How Confessions drew on Wisdom of Solomon
A documented line of influence: Augustine of Hippo demonstrably engaged Solomon’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Wisdom of Solomon
Solomon · c. 50 BCE
BibleThe influenced
Confessions
Augustine of Hippo · c. 398
Ancient RomeRelevance
6/10
On Confessions’s page
- When Augustine writes that he could not obtain wisdom "except God gave her me," he is quoting the Wisdom of Solomon (8:21) almost word for word
- The book sits behind the Confessions as scriptural ballast — Augustine reaches for it again at 5.3 and 5.4 to frame his early seeking and the orderliness of creation
- Read it first and you hear the source note under Augustine's own voice
On Wisdom of Solomon’s page
- A line from the Wisdom of Solomon runs straight into Augustine's most personal book
- Augustine quotes its insight that wisdom is God's to give — not something a man seizes by his own effort — and folds it into the Confessions (10.29) as the hinge of his own surrender
- Its formula for a measured, numbered, weighted creation surfaces again in his accounts of the ordered world