Sedes Sapientiae

Several posts ago I conceded male superiority in chess saying "men are smarter than women." Of course, that statement must be qualified!

It matters what you mean by "smart."

A better chess player does not mean a person of greater knowledge or greater wisdom or greater understanding or greater virtue. It simply means greater concentration technical ability in this particular task, this particular type of problem solving.

Perhaps it shows that men are ultimately better at...conquering! But is conquering the greatest virtue? No. Mercy is! The greatest act of man was actually a very passive action: allowing Himself to be abused and killed in order to save his murderers.

It is instructive that the image of Mary under the title of Seat of Wisdom (Sedes Sapientiae) is the crowned Lady (Queen) with a royal robe and tenderly holding the sleeping Infant God on her breast.

Think about it. The Seat of Wisdom is the person in whom God rests secure and content, nurtured, cherished and caressed with every sweetness and understanding and spontaneous and gratuitous affection! None of this is evidenced in the game of Chess! yet this is the very place where wisdom (the highest form of knowledge) abides.

P.S. There are four (of the seven) gifts of the Holy Spirit that have to do with knowledge and human judgment enlightened by faith.

• Wisdom (sapientia): judging of divine things.
• Understanding (intellectus): penetrating the truth.
• Knowledge (scientia): judging of created things.
• Counsel: judging our actions.

P.S.S. Von Balthasar emphasizes the Church of Office (Saint Peter) and the Church of Love (Saint John the Beloved) in the context of the indispensable and unique role of the women in the Gospel. Love has the primacy but is always submissive to Office.

To [the] resurrectio in fieri, [Mary Magdalene] must give her consent by not holding back the Risen One (John 20:17), but letting him go free, in the same way that Mary as Mother had to let the Spirit act when it covered her with its shadow, and Mary of Bethany, in her loving gesture of anticipation, accorded with all that the Lord decided, even with his burial, even with his Passion. For the three chief articulations of the redemption in fieri, the "Yes" of the three Marys is required. Beyond all contestation they symbolise here the believing and loving Church (personam Ecclesiae gerens).
Mysterium Paschale, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1990, p. 250.

The Seat of Wisdom is ultimately feminine! Cf. Wisdom 7:22b-8:1.