19 As a child I was naturally gifted,
and a good soul fell to my lot;
20 or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body. (Wisdom of Solomon
8:19-20 | NRSV)
This verse is as clear a statement of the concept of preexistent souls
as one could wish, and there is no need to explain it away as many commentators
have done. (For a good summary of their views, see Larcher 1969:270–279). Cf.
II Enoch 23:4–5: “for all souls are prepared to eternity, before the formation
of the world”; II Bar 23:5. On the other hand, the more elaborate Greek
doctrine of metempsychosis does not appear to be a part of our author’s
thinking (nor was it a part of rabbinic thinking). For Philo’s doctrine of
preexistence, cf. Somn. 1.135ff; Plant.
12; Gig. 6; Her. 240. For the Essene belief in the preexistence of the soul,
see Jos. J.W. 2.8.11 (Josephus’
account, however, is suspected of adaptation to Greek ideas), and for a similar
rabbinic view, which appears, however, only in the Amoraic period, cf. BT Hag.
12b; A.Z. 5a; Yeb. 62a; Nid. 13b; BR 8.7, Th-Alb:61; Tanḥ. Niṣavim 3; Pekude 3. See Freudenthal 1975–79: 1.
72; Lieberman 1974:241, n.41; Urbach 1969:209 (but his arguments with regard to
Wisd are unconvincing). (David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary [AYB 43; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 198)
Preexistence and Immortality
of the Soul
It has been suggested by a number of commentators that, in his attempt
to point out the superior endowments of young Solomon, the author of Wisd was
led to the designation of the body as the personal subject which receives the
soul, Inasmuch as he was referring to the origins of his existence (8:19: “I
was, indeed, a child well-endowed, having had a noble soul fall to my lot”).
Since, however, in his view, it was with the soul rather than with the body
that the personal ‘I’ is to be connected, he proceeded to correct his initial
formulation in v. 20 (“or rather being noble I entered an undefiled body”),
which nevertheless went somewhat beyond his original intention (Larcher
1969:273–274). The preexistence referred to here is therefore not to be taken
in its Greek philosophical sense but to be understood only as consisting in the
creation of the soul immediately before its “coming” into a determinate body,
as in the case of Adam (Larcher:277). It seems to me, however, that had the
author merely wished to emphasize the primacy of the soul in the identity of
the personal ‘I’, his initial formulation would have been completely apt, and
in need of no further revision. For once having asserted that the body-soul
complex constituting the child Solomon could be called “well-endowed” merely by
virtue of its being allotted a noble soul, he had already thereby clearly
indicated the primacy of soul over body. (Larcher’s statement that pais apparently refers to the “état
embryonnaire” is unwarranted.) Since he was not indeed satisfied with his
initial formulation, and felt constrained to correct it, we must conclude that
the words “I entered an undefiled body” are meant to suggest the preexistence
of souls of varying spiritual capacities, and that in the case of Solomon it
was a noble soul that had taken the initiative of entering an undefiled body.
In this the author was plainly associating himself to some extent with Platonic
doctrine, though at the same time suppressing the major elements of Plato’s
myth about the procession of souls and the fall of some of them into bodies.
(That this is so may be further inferred from the fact that in 9:15, he
reproduces the distinctive Platonic dualism regarding body and soul, replete
with verbal echoes from the Phaedo.)
According to the myth of Er, Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity, addresses the
souls marshaled before her as follows:
Souls that live for a day, now is the beginning of another cycle of
mortal generation.… Let him to whom falls the first lot first select a life to
which he shall cleave of necessity.… The prophet placed the patterns of lives
before them on the ground, far more numerous than the assembly. They were of
every variety, for there were lives of all kinds of animals and all sorts of
human lives, for there were tyrannies among them … and there were lives of men
of repute for their forms and beauty and bodily strength otherwise and prowess
and the high birth of their ancestors. (Rep.
617E–618B).
It is essential at this point to emphasize those elements in Plato’s
theory of soul which are conspicuously absent in Wisd. We have already alluded
to the author’s suppression of the conception of the soul’s “fall.” This
particular omission, however, is neither surprising nor really at variance with
Middle Platonism. Although in the Phaedrus,
the incarnation of souls seems to be the result of an intellectual ‘fall,’ in
the Timaeus, the soul seems to be
destined from the beginning to give life to a body. Mortal creatures came into
being so that the Heaven or universe not be imperfect (atelēs), which would be the case if it did not contain all the
kinds of living being (41 bc; cf. Plotinus 4.8.1). Middle Platonists had
already noted this inconsistency in Plato’s writings and attempted to resolve
it by emphasizing one or the other of these positions, the majority apparently
opting for the pessimistic rather than the optimistic view. Taurus was one of
the few who adopted the optimistic attitude. We read in Iamblichus’ De Anima (ap. Stobaeus 1.378, 25ff, Wachsmuth):
The Platonists ‘about’ Taurus say that souls are sent by the gods to
earth, either, following the Timaeus,
for the completion of the universe, in order that there may be as many living
things in the cosmos as there are in the intelligible realm; or declaring that
the purpose of the descent is to present a manifestation of the divine life.
For this is the will of the gods, for the gods to reveal (ekphainesthai) themselves through souls; for the gods come out into
the open and manifest themselves through the pure and unsullied life of souls.
(Dillon’s translation:245.) (Cf. Festugière 1950: 3.219 and 63–96.)
In his discussion of this issue, Albinus enumerates four reasons
(unfortunately highly compressed) for the soul’s descent, two of which (Did. 25.6, Louis: “either awaiting their
numbers, or by the will of the gods” cf. Dörrie 1957:414–435) appear to be
similar to those given by Taurus. The other two are ‘wantonness’ (akolasia), i.e. sinful willfulness on
the part of the soul, and ‘love of the body’ (philosōmatia), which indicates a nattural affinity or weakness for
embodiment. “Body and soul have a kind of affinity towards each other,” writes
Albinus, “like fire and asphalt” (Did.
25.6). To judge from Iamblichus, it was the theory of ‘wantonness’ that Albinus
favored, thus taking the pessimistic view (De
Anima 375.10–11; Dillon:246). Philo seems to allude to all four of Albinus’
explanations. At Somn. 1.138, he
speaks of souls that are “lovers of body” (philosōmatoi)
(cf. Didymus Comment. on Job: 56,
24–27); at Her. 240, of souls “unable
to bear the satiety (koron) of divine
goods” (a variation of Albinus’ akolasia);
at QG 4.74 (cf. Op. 135; Somn. 1.147) he
suggests that the reason for descent might be in order that even terrestrial
things might not be without a share in wisdom to participate in a better life
(this is similar to Taurus’ second reason, “the will of the gods to reveal
themselves” cf. Didymus Comment. on Job:
56, 28–29); and at Plant. 14, we are
told that some souls enter into mortal bodies and quit them again according to
certain fixed periods (kata tinas
hōrismenas periodous). (Cf. Somn.
1.138, where we hear of souls selected for return according to the numbers and
periods determined by nature: kata tous
hypo physeōs hōristhentas arithmous kai chronous; Origen Contra Celsum 8.53: mechri an tais tetagmenais periodois.) This emphasis on numbers and
periods implies that the incarnation of souls is part of the mathematical
structure of the universe and is thus similar to Taurus’ first reason, “for
completion of the universe” and Albinus’ “souls awaiting their numbers” (arithmous menousas). At QG 4.74, Philo even suggests a fifth
reason, namely, “in order that it might be akin to created beings and not be
continuously and completely happy.” Undoubtedly regarding this matter as an
impenetrable mystery, Philo vacillates and simply retails to his readers the
various explanations which he found before him in the Middle Platonic
tradition. As for Plotinus, as Armstrong 255 has pointed out, he “firmly
resolves the contradiction which appears in Plato’s thought between the ideas
of embodiment as a fall of the soul and as a good and necessary fulfilment of
its function to care for body, by maintaining that it is both. It is in
accordance with the universal order, which requires that everything down to the
lowest level should be ensouled, that souls descend, and appropriate bodies and
lower selves are prepared for them. But they want to descend, and are capable
of descending, only because they have already a weakness, a tendency to the
lower, which seems to be a development of the original tolma which carried Soul outside Intellect” (cf. Plotinus 4.8.5).
It is thus evident, that in suppressing the pessimistic view of the soul’s
‘fall,’ the author of Wisd, though clearly under the influence of Jewish
tradition, was not necessarily being innovative even from the Greek point of
view, but was simply aligning himself with that Middle Platonic position which
was most congenial to his own way of thinking. The Jewish attitude toward this
question is well illustrated in a late midrash:
The angel immediately fetches the soul before the Holy One blessed be
He, and when she arrives she bows forthwith before the King of Kings, whereupon
the Holy One blessed be He commands the soul to enter into the drop of semen
contained in so and so; but the soul replies, “Lord of the universe, sufficient
for me is the world in which I have dwelt from the moment you created me, why
do you wish to install me in this fetid drop, since I am holy and pure and hewn
from your glory?” The Holy One blessed be He answers, “The world into which I
am about to place you will be more lovely for you than the world in which you
have dwelt hitherto, and when I created you, it was only for this seminal drop
that I created you.” The Holy One blessed be He then immediately installs her
against her will (Tanḥ. Pĕkûdê 3).
On the other hand, there is no allusion in Wisd to Plato’s elaborate
doctrine of metempsychosis, which involves certain souls over a period of ten
thousand years in a series of reincarnations according to their order of merit,
with some transmigrating into animal bodies, though souls of philosophers
escape the “wheel of birth” after three thousand years. It should be noted,
however, that there is also no mention of this doctrine in two Ciceronian
treatises, Tusculan Disputations I
and The Dream of Scipio, which
contain an elaborate theory of immortality presented along Platonic lines,
though with Stoic characteristics. (See Dillon:96–102.) Nor is there any
reference to Plato’s doctrine of anamnēsis,
according to which the acquisition of knowledge during one’s earthly existence
is seen as a process of recollecting the knowledge which the soul had once
attained through its partial vision of true Being during its preexistent state
(Phaedrus 247C–248E). As to the parts
of the soul, although there is no reference to the formal Platonic tripartition
into rational, spirited, and desiderative (Rep.
4), there may be a passing allusion in Wisd 4:12 (“the giddy distraction of
desire perverts the guileless mind”) to two parts of the soul, reflecting
either the actual bipartition of the soul into rational and irrational common
in Middle Platonism (epithymia
representing the irrational and nous
the rational; similarly, in 4:11, dolos
may represent the irrational soul and psyche
the rational [cf. Philo LA 3.161; Her. 55]), or the Stoic division of the
unitary soul into the ruling element (hegemonikon
or nous) and its seven physical
faculties (all of which, including the passions, represent various states of
the same psychic pneuma).
Although it is usually claimed that the author of Wisd never speaks of
the immortal nature of the soul as such, as Greek philosophers do, and makes
immortality depend on the practice of justice, this assertion thus baldly
stated is incorrect. In the first place, Wisd 2:23, according to which God
created man for immortality, and made him an image of his own proper being,
clearly implies that man’s immortality derives from the fact that his soul is
an image of the Divine Wisdom, the “proper being” of the Deity. Second, even
according to some versions of the Platonic myths concerning the soul, we are
told that some souls are “judged incurable because of the enormity of their
crimes and are hurled into Tartarus, whence they never more emerge” (Phaedo 113E; cf. Gorgias 525C; Rep. 615E).
Nevertheless, it is true that for Plato, the majority of souls are eventually
purified through a process of purgation and thus have a natural claim to
immortality, and that the Platonists usually offer proofs for immortality from
the very nature of soul whereas the author of Wisdom places the emphasis not on
this natural claim but on whether or not one has lived a life of righteousness.
In so doing, however, he may (if our dating is accepted) have been following in
the footsteps of Philo, who implies that only the souls of the wise enjoy
immortality (QG 1.16; Op. 154; Conf. 149). Both he and Philo were undoubtedly influenced at this
point by biblical tradition, but at the same time could claim to be following
the Stoic view adopted by Chrysippus, though without the latter’s limitation on
the preservation of wise souls only until the next ekpyrōsis or world conflagration (SVF 2. 809, 811).
One of the distinctive features of the Greek concept of immortality
which acquires a new emphasis in the Ciceronian treatises mentioned above and
again in Seneca, is equally characteristic of Wisd, although there is only a
brief allusion to it in the eschatological section of the book. Plato had
already described in glowing terms the region above the heavens where with
varying degrees of success the souls attempt to obtain a vision of true Being,
many of them being sucked downward in the process and suffering incarnation.
After a series of purgations, however, they ultimately return to their heavenly
home and presumably achieve the vision which had largely eluded them
heretofore. This luminous goal comes into sharper focus in Cicero Tusc. 1.47:
Surely objects of far greater purity and transparency will be
discovered when the day comes on which the mind is free and has reached its
natural home. For in our present state, although the apertures which are open
from the body to the soul, have been fashioned by nature with cunning
workmanship, yet they are in a manner fenced in with a compound of earthy
particles: when, however, there shall be soul and nothing else, no physical
barrier will hinder its perception of the true nature of everything. (Cf. 1.45:
What, pray, do we think the panorama will be like when we shall be free to
embrace the whole earth in our survey, its situation, shape, and circumference?
Somnium Scipionis [De Re Publica] 6.16).
Seneca’s eloquent description of the soul’s future knowledge reaches
the heights of religious rapture:
Some day the secrets of nature shall be disclosed to you, the haze
will be shaken from your eyes, and the bright light will stream in upon you
from all sides. Picture to yourself how great is the glow when all the stars
mingle their fires; no shadows will disturb the clear sky. The whole expanse of
heaven will shine evenly; for day and night are interchanged only in the lowest
atmosphere. Then you will say that you have lived in darkness, after you have
seen, in your perfect state, the perfect light (Ep. 102.28).
The author of Wisd similarly promises the immortal righteous: “In the
moment of God’s gracious dispensation they will blaze forth.… They will judge
nations, and hold sway over peoples.… Those who have put their trust in Him
shall attain true understanding” (3:7–9; cf. I Enoch 5:8). There are passages
in the Qumran Hôdāyôt that breathe a
spirit similar to that which had moved Seneca, and which recall the author of
Wisd’s passionate eloquence when he speaks of his beloved Sophia. We read in
1QH 3.19–23:
I give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast freed my soul from the
pit, and drawn me up from the slough of hell to the crest of the world. So walk
I on uplands unbounded and know that there is hope for that which Thou didst
mold out of dust to have consort with things eternal. For lo, Thou hast taken a
spirit distorted by sin, and purged it of the taint of much transgression, and
given it a place in the host of the holy beings, and brought it into communion
with the sons of heaven. Thou hast made a mere man to share the lot of the
Spirits of Knowledge, to praise Thy name in their chorus.
Here the writer is convinced that he already enjoys eternity and walks
with the angelic hosts. His fervor soon reaches an even higher pitch:
For Thou hast made them to know Thy deep, deep truth, and divine Thine
inscrutable wonders … to be one with them that possess Thy truth and to share
the lot of Thy Holy Beings, to the end that this worm which is man may be
lifted out of the dust to the height of eternal things, and rise from a spirit
perverse to an holy understanding, and stand in one company before Thee with
the host everlasting and the spirits of knowledge and the choir invisible
[literally, “Those versed in concerted song”], to be forever renewed with all
things that are (1QH 11.9–14, Gaster 1976).
Like the composer of the Hôdāyôt,
and like Philo (for whom mystical experience of God is obtainable in this
life), the author of Wisd experiences the raptures of Divine Knowledge in his
present existence (chap. 7) and already enjoys his prize of immortality.
The centrality of Wisd’s theory of immortality represents a new
emphasis in the history of Jewish tradition, although it must be seen as part
of a continuous development in Jewish Hellenistic thought. According to I Enoch
102:5, the spirits of the righteous descend to Sheol, but at the judgment will
ascend to a life of joy as companions of the hosts of heaven (103:3–4; 104:6).
Jubilees 23:31 (“and their bones will rest in the earth, and their spirits will
have much joy”) seems to presume an immediate assumption of the spirit, and in Test.Asher 6:5–6, the soul of the
righteous is led by the angel of peace into eternal life. Finally, in IV
Maccabees, a book which may be roughly contemporary with Wisd, the patriarchs
are already in heaven ready to receive the souls of those who have died for the
sake of God (7:19; 13:17; 16:25; cf. 7:3; 9:22; 14:5; 15:3; 16:13; 17:12;
18:23; cf. Luke 16:22, and see E. W. Saunders, IDB, s.v. “Abraham’s Bosom;” also Pseudo-Phocylides 105–108 [FPG:152]. Wisd’s doctrine of
preexistence, on the other hand, may be the earliest attestation of this
teaching in Jewish literature (see Note on 8:19). (David
Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 43; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008], 25-32)
