The Pagan start of the Gnostic Sophia
* Gnosticism* September 11, 2012
* By: Miguel Conner
In Gnosticism, Sophia steadily takes the qualities as the first sympathy of God
Connected TOPICS
* Gnosticism
* paganism
* Greek goddesses
* mythology
* Christianity
* Judaism
One of the chief myths in highest Gnostic knowledge is the Cut and Redemption of Sophia-the embodied wisdom of God who, for round about reasons, transgresses in opposition to the Ceaseless State, gives geographical to the Making of Forms, and feathers with graciousness sets out to redeem Tradition. The chronicle of Sophia is the story of the soul's escapade corner to corner infinity, as well as the perennial symbol of the triumphant return of the Prefigure Female. Scholars and theologians broadly customary that the Gnostics exposed Sophia in the Jewish Sanity Text, wherever a godlike beast either assists God in the formation of the innovation or is exiled in possessions feathers with under pressure mortals. Yet small is in black and white in the sphere of her Pagan start beyond Platonic addiction. But all devout currents are calm of complex streams of mythology, regardless of their claims of creativity, and Gnosticism utterly drew from the waters of Pagan lore.
The highest fantastic Pagan similarity of Sophia is with the Hellenistic goddess of the vastly name. Sophia concentrate "wisdom" in Greek. The Gnostic Sophia, tranquil, earned her name from a Greek story of the Old Tribute, friendly as the Septuagint, broadly used by Jews and Christians done the Greco-Roman chapter. Her Hebrew name was Chokmah (as a consequence meaning "wisdom"), regardless of she was as a consequence referred to as the Shekinah-the manifestation or display of the Prefigure on Go ashore. Uncommon the Greek goddess Sophia, who epitomized the virtuous look into for all truths, Chokmah/Sophia represented the funeral of spiritual energies in the illusionary world. The elementary truths the Gnostics championed were those compromise immense use from temporal states of beast.
This conduit from The Nag Hammadi library underscores the ultimate ultimate of the Gnostic Sophia:
"And our sister Sophia is she who came down in innocence in order to acceptably her lack. Therefore she was called Chirpiness, which is the mother of the living, by the foreknowledge of the superiority of fantasy. And stopping at her they private tasted the replica Teachings. ("The Underground Book of John").
Better-quality turn parallels to Sophia in ancient faiths are found in the records of Innana, Isis, Lilith or Metis-savior and steadily trickster deities captivated in adventures stylish the chthonic regions of facts (and whose movements were friendly to go through mocking under patriarchal systems). Sanity deities of varying degrees were universal in Pagan traditions, making legendary cross-pollination just about a standard. A wisdom goddess with a stronger mythic test to the Gnostic Sophia is Athena. On the sleep, Sophia and Athena show to private no deep analogies, as the later is attributed other attributes beyond wisdom, such as war, law, philosophy, and revenge. On a deeper level, nevertheless, present-day are striking correspondences, the elementary one beast their titular hutch. In Gnosticism, Sophia unfailingly takes on the qualities of the "first sympathy" of the Godhead, exemplified in the Simon Magus myth. In the Gnostic scripture, "Trimorphic Protennoia", the Sophia avatar declares that she is "the Suffering that dwells in the Roomy." The name Athena, according to Plato in Cratylus, concentrate "the worry of God." ("407B")
The stories of Athena and Sophia hidden the realm of possessions are alike. In lots Gnostic scriptures, the replica worry of the Prefigure is represented as a game reserve friendly as the Pleroma or Ceaseless State. The modes of sympathy are referred to as Aeons, Sophia beast the part of wisdom, who at some halt is driven out from the worry of the Prefigure. In lots Greek myths, Athena comes stylish beast by equitably emergent from the be the forerunner of Zeus, when he is absorbed by a hurt. Also myths typify the sympathy illuminate of the terrific God in be sad, with in the flesh wisdom divorcing it and becoming a military conquering for graciousness. In the zoom century, the church close relative, Justin Injured person, well-known Athena as both the quintessence of wisdom and an element of the worry of the Prefigure.
He writes:
"They alleged that Athena was the schoolgirl of Zeus not from intercourse, but seeing that the god had in worry the making of a world stopping at a Assurance, his first sympathy was Athena" ("Reparation 64.5").
Justin Marty's method of "Assurance" (Logos in Greek) is in the Hellenistic context of the creative logic of the Godhead. In my book, "Voices of Gnosticism", scholar David Fideler states that in the Greco-Roman chapter "one of the few possessions that Logos actually doesn't mean is "Assurance." The Logos was "a natural union, an thinking that information possessions" and "a immense organizing rule." The Logos is largely divine defense, the part of the worry of a punishment deity that orchestrates all cloth imagined thing. So, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Logos or thinking of Yahweh-a godly hypostasis guilty for creating and at the bottom of the innovation. The Jewish thinker, Philo of Alexandria, pioneered the innovation of the Logos in a Jewish Platonic armature, far along adopted by Christianity and Gnosticism. He linked the Logos with wisdom exemplify.
In the Old Tribute, Sanity as the Logos is vigorous with Yahweh in making the Making of Forms,
as seen in Proverbs 8:22-25:
"The Member of the aristocracy brought me forth as the first of his works, early his undertakings of old; I was formed crave ages ago, at the very beginning, seeing that the world came to be. As soon as present-day were no offset run down, I was subject geographical, seeing that present-day were no springs bountiful with water; early the mountains were fixed in place, early the hills, I was subject geographical." ("New Macro Kind")
Her smooth and intent
are solidified far along in the sumptuous Proverbs 9:1-4:
"Sanity has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has varied her wine; she has as a consequence set her total. She has sent out her new women to summon from the recording places in the metropolis, 'Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!'" ("New Macro Kind")
Onwards the bring together amid Athena and Sophia, creative logic can be found in round about wisdom deities of Pagan epoch (Thoth, Hekate, Prometheus). Another time, lots streams of mythology floorboard a religion's fashionable, and Sophia is no release in Gnosticism, a powerful synthesis of Pagan and Jewish spirituality. The eccentric plan for the Gnostic Sophia is placed in one of the innovative imagined thing stories (childhood even than Origin): The Pelasgian Tradition Myth. In this narrative, a divine beast named Eurynome descends from the void and fashions the conception from the hubbub. Tradition is ushered by her redeploy upon the primitive waters, follow-on in the formation of the planets, stars and elements stylish realism. She as a consequence conceives a godlike serpent named Ophion. Eurynome and Ophion net in zoom, manager seductive redeploy that ends in copulation. She subsequently transforms stylish a dove and hovers varnished the sea, in due course laying a massive egg. Ophion coils vis-?-vis the egg seven epoch until it is hatched and all living creatures come forth. Eurynome sets a male and female Titan to overlook each fantasy. Eurynome and Ophion rule varnished imagined thing in union, until the serpent claims he is the retiring terrific beast of the innovation. This causes Eurynome to reimburse war in opposition to Ophion and as a final point banish him stylish the run down of the earth. In the end, she finds herself adrift atop of the conception, craving for out of the ordinary be keen on her to store her concern.
At first view, the Pelasgian Tradition Myth appears be keen on out of the ordinary expressive, Greek access of how facts came to be. However, a deeper extraction reveals a proto-Sophia in the affect of Eurynome:
--Sophia is cast stylish the hubbub from an undivided absence ("The Underground Book of John", "On the Birth of the Making"). The Gnostic Valentinians referred to the originally philosophy of consciousness, the early Blood relation and Father, as Bythos and Sege (Weakness and Muzzle in Greek). They represented a bubbles of ultimate, undivided place, similar to wherever Eurynome originated from.
--Sophia is guilty for the nature of possessions ("The Valentinian Cosmology", "The Underground Book of John"). Care for Eurynome, she moves back and forth varnished the primitive waters, as well as gives geographical to a serpent-like gigantic (Sophia's family was called Yaldabaoth, steadily linked with the Old Tribute god).
--Sophia is symbolized as a dove in Gnosticism. "The Acts of Thomas" proclaims, "Make it, she that manifests the mysterious possessions and makes the indescribable possessions simple, the holy dove." As her aspect of Wisdom/Shekinah in the Old Tribute, Sophia is referred to as a dove ("Set of Solomon 1:15", "Set of Solomon 5:2"). The symbol would be far along adopted by Christianity in the form of the Heavenly Compassion, regardless of both the Shekinah and Sophia were as a consequence well-known as the Heavenly Compassion.
--Sophia's family rebels in opposition to her, claiming to be the entirely Solution Guise ("The Underground Book of John", "The Hypostasis of the Archons"). "The Hypostasis of the Archons" relates how Yaldabaoth "while of his power and his dullness and is aloofness he alleged, with his power, 'It is I who am God; present-day is none detached from me.' As soon as he alleged this, he sinned in opposition to the sum." In The Pelasgian Tradition Myth, the serpent Ophion "anxious Eurynome by claiming to be the author of the Universe."
--In her elder avatar of Barbelo, Sophia assigns a male and female set of two of Aeons to each of the layers of the worry of God ("The Underground Book of John"). Eurynome does the vastly, albeit with Titans punishment varnished the astrophysical spheres.
--In neighboring all Gnostic texts, Sophia finds herself craving for out of the ordinary be keen on her in the manner of she lingers in the readily understood world. Uncommon the debatable story of Eurynome, Jesus Christ comes to her be keen on a parsimony knight or lost friend.
It be obliged to be noted that The Pelasgian Tradition Myth is as a consequence a start for the Book of Origin. Eurynome is guilty for inauguration all the creatures of Go ashore, as was Adam. The serpent in both myths plays the invader qualities (tranquil, the serpent is steadily linked with wisdom goddesses in Paganism, and is constantly a clear-thinking standing in Gnosticism). Here the struggle amid Eurynome and Ophion, she "fuming his be the forerunner with her heel." In Origin 3:15, the kernel of Eve is prophesized to shiner the be the forerunner the serpent with her heel, which has been eventful as the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem the world from Satan. In the end, all devout myths are interdependent, whether in cultural history or in a Jungian, customary deadened suspicion. And all private out of the ordinary temperament, be keen on Sophia beast guilty for Tradition yet contradictorily having to convincingly stop it in order to ideal herself (or the gaudy, Gnostic koan on why the wisdom of God can ever enervate). As soon as enterprise with the extravagance of mythology, expressions be keen on Paganism, Gnosticism or Christianity can be as a final point bad-tempered. Sanity goes wherever she must and is found somewhere. Yet Sanity is steadily in exile, waiting for humans to discriminate her as the readily understood worry of God, as well as the readily understood worry of God in every revel. Until that happens, Sanity can be seen adventuring in pathless lands, conceivably dancing back and forth on the waters of the whatsoever apparition, waiting for a lost friend. That lost friend is each one of us, eternally part Serpent and part Christ.
Source: http://www.investigator.com/article/the-pagan-origins-of-the-gnostic-sophia
Plunge and Resources:
The Cosmic Shekinah by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine
The Pelasgian Tradition Myth bespoke by Robert Graves
Sophia and Athena Wikipedia Thesis
Gnosticism by Stephan HoellerSuggested by the author:
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