Note 2 — Chapter XII · The Wisdom of Solomon.
Reading edition
Although the Spirit of God was generally supposed to convey miraculous knowledge, especially of future events, and superior skill, it is not, I believe, in any book earlier than Sophia Solomontos definitely ascribed the function of a detective. There is in Ecclesiastes (x. 20) a passage which suggests the carrier: “Curse not the King, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich even in thy bedchamber; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”2 This was evidently in the mind of the writer of Sophia Solomontos in the following verses: