WISDOM BOOKS. - In the division of the writings of the Old Testament into historical, prophetic and wisdom books, the latter designation includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom and Sirach.
Now, however, it is preferred to call them "poetic" books, with reference to their literary form, or "didactic," insofar as they aim to teach an ideal of social and religious life. This last designation is not exact in the strict sense, because the Psalms, the Song of Songs and in part Job are eminently lyrical. It is better, therefore, to retain, as excellent authors do, the term wisdom books for Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Sirach, to which the Song of Songs is joined only because of extrinsic analogies.
The theme of the wisdom books is "wisdom," understood in the very broad sense that it has in the Old Testament. It is a question of the first of the virtues, or rather of their compendium (= subjective wisdom, conceived as a quality of the perfect man), or else of the doctrine of wisdom in itself (= objective wisdom). In this kind of ethical philosophy of the ancient Israelites, one speculates on divine wisdom, on its excellences, adding to this numerous practical observations.
Such books also contain passages in prose, but for the most part they are composed in poetry, which reproduces and often develops the ancient Hebrew māšāl ("gnomic saying"), consisting of two members or stichs, often in antithesis to one another in concept (= antithetic parallelism) or with the repetition of the same idea in a different form (= synonymous parallelism).
Angelo Penna