σοφία: Difference between revisions

|txtha=σοφίας, ἡ (σοφός), Hebrew חָכְמָה, Wisdom of Solomon , broad and full intelligence (from Homer down); used of the knowledge of very diverse matters, so that the shade of meaning in which the word is taken must be discovered from the context in every particular case.<br /><b class="num">a.</b> the wisdom which belongs to men: universally, Proverbs , as was ἡ σοφία τοῦ Σολομῶνος, τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, Winer s Grammar, 227 (213) n.; Buttmann, § 134,6); the art of interpreting dreams and always giving the sagest advice, σοφία ἄνωθεν κατερχομένη is put in contrast the σοφία ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης, such as is the craftiness of envious and quarrelsome men. σαρκικῇ σοφία (see σαρκικός, 1), craftiness, πανουργία of σοφία is not infrequently used of shrewdness and cunning; cf. Passow (or Liddell and Scott), under the word, 2); the knowledge and skill in affairs requisite for the successful defense of the Christian cause against hostile accusations, δικαιόω, 2). In Paul's Epistles: a knowledge of the divine plan, previously hidden, of providing salvation for men by the expiatory death of Christ, Winer's Grammar, 111 (105f)); hence, all the treasures of wisdom are said to be hidden in Christ, Θεοῦ (genitive of the author), πνευματικῇ, πνεῦμα σοφίας καί ἀποκαλύψεως, λόγος σοφίας, the ability to discourse eloquently of this Wisdom of Solomon , τοῦ κόσμου added, τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, τῶν σοφῶν, ἀνθρώπων, Romans , vol. i, p. 67f; σοφία τοῦ λόγου, the wisdom which shows itself in speaking (R. V. wisdom of words), the art of the rhetorician, λόγοι (ἀνθρωπίνης (so R in σοφίας, discourse conformed to philosophy and the art of rhetoric, supreme intelligence, such as belongs to God: τοῦ Θεοῦ, as manifested in the formation and government of the world, and to the Jews, moreover, in the Scriptures, πολυποίκιλος from the great variety of ways and methods by which he devised and achieved salvation through Christ, ἡ σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶπεν seem to denote the wisdom of God which is operative and embodied as it were in Jesus, so that the primitive Christians, when to comfort themselves under persecution they recalled the saying of Christ, employed that formula of quotation (cf. Luke , in ignorance of this fact, took the phrase for a part of Christ's saying. So Eusebius (h. e. 3,32, 8), perhaps in the words of Hegesippus, calls those who had personally heard Christ οἱ αὐταῖς ἀκοαῖς τῆς ἐνθεου σοφίας ἐπακοῦσαι κατηξιώμενοι; cf. Grimm in the Studien und Kritiken for 1853, p. 332ff. (For other explanations of the phenomenon, see the commentaries on Luke , the passage cited Cf. Schürer, Zeitgesch. § 33, V:1 and references.) [ SYNONYMS: on the relation of σοφία to γνῶσις see γνῶσις, at the end. "While σοφία is 'mental excellence in its highest and fullest sense' (Aristotle, eth. Nic. 6,7), σύνεσις and φρόνησις are both derivative and special — applications of σοφία to details: σύνεσις, critical, apprehending the bearing of things, φρόνησις, practical, suggesting lines of action" (Lightfoot on Colossians , the passage cited; Schmidt, chapter 13 § 10; chapter 147 § 8. See σοφός, at the end]