Wis 8:2

“I think therefore that Sarah, which means "principal," or what has primacy, is a figure of the aretē which is the virtue of the soul. This virtue is joined and clings to a wise and faithful husband, like that wise one who said of wisdom, "I sought to take her as my bride." For this reason God says to Abraham, "In everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice."”

“In many places the sacred Scripture has avoided the term "desire," replacing it with "love." At times, however, even if somewhat rarely, it uses precisely the term "desire" and invites and urges the soul to this, as in Proverbs when it says of wisdom, "Desire her, and she will serve you. Hold her close, and she will make you great. Honor her, that she would embrace you." And in the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, it is further written of wisdom, "I desired her beauty." Nevertheless, I think that the Scripture used the term "desire" only where there was no possibility of equivocation. Indeed, whatever is passionate or shameful can be found in the desire for wisdom or in the one who claims to desire wisdom. In fact, if the Scriptures had said that Isaac desired Rebecca or that Jacob desired Rachel, one could have thought of passion or of something shameful in the holy men of God because of these words, especially among those who do not know how to raise themselves from the letter to the spirit. And precisely in this book that we have before us, it is clear that the word desire has been replaced by "love," where it is said, "I implore you, daughters of Jerusalem: if you find my beloved, tell him that I am wounded by love." It is as if she were to say, I have been pierced by an arrow of love. Therefore there is no difference if the sacred Scriptures speak of love or of desire, except that the term "love" is held in such high esteem that even God is personally called love, as John says, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows him. The one who does not love, however, does not know God, because God is love."”

“Since, according to the Gospel, the Lord is the bridegroom and, according to John, he has a bride, must we think in terms of earthly, bodily spouses? Certainly not. But by this use of language we are taught that he is the one who has been promised to the nations. By the Father's work, the inheritance of the church has been espoused to him, through the assumption of the body that he took from the Virgin. But, to learn what we should understand by the designation "bride," we must examine closely what is said elsewhere regarding the term. For example, Solomon says, "I sought to take wisdom as my bride." And because he seeks a bride, he wants her to be rich, and he recounts the benefits of his bride, saying, "She manifests her nobility in a life of communion with God, because the Lord of the universe loved her." And "if one desires wide experience, she knows what is past and infers what is to come." And further, "A strong woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond precious stones." All of this was said in Proverbs, because a proverb does not explain what the words say but displays the power of what is said using ordinary words. In the Gospels, the Lord teaches how a proverb must be understood when he says, "The hour will come when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but I will speak openly to you of the Father." Therefore, according to the rules governing proverbs, we must recognize that the strong woman is she whom Solomon desired to take as his bride. Of her he says further, "I therefore decided to take her as the companion of my life. I am enamored of her beauty."”

“There is wisdom and there is wisdom. The apostle knew various kinds: that of which he spoke when he said, "The world does not know God with the wisdom of God." And that which he spoke of saying, "God condemned as foolishness the wisdom of the world," or when he said that he spoke "not with the power of the flesh but by the power of God." Solomon, by contrast, spoke of that wisdom of whose charm he was enamored and that he made his bride (Job asked himself, "Where can she be found, in what place of wisdom?"17). But did he speak of that "despised wisdom of the poor person," of the "wisdom guided by God" or of the "Wisdom of the Father, the only-begotten"?”

“"Your wife like a fertile vine within your home, and your sons like olive plants around your table." Once again the literal sense must be avoided here. We see in fact that many very holy men have neither wife nor sons and that the wicked have all that. How then can this part of the blessing be applied, which you know often does not pertain to the good but to the bad? "Wife" has the sense of sister. For this reason, as the wife of the blessed man one must understand wisdom, as Solomon says, "Who sought to take her as a wife." And elsewhere, "Love her, and she will watch over you. Do not abandon her, and she will care for you." She is therefore the wife of the righteous, who captivates her husband with a chaste embrace.”

“Foreseeing you, the prophet Isaiah exclaimed by divine inspiration, "See, the virgin will be with child." And, "The root of Jesse will be raised." And, "Blessed is the root of Jesse." And, "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, a shoot will grow from his roots." Because of you the great Ezekiel proclaimed, "Here is the door toward the east. The door will be closed, and no one may enter by it. Only the Lord God will enter and leave by it, and the door will remain closed." Prophesying of you, the beloved man calls you a mountain, saying, "A stone taken from you, without human hands," hewn but not cut, removed but not split by the assumption of our humanity. You are the greatness of that awesome economy "into which angels desire to look." You are the beautiful dwelling of the descent of God, the land truly desired. In fact, "the king desired the glory of your beauty" and was enamored with the riches of your virginity: he made his dwelling in you, "and dwelled among us" and through you reconciled us with God the Father. You are the treasury of the "mystery hidden from ages past." You are truly the living book of the spiritual Word, silently written in you with the life-giving pen of the Spirit. You alone are truly the book, written by God, of the new covenant that God once established with humanity. You are that "chariot of God in its tens of thousands," you who have led thousands of those gladdened by the incarnate one. You are Mount Zion, the fertile mountain, the rugged mountain, "that God has chosen as his dwelling," from whom he who is above all being took shape and was formed in our flesh endowed with an intellectual soul.”

“I have loved her, I have sought her from my youth. The lover of wisdom says that he has sought wisdom itself from his youth, that is, from the cradle of human life, and therefore he has truly found it, because he was a diligent seeker of it, according to that promise which she elsewhere made to her lovers, saying: Blessed is the man who listens to me, and who watches at my doors daily, and observes the posts of my gates (Prov. 8:34). Whoever finds me finds life, and will draw salvation from the Lord (Prov. 8:35). And again: I, she says, love those who love me, and those who watch for me in the morning will find me (Prov. 8:17). And I sought to take wisdom as my bride, and I became a lover of her beauty. I sought, he says, to take wisdom as my bride, that is, to join her to myself in a perpetual covenant, from whose companionship I know that I never wish to be separated, and whose beauty I have chosen to desire above all; for the beauty of wisdom is truth, which all who are truly religious especially long to know: because it is by this alone that all the elect of God hope to be made blessed in eternal rest. Therefore, Truth itself says to the Father in the Gospel: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn. 17:3).”

“Such a desire extinguishes all others, and makes man to be lifted up from the world. Hence he writes: "Her I loved and sought after from my youth; I sought to take her for my bride and was enamored of her beauty."”

“And since the author expresses himself as a philosopher and as a lover of Wisdom, he writes: "Her I loved and sought after from my youth; I sought to take her for my bride and was enamored of her beauty" — not only in itself, but also because, coming from her, similar properties are flowering in me.”

“From the second foursome, let us take wise, for it contains the other three. If He is wise, He is therefore living; and if living, He is powerful; and if powerful, beautiful also, for wisdom is the most beautiful form: wherefore "I was enamored of her beauty." Out of the third foursome, let us take one attribute: happy, which contains within itself the other three. For if He is a happy Spirit, therefore He is good, and hence just, and also holy. And so, in these three attributes, eternal, wise, and happy, the whole Trinity shines forth, for eternity is appropriated to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and happiness to the Holy Spirit.”

“Do not love the harlot and dismiss your wife: "Her I loved and sought after from my youth." Do not take in the acorns and pods of the swine, lest with Absalom you be hung by the hair, that is, by your dispositions. The teachings of the ages are like the oak: lofty, noble, inflexible. Do not choose to eat the pumpkins of Egypt and the leeks and the garlic, but "bread from heaven." And do not be disgusted with that food, do not be carnal as were the sons of Israel. For these found but one flavor, while others, spiritual men, found the sweetness of every taste.”

“(Vers. 2.). There follows: Her, namely wisdom, because she is of such great power, I loved, namely with the affection of the heart: whence above in the seventh chapter: "Beyond health and beauty I loved her." And I sought her out, that is, I sought outside myself, by the effect of good work, according to that passage of First John 3: "Let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth." From my youth, as if to say: in the flower of my age: Proverbs 8: "They who in the morning," namely of youth, "watch for me, shall find me": therefore Sirach 6: "Son, from your youth receive instruction." And I sought, namely by the zeal of reading and prayer: Luke 11: "Seek, and you shall find": to take her to myself as a bride. He says bride by reason of love: Proverbs 7: "Say to wisdom: You are my sister, and call prudence your friend." Likewise, by reason of delight: Proverbs 5: "Rejoice with the wife of your youth." By reason of inseparability: Matthew 19: "For it is not lawful to dismiss a bride except for the cause of fornication": but this has no place in wisdom: "for nothing defiled enters into her," above in the seventh chapter. By reason of generation: Sirach 24: "Come over to me, all you who desire me, and be filled from my generations." And I became a lover of her form, that is, of the beauty of wisdom, and this by perseverance and the love of fervent affection, converting it as it were into a habit: Zechariah 9: "What is his good and what is his beauty but the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins to bud forth"? that is, but wisdom, which restores the affection and makes chaste or purifies the intellect from the corruption of error.”