Note 3 — Chapter XII · The Wisdom of Solomon.

Here we have the origin of the “unpardonable sin.” The Holy Spirit detects and informs, Jahveh avenges, and if the offence is blasphemy, Wisdom, the Saviour, cannot acquit (as the “Loving Spirit” of God it is for her ultra vires). This detective Holy Spirit appears to be an evolution from both Wisdom and Satan the Accuser, in Job a Son of God. By associating with Solomon on earth, Wisdom was without the severe holiness essential to Jahvist conceptions of divine government; in other words, personified Wisdom, whose “delight was with the sons of men” (Prov. viii. 31) was too humanized to fulfil the conditions necessary for upholding the temple at a time when penal sanctions were withdrawn from the priesthood. A celestial spy was needed, and also an uncomfortable Sheol, if the ancient ordinances and sacrifices were to be preserved at all under the rule of Roman liberty, and amid the cosmopolitan conditions prevailing at Jerusalem, and still more at Alexandria.3