Personification of Wisdom

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I believe it is Jesus; compare:
Heb 1:3:
[Jesus], Who being the brightness of His glory, and making the figure of His substance and upholding all things by His word. . .
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Wis. 7:26-27:
For she [Wisdom] is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness, . . . she reneweth all things. . . .
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The attributes of both are the same: they are the brightness of God/eternal light, they reflect God’s majesty and goodness/His substance and they preserve/renew all things.
 
Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God.
22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) Also see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 272.
 
Sabra said:
Who is the personification of Wisdom, Jesus or Mary?
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Jesus is Wisdom because he is divine. The OT image of wisdom as a woman refers to wisdom gained through knowledge of God. Mary is often seen in these passages because she was perfectly in tune with the Wisdom of God, whom she bore in her womb.

Mary is the 2nd Eve who, unlike the 1st Eve, said yes to God in all things. Both Mary and Eve were created without the stain of sin, but only Mary lived her life in perfect conformity to God’s will, making her the wise virgin and a reflection of the personification of Wisdom, as a perfect human being, not as a divine person.

God shares his divine life with us, as he did with Mary, so any one of us could live in God’s wisdom. One great Saint who did was St. Therese of Lisieux. She never committed a mortal sin, and although she wasn’t perfect, she came about as close to Mary’s perfection as any ordinary fallen human being ever has, and there are other examples which others can cite, I’m sure.
 
Sabra said:
Who is the personification of Wisdom, Jesus or Mary?
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Wisdom passages in the OT are applied to Jesus in the NT. The basis of the application to Jesus is what is called the sensus plenior, or fuller sense; examples can be found in John 1 & 1 Corinthians 1. The application of such passages to Mary is an example of what is called accommodation; Sirach 24 is an example of this. Accommodation is found in passages used (only ?) in the Liturgy & in extra-Liturgical devotion.​

Both of these senses are related to the literal meaning of the passage - neither of them forecloses it. To clarify: in its historical context, Proverbs 8.22-31 is a description of Wisdom as an hypostasised Divine quality - it is personified. This treatment of divine qualities is common in ancient near eastern religion, so we need not be surprised to find it in Israelite religion. The thing to bear in mind is that the literal meaning of that passage in Proverbs 8 has its own meaning in its own historical context: that is why the application of such passages to Jesus is called the fuller sense: it is not the immediate literal sense, but it is applicable to Jesus even so; the reason being that for the first Christians, Jesus could be seen as embodying it; which is why all sorts of OT themes - wisdom, word, power, righteousness, etc. - are applied to him in the NT, even though he was not in the mind of the human authors of the OT; for Christians, he was in the mind of the Divine Author of the OT (as Christians call it); which is why it is legitimate from a Christian POV to see him in those passages; from a Jewish POV, this would not be legitimate.

I hope this makes sense.
 
Thank you all for your thoughts and insight! Della and Gottle of Geer, your replies applied most specifically to my query as I have just finished Bishop Sheen’s book, The World’s First Love, Mary the Mother of God. In the first chapter, he quoted Prov. 8: 22-31, saying," …through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to her the words of the Book of Proverbs." I had always understood Jesus to be Wisdom’s personification and found this confusing as Bishop Sheen is highly respected. Your explanations clarified the issue for me perfectly! Thanks, and God bless!
 
Sabra said:
Thank you all for your thoughts and insight! Della and Gottle of Geer, your replies applied most specifically to my query as I have just finished Bishop Sheen’s book, The World’s First Love, Mary the Mother of God. In the first chapter, he quoted Prov. 8: 22-31, saying," …through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to her the words of the Book of Proverbs." I had always understood Jesus to be Wisdom’s personification and found this confusing as Bishop Sheen is highly respected. Your explanations clarified the issue for me perfectly! Thanks, and God bless!
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You’re welcome, Sabra. 🙂 Yes, Fulton Sheen is completely reliable, but he was writing at a time when the average Catholic had a better understanding of Mary’s place in within the life of the Church than many in the last 50 years, so his references can be confusing for people now days.

Anyway, another book on the topic of Mary that makes the same comparisons (in more devotional terms and therefore a bit more flowery) is St. Alphonsus de Ligouri’s The Glories of Mary. It too gives references to Mary in the OT that many modern Catholics are unaware of/not as used to associating with her used in liturgies of the Church. It’s an interesting and rewarding study that I highly recommend to anyone who wants a deeper insight into Mary’s place in our lives. God bless you, too.
 
See also the article on the Divine Logos in the OCE.

Divine Logos = Divine Wisdom (literal translation) = Word of God (alternate translation) = Jesus (who is the Divine Wisdom and Word of God as well as God Himself).

As for the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Ten Evangelical Virtues attributed to her do not include wisdom. However, her “YES” to God–her obedience–was the ultimate act of wisdom, and ultimately an arrow that points to her Son as the true Wisdom. In that regard, the Orthodox view of Mary as personifying wisdom through humility makes sense.

As an aside, it should be noted that attempting to separate the wisdom of God from God Himself has, unfortunately, lead to many heresies.
 
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