WISDOM AND MORALS, THE LIMITS OF BIBLICAL IRONY
WISDOM AND MORALS, THE LIMITS OF BIBLICAL IRONY

Summary/Abstract: The Holy Scripture contains in its pages numerous examples of fine irony, but only under the seal of wisdom and morality, in the mentioned order, because wisdom comes first and then morality. In the pages of the Holy Scriptures, wisdom is not transmitted so much through a sermon, as through the direct utterance of a conclusion reached by the one who utters it through his own experience. That is why, just like in the case of poetic literature, we can’t say that it is all in a few specific books, even regarding the Old Testament sapiential literature. But wisdom was perceived differently in the Old Testament period compared to the New Testament period. As far as speculative wisdom is concerned, the authors of the books in the biblical canon go beyond the practical aspect of life in their thinking and reflect on deeper issues related to the meaning and value of life, the problem of the existence of evil in the world, salvation, etc. In all these examples it is divine irony that, in exemplary pedagogy, defines, reinforces, and emphasizes the difference between divine and human wisdom. The wisdom of these books is theocentric, practical and speculative at the same time. However, there is a difference that we must continue to try to preserve between human irony with a philosophical-pedagogical character compared to biblical irony or even the irony of Christ, a way of expression through which he uses words or images with the opposite meaning to the fully accepted one in order to stress the ridicule of malice and stupidity. Education in the spirit of divine wisdom and Christian morality confers on the one who acquires it a dignity that is permanently appreciated

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