The book of Wisdom and the new ethics of care: respect nature, but not deify it

Abstract

This article aims to present an analysis of the biblical text delimited in Wis 13:1-9, in which the sacred author makes an explicit criticism of his contemporaries, who, erroneously, relegated to nature and, in a special way, to the stars the condition of gods. His criticism of this conception is made from philosophy itself, defended and propagated by the Greek stoic philosophers. Thus, in a very pedagogical way, the author warns his listeners-readers that the Greeks, armed with their high philosophical knowledge, were not able to find the true source of beauty, because, seduced by the beauty emanating from the creatures, they transformed the work of art in the artist. Taking advantage of this criticism, that a new look at creatures is needed and that the intellective and, mainly theological, capacity can and should favor this, the present article will correlate the exegesis of the text with the proposal of a new ethics, namely: the ethics of care, which is not new, however, ignored.