32 EARLY WISDOM GOSPELS
whereas there is punishment for one who passes over its laws The strength
of justice is that it lasts."^1
In ancient Mesopotamia, wisdom is also praised, often as a gift of the gods.
In one text an unnamed sage praises wisdom and the divine lord of wisdom,
here understood to be Marduk, god of Babylon, whose way is both terrible
and gentle: "I will praise ... Marduk, the lord of wisdom, the deliberate god,
who lays hold of the night but frees the day, whose fury surrounds him like a
storm wind, but whose breeze is as pleasant as a morning zephyr, whose anger
is irresistible, whose rage is a devastating flood, but whose heart is merciful,
whose mind forgiving... whose hands the heavens cannot hold back, but
whose gentle hand sustains the dying."^2
In the ancient Greco-Roman world, wisdom was the domain of the
philosopher, the lover of wisdom and knowledge, who dispenses wisdom and
knowledge. Those philosophers with Cynic proclivities, so named for their
rough, doglike lifestyles, employ witty sayings with a Cynic bite in order to
teach the good and noble life. Thus: "Marcus Porcius Cato, when asked why he
was studying Greek literature after his eightieth year, said, 'Not that I may die
learned but that I may not die unlearned.'" And: "The Pythagorean philoso-
pher Theano, when asked by someone how long it takes after having sex with
a man for a woman to be pure to go to the Thesmophoria, said, 'If it is with her
own husband, at once, but if with someone else's, never.'" And again: "When
Diogenes the Cynic philosopher saw a country boy scooping up water in his
hand in order to drink, he threw away the cup that he was carrying in his bag
and said, 'Now I can be this much lighter.' "^3
In the world of early Judaism, sages are revered for their insight into the
human condition before god, and sometimes the wisdom they proclaim is
personified as Hokhmah (in Hebrew) or Sophia (in Greek), terms of feminine
gender used to indicate wisdom as the female expression of the divine. The
figure of wisdom in Judaism echoes the earlier goddesses of wisdom in other
traditions—Maat in Egypt, Ishtar in Mesopotamia—and wisdom's career
continues through the gnostic texts published in the present volume. In
Proverbs wisdom herself is said to raise her voice:
i. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 412.
- Ibid., p. 596.
- On sayings of the Cynic philosophers, see Hock and O'Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric.