WISDOM — skill, and then the reasoned understanding a Greek education existed to produce; the root of 'philosophy', love of it. 1 Corinthians 1 uses it eight times in fifteen verses and does something odd with it: God 'made the wisdom of the world foolish', Greeks 'look for wisdom' and get a crucifixion instead, and then Christ himself 'became wisdom for us from God'. ⚠ Paul is not anti-intellectual — chapter 2 turns round and says 'we do speak wisdom among the mature' — he is against wisdom as a thing to be admired for, which is the currency the Corinthian factions were trading in. ⚠ The identical Greek noun has an earlier, very different life in this library: at Matthew 11:19, sophia is a WOMAN who acts and is vindicated by her own deeds ('wisdom is vindicated by her deeds'), standing in the Hebrew Bible's own tradition of Wisdom calling out in the marketplace (Proverbs 1, 8-9, not yet on these pages in Greek dress) — one noun, personified in one Gospel and intellectualized in one letter. → first discussed at 1 Corinthians 1:17