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Who is Sophia?

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:37 am
by Owlsrayne
Do you all accept Sophia as she is presented in the Pistis Sophia? Also, where she is referred to in other Gnostic Scriptures? As a Armchair Historian and Mythologist I see her as the most ancient of Goddesses brought forward in time. One scripture stands out among all the rest is "The Thunder".
Go back three thousand years before the Gnostics. She is the first and only resurrected Goddess. Read her Temple Hymns, Read her descent into the
Underworld. Then read "The Thunder"again. She is still with us.

Owlsrayne

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:00 am
by biguns
Niiice, now I can log in...

You might look into Sophia Gaia from John Lash works on the Gnostics, there's a very special reason she's the first goddess.

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 7:25 am
by Dybbuk
my ex wife.

Asides, sophia is more of a what than a who. At least according to the valentinians

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 3:00 am
by Nepthys
My main knowledge of Gnosticism is limited to the Valentinians. Sophia was conceptualized as the "wisdom" or "intellect" of the divine personified. Sophia was a highly abstracted concept, and her relation with the Demiurge was very Platonist with Sophia being the ideal and the Demiurge being the most corrupted. While they claimed the Demiurge wasn't worthy of worship and was responsible for the problem of evil, they viewed both the Demiurge and Sophia as two parts of a greater godhead. In their approach to the Trinity, they saw God the Father as the "Godhead Restored" (ie, union between Demiurge and Sophia), and the Holy Spirit as pneumia, the feminine breath of life and intellect itself. The Gospel of Phillip uses this conception of the Trinity to dismiss the full, unrelenting divinity of Christ (when has a woman ever conceived by a woman? [referring to the feminine gender of the Greek "pneumia"]. Sophia was a very pervasive concept, not a goddess. Nor did the Valentinians particularly care to personify her beyond giving her a feminine name that also meant "wisdom". Imagery used to depict Sophia as a woman was common to the areas in which Gnosticism flourished, so it functioned as a convenient and easy non-verbally-literate way of illustrating Sophia as a concept. So I would agree that the question is less of "who she was" and more "what it was".

Also, this is principally from the point of view of the Valentinians. I know there were other groups and my knowledge of them is extremely limited, but I can't imagine their conceptualization of Sophia would be remarkably different. They are all lumped in together as one broader group of early Christians. A fundamental reformulation of one of the most important concepts of their theology and worldview would make the Valentinians stand out as a separate religious tradition altogether.

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 2:04 pm
by Shamash
So what is Sophia's relation to the Monad? Is she viewed as the personification of the pathway to gnosis, an aeon of the Monad, or a separate concept (like the demiurge of the ideal world rather than the corrupted one in which we are currently in existence)? I read a text from the Nag Hammadi library that defined Sophia as the veil separating the Monad from the Dyad, which I found interesting. Is it something that varies entirely between the different sects, or what?

Also, I'd like some clarification on the concept of pneumia and the trinity. Where can I find more information on this?

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:30 am
by MAZOHIR
In the kabbalistic and Gnostic conceptions of the creation of the various worlds, they are very similar in presenting them as being "emanated" in syzygies, which are emanated pairs of opposites. After emanating from absolutely NO-THING, the 1st emanation on the Tree of Life is hermaphroditic, which then goes on to emanate pairs of opposites, the 1st two of which are called WISDOM (male)and UNDERSTANDING (female), and they, the 1st pair, "mates" and produces the other paired opposites, finally culminating in the manifestation of concrete form, in opposing states, active and passive, male and female, positive and negative...................the Dual Power of the Caduceus or Wand of Hermes.

SOPHIA is WISDOM, CELESTIAL. There is a saying in Judaism, that "the Beginning of Wisdom, is the Fear (AWE actually) of the Lord". According to most Gnostic sects, man, as a soul, fell from regions of Celestial Light, and took on the negative archetypes of the Planetary Rings, as he descended further and further into the world of darkness, the world of the 4 elements. Mars: anger, cruelty and violence. Saturn: torpor, selfishness, avarice. Jupiter: gluttony, greed and hypocrisy. Sun: bombast, arrogance and over-weaning pride. Venus: Lust. Mercury: Lying and stealing. Moon: Inconstant in everything. Lost in the dark world of matter, and completely forgotten his Divine Origins, after many rounds of incarnation, gradually being purified of the dross of the material body, he finds the road back to true GNOSIS, Divine revelation, SOPHIA, WISDOM, the Crown.

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:19 pm
by ThomasK
Sophia is generally regarded as a fundamental concept in Sufism and Gnosticism (as you know). The name implies Holy WIsdom and can be attributed to the idea of the Divine Twins (syzygy). She functions as the mediator or communicator of knowledge from the worlds above to the worlds below. It is most often seen as the goal of Gnostic or contemplative mysticism to unite the separated twins (male and female) into a whole (holy) entity so that the schism of man and god can be finished. In Istanbul, Turkey there is a very famous structure called the Hagia Sophia or the House of Holy Wisdom, looking into that building could prove fruitful for your research.

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 2:11 am
by Analytic13
Well Sophia is the idea of objects...but not what they actual mean..which is a form of understanding..so the wisdom..is the definition of objects..at a heavy moral and meta relative rate..thus we have a means to understand which is an object or Pistis Sophia..so that we have an understanding is the Father of the Soul..or meta yahoushua..

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 2:38 am
by Cybernetic_Jazz
Gods and goddesses are a messy stack in the mysteries - ie. one tends to flow into another and back pretty easily.

Sophia... lets see...

There is Pistis Sophia
There's Proverbs chapter 8 which speaks heavily
The Catholic deuterocanon called Wisdom seems to just about try to cop a feel off of Proverbs 8.
Many see her as a sort of fusion or link in the Mary/Isis identity or perhaps their merger.
Mark Stavish says she's a lady dressed in red.
Babalon wears scarlet.
In the OTO Gnostic Creed Babalon is the Earth.
Mark and several other people have said Sophia is the Earth.

I don't know what to make of Gnostic Christianity. That is I still don't really get it, it seems a world apart from everything else, especially the Manichean/Zoroastrian dualist stuff that saw matter as evil, so Pistis Sophia just seemed like a massive confusion to me with sweeping cosmological structures. Valentinean gnosticism is supposedly the source inspiration of the 30 Aethyrs of John Dee and the Enochian system so that's one thing that extends into modern practice but aside from that, for clear cosmological arguments, I'm at a loss for comparing the Sophia of esoteric Judaism and other monist traditions with the Gnostic dualism of Pistis Sophia.

About all I can say in addition - Isis is usually given the Binah role, Babalon is, Kali is obvious in that role, something about Saturn and both limitation and kundalini. Similarly in Kabbalistic/Qabalistic thought - like mother like daughter - big H and little H - Saturn and Earth.

Does it mean that Sophia's kinda in two parts - one as YHVH Elohim and one as Adonai Ha Aretz? I don't know. This stuff, while fascinating for all the anthropology and history that backs and concatenates it, still feels like thought and word soup. I suppose I'll have more to say when I've got my head around Kabbalah better!

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 11:11 pm
by Greatest I am
Cybernetic_Jazz wrote:
I don't know what to make of Gnostic Christianity. That is I still don't really get it, it seems a world apart from everything else, especially the Manichean/Zoroastrian dualist stuff that saw matter as evil,
Hi there.

Do you see Gnostic Christians as hating matter given how this speaks of it as a part of the only heaven Gnostic Christians recognize?

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"
"If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

That is the short version that I give out.
I have a longer one that I give to Christians but they always run from any debate or discussions as they cannot break the logic.

I will put it here but it is secondary to answering the view of us hating matter.

You mentioned confusion in understanding Gnostic Christians. If I can help, let me know. I am one.

=========

I wrote this to refute the false notion that Gnostic Christians do not like matter and reality that the inquisitors propagated to justify their many murders of my religions originators
The Christian reality.
1 John 2:15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Gen 3; 17 Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
-----------
The Gnostic Christian reality.
Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"
"If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be, given our past history, or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, given all the conditions at hand and the history that got us here. That is an irrefutable statement given entropy and the anthropic principle.

Regards
DL

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 7:04 am
by Cybernetic_Jazz
GnosticBishop I presume?

Image

Re: Who is Sophia?

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:28 pm
by Omnicentrik
I think the works of John Lamb Lash are worth looking into where Sophia (the feminine side of the Christic Aeon and Essence of this planet) is concerned.
[metahistory.org has a good collection].