Question V: On the spiritual delights of wisdom

The Holy Doctor elegantly treats of these from chapter 5, on the Gift of Wisdom, where under the figure of a banquet he expounds the spiritual delights of the Gift of Wisdom.

This banquet is expounded from Canticle 5: Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearest. Where he shows a threefold banquet prepared by Wisdom. The first is for just friends, that they may eat, chewing by labor, whence it is said: By the labors of your hands, for you shall eat. The second banquet is the sweet drinking of the soul after this life. The third is the inebriation of man after the body has been resumed in the resurrection; and these are called the dearest. See St. Bernard, book On Loving God, where he has: He feeds those laboring in this life, gives drink to those resting after this life, and inebriates those reigning in eternal life, etc.

THE FIRST, therefore, banquet is that of friends, for whom the Holy Spirit prepares the banquet of Wisdom. In this the soul eats the bread of Wisdom, but in the sweat of the face. This food is the very work, to do the will of God; whence Christ said, John 4: My food is to do the will of my Father. Of this St. Gregory, book 1 of the Morals, chapter 16: Wisdom makes a banquet in its day: because it refreshes the mind with the hope and certainty of eternal things. Of this food they partake who by meditation eat the bread that came down from heaven, as is said in John 4. See St. Bonaventure setting forth marvelous things about these.

He proceeds, chapter 6, to set forth the wine of wisdom, of which Proverbs 9: Drink the wine which I have mingled for you. This the worldly lack, John 2: They have no wine, as the Holy Doctor and St. Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia, excellently expound. Whence the spouse rejoices, Canticle 2: He brought me into the cellar of wine: This is uncreated Wisdom, the eternal Word, containing all the treasures of the wisdom of God hidden away.

This was the generous wine, of which Assuerus was warmed in figure, Esther 15. Of this Canticle 8: I will give you a cup of spiced wine. See the Holy Doctor.

He explains, chapter 7, who are the friends and dearest ones invited to the banquet of Wisdom.

ORIGEN, on that verse of the Canticle I languish with love, distinguishes between simple love, ardor, and languor, saying: Beginners love, the proficient burn, but the perfect languish in love. Therefore, those who love with the greater love are loved by God: I love those who love me. Proverbs 8. The dearest of God are those who take their greatest delight in God, because they love the most. Whence Canticle 7 the Beloved says: How beautiful are you, and how comely, dearest, in delights. Hence the Vercellense: How beautiful are you in affections that burn with fervor and spirit, dearest, on account of your surpassing beauty and ardent love.

FURTHER, St. Dionysius in the letter to Titus, and the Vercellense, on those words of the Canticle 5, Be inebriated, my dearest, expound that inebriation as the abundance of heavenly theorias, that is, the frequency and experiential overflowing of revelations. Such, says Richard, book On Benjamin, chapter 37, was that of Paul, 1 Corinthians 11: Whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not, God knows. To this alludes Psalm 67: There is Benjamin, a stripling, in ecstasy of mind. But he had said before: God will voluntarily separate a rain for his inheritance, and it was weakened, etc. For inebriation effects an alienation of mind, as Richard says, book 4 on contemplation, chapter 16. Whence Psalm 35: They shall be inebriated with the plenty of your house, and you shall make them drink of the torrent of your pleasure.

IF, therefore, we wish to be drenched with this inebriation, let us strive to love the Lord intimately. For thus transformed into God we shall live outside ourselves, as Paul used to say. So great, indeed, is the force of love and of the beautiful, as the Vercellense says in the prologue on the Canticle, that it snatches not only men and Angels outside themselves into God, but even draws God himself outside himself toward creatures. This he learned from St. Dionysius, chapter 4 on the divine names, where he says: One must dare to say what is true, that God himself, by love of what is beautiful and good, goes forth out of the abundance of his amative goodness, as it were outside himself.

HENCE, therefore, the Holy Doctor, chapter 8, ascends to expound the second banquet in glory, where the soul, stripped of the flesh, drinks wine with milk that brings sleep. Canticle 5.

LIKEWISE, chapter 9, he expounds the third banquet of those reigning after the resurrection; of which Luke 22: I dispose to you a kingdom, as my Father has disposed to me, that you may eat and drink at my table, etc. See the Holy Doctor.

Then, chapter 10, he describes the series of those banqueting at that royal feast of wisdom, where he relates wondrous things woven together from the Holy Fathers.

LASTLY, chapter 11, according to the number of the seven gifts, he expounds the beatitude of those banqueting. See him, divinely eloquent.

From what has been said above you can gather in what the gift of Wisdom differs from the other gifts. It differs from the gift of Understanding, because Wisdom is a knowledge of God absolutely; Understanding, however, comparatively, namely in relation to creatures. Second, because by Understanding God is known through illumination from what has been heard in Scripture; but Wisdom is known by experience. Thus through Understanding we know God; through Wisdom we taste his sweetness; whence Wisdom is said to be, as it were, science seasoned with the savor of virtues. And so, just as the gift of Understanding is for speculation, that the intellect may be easily moved toward divine things as they are such in themselves; the gift of Wisdom, however, is practical, rendering the intellect easily movable to perceive divine things as they are good and desirable, and to judge that they are to be adhered to, as St. Bonaventure teaches, book 5 of the Compendium of Theology, chapter 46, St. Thomas, articles 2 and 3, Cajetan there, and question 46, and Valentia, dispute 3, question 20, point 1.

IT DIFFERS also from the gift of science, because this renders the intellect ready to judge what created things are to be adhered to, and in what manner; and it teaches this according to created reasons. The gift of Wisdom, however, shows how one is to adhere to divine things, and according to divine reasons. See St. Bonaventure on the seven gifts, on the Gift of science.

It differs also from the Gift of Counsel; for this teaches what is to be done here and now: Wisdom, however, is universal. See on the Gift of Counsel the Seraphic Doctor..