Sophia (wisdom)

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A mystical depiction of Sophia from Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer, Altona, 1785.
A mystical depiction of Sophia from Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer, Altona, 1785.

Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for "wisdom") is a central term in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, Platonism, Gnosticism, Orthodox Christianity, Esoteric Christianity, as well as Christian mysticism. Sophiology is a philosophical concept regarding wisdom, as well as a theological concept regarding the wisdom of God.

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[edit] In Platonism

Sophia is one of the four cardinal virtues of Plato's Protagoras. The Pythian Oracle reportedly answered the question of "who is the wisest man of Greece?" with "Socrates!"

Socrates defends this verdict in his Apology to the effect that he, at least, knows that he knows nothing.

[edit] In the Bible

Further information: Chokhmah

Sophia is adopted as the term in the Septuagint for Hebrew חכמות Ḥokmot.

In Judaism, Chokhmah appears alongside the Shekinah, 'the Glory of God', a figure who plays a key role in the cosmology of the Kabbalists as an expression of the feminine aspect of God.

It is a central topic in the "sapiential" books, i.e. the eponymous Book of Wisdom as well as Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. A key passage which personifies Wisdom/Sophia in the Hebrew Bible is Proverbs 8:22-31.

Paul also refers to the concept, notably in 1 Corinthians, but ambiguously, deconstructing worldly wisdom, e.g.

"Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1:20)

setting it against a higher wisdom of God,

"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." (2:7)

[edit] In Christianity

Further information: Sophiology
 It has been suggested that Holy Wisdom be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

In Christian theology, Chokhmah (Sophia, Sapientia) describes an aspect of God, or the theological concept regarding the wisdom of God.

[edit] Eastern Orthodoxy

In the Holy Family, Sophia is often taken to be represented by Mary. In particular in the Russian Orthodox Church, Sophia has been championed as a key part of the Godhead by religious thinkers. These included Vladimir Solovyov, Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov whose book Sophia: The Wisdom of God is in many ways the apotheosis of Sophiology. For Bulgakov, the Sophia is co-existent with the Trinity, operating as the feminine aspect of God in concert with the three masculine principles of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is contrary to the official view of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is that wisdom is the same person as the Divine Logos, referred to in humility, who became incarnate as Jesus Christ. Bulgakov's work was denounced by the Russian Orthodox authorities as heretical.

[edit] Roman Catholic Mysticism

In Roman Catholic mysticism, Hildegard of Bingen celebrated Sophia as a cosmic figure both in her writing and art.

[edit] Protestant Mysticism

Virgin Sophia design on a Harmony Society doorway in Harmony, Pennsylvania, carved by Frederick Reichert Rapp (1775-1834).
Virgin Sophia design on a Harmony Society doorway in Harmony, Pennsylvania, carved by Frederick Reichert Rapp (1775-1834).

Within the Protestant tradition in England, 17th Century Christian Mystic, Universalist and founder of the Philadelphian Society Jane Leade wrote copious descriptions of her visions and dialogues with the "Virgin Sophia" who, she said, revealed to her the spiritual workings of the Universe. Leade was hugely influenced by the theosophical writings of 16th Century German Christian mystic Jakob Böhme, who also speaks of the Sophia in works such as The Way to Christ[1]. Jakob Böhme was very influential to a number of Christian mystics and religious leaders, including George Rapp and the Harmony Society.

Sophia can be described as the wisdom of God, and, at times, as a pure virgin spirit which emanates from God. The Sophia is seen as being expressed in all creation, the natural world, and, for some of the Christian mystics mentioned above, integral to the spiritual well-being of humankind, the church, and the cosmos. The Virgin is seen as outside creation but compassionately interceding on behalf of humanity to alleviate its suffering by illuminating true spiritual seekers with wisdom and the love of God. The main difference between the Gnostic idea of the Sophia and the one more aligned with Christian mysticism is that for the latter she is not fallen or in need of redemption. Conversely, she is not as central in most forms of established Christianity as she is in Gnosticism, but to some Christian mystics the Sophia is a very important concept.

[edit] In Gnosticism

A Feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the Feminine aspects of God and the Bride of Christ, she is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world.

In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. In most if not all versions of the gnostic religion, Sophia brings about an instability in the Pleroma, in turn bringing about the creation of materiality. Thus a positive or negative view of materiality depends a great deal on the interpretations of Sophia's actions in the myths. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth (this is a feature of Ptolemy's version of the Valentinian gnostic myth).[citation needed] For the Gnostics, the drama of the redemption of the Sophia through Christ or the Logos is the central drama of the universe. The Sophia resides in all of us as the Divine Spark. According to the Pistis Sophia, Christ is sent from the Godhead in order to bring Sophia back into the fullness of Pleroma following her repentance.

Almost all gnostic systems of the Syrian or Egyptian type taught that the universe began with an original, unknowable God, referred to as the Parent or Bythos, or as the Monad by Monoimus. It can also be equated to the concept of Logos in stoic, esoteric, or theosophical terms (The 'Unknown Root') as well as the Ein Sof of the Kabbalah and Brahman in Hinduism. It is also known as the first Aeon by still other traditions. From this initial unitary beginning, the One spontaneously emanated further Aeons, being pairs of progressively 'lesser' beings in sequence. The lowest of these pairs were Sophia and Christ. The Aeons together made up the Pleroma, or fullness, of God, and thus should not be seen as distinct from the divine, but symbolic abstractions of the divine nature.

[edit] Nag Hammadi

In the Nag Hammadi, Sophia is the lowest æon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is the syzygy of Jesus Christ (i.e. she forms a unity with Christ, being cojoined with him), and Gnostics believed that she was the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. Sophia is depicted as the creator of the material universe in On the Origin of the World. Furthermore, the planet Earth and everything on it was indeed created by the Jewish God Yahweh, but he is depicted as fundamentally corrupt. Because Sophia created the material universe and its god (also known as Yaldabaoth, Samael, and Demiurge) either without her syzygy Jesus Christ or, in another tradition, because she tried to breach the barrier between herself and the unknowable Bythos.

Furthermore, she is also depicted as the destroyer of both this material universe, and Yaldabaoth/Yahweh and all his Heavens. Later in "On the Origin of the World," it states:

"She [Sophia] will cast them down into the abyss. They [the archons] will be obliterated because of their wickedness. For they will come to be like volcanoes and consume one another until they perish at the hand of the prime parent. When he has destroyed them, he will turn against himself and destroy himself until he ceases to exist. And their heavens will fall one upon the next and their forces will be consumed by fire. Their eternal realms, too, will be overturned. And his heaven will fall and break in two. His [...] will fall down upon the [...] support them; they will fall into the abyss, and the abyss will be overturned. The light will [...] the darkness and obliterate it: it will be like something that never was."

[edit] The fall of Sophia

Sophia's fear and anguish of losing her life (just as she lost the light of the One) caused confusion and longing to return to it. Because of these longings, matter (Greek: hyle, ‘υλη) and soul (Greek: psyche, ψυχή) accidentally came into existence through the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air. The creation of the lion-faced Demiurge is also a mistake made during this exile, according to some Gnostic sources as a result of Sophia trying to emanate on her own, without her male counterpart. The Demiurge proceeds to create the physical world in which we live, ignorant of Sophia, who nevertheless managed to infuse some spiritual spark or pneuma into the creation of the Demiurge.

After this the savior (Christ) returns and lets her see the light again, bringing her knowledge of the spirit (Greek: pneuma, πνευμα). Christ was then sent to earth in the form of the man Jesus to give men the gnosis needed to rescue themselves from the physical world and return to the spiritual world. Note that, in Gnosticism, the Gospel story of Jesus is itself allegorical: it is the Outer Mystery, used as an introduction to Gnosis, rather than being literally true in a historical context.

In Valentinian cosmology, the three sensations experienced by Sophia create three correspondent types of humans:

  • hylics (who bond to matter, the principle of evil)
  • psychics (who bond to the soul and are partly saved from evil)
  • pneumatics who can return to the pleroma if they achieve gnosis and can behold the world of light. The gnostics regarded themselves as members of this group.

The analogy of the fall and recovery of Sophia is echoed (to a varying degree) in many different myths and stories (see Damsel in distress). Among these are:

[edit] Bibliography

  • Caitlin Matthews, Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom (London: Mandala, 1991) ISBN 0044405901
  • Brenda Meehan, ‘Wisdom/Sophia, Russian identity, and Western feminist theology’, Cross Currents, 46(2), 1996, pp149-168
  • Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria (in German: 1988; English translation: York Beach, ME: Samuel Wiser, 1998) ISBN 1578630223
  • Arthur Versluis, Theosophia: hidden dimensions of Christianity (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1994) ISBN 0940262649
  • Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s children: a Christian esoteric tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999) ISBN 0791443302
  • Arthur Versluis (ed.) Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology (St.Paul, Min: Paragon House, 2000) ISBN 1557787832
  • Priscilla Hunt, "The Wisdom Iconography of Light: The Genesis, Meaning and Iconographic Realization of a Symbol" due to appear in “'Spor o Sofii' v Khristianskoi Kul’ture", V.L. Ianin, A.E. Musin, ed., Novgorodskii Gos. Universitet, forthcoming in 2008
  • Priscilla Hunt, "Confronting the End: The Interpretation of the Last Judgment in a Novgorod Wisdom Icon", Byzantino-Slavica, 65, 2007, 275-325
  • Priscilla Hunt, "The Novgorod Sophia Icon and 'The Problem of Old Russian Culture' Between Orthodoxy and Sophiology", Symposion: A Journal of Russian Thought, vol. 4-5, (2000), 1-41
  • Priscilla Hunt "Andrei Rublev’s Old Testament Trinity Icon in Cultural Context", The Trinity-Sergius Lavr in Russian History and Culture: Readings in Russian Religious Culture, vol. 3, Deacon Vladimir Tsurikov, ed., Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2006, 99-122

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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