Sophia in Greek, Hohkma in Hebrew, Sapientia in Latin, Celtic goddess-figure Sheela-na-gigs - all mean wisdom. The Judeo-Christian God's female soul, source of his true power is Sophia. As Goddess of wisdom and fate, her faces are many: Black Goddess, Divine Feminine, Mother of God, Mother of Creation. She is both Mother Mary, in her ascendant form, and Mary Magdalene, as the earthly companion of the Christ potential in Christian Gnosticism.
Sophia in her early form:
The earliest forms of Sophia emphasized her power and influence on earth and in the human psyche. In the ancient text of Hypostasis of the Archons, found at Nag Hammadi, it is written that Sophia preexisted and gave birth to the male godhead. She chastises his arrogance when he says there is no other god before him. She claims her spiritual authority. She says “you are wrong, Samuel” (meaning Lord of the blind) and stretches forth her finger to send light into matter. She then follows the light down into the region of “Chaos.”
This power of Sophia within the earth realm was seen in early visions: “I am nature, the universal mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen of the immortals, My nod governs the shining heights of heaven, the wholesome sea breezes, the lamentable silences of the world below. I know the cycles of growth and decay.”
Certainly, from the beginning of time Sophia has been represented by the Great Mother from whom all life arises and is sustained. She was worshipped from 25,000 to 5,000 BC, an immense period of time in human history.
Themes of the intertwining of nature and spirit, and the paradox of life and death are everywhere in images of the Great Feminine. In ancient Mesopotamia, she was depicted as Ishtar, with a winged headdress and holding the ring of divine authority. She was sculpted with owls at her feet representing the secrets of the underworld and death.
In pre-dynastic Egypt she was often shown as a bird goddess with her arms uplifted, again like wings. Another frequent association was with the lion: a fire symbol. This theme was evident in the statues of Sekhmet. It was said that Sekhmet, carrying the paradox of fierce feminine power, would return in times of epoch change.
The uniting of paradoxes is evident in Isis: the great Goddess of the two lands of light and dark of Egypt. She is the agent for the resurrection of Osiris; by conceiving Horus, she brings forth the basic symbol of transformation in the uniting of the paradoxes.
She is Shakti in Sanskrit, the powerful Hindu personification of feminine wisdom, and the personal and collective linking soul as atman, realized in the transcendent state of samadhi (Gnosis).
She is the compassionate boddhisatva (Avalokiteshvara) in Buddhism, returning to light the path to nirvana (Gnosis); personified by the deity Guanyin.
For a period of time Sophia was evident in the city states of Greece and Rome. Her qualities were expressed through the ancient goddess Cybele. Here, also, she was often shown with lions, thought to represent the fiery and ecstatic state associated with her worship. However, Cybele began to fade in Rome about 200 BC as did the goddesses worshipped elsewhere: Isis in Egypt, Artemis in Ephesus, and Demeter in Greece. Similarly, Athene (Minerva) goddess of wisdom; became redefined as the daughter of Zeus, now the goddess of civilization. She was occasionally portrayed with only a small reminder of her heritage: an owl in her hand. To add insult to injury, she was considered to be the inventor of the bridle to tame the horse.
With the further emergence of the Greek Culture there was a marked decline in the power of Sophia. In particular, when the work of Aristotle stressed the world of ideas, and rationality; Logos, which had been her prerogative, became defined as masculine.
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam: (530 B.C to 0 – 600 A.D) all make mention of Sophia, yet each tradition adapts her to their own cosmology; and all increasingly become critical of nature. The goal of all these spiritual traditions is to rise above the earth and achieve Nirvana. Heaven, or Paradise.
The strongest belief in Sophia was retained by Gnostics (2-3 A.D.). While some Gnostic sects saw Sophia as God’s playmate, existing before the manifest world and responsible for helping man journey back to the Source, others blamed her curiosity for the fall of the soul into matter. This, for them, was a tragedy, for the material world was seen as unworthy. Women and earthiness were judged as the cause of all man’s problems. These Gnostics held a dim view of sexuality and treated women in the patriarchal style of the times. And so Sophia became split; her more negative aspect was called the Whore of Babylon, and earth, as a valued expression of creation, was lost.
"Matter" comes from the root word "Mater" or "Mother" and is ultimately the "Great Mother" (Sophia) which gives form to all of Creation and consequently has historically been legitimately worthy of the highest respect and veneration.
Sadly over recent centuries the role of "Matriarchy" has in many circles been an object of denigration.
One can only hope that at the Dawn of the 21st Century that the utterly majestic role of The Feminine will be more widely understood and embraced.
[It is a tragedy that even at the dawn of the 21st Century "Matter" is rejected and considered to be "Evil" as in so doing harmony with the soul and the attainment of "Gnosis-Individuation" shall not be attained.]
Psyche cannot be totally different from matter, for how otherwise could it move matter?
And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche?
Psyche and matter exist in one and the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible.
If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we should arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts.
~Carl Jung; Aion; Page 261.
Sophia, in her new form, surfaced as the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. She is first really noticed within the Catholic Church in 431 A.D. She became very prominent in early art where she was depicted as a vessel of rebirth and higher transformation. She was seen, usually, as a divine protector in early Renaissance times: a figure that mankind could appeal to in times of trouble. She became increasingly “elevated” through the years and in 1950 the church declared the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. Jung wrote that while it was good that the Church finally recognized the importance of the feminine, it had exalted Mary in the masculine sense and this would be injurious to the feminine principle of wholeness.
It was through the Black Madonna that Christianity retained Sophia’s connection with nature. The Black Madonna was sometimes called the lady of the caves where her statues were often hidden. The blackness there may have been related to the fact that she had been rescued by the locals after being burned as “pagan” by the church. The Black Madonna became the Mary of indigenous people and is still found in Poland, Spain, Mexico.
In the Biblical Wisdom literature, she teaches men that clear perception and discernment are more important than gold. Because the teachings were rooted in life instead of doctrine and spoken by a divine female, Sophia became problematical and excluded from the religious formulations of monotheism. Sophia's exile from mainstream religion mirrors the alienation suffered by modern individuals who experience betrayal, abandonment, scapegoating, exclusion, and loss--of homeland or loved one.
"The word philosophy was coined by Pythagoras and comes from the Greek word philein (brotherly love) and sophia, wisdom. He was the first person to call himself a philosopher, which he defined as one who is attempting to find out. Before Pythagoras (6th c. BCE), wise men called themselves sages, meaning those who know."
(Manly P. Hall, An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic Hermetic Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Philosophy, LXV).
Sophia, the "person" in the word "philosophy," was named Sophia after the Greek word for wisdom. She was described in the five Biblical books classified as wisdom literature, written in the postexilic period, from 500 B.C.E. on. Sophia is not only a teacher of men in these texts, but also co-creator of the world. Sophia speaks about her identity, power and function and her mysterious presence with God at creation in passages reminiscent of earlier speeches of wisdom goddesses found in sacred texts in India, Egypt, and Sumeria.
Sophia eventually disappeared from the development of mainstream theological tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam because she was problematical. Being a "she" did not fit into the increasingly male-dominated religions that excluded the feminine in favor of an all-male god that creates everything. Such a concept would be ludicrous for the earlier matrifocal societies who were well aware that the source, bearer, and protector of newborn life is the woman, not the man.
For centuries, the frequent presence of Sophia in the Wisdom literature was a difficult issue for Biblical scholars attempting to account for her apparent divinity and role in creation:
- Her divine status, evident from her speeches, does not easily fit into monotheism.
- Her teachings are rooted in life, not in obedience to rules, gods or priests; these teachings demand individual integrity and justice in the marketplace and royal court, and are achieved through clear perception and devotion to her, wisdom, and by abandoning "marketplace consciousness"--giving up the quest for gold & possessions.
- She is associated with the natural order and meaning of creation, rather than the revelation and salvation of monotheistic religions. Sophia had many of the characteristics of earlier wisdom goddesses who carry the banner of the supremacy, primacy, and justice of the natural order of the cosmos rather than the capricious brutal rule of man whose focus is on profit and domination.
- Her gender is unacceptable in religions that deify only the male. The strenuous effort of Hebrew prophets to turn their people away from the worship of popular local deities to an ever-stricter monotheism admitted no divine reality save one demanding wifeless male god.
Sophia was so problematical for the translators and interpreters of the texts composing the New Testament that her development as a divine figure gradually disappeared from the main stage of Christianity, except in Russia.
The Russian Orthodox Church has a school of "Sophiology" to explore the theology of Sophia without contradicting the Russian Orthodox theology.
She remained, however, a vital force in religious visions, esoteric traditions, and schools of philosophy. She appeared as two Sophias in gnosticism: the world soul and the embodied soul. In medieval alchemy, as Sapientia she was the goal of the transformation process. In Persian Sufism, Sophia inspired mystical devotion and poetry.
Now write out the common Hebrew "Atbash cipher": Write the Hebrew alphabet on one line from Aleph to Tau. Then write it again on the next line down, this time from Tau to Aleph.
Now use the Atbash to transpose the letters of BPhOMTh:
B = Sh (Beth = Shin)
Ph = O (Peh = Vav)
O = Ph (Vav = Peh)
M = Y (Mem = Yod)
Th = A (Tau = Aleph)
So BPhOMTh = ShOPhYA
And now you know the true identity of Baphomet. It is Sophia - the Mother Goddess.
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