Search Results

This chapter examines three of Meister Eckhart's texts that outline a new metaphysics as theology and reflect the basic lines of his ethical thought: the prologues to the Tripartite Work; the first three Parisian questions; and his interpretation of Ecclesiasticus. It first explains who Jesus Sirach was before turning to Eckhart's concept of God and his claim that wisdom is God. It then considers Eckhart's explanation for the First Parisian Question and its thesis of God as Being, along with his interest in propositions that pertain to both God and worldly things. It also explores what Eckhart may have meant by “philosophy”.

This chapter first argues that law is the expression of divine wisdom made available to Israel and, as such, can compete on more-than-equal terms with the vaunted wisdom of the nations. It then analyses the poem on wisdom in Job 28, Proverbs 8: 22–31, Ecclesiasticus 24: 1–29, the wisdom of Solomon, and apocalyptic wisdom in Daniel.

This chapter describes a debate between Erasmus and Luther, and concludes with the sensational literary and theological controversy that broke out between Erasmus and Luther in 1524. Luther was one of the first readers of Erasmus's new Bible in 1516. The chapter begins by exploring the politics of interpretation, and also explains Erasmus and Luther on Ecclesiasticus 15. The text from Ecclesiasticus, Luther says, is obscura et ambigua, and ‘proves nothing for certain’ (WA 18.666.25). What is required of Erasmus is a text that will show his case in claris verbis; but he cannot find one. At the same time, Luther objects that Erasmus's exegesis is far from showing his doctrine planissime. A discussion on the theologian and the grammarian, as well as the potter and the clay, is provided.

This article traces the developments in the memory of the Judahite king Hezekiah. In the Annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah is remembered as a king who was ready to act pragmatically in order to save his royal city of Jerusalem. The memory of Hezekiah in the Book of Kings has three dimensions: a clever, pious and yet heroic king. In the Book of Chronicles, the memory of Hezekiah is focussed on his cultic measures. The Book of Ben Sira – Ecclesiasticus – presents him as a hero of a faithful community. In modern cultural memory, Hezekiah is primarily connected with the symbol of the sundial.

Chapter 2 provides a preliminary account of biblical and classical wisdom traditions. Within the Old Testament, wisdom themes are found especially but not exclusively in wisdom literature (notably the quasi-divine figure of wisdom in Proverbs 8-9). A survey is also provided of the place of wisdom within classical culture, whose chief achievement is summed up precisely as the ‘love of wisdom’ (philosophy). Particular attention is paid to Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic understandings of wisdom. Within the context of the New Testament, pre-existing wisdom traditions, both biblical and classical, helped make some sense of the encounter with the person of Jesus Christ (for example as teacher and as pre-eternal) while also being soundly exploded by that same encounter, as most ably expressed by St Paul.