Commentary on the Sentences

I, wisdom, have poured out rivers. I, like a brook out of a river of mighty water: I, like a channel of a river, and like an aqueduct, came out of paradise. I said: ‘I will water my garden of plants and I will water abundantly the fruits of my meadow.’ Sirach 14:40-42
Among the many opinions coming from different sources as to what true wisdom might be, the Apostle gives one that is singularly firm and true when he says, ‘Christ, the power of God and wisdom of God, has become for us God-given wisdom’ (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30). This does not mean that only the Son is wisdom, since Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one wisdom, just as they are one essence. Rather, wisdom especially belongs to the Son because the works of wisdom in many ways agree with what is proper to the Son. Through the wisdom of God the hidden things
of God are made manifest and the works of creatures are produced, and not only produced, but restored and perfected. I mean that perfection whereby a thing is called perfect when it has attained its proper end.
That the manifestation of divine things pertains to the wisdom of God is clear from the fact that God himself fully and perfectly knows himself by his wisdom. Hence, if we know anything of him it must be derived from him, because every imperfect thing takes its origin from the perfect. So it is said, ‘And who shall know your thought, except you give wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from above?’ (Wisdom 9:17). This manifestation is effected specially by the Son: he himself is the Word of the Father, as is said at the beginning of John, and manifesting the Father and the whole Trinity in speech belongs to him. Hence we read in Matthew 11:27, ‘Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’; and in John 1:18, ‘No one has at any time seen God. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him.’ It is rightly said of the person of the Son therefore, ‘I, wisdom, have poured out rivers.’ I take these rivers to be an eternal procession whereby the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit from both in an ineffable manner. These rivers were once hidden and in some way confused with the likenesses of creatures, even in the enigmas of Scripture, so that scarcely any of the wise believed the mystery of the Trinity. The Son of God came and poured forth rivers, making known the name of the Trinity. Matthew 18:20: ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’And Job 28:11: ‘The depths also of rivers he hath searched: and hidden things he hath brought to light.’ This touches on the matter of Book One.