship, who endured, rather than inflicted violence and who invited people to live into this way, could have no place in the stratifying church. It is striking that early Jesus communities proclaimed and worshipped Jesus as Woman Wisdom. The reality that this receives limited discussion in ongoing christological debate is also striking, particularly when evidenced in the work of scholars who focus discussion on Wisdom christology but simultaneously minimize the paradox that Jesus is imaged as the female divine. As Chapter 5 demonstrates by engaging with the fullness of early Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology and thus maintaining gaze upon Jesus-Woman Wisdom, provocative insight is gained. Re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom challenges dominant understandings of christology and soteriology, appropriate visual images of Jesus, ecclesiology and gender, theology and ecology, the importance of friendship, practices of Christian education and the reclamation of the place of experience in worship and prayer. Just as Woman Wisdom is, at times, elusive in First Testament and intertestamental texts it is not pretended here that all potential consequences of re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context have been identified or elaborated. There is a surplus of implications that arise from re-recognizing Jesus-Woman Wisdom. With regard to future biblical exploration, re-engaging with Jesus-Woman Wisdom invites further consideration of the potential Wisdom christology embedded in Mark’s Gospel. The ‘two become one’ texts of Galatians 3.28, the parallel in Thomas 22, and to some extent Colossians 3.11-12 and Ephesians 2.14-15, also invite further investigation. As, rather provocatively, suggested in Chapter 4 it is possible that Wisdom christology fuels this proclamation of the collapse of dualisms in Christ in, at least, some of these texts. The prominence of ‘kinaesthetic transformation’ in Second Testament and early church texts also invites further investigation. Chief among future explorations for systematic theology is extended exploration of the question of universalism in relation to Jesus-Woman Wisdom. What does it mean for all things when it is recognized that in earliest expressions of the scandal of particularity Jesus was understood, celebrated and worshipped as JesusWoman Wisdom, the one who infuses and reconciles all things? Accompanying



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this question, Jesus’ ‘hard sayings’ in gospel texts demand reinvestigation in light of Woman Wisdom’s words. While Woman Wisdom invites all, she also warns that there will be consequences for those who do not choose to receive her invitation (Prov. 1.24-32). In our contemporary multi-faith and ‘post-faith’ global context there is urgency about this exploration, particularly as it relates to Christian self-understanding and apologetics. The question of the earth’s and humanity’s suffering, and how this relates to the divine’s non-retaliatory suffering and self-giving in Jesus-Woman Wisdom also invites further theological investigation.1 Exploration of divine suffering and self-giving from the perspective of Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology will be enriched by attending to oft ignored Second Testament and early church imagery of labour pains, re-birth and understandings of Jesus as breastfeeding mother.2 While God is beyond human conceptions of gender and the notion of gender is itself not confined to bodiliness, re-engagement with these images and, in particular, recognition of the ‘displaced’ nature of Jesus’ gender, has the potential to enhance contemporary understandings.3 Some suggest that the reclamation of such imagery poses the potential of excluding men and may, at times, unintentionally endorse suffering.4 These are valid concerns; however they do not disqualify the validity of exploring early church texts that speak of labour and Christ breastfeeding, nor do they diminish the value in reclaiming this understanding.5 Further exploration of Wisdom

1.  Johnson begins exploring divine suffering from the perspective of Woman Wisdom, Johnson, She Who Is, pp. 265–72. Edwards and Deane-Drummond explore implications of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in relation to care for the earth, Edwards, Ecology, pp. 39–44, Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution, pp. 270–87. Continued work is invited in these fields, together with further investigation of the suffering of extreme poverty in our ‘global village’ in relation to radical self-giving and hospitality in Western Jesus communities. 2. The potentiality of this is intimated in the work of Johnson who offers a theological reflection on God as mother who labours for, and with, creation, Johnson, She Who Is, pp. 100–3, 255–6. 3. Graham Ward reflects on the imagery of the cross and labour and Jesus as breastfeeding mother in the medieval church. Graham Ward Cities of God (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 105. He suggests that a ‘displacement of the gendered body of Jesus Christ’ is present in the biblical text and argues for the recognition of the ‘multi-gendered body of the Church’, Ward, Cities of God, p. 112. 4. Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution, p. 213. 5. Edwards reflects on the Spirit as midwife of creation, Edwards, Ecology, p. 45. Anne Elvey suggests that childbirth involves, ‘two births: the birth of the child and the birth of the mother’, Anne Elvey An Ecological Reading of the Gospel of Luke: A Gestational Paradigm (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), p. 115. This has intriguing implications in relation to God’s transformed self-understanding in the Christ event – as Christ and the Jesus community – are birthed. This understanding may also contribute fresh insight in relation to the divine’s and the church’s ‘labouring’ role in suffering.

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soteriology, the absence of ‘original sin’ theology and the prominence of understandings of cosmic forces, and Jesus’ binding of these forces, is also invited.6 The gripping power of Jesus-Woman Wisdom collapses dualist thinking and slices through polemical christological and soteriological debate. Jesus-Woman Wisdom upends well-worn understandings and rejections of God, Jesus’ particularity, salvation, the church, the earth and what it might mean to be a contemporary disciple. In Jesus-Woman Wisdom the old wine skins are burst open. Yes, Jesus is the ‘God one’ but Jesus is her – she who invites all to the table, as she offers her divine illuminating knowledge, nourishment, friendship, compassion and very self. This ancient, provocative and transformative understanding of who Jesus is requires fresh wine skins. I offer this monograph as a contribution to the sewing together of something new.

6. My article begins exploring this, Douglas, ‘Decoding Evil Angels’.

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INDEX This index categorizes Jesus and Woman Wisdom, primarily by other headings. An ‘f.’ indicates a figure; an ‘n.’ indicates a footnote. 1 Apology (Justin) 66–7 birth 65–6 dating 64, 68 marginalization and 144 1 Apology 14 (Justin) 96–7 1 Apology 23 (Justin) 67, 67 n.220 1 Apology 46 (Justin) 66 1 Clement 53 n.165, 53–4, 54–5 n.171, 55 cross 56 dating 53–4 n.165 disparity 121–2, 124–5 kinaesthetic transformation 84 salvation 56 suffering 106 1 Clement 12 122 1 Clement 21 122–3 1 Clement 22 55 1 Clement 33 124 1 Clement 36 55–7, 79, 80 1 Clement 49 105–6 1 Clement 55 123 1 Clement 58 54 1 Corinthians 29–31 n.77, 54, 142 leadership 113 teaching 76, 76 n.16 1 Corinthians 1 29–30, 30 n.76, 30 n.77, 201 cross 30–1, 99–100 disparity 30, 31 n.78 1 Corinthians 2 173 n.43, 201 1 Corinthians 8 5–6, 8, 31–2, 32 n.82 1 Corinthians 11 76–7, 153–4 1 Enoch 49 n.148 1 Peter 2 birth 89, 135–6, 183 feasting 89–91 2 Apology (Justin) 66–7 dating 64, 68 marginalization and 144–5 2 Apology 6 (Justin) 66 2 Apology 10 (Justin) 145 2 Clement 12 136 n.101, 137 n.104 2 Corinthians 32–3, 33 n.86, 78, 79, 84

2 Corinthians 3 166 2 Corinthians 4 34, 166–7 collective experiences and 77 conversion 33 light 33, 77–8 2 Corinthians 12 81, 81 n.38 2 Peter 1 85 Adam 33 n.84, 120–1, 178 adoptionism 4–5 Against Celsus, book 4 (Origen) 150 Against Celsus, book 7 (Origen) 149–50 Against the Heresies (Irenaeus) 127 Against the Heresies, book 1 (Irenaeus) 127–8 Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs) 73 n.10, 81 n.38 angels 6 n.24, 6–7, 6–7 n.29 animal sacrifice 91–2 Apocryphon of John, The 126–7, 129 n.75, 130, 130 n.77 artisan 19–20 artwork 179–80, 182 birth and 183 cross 184f., 184–5 ethnicity and 180, 180 n.66, 181f. feasting 182–3, 183f. triune entity and 179 n.63 ASCs (Altered States of Consciousness) 73 n.10, 81 n.38 Asherah 27, 27 n.58 atonement 56, 178 Attridge, Harold 57 baptism 38–9, 40 n.115, 137, 157 Barnard, Leslie 67–8 n.220 Barrett, C. K. 30 n.77 Baruch 3 23 Baruch 4 23 Bauckham, Richard 5 n.20 Beetham, Christopher 35 n.92 Bennema, Cornelis 94–5, 95 n.112 Betz, Joannes 60 n.192

224 Index birth 46–7, 56–7, 66, 190 n.96 censure and 152 evil 126–8, 128 n.71, 128–9 n.72 feasting 89, 135–6, 183 filth and 117–18, 119 first-born 17, 65–6, 67, 107, 108, 160 incarnation and 118 love and 118–19 suffering 207, 207 n.5 see also breastfeeding black imagery 180 n.66 Borg, Marcus 9 n.39 Bousset, William 3 n.10 Boyd, Arthur 184f., 184–5 Boyd, Danah 196 n.122 bread 50, 61–2, 62 n.198, 182–3 breastfeeding 183–4 n.77 disparity 91, 135–6 nourishment 89 salvation and 89–90, 136, 183 suffering 207 Bretherton, Luke 196 n.121, 196–7 Camp, Claudia 28–9 camping 47 Caravaggio 183f. Celtic Christianity 193 Chamberlain Engelsman, Joan 110–11 n.4 charisma 146–7 Charlesworth, James 49 n.147 children 9 n.39, 41 babies 89 (see also baptism; birth) creation and 19 disparity 42 feasting and 59–60 playing and 19 teaching 25–6 violence and 170–1 n.33 Christian Wisdom (Ford) 168–9 n.27 climate change 187 Clines, David 18 n.10 Coakley, Sarah 179–80, 189–90, 190 n.96, 192 n.108, 194 kinaesthetic transformation 189 n.94 cognicentric bias 73, 73 n.9, 73 n.10, 81–3, 82 n.45, 95 n.112 Colossians 7, 52, 104 Colossians 1 34–5, 35 n.92, 36, 36 n.95, 100 Colossians 2 35–6 contemplation 191–3, 192 n.108 Conzelman, Hans 30 n.76 creation 19, 20, 31–2, 32 n.82 constraint and 130 n.76 disparity 32 n.82, 124

see also birth cross and crucifixion 140, 167, 199, 200 disparity 30–1, 186, 199, 200 feasting and 174 fecundity and 184f., 184–5 gentleness and 186 humility 56 salvation and 67–8 n.220, 100 suffering 97, 99–100, 106, 158, 174, 197–8 violence and 170–1 n.33, 199, 200 Crucifixion, Shoalhaven (Boyd) 184f., 184–5 Dahl, Nils Astrup 53 n.162 Daly, Robert 151 Damascus experience 33 n.86, 77, 82 n.45, 82–3 Daniel-Hughes, Carly 117–18, 119 Dawkins, Richard 177–8 Deane-Drummond, Celia 179 n.63 DeConick, April 141 n.123, 142 n.129 devil 102–4 Dialogue with Trypho (Justin) 64, 65, 68 Dialogue with Trypho 61 (Justin) 64, 65 Dialogue with Trypho 62 (Justin) 65 Dialogue with Trypho 63 (Justin) 65 Didache 57–8, 79–80 collective experiences and 79 dating 58 n.182 disparity 58–9 feasting 154 n.168 kinaesthetic transformation 84 lordship 58 n.184 marginalization and 60 n.192 Didache 1 59 Didache 9 59 n.185, 59–62, 62 n.198 Didache 10 59 n.185, 59–60, 62–3, 62–3 n.202 dove 38 n.101, 38–9 Dunn, Geoffrey 116 n.27, 117 n.32 Dunn, James feasting 86, 87 friendship 93, 95–6 hypostasis 16 n.4 light and 83 teaching and 76 n.16 Edwards, Denis 36 n.95, 187 Ehrman, Bart 4, 5, 134 adoptionism and 4–5 angels 6, 6 n.24, 7 marginalization and 5–6, 7 resurrection 12 n.45 Eisen, Ute 115–16 Elvey, Anne 207 n.5 Enlightenment 73, 73 n.9 environmental issues 187

Index Ephesians 52, 52–3 n.162, 53, 84 Ephesians 1 52, 80 Ephesians 3 52–3, 80 Ephesians 4 53 Ephrem the Syrian 183–4 n.77 Epiphanius 114–15, 116, 152 eucharist 91, 153 constraint and 154–5, 190 fullness and 154 n.168 inclusion and 154, 193–4 teaching and 76 n.16, 76–7 token quantity and 153–4 n.167 see also feasting evil 126–8 disparity 120–1, 128 n.71, 128–9 n.72 fear 55 feasting 19, 22, 41, 51, 59 n.185, 63, 141, 153, 173 animal sacrifice 91–2 bread 50, 61–2, 62 n.198, 182–3 breastfeeding and 89–90, 91, 135–6, 183 constraint and 154–5, 190 disparity 42, 169 fish 182 n.73, 182–3 fullness and 62, 86–7, 88–9, 154 n.168 inclusion and 87–9, 92, 93, 154, 174, 178, 193–4 marginalization and 44 miraculous 87 nourishment 50–1, 90, 92–3 salvation and 90–1, 165, 182, 183f. scale and 86, 88 thanksgiving 62 token quantity and 153–4 n.167 water 50, 87 wine 59–60 Fiddes, Paul 170–2, 175–6, 176 n.53 fire 65 fish 182 n.73, 182–3 Ford, David 168–9 n.27, 191, 191 n.103, see also Self and Salvation Fox, Michael 19 freedom 3 n.9, 104–5, 106–7 Frend, W. H. C. 148 n.151 friendship 51, 93–4, 95–6, 150, 196 cognicentric bias 95 n.112 constraint 157–8 disparity 93 feasting 93 inclusion and 93, 96–7, 156, 157, 196 kinaesthetic transformation 95, 97 kinship and 95 light 167 love and 155–6

225

salvation 94–5 Funk, Mary Margaret 192 n.105 Funk, Robert 3 n.9 Galatians 1 76 n.16 Gathercole, Simon 39–40 n.111, 42 n.119, 43 n.123 Genesis 1 124 Genesis 2 124 gentleness 46, 106, 122–3, 166 disparity 158–9, 174, 186, 197 marginalization and 159–60 Gieschen, Charles 6, 6–7 n.29 Girard, René 100–4, 102 n.139, 102–3 n.141, 103 n.142 Gnosticism 125, 127, 142–3 blame 131 censure 125 n.56, 125–6 constraint and 129–30, 147–8 n.148 creation 126–8, 128 n.71, 128–9 n.72, 130 n.76 disparity 126, 128–9, 129 n.74, 130–1, 133, 134 limitations 52–3 n.162 marginalization and 130, 130 n.77, 132, 142 salvation 129 n.75, 130, 130 n.77 goddesses borrowings and 26–9, 27 n.57, 27 n.58 dove 38 n.101, 38–9 Good, Deirdrie 131 ‘Haggadat Shema Yisrael’ 80 n.34 Haines-Eitzen, Kim 122–3 Hardy, Daniel 191, 191 n.103 Hebrews 1 36–7, 37 n.98, 56–7 Heine, Ronald 115 n.24 Hess, Hamilton 148–9 n.151 Hoffman, Daniel 119 honour 123–4 Horner, Timothy 68 Horsley, Richard 31 n.78 hospitality 195–7, 196 n.121 humility 56, 106 Hurtado, Larry 4, 5, 8, 72 n.7, 72–4, 107 collective experiences and 77 marginalization and 8 husbands 28–9 hymns 3–4, 5, 5 n.20, 8, see also individual books and names hypostasis 16 n.4, 176 Irenaeus 127, 143 creation 127–8 incarnation and 132–3

226 Index marginalization and 132, 133 triune entity and 200–1 Isaiah 43 n.124 Isis 27, 27 n.57 Jensen, Robin 182 n.73 Jesus 1–2, 179, 208 accretion 2–3 caricature and 178 death and 1, 199 Jewish–Gentile predominance 143–4, 143–4 n.133 pre-existence 65 n.214, 66, 67 n.219 salvation 71, 185–6 scandal of particularity 1, 13, 163 unique heavenly status 107–8 ‘Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God’ (Ford) 169 n.27 Jesus of the People (McKenzie) 180, 181f. Job 15 17 Job 28 17–18, 18 n.10 John 46–51 disparity 49 n.147, 168 n.27 feasting 51, 88, 90 friendship 94–5 nourishment 50 n.155 water 49 John 1 angels 7 camping 47 collective experiences and 78–9 creation 46–7 disparity 48 light 47 marginalization and 8, 48 n.142, 110, 110 n.3, 121, 133 John 2 49 John 6 50, 61–2, 86–7 John 15 51 John 21 50–1 Johnson, Elizabeth 27 n.57, 177, 202 n.136 Johnson, Luke Timothy 37 n.98 John the Baptist 43 Jones, L. Gregory 165 Justin Martyr 63–4, 65, 65 n.214, 66 n.217, 66–7, 67 n.219 birth and 65–6, 67 creation 66 cross and 67–8 n.220 friendship 96–7 incarnation and 64, 65, 68 marginalization and 144–5 name and 63 n.202 salvation and 67–8

Kim, Seyoon 82 n.45 kinaesthetic transformation 84–5, 107, 163, 194 censure and 160, 189 n.94 collective experiences and 86, 95, 97, 146, 189–90, 205 disparity 176–7 n.55 light 85 marginalization and 167 King, Karen 129 n.74, 129 n.75, 130 n.77, 130–1 kings 28–9 kinship 95 leadership 111–12, 112 n.9, 147 n.146 censure 114–15, 115 n.24, 116 n.27, 147–8 charisma and 146–7 constraint and 147–8 n.148, 148–9, 148–9 n.151, 153 disparity 112–13, 115–16, 148 n.148 feasting and 190 inclusion and 187 silence and 113 teaching 147, 195 visions 116 learning 188 n.92, 194–5 Lectio Divina 192 n.105 light 24, 33, 47, 83–4, 85, 140, 151 cognicentric bias 81–2 collective experiences and 77–8, 81 darkness and 77–8 disparity 167 visions and 55, 78, 81, 82, 83 n.48 Logan, Alastair 125 n.56, 129 n.72 Logos 66 n.217, 66–7, 110 n.4, 152 n.164 birth 66 camping 47 creation 46–7 disparity 48 n.143 feasting 89–90 incarnation and 48, 132–3 light 47 limitations 48 marginalization and 47–8, 48 n.142, 120–1, 133, 144–5 soul 120 lordship 58 n.184 Lössl, Josef 146–7, 157 love 24, 105–6, 118–19 disparity 39, 156 inclusion and 155–6 Luke 41–2, 88, 97–8 Luke 7 41 Luke 9 85 Luke 11 42, 42 n.119

Index McGowan, Andrew 91–2, 153–4 n.167 McKenzie, Janet 180, 181f. McKinlay, Judith 25, 27 n.58 Mark 38–41, 87 Mark 1 38–9, 40 n.115 Mark 6 40, 86 Mark 9 39–40 n.111, 41, 85 Matthew 42–3, 43 n.124, 88, 98 Matthew 11 43 n.123, 43–4 exclusivity and 44 feasting 44 gentleness 46, 166 marginalization and 45 rest 46 n.135 salvation 45–6 yoke 45–6, 90 Matthew 17 85 Matthew 21 99 n.126 Matthew 23 42 n.119 meditation 191–2 Meeks, Wayne 137, 154 n.168 milk, see breastfeeding mimesis 103 n.142, 103–4 Montanism 113–14, 114 n.16 censure 152 disparity 115, 117, 117 n.32 leadership 114–16, 115 n.24, 116 n.27, 147–8 visions 114 Morales, Rodrigo 99 n.127 Morray-Jones, Christopher 52–3 n.162, 78 n.23, 80 n.34 mothers 25–6, 26 n.51 mountains 61–2, 62 n.198 Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome 76 n.17 Nag Hammadi library 125–6 name 62–3 n.202, 150 Newbigin, Lesslie 1 Niederwimmer, Kurt 59 n.185 nourishment 50–1, 89 disparity 50 n.155, 90 fullness 92–3 incarnation and 50 n.155 obedience 54 On First Principles, book 1 (Origen) 150, 151 oppression 206 freedom and 3 n.9 marginalization and constraint 5–6, 109 (see also further terms) rest and 45–6, 46 n.135 see also patriarchy; suffering

227

Origen 149–53, 150–1 n.159, 151–2 n.162, 152 n.164 Osiek, Carolyn 157, 159 Panarion 49 (Epiphanius) 114–15, 116 Panarion 63 (Epiphanius) 152 Parrott, Douglas 130 n.76 patriarchy 110 n.4, 111 n.4, 119–20, 129–30, 163, 205–6 disparity 25, 177 n.56 honour and 123–4 leadership 148–9, 153, 190 marginalization and 26 n.51, 111, 120–1 teaching and 25–6 Patterson, Stephen 138 Paul 4, 76 n.17 collective experiences and 77, 78, 78 n.23, 81 n.38 conversion 33, 33 n.86 friendship 95 leadership and 112–13 light 77–8, 81, 83 marginalization and 110 n.4 teaching and 75–7, 76 n.16 visions 82 n.45, 82–3 see also individual books and names Pearson, Birger 128–9 n.72 Pentecostalism 190–1, 191 n.103 Philo 48 n.142 prayer 5, 5 n.20, 193 birth and 190 n.96 contemplative 191–3, 192 n.108 disparity 8 kinaesthetic transformation 189–90 see also individual books and names Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (Irenaeus) 132, 133 Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 34 (Irenaeus) 132–3 Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 44 (Irenaeus) 133 Proverbs 19, 20, 28 disparity 25, 26 n.52 resurrection 83 n.48 seeing 18 n.10 teaching 59 Proverbs 1 18–19, 20 Proverbs 6 25–6 Proverbs 7 25 Proverbs 8 17, 19–20 Proverbs 9 20, 25 Proverbs 31 20–1 n.26 Radford Ruether, Rosemary 110 n.4 Rahab 122

228 Index realized Wisdom soteriology 74, 75, 161, 186, 205 birth and infusing all 107–8, 160–1 disparity 188–9 feasting 86–93, 153–5 friendship 93–7, 155–8 incarnation and 68 nourishment 51 radiant imparting 75–86, 146–53 suffering 97–107, 158–60 see also further terms rest 45–6, 46 n.135 resurrection 75–7, 76 n.16, 85 n.58, 140, 166, 167 disparity 37 n.98 light 81–2, 83 n.48 suffering 158 visions 12 n.45 Revelation 3 83 n.48 Robinson, James 81–2, 125–6 Rowland, Christopher 52–3 n.162, 78 n.23, 80 n.34 Sandelin, Karl-Gustav 50 n.155, 60–1 scapegoats 100, 101, 102 n.139, 102 n.141, 102–3, 103 n.141, 174 crisis 102–3 n.141 innocence 101–2 mimesis and 103–4 purging and 100–1 Schneiders, Sandra 47 n.139, 50–1 Schroer, Silvia 38 n.101, 38–9 Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth 180 n.66 cross 170–1 n.33 kinaesthetic transformation and 146 leadership 147 n.146 marginalization and 26 n.51 Scott, Martin 48 n.143 seeing 18 n.10, see also visions Self and Salvation (Ford) 163–5, 164–5 n.4, 166–7, 169–70, 179, 179 n.61, 188 breastfeeding 183–4 n.77 cross 100, 167 disparity 167–8, 187–8 feasting 165, 169, 178 friendship 167 gentleness 166 kinaesthetic transformation 167 light 167 resurrection 166, 167 salvation and 163–4 suffering 166 teaching 188 n.92 world religions 188 n.91

Shantz, Colleen 73 n.10, 73–4, 81 n.38, 82, 82 n.45 silence 113, 122–3 Sinnott, Alice 16 n.4 Sirach 21–2 Sirach 1 21–2 Sirach 24 22, 50 social media 196 n.122 Son 35 disparity 48, 174–5 love 39 marginalization and 45 Sophia 9 n.39, 43–4, 180 n.66 blame 131 creation 126–8, 128 n.71, 128–9 n.72 disparity 31 n.78, 48 n.143, 129 n.74, 177 dove 38 incarnation and 9 n.39 marginalization 110, 110 n.3, 110 n.4 triune entity and 176 Sophia of Christ 131 soul 120 speaking 122–3 Spirit 200–1 disparity 139 friendship and 95 n.112, 95–6 kinaesthetic transformation 146 leadership and 146–7 Stark, Rodney 144 n.133, 156 stones 99 n.126 suffering 23, 97, 102 n.141, 103 n.141, 104, 158, 166, 197 n.127, 197–8, 207, 207 n.1, 207 n.5 blame 101 crisis 102–3 n.141 disparity 105, 123 freedom and 104–5, 106–7 gentleness 106, 158–60, 174, 197 horror 97 humility 106 innocence 101–2 love and 105–6 mimesis and 103–4 purging and 100–1 salvation 100 violence 97–103, 99 n.126, 102 n.139, 159–60 Sullivan, Francis 147–8 n.148 Supper at Emmaus, The (Caravaggio) 183f. teaching 25–6, 40, 75 constraint 147 disparity 76, 149–50 hostility to 75

Index learning and 188 n.92, 195 path to life 59 resurrection and 75–7, 76 n.16 Tertullian 116–17, 117 n.32, 117 n.33, 119–20, 157 birth and 117, 118–19 evil and 120–1 leadership 148 n.148 marginalization and 120–1 soul 120 Thomas 134–5, 135 n.96, 142–3 Thomas 13 135, 135 n.96 Thomas 22 135–8, 137 n.103, 137 n.104, 183 Thomas 28 138–9 Thomas 29 139 Thomas 61 139, 142 Thomas 77 139–40, 140 n.119, 142 Thomas 90 140–1, 141 n.123 Thomas 108 141 n.124, 141–2, 142 n.129 Torjesen, Karen Jo 111–12 n.7, 112 n.9, 123 Trakatellis, Demetrius 67 n.219 Treatise on the Incarnation 4 (Tertullian) 117, 118–19 Treatise on the Incarnation 12 (Tertullian) 120 Treatise on the Incarnation 17 (Tertullian) 120–1 Trinity 179 n.63, 201–2, 202 n.136 binitarianism and 200 disparity 176 n.55, 200–1 hypostasis and 176 kinaesthetic transformation 176–7 n.55 Turner, John 130–1

229

Vermes, Geza 2–3 vine 59–60, 60 n.188 vineyard owner 99 n.126 virgins 119–20 visions 12 n.45, 55, 78, 81, 82, 83 n.48, 107, 114 censure 116 cognicentric bias 82 n.45, 82–3

Uro, Risto 140 n.119

Walker Bynam, Caroline 180, 182 water 49, 50, 87, 135 Weeks, Stuart 20 wine 49 drunkenness 138–9 incarnation 50 vine 59–60 Wisdom christology 7, 8, 11, 71, 109 n.2, see also further terms Wisdom of Solomon 24–5, 25 n.45, 33–4, 172 light 47, 55 Wisdom of Solomon 1 98 Wisdom of Solomon 2 98, 102–3, 102–3 n.141 Wisdom of Solomon 7 24, 30 n.76, 37, 93 Wisdom of Solomon 10 25 n.45 wives 28–9 Woman Wisdom 2, 2 n.4, 7–8, 9–10, 69, 172–3, 208 borrowings and 26–9, 27 n.58 disparity 25, 177 fullness 173 marginalization and 5–7, 8–9, 109, 110–11 n.4, 125, 161, 175, 198–9 pre-existence and 29, 71–2 womb 117–18 Word, see Logos

Veiling of Virgins 10 (Tertullian) 119–20

yoke 22, 45–6, 55, 59, 90