Wisdom 8:4
For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God, and is the chooser of his works.
Open Wisdom 8:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Doctrix enim est disciplinæ Dei, et electrix operum illius.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- μύστις γάρ ἐστιν τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιστήμης, καὶ αἱρετὶς τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ.
Haydock's commentary
Works. Directing us to imitate them, as much as possible. (Haydock)
She teaches us how to refer all to God, (Menochius) while mere philosophers stop at vain speculations, and barren admiration of the Deity.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On the Morals of the Catholic Church, Harmony of the Old and New Testaments
27. And as the apostle says that the Son of God is the virtue of God and the wisdom of God, virtue being understood to refer to action, and wisdom to teaching (as in the gospel these two things are expressed in the words, "All things were made by Him," which belongs to action and virtue; and then, referring to teaching and the knowledge of the truth, he says, "The life was the light of men"), could anything agree better with these passages than what is said in the Old Testament of wisdom, "She reaches from end to end in strength, and orders all things sweetly?" For reaching in strength expresses virtue, while ordering sweetly expresses skill and method. …