Lady Wisdom shouts in the streets.
She cries out in the public square.
At the busiest corner she cries out.
At the entrance of the city gates she speaks,
"How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
I will make my words known to you. ..."
I met her, about twenty years ago. I was studying theology at the New College in Edinburgh. I met her right at the corner of Bank Street and High Street, one block behind my school.
It was quite a surprise to see someone preaching on the street. In European cities you do not get so many preachers like in the New York City Subway or the man who faithfully preaches fire and brimstone every Thursday during rush hour on the corner of 96th and Broadway, close to my home.
She was also somehow unusual because she was a woman. She spoke like a prophet or rather I should say like a prophetess. But on a closer look, I saw that she looked like a hunted doe. She was veiled in graceful nobleness, but her eyes were like the eyes of the battered wife.
"What happened?" I asked her, "How can I help?"
She said, "Please listen." And so I did.
She told me her story in an ancient hymn:
"The LORD has begotten me,
ahead of his oldest works.
At the beginning he has woven me (in his womb),
even before the beginning of the earth.
There were no oceans, I was brought to labor,
even before the springs got heavy with water.
Before mountains were planted,
before the first hills appeared, I was brought to labor.
Before he had made the earth with its borders,
before the first lumps of dry land (emerged).
In his fixing of the heavens, I was there...
in his cutting of the arch of horizon above the face of the sea.
in his hanging up of clouds above,
in his pushing up the fountain springs from below.
in his setting of limits to the waters,
so that they would never transgress his command,
in his establishing the pillars of the earth ...
(In all of this) I was the partner by his side,
day after day I was the one of his delight
his purest joy at all times.
I gave (him) joy in world of land,
and delight in humankind."
"I know it," I said, "The words sound familiar." Remember, I was studying advanced courses in Biblical theology at that time and all semester we had grappled with ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature. I had a faint feeling of familiarity, "Isn't it a poem from the book of Proverbs?" I asked, "But your words are somehow different from what I recall from official translations."
"Right there," she said. "Right there it started."
"In ancient times," she said, "even before the first iota of the Bible had been ever composed, I was not only a personification of wisdom, I was a true goddess. The Sumerians gave me a beautiful title 'Mistress of Science', and the Egyptians referred to me as 'She who directs the house of books.' Making me into a goddess was their ancient way of saying that wisdom is an important power."
"I think I remember it from my lectures." I said. And then without thinking, I burbled, "Are you so sad, because you never became truly popular?"
Before I recovered from this unpleasant faux pas she graciously continued, "You are right, I wasn't top ranking on the divine popularity contest, and I did not care. For me quality matters most. I had the best and brightest devotees. I was worshipped in particular by the highly trained priests — by the religious intellectual elite — by the priestly poets, scribes, librarians, astronomers, mathematicians, and engineers. By making me into a goddess and by worshipping me as such, it was their way to declare that knowledge, and reason and science, were important.
"And in the Bronze Age in their poems, in their hymns and prayers, they even espoused me to their highest god. In their poems I was his firstborn daughter and also his first wife, together we procreated the world."
"And was it really so?" I asked unwittingly.
"Of course not!" She said, "You must understand, their way of thinking used to be called by scholars mytho poetical and rightly so. Ancient people thought in much richer metaphors —this was their ancient way of saying, that the world of human civilization cannot exist without the close collaboration of faith and reason, that culture is unthinkable without a close relationship between religion and science, faith and reason."
"I read something about it," I said, "when I studied anthropology and ancient religions. Didn't they actually identify you with the divine spouse of the head of pantheon?"
"Yes," she said, "They equated me with the goddess Ashera, Ashiratu, Ishtartu —depending on the culture, exact shape of religion and way of pronunciation. But what is more important, I lived in this holy union happily for several hundred years. Unfortunately it was not meant to last, as you can see in the book of Proverbs. Roughly at that time it started. What you can read there are clear signs of strain in our relationship. It is not as much in the Hebrew text itself, it is more strongly pronounced in different interpretations and translations, which weakened and downgraded our relationship. People started to push us apart. Before, in their stories, they married us, now they started to separate us and they started to force our divorce."
"You make it sound so harsh," I interrupted her. "But it was probably one of those early phases when people started to deepen their understanding and their faith. They were on the journey to monotheism, weren't they?"
"Of course, I know!" She said, "And I was happy for them. Being myself a hypostasis of rational thinking, I actually rejoiced in their discovery and strengthening of monotheism. And not everything was dark at all times. For instance the biggest cathedral of Eastern Christianity in ancient Constantinople was named after me — Hagia Sophia — Holy Wisdom. But I suffered greatly as faith and reason were pushed more and more apart, especially when religion and science got put more and more against each other."
"I think, I know what you mean." I nodded.
"I can hardly describe how much I suffered especially when faith and reason were set against each other, when I was forced into exile by blindfolded religion and theologians ignorant in matters of science and intolerant in matters of faith." She lowered her voice as a person who shares personal painful experience. "I suffered when Nicolas Copernicus was ridiculed by Martin Luther. But worst was to come, when Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church, or when Miguel Servetus, preeminent physician and discoverer of pulmonary circulation was executed by the same brutal means in Calvin's Geneva. These and many similar wounds are very difficult to heal, especially when faith and reason are still kept apart or even worse when one is forced against each other."
"It does not help science and its moral integrity, neither does it help the faith and its relevance." I agreed.
"That is exactly what I would like to see," she continued my thought., "Professionals, scientists and any workers should not abandon their faith and their consciousness before entering their workplaces and laboratories, and no people should leave their minds or brains out before entering their places of worship.
"For many hundreds of years people forcefully pushed me and God apart. God has been misinterpreted and abused as an agent behind human ignorance. God became an explanation of things people were unable to explain in any given time. But as consequence, with the broadening of human knowledge, God was pushed further and further away from the centre of life into the obscure corners of the universe and even to the darker and darker corners of human psyche."
"I know, you are right," I interjected. "I read something similar in Bonhoeffer, and I was taken by his argument in that letter."
"And he was absolutely right," she said. "And the reality got even more grim. God and the power of religion were used to stop the process of broadening human horizons and understanding. Now you know why I look like a battered wife. But do not blame my husband. We got separated and more and more estranged, almost divorced not by our own choice. Narrow-minded fanatic people on all sides did it."
"What should I do?" I asked.
And she answered, "I do not want to be made into a goddess again. It does not suit me, it would be against my nature." She hesitated for a while, then she smiled. "Perhaps, return me to God's womb, which is in God's forehead, to use the old mythological metaphor."
"It is a nice metaphor, but what do you mean by it?" I asked. "Womb behind divine brows? Isn't it a little too much?"
"I said it on purpose," she said. "Some metaphors might be difficult by design. They might warn you against thinking of God in any sexist or narrow gender terms. Womb in head —isn't it an interesting nudge to remember that true deity is above and beyond any gender?! I do not need to be God's spouse. I would be comfortable as a hypostasis of God thought and thought in general, or as a personification of an elemental aspect of life and faith."
"Can you be more specific?"
"I will try. Keep faith and reason together; keep religion and science in harmony. Don't put up with ignorance on any side. Faith without reason is a dangerous superstition, and reason without faith is vain hubris. Bad science and bad faith are equally dangerous.
"And I can put it in a positive way: search diligently for knowledge in areas where you are ignorant, and search for God in the centre of what you know. Be curious and never stop asking questions, that way you will be constantly surprised and amazed. You will see, that wisdom and faith are both rooted together in wonder.
"And searching like this, you might discover to your amazement that for the early Christian authors I, Lady Wisdom, got equaled to Christ. Do you remember the beginning of the gospel of John?
In the beginning was the LOGOS
and the LOGOS was with God,
and the LOGOS was God.
It was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through it,
and without it not one thing came into being.
"Isn't it a great subtle reference to my hymn in Proverbs 8—an almost subliminal equation of Christ with me? And in the letter to Colossians, the second generation of Christians made an even stronger statement, associating me with Christ. That hymn has very deep, gnostic, speculative, mythic roots. No one knows its original melody, but you can always recite it aloud with me."
I have enjoyed reciting it with her every time since. And I would like to invite you to join us in our affirmation of faith:
"Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation;
in him all things in heaven and on earth were created,
things visible and invisible.
All things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning,
the firstborn of the dead,
so that he might come to have first place in everything.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile all things,
whether on earth or in heaven,
by making peace through the blood of his cross. Amen.