«Certain knowledge of the things that are». Origenian variations on the theme of Wisdom.

In Wis 7:17-21, Solomon speaks about Wisdom and enumerates the manifold powers of the "knowledge" she has given him; so doing, he seems to wear the dresses of an educated hellenistic dynast, rather than showing the archaic habitus of a king who lived in the 10th century b.C. We meet this passage from an 'apocryphal' book not seldom in the writings of Origen, who – especially in his Commentary on Canticle – develops his idea of a 'cyclic' education, which he conceives as a necessary propaedeutic to a thorough study of Scripture. His interest in sciences – particularly mathematics, geometry, astronomy – is confirmed by important witnesses such as Eusebius and Gregory the Thaumatourgos and represents a ring of the long chain connecting Origen with the milieu of Alexandrian culture.