Analogue 23: Wisdom and Death

ANALOGUE 23

Wisdom and Death

Wisdom is one reality and death is another. (Wisdom, khomath, in Aramaic is simply Sophia in Greek). From death comes the wisdom of death, so that those acquainted with death do indeed possess a certain kind of wisdom, though it is a minor one.

• Wisdom is contrasted with death.
• Wisdom is Life itself, and then there is its opposite, death.  
• The linguistic base of the terms for wisdom: khomath in Aramaic, Sophia in Greek.
• A declaration of the “wisdom of death” as a minor or secondary form of wisdom.  
• Categories of major and minor forms of wisdom.
• We are in search now for what is a major form of wisdom rather than its minor forms.
• The contrasts in a hierarchy of higher and lower wisdom and perhaps wisdom from one realm versus another. 

COMMENTARY

Two Realms of Wisdom

While it is possible that due to distance in time (and a lack of context) that something could have been lost from the original oral teaching behind this written text, it is absolutely clear that two distinctly different forms of wisdom are being compared and contrasted. Although it is not stated directly, Holy Wisdom is clearly the source of all life—its fountainhead, which is contrasted with its opposite, death. Are these complimentary, two sides of the same coin, or are these fundamental contraries? In the end, death can never be compared with that which is always superior to it—Life and its life Source, Holy Wisdom. Whatever wisdom comes from death is always and will ever be an inferior wisdom. 

The author gives us the Greek term for wisdom, Sophia, as well as its Aramaic equivalent. This may mean that the author has both written and translated this text from Aramaic to the more common Greek language. There are other places in this Gospel where the Aramaic words are highlighted because their meaning in the original language of Yeshua is significant and cannot be conveyed adequately in Greek (Analogue 35, for example). 

The ancient root of wisdom, (chochmah in Hebrew and khomath in Aramaic) is highlighted in this analogue and death is said to be its opposite. However, the author says that death has its own form of wisdom, although a lesser one. This suggests that not only do these wisdoms come from different domains, but that wisdom as a category of thought and experience is sourced in many things. We can, therefore, learn wisdom from many possible places. It is not restricted to one domain but is a category in many or even all of them. There also appear to be classes and orders of wisdom—higher and lower forms, different kinds from different realms having their own purposes, meeting different needs. Although only two categories are mentioned here, elsewhere (in Pauline teaching, for example) others are mentioned (this world and other-worldly). 

The Wisdom of Death

Death has its own kind of wisdom and so to get to know death, as we do in this world, creates a unique form of knowledge. It is experiential and will be experienced by all of us. We will know it personally and possess its wisdom, however inferior it may be especially eternal life. Perhaps we cannot fully know and value life until we have experienced death. Death, then, has something to teach us, doing so throughout our sojourn on earth where we experience many kinds of death with their wisdoms before we make our final passage. Nonetheless, there is a higher wisdom which is meant to bring us not into the experience of death, but as this Gospel asserts, into eternal life and resurrection. 

So, we might ask ourselves, why are these not comparable wisdoms? Why would one be superior and the other inferior, and not simply the flip sides of one another? The only real answer is that death, while an event, is not ultimately real. In our world we see death as the harshest, coldest, and perhaps the most real of all events. In temporality it is. Yet, in the end death is called maya in many traditions—an illusion. It seems real, but from the perspective of eternity it is not. Death vanishes into Life which is eternal and absolute, death being only a doorway between two forms of life. This is a reversal to our ordinary way of thinking. From the modern human perspective, life seems ephemeral and vanishing, totally illusory, which from the materialistic and reductionist viewpoint, cannot be true. Only dark annihilation and entropy which takes life into darkness are true. The great sacred traditions disagree, as does this Gospel, whose aim it is to lead us into a greater wisdom. 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. How have you experienced death even in the midst of life? 
2. What wisdom has come from it for you?
3. What is the opposite of death for you? Is it simply biological life, or something more than this? 
4. How would you describe a wisdom that you know higher than death?
5. How can it be that wisdom is illusory and not real?
6. Can you think of other minor forms of wisdom that might be comparable to death?

Notes for further Reference and Study

1. Wisdom is clearly not one thing. It has many genres and modes of expression. Wisdom literature also comes in multiple forms, ranging from the highest metaphysical traditions like the Vedanta to the ordinary sayings of the Hebrew tradition in the Book of Proverbs, from the oral traditions of songs, proverbs, and poetry through myriad forms of literary texts. We  each use wisdom, its sayings and transmission, in so many ways depending on our vocations in life. As we listen to and receive wisdom in our own experiences it takes many forms that affect daily life from the way we perceive the world to our deepest values. Central to its use, however, is the one key requirement, that it be built into our way of living and even deeper into our personality structures, as an integral part of who we are and the way we live. Various forms of wisdom can be organized by their source along the vertical axis; some that are found in various ancient understandings include practical wisdom, worldly wisdom, traditional wisdom, spiritual wisdom, and divine or transcendent wisdom (or wisdom from Above). 
2. Aramaic and Greek terms are mentioned specifically in this analogue which means that they are both involved in some way with the original text. The extant text from the Nag Hammadi library used for this translation and commentary is in Coptic, a hybrid language based in the Pharaonic and Greek languages, which was used from the time of Alexander the Great through this day in the Coptic Orthodox Church. This is, however, believed not to be the original language of the source text, but a translation made perhaps from an original Greek text or even an earlier Aramaic version. Evidence of the Aramaic version, or at least familiarity with that common language in the land of Palestine and to its East, appears in many of the analogues. Aramaic was likely the primary language of Yeshua, though he appears to have also known and spoken Greek which was commonly used in Galilee. 
3. Though the analogue does not describe what the wisdom of death actually is, it states that it comes from death or the experience of dying. In seeking to understand it, we might ask ourselves whether this is a form of wisdom about or describing the domain of death or a wisdom being taught in some manner emerges from the many experiences of death.
4. The two forms of wisdom which are contrasted here are reminiscent of the Pauline doctrine of a wisdom that belongs to this world and a wisdom that is beyond it (I Corinthians 1:19-25).

Notes for the Translation

1. The parenthetical remark about the Aramaic and Greek terms is found in the original text.
2. This analogue appears in the form of a Logion, the genre found in the Gospel of Thomas.