A rich tradition of wisdom literature permeates the Old Testament. On the human level, it manifests the thirst of every person to make sense of the various experiences of daily existence. This search for wisdom, however, was never separated from faith in the Lord.

After the exile there was an ever clearer understanding that human wisdom is a reflection of the divine Wisdom which God.

The peak point of the gift of Wisdom occurs with the revelation to the chosen people to whom the Lord makes known his Word (Dt 30,14). Indeed divine Wisdom, known in the fullest form of which man is capable, is Revelation itself, the "Torah", "the book of the Most High's covenant" (Sir 24,23).

Divine Wisdom appears as God's mysterious design which is at the origin of creation and salvation. It is the light which illumines all, the word which reveals, the power of love which joins God with creation and with his people.

Divine Wisdom is not an abstract doctrine but rather a person who comes from God and who was with God from the beginning (cf. Prov 8,22-31), he is his delight in the moment of creation of the world and of humanity, rejoicing always before him (Prov 8,22-31).

In the light of this tradition we have a better understanding of the mystery of Jesus the Messiah. Various texts of the New Testament present Jesus as full of divine Wisdom.

Jesus' teaching occasioned amazement, "And many who heard him were astonished, saying, 'Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?'" (Mk 6,2).

This Wisdom which came from God conferred a special prestige on Jesus, the ideal figure of the recipient of divine Wisdom, who appears explicitly as the true Wisdom revealed to mankind.

This identification of Jesus with Wisdom is affirmed with singular insight by. God, he writes, "has made Christ our wisdom and also our justice, our sanctification, and our redemption" (1 Cor 1,30).

The "Wisdom of God" is identified with the Lord of glory who was crucified. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus there is revealed in all its splendor the merciful plan of God who loves and pardons the human person to the point of making him a new creature.

The cross is a folly and a weakness, but he who believes in Jesus experiences that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Cor 1,25).

Christ is ever more profoundly contemplated as the true "Wisdom of God". Thus, with clear reference to the language of the sapiential books he is proclaimed as "the image of the invisible God", "the first-born of all creation", the one through whom all things were created and in whom they subsist (cf. Col 1,15-17).

John, on his part, referring to the Wisdom described in his intimacy with God, speaks of the Word who was in the beginning with God, and professes that "the Word was God" (Jn 1,1). The Wisdom which the Old Testament had come to equate with the Word of God is now identified with Jesus, the Word who "became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1,14).

Just as Wisdom, so also Jesus, the Word of God, invites us to the banquet of his word and of his body, because he is the "bread of life" (Jn 6,48), he gives the living water of the Spirit (Jn 4,10; 7,37-39), he has "the words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68).