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| Chapter XIII
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Chapter
XIII.
According to the foregoing, then, the one kind of
wisdom is human, and the other divine. Now the
“human” wisdom is that which is termed by us the wisdom of
the “world,” which is “foolishness with God;”
whereas the “divine”—being different from the
“human,” because it is “divine”—comes,
through the grace of God who bestows it, to those who have evinced
their capacity for receiving it, and especially to those who, from
knowing the difference between either kind of wisdom, say, in their
prayers to God, “Even if one among the sons of men be perfect,
while the wisdom is wanting that comes from Thee, he shall be accounted
as nothing.”4343
We maintain,
indeed, that “human” wisdom is an exercise for the soul,
but that “divine” wisdom is the “end,” being
also termed the “strong” meat of the soul by him who has
said that “strong meat belongeth to them that are
perfect,4344
even those who by
reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and
evil.”4345
This opinion,
moreover, is truly an ancient one, its antiquity not being referred
back, as Celsus thinks, merely to Heraclitus and Plato. For
before these individuals lived, the prophets distinguished between the
two kinds of wisdom. It is sufficient for the present to quote
from the words of David what he says regarding the man who is wise,
according to divine wisdom, that “he will not see corruption when
he beholds wise men dying.”4346
Divine
wisdom, accordingly, being different from faith, is the
“first” of the so-called “charismata” of God;
and the “second” after it—in the estimation of those
who know how to distinguish such things accurately—is what is
called “knowledge;”4347
and the
“third”—seeing that even the more simple class of men
who adhere to the service of God, so far as they can, must be
saved—is faith. And therefore Paul says: “To
one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of
knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same
Spirit.”4348
And therefore
it is no ordinary individuals whom you will find to have participated
in the “divine” wisdom, but the more excellent and
distinguished among those who have given in their adherence to
Christianity; for it is not “to the most ignorant, or servile, or
most uninstructed of mankind,” that one would discourse upon the
topics relating to the divine wisdom.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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