Et quæcumque sunt absconsa et improvisa didici : omnium enim artifex docuit me sapientia.
The Book of Wisdom or The Wisdom of Solomon 7:21 Commentary
1 historical voiceHow the Church has read Wisdom 7:21 across two millennia — Matthew Henry, John Calvin, Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom and more, gathered verse by verse from the public domain.
Voices across the centuries
Church Fathers 1
COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:9
The writer of divine wisdom, after having listed everything one by one, concludes by saying that he has acquired knowledge of what is hidden and what is manifest. By this he showed that each of the things that are manifest has a relation with something hidden—that every visible thing, that is, has a likeness and a formal relationship with invisible things. Given, then, that it is not possible for a person who lives in the flesh to know anything about hidden and invisible realities unless he receives some image and likeness of it from visible things, for this reason I think that the one who created everything in wisdom created all the species of visible things on earth in such a way as to bear within them a principle of the knowledge of invisible and heavenly realities. Through them, therefore, the human mind can raise itself to spiritual understanding and seek in heavenly realities the principles and causes of things. Thus, instructed by the wisdom of God, it also can say, “I have known everything that is hidden and manifest.” In this sense it also knows the essence of the world, not only the visible and corporeal world that is before the eyes of all but also that incorporeal and invisible world that is hidden. It knows the elements not only of the visible world but also of the invisible world, and the properties of the one and the other.