ABSTRACT
A particularly revealing incursion of Mary into the category of the divine comes up in mariophile discourse about the ancient figure of divine Wisdom. Among the so-called Wisdom books of the Christian Old Testament is the apocryphal Ecclesiasticus. Related to the "Seat of Wisdom" is the royal "Throne of Wisdom." Mary's child was Christ the King, and any king needs a throne. There is already a suggestion of enthronement in the first Greek Akathistos, which represents Mary herself as the throne of Christ the King, Basileos kathedra. The Roman Catholic West has hardly been alone in surreptitiously utilizing the title of Wisdom for marian purposes. In Orthodox Russia, for example, there is a rich tradition that links Mary to Wisdom as personified in the Old Testament. To judge from the clearest indications of wisdom in the New Testament, then, they point to Jesus, not to Mary. In particular, they point to Jesus' self-sacrificial goal orientation.
