Penelope Y Sophia

Penelope Y Sophia
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This "Gnostic mythos" section possibly contains original research . Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations . Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. ( October 2011 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message )
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^ Layton, Bentley, ed. (1989). Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2–7 . Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 158–59 , 252–53 . ISBN 90-04-09019-3 .

^ Michael Williams. "Gnosticism" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Encyclopædia Britannica Online . Retrieved 17 October 2011 .

^ MacRae, George (1990). "The Thunder: Perfect Mind". In Robinson, James M. (ed.). The Nag Hammadi Library in English . San Francisco: HarperCollins.

^ See the references in Liddell and Scott .

^ Möller, Ernst Wilhelm (1860). Geschichte der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche bis auf Origenes. Mit Specialuntersuchungen über die gnostischen Systeme . Halle. p. 270 sqq.

^ Robinson Jr., William C. (1990). "Exegesis on the Soul". In Robinson, James M. (ed.). The Nag Hammadi Library in English . San Francisco: HarperCollins.

^ Lipsius, Richard Adelbert (1860). Gnosticismus . Brockhaus. pp. 119 sqq.

^ Lipsius, Richard Adelbert (1867). Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios . Wien. p. 74 sqq.

^ Hahn, August (1819). Bardesanes gnosticus, Syrorum primus hymnologus: commentatio historico-theologica . pp. 64 sqq.

^ Lipsius, Richard Adelbert (1883). Apocrypha Apostelgeschichten . Vol. I. C.A. Schwetschke und sohn. pp. 292–321.

^ Wright, William (1871). Apocryphal Acts of Apostles . Williams and Norgate. pp. 238 –45.

^ Bonnet, Alfred Maximilien (1883). Supplementum Codicis apocryphi . Vol. I. Leipsic. p. 8.

^ Mead, G.R.S. (1908). The Wedding-Song of Wisdom . Vol. 11 of Echoes From the Gnosis. London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society. ISBN 9785882806612 .

^ Bonnet , pp. 20 sq.

^ Bonnet, p. 36.

^ Petermann, Julius Heinrich; Schwartze, Moritz Gotthilf, eds. (1851). Pistis sophia: opus gnosticum Valentino adiudicatum . Berlin.

^ Köstlin, Karl Reinhold von (1854). Baur, F.C.; Zeller, Eduard (eds.). "Das Gnostische System des Buches Pistis Sophia ". Theol. Jahrbücher : 189.

^ Köstlin , pp. 57 sq.

^ Anathemat. Manich. ap. Cotelier on the Recogn. Clement IV., 27 et passim.

^ Thilo, Johann Karl, ed. (1823). Acta S. Thomae apostoli from the Paris Codex . Leipzig: Vogel. pp. 128 sqq.

^ Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1831). Die Manichäische Religionssystem . pp. 219 sqq.

^ Cf. Baur, pp. 51 sqq. 64, 209.

^ Flügel, Gustav (1862). Mani, seine Lehren und seine Schriften. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Manichäismus . pp. 201 sq. 210, 233.

^ Mattoon, M.A. (2005). Jung and the Human Psyche: An Understandable Introduction . Taylor & Francis US. pp. 55 ff. ISBN 1583911103 .

^ As told by Plutarch , On the Worship of Isis and Osiris , LIV, 5–6 . See Mead, G.R.S (1906), Thrice Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis , vol. I, London and Benares: The Theosophical Publishing Society, p. 334, note .

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Sophia ( Koinē Greek : Σοφíα "Wisdom", Coptic : ⲧⲥⲟⲫⲓⲁ "the Sophia" [1] ) is a major theme, along with Knowledge ( γνῶσις gnosis , Coptic sooun ), among many of the early Christian knowledge-theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikoi ( γνωστικοί ), ‘knowing’ or ‘men that claimed to have deeper wisdom’. Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions. [2]

In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God . Gnostics held that she was the syzygy (female twin divine Aeon ) of Jesus (i.e. the Bride of Christ ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity . She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamōth ( Ἀχαμώθ , Hebrew : חכמה chokhmah ) and as Prunikos ( Προύνικος ). In the Nag Hammadi texts , Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world.

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 . From this initial unitary beginning, the One spontaneously emanated further Aeons , being pairs of progressively 'lesser' beings in sequence. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the Pleroma , or fullness, of God, and thus should not be seen as distinct from the divine, but symbolic abstractions of the divine nature. The transition from the immaterial to the material, from the noumenal to the sensible, is brought about by a flaw, or a passion, or a sin, in one of the Aeons.

In most versions of the Gnostic mythos, it is Sophia who brings about this instability in the Pleroma, in turn bringing about the creation of materiality. According to some Gnostic texts, the crisis occurs as a result of Sophia trying to emanate without her syzygy or, in another tradition, because she tries to breach the barrier between herself and the unknowable Bythos . After cataclysmically falling from the Pleroma, Sophia's fear and anguish of losing her life (just as she lost the light of the One) causes confusion and longing to return to it. Because of these longings, matter (Greek: hylē , ὕλη ) and soul (Greek: psychē , ψυχή ) accidentally come into existence. The creation of the Demiurge (also known as Yaldabaoth, "Son of Chaos") is also a mistake made during this exile. The Demiurge proceeds to create the physical world in which we live, ignorant of Sophia, who nevertheless manages to infuse some spiritual spark or pneuma into his creation.

In the Pistis Sophia , Christ is sent from the Godhead in order to bring Sophia back into the fullness (Pleroma). Christ enables her to again see the light, bringing her knowledge of the spirit (Greek: pneuma , πνευμα ). Christ is 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. In Gnosticism, the Gospel story of Jesus is itself allegorical: it is the Outer Mystery , used as an introduction to Gnosis, rather than it being literally true in a historical context. 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 humans as the Divine Spark .

Jewish Alexandrine religious philosophy was much occupied with the concept of the Divine Sophia , as the revelation of God's inward thought, and assigned to her not only the formation and ordering of the natural universe (comp. Clem. Hom. xvi. 12 ) but also the communication of knowledge to mankind. In Proverbs 8 Wisdom (the noun is feminine) is described as God's Counsellor and Workmistress (Master-workman, R.V.), who dwelt beside Him before the Creation of the world and sported continually before Him.

In accordance with the description given in the Book of Proverbs, a dwelling-place was assigned by the Gnostics to the Sophia, and her relation to the upper world defined as well as to the seven planetary powers which were placed under her. The seven planetary spheres or heavens were for the ancients the highest regions of the created universe. They were thought of as seven circles rising one above another, and dominated by the seven Archons . These constituted the (Gnostic) Hebdomad. Above the highest of them, and over-vaulting it, was the Ogdoad , the sphere of immutability, which was nigh to the spiritual world ( Clemens Alexandrinus , Stromata , iv. 25 , 161; comp. vi. 16 , 138 sqq.). Now we read in Proverbs 9:1 :

Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars:
These seven pillars being interpreted as the planetary heavens, the habitation of the Sophia herself was placed above the Hebdomad in the Ogdoad ( Excerpt. ex Theodot . 8, 47). It is said further of the same divine wisdom ( Proverbs 8:2 ):

She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
This meant, according to the Gnostic interpretation, that the Sophia has her dwelling-place "on the heights" above the created universe, in the place of the midst, between the upper and lower world, between the Pleroma and the ektismena . She sits at "the gates of the mighty," i.e. at the approaches to the realms of the seven Archons, and at the "entrances" to the upper realm of light her praise is sung. The Sophia is therefore the highest ruler over the visible universe, and at the same time the mediatrix between the upper and the lower realms. She shapes this mundane universe after the heavenly prototypes, and forms the seven star-circles with their Archons under whose dominion are placed, according to the astrological conceptions of antiquity, the fates of all earthly things, and more especially of man. She is "the mother" or "the mother of the living." ( Epiph . Haer . 26, 10). As coming from above, she is herself of pneumatic essence, the mētēr phōteinē (Epiph. 40, 2) or the anō dynamis (Epiph. 39, 2) from which all pneumatic souls draw their origin.

In reconciling the doctrine of the pneumatic nature of the Sophia with the dwelling-place assigned her, according to the Proverbs, in the kingdom of the midst, and so outside the upper realm of light, there was envisioned a descent of Sophia from her heavenly home, the Pleroma, into the void ( kenōma ) beneath it. The concept was that of a seizure or robbery of light, or of an outburst and diffusion of light-dew into the kenōma , occasioned by a vivifying movement in the upper world. But inasmuch as the light brought down into the darkness of this lower world was thought of and described as involved in suffering, this suffering must be regarded as a punishment. This inference was further aided by the Platonic notion of a spiritual fall.

Alienated through their own fault from their heavenly home, souls have sunk down into this lower world without utterly losing the remembrance of their former state, and filled with longing for their lost inheritance, these fallen souls are still striving upwards. In this way the mythos of the fall of Sophia can be regarded as having a typical significance. The fate of the "mother" was regarded as the prototype of what is repeated in the history of all individual souls, which, being of a heavenly pneumatic origin, have fallen from the upper world of light their home, and come under the sway of evil powers, from whom they must endure a long series of sufferings until a return into the upper world be once more vouchsafed them.

But whereas, according to the Platonic philosophy, fallen souls still retain a remembrance of their lost home, this notion was preserved in another form in Gnostic circles. It was taught that the souls of the Pneumatici, having lost the remembrance of their heavenly derivation, required to become once more partakers of Gnosis, or knowledge of their own pneumatic essence, in order to make a return to the realm of light. In the impartation of this Gnosis consists the redemption brought and vouchsafed by Christ to pneumatic souls. But the various fortunes of such souls were wont to be contemplated in those of Sophia, and so it was taught that the Sophia also needed the redemption wrought by Christ, by whom she is delivered from her agnoia and her pathe , and will, at the end of the world's development, be again brought back to her long lost home, the Upper Pleroma, into which this mother will find an entrance along with all pneumatic souls her children, and there, in the heavenly bridal chamber, celebrate the marriage feast of eternity.

The Sophia mythos has in the various Gnostic systems undergone great variety of treatment. The oldest, the Syrian Gnosis, referred to the Sophia the formation of the lower world and the production of its rulers the Archons; and along with this they also ascribed to her the preservation and propagation of the spiritual seed.

As described by Irenaeus , the great Mother-principle of the universe appears as the first woman, the Holy Spirit ( rūha d'qudshā ) moving over the waters, and is also called the mother of all living. Under her are the four material elements—water, darkness, abyss, and chaos. With her, combine themselves into two supreme masculine lights, the first and the second man, the Father and the Son, the latter being also designated as the Father's ennoia . From their union proceeds the third imperishable light, the third man, Christ. But unable to support the abounding fullness of this light, the mother in giving birth to Christ, suffers a portion of this light to overflow on the left side. While, then, Christ as dexios (He of the right hand) mounts upward with his mother into the imperishable Aeon, that other light which has overflowed on the left hand, sinks down into the lower world, and there produces matter. And this is the Sophia, called also Aristera (she of the left hand), Prouneikos and the male-female.

There is here, as yet, no thought of a fall, properly so called, as in the Valentinian system. The power which has thus overflowed leftwards, makes a voluntary descent into the lower waters, confiding in its possession of the spark of true light. It is, moreover, evident that though mythologically distinguished from the humectatio luminis (Greek: ikmas phōtos , ἰκμὰς φωτός ), the Sophia is yet, really nothing else but the light-spark coming from above, entering this lower material world, and becoming here the source of all formation, and of both the higher and the lower life. She swims over the waters, and sets their hitherto immoveable mass in motion, driving them into the abyss, and taking to herself a bodily form from the hylē . She compasses about, and is laden with material every kind of weight and substance, so that, but for the essential spark of light, she would be sunk and lost in the material. Bound to the body which she has assumed and weighed down thereby, she seeks in vain to make her escape from the lower waters, and hasten upwards to rejoin her heavenly mother. Not succeeding in this endeavour, she seeks to preserve, at least, her light-spark from being injured by the lower elements, raises herself by its power to the realm of the upper region, and there spreading herself out she forms out of her own bodily part, the dividing wall of the visible firmament, but still retains the aquatilis corporis typus . Finally seized with a longing for the higher light, she finds, at length, in herself, the power to raise herself even above the heaven of her own forming, and to fully lay aside her corporeity. The body thus abandoned is called "Woman from Woman."

The narrative proceeds to tell of the formation of the seven Archons by Sophia herself, of the creation of man, which "the mother" (i.e. not the first woman, but the Sophia) uses as a mean to deprive the Archons of their share of light, of the perpetual conflict on his mother's part with the self-exalting efforts of the Archons, and of her continuous striving to recover again and again the light-spark hidden in human nature, till, at length, Christ comes to her assistance and in answer to her prayers, proceeds to draw all the sparks of light to Himself, unites Himself with the Sophia as the bridegroom with the bride, descends on Jesus who has been prepared, as a pure vessel for His reception, by Sophia, and leaves him again before the crucifixion, ascending with Sophia into the world or Aeon which will never pass away ( Irenaeus, i. 30 ; Epiph. 37, 3, sqq.; Theodoret, h. f. i. 14).

In this system the original cosmogonic significance of the Sophia still stands in the foreground. The antithesis of Christus and Sophia, as He of the right ( ho dexios ) and She of the Left ( hē aristera ), as male and female, is but a repetition of the first Cosmogonic Antithesis in another form. The Sophia herself is but a reflex of the "Mother of all living" and is therefore also called "Mother." She is the formatrix of heaven and earth, for as much as mere matter can only receive form through the light which, coming down from above has interpenetrated the dark waters of the hylē ; but she is also at the same time the spiritual principle of life in creation, or, as the world-soul the representative of all that is truly pneumatic in this lower world: her fates and experiences represent typically those of the pneumatic soul which has sunk down into chaos.

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one.

In the Gnostic system described by Irenaeus ( I. xxi. ; see Ophites ) the name Prunikos several times takes the place of Sophia in the relation of her story. The name Prunikos is also given to Sophia in the account of the kindred Barbeliot system, given in the preceding chapter of Irenaeus. Celsus , who shows that he had met with some Ophite work, exhibits acquaintance with the name Prunikos ( Orig. Adv. Cels . vi. 34 ) a name which Origen recognizes as Valentinian. That this Ophite name had really been adopted by the Valentinians is evidenced by its occurrence in a Valentinian fragment preserved by Epiphanius (Epiph. Haer . xxxi. 5). Epiphanius also introduces Prunikos as a technical word in the system of the Simonians (Epiph. Haer . xxi. 2) of those whom he describes under the head of Nicolaitans (Epiph. Haer . xxv. 3, 4) and of the Ophites (Epiph. Haer . xxxvii. 4, 6).

Neither Irenaeus nor Origen indicates that he knew anything as to the meaning of this word; and we have no better information on this subject than a conjecture of Epiphanius (Epiph. Haer . xxv. 48). He says that the word means "wanton" or "lascivious," for that the Greeks had a phrase concerning a man who had debauched a girl, Eprounikeuse tautēn . One feels some hesitation in accepting this explanation. Epiphanius was deeply persuaded of the filthiness of Gnostic morals, and habitually put the worst interpretation on their language. If the phrase reported by Epiphanius had been common, it is strange that instances of its use should not have been quoted from the Greek comic writers. It need not be denied that Epiphanius had heard the phrase employed, but innocent words come to be used in an obscene sense, as well by those who think double entendre witty, as by those who modestly avoid the use of plainer language. The primary meaning of the word prouneikos seems to be a porter, or bearer of burdens, the derivation being from enenkein , the only derivation indeed that the word seems to admit of. Then, modifying its meaning like the word agoraios , it came to be used in the sense of a turbulent violent person. The only distinct confirmation of the explanation of Epiphanius is that Hesychius ( s. v. Skitaloi ) has the words aphrodisiōn kai tēs prounikias tēs nykterinēs . This would be decisive, if we could be sure that these words were earlier in date than Epiphanius.

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