SOPHIA - GODDESS OF WISDOM

Sophia Goddess of Wisdom & God's Wife

Who is Sophia? Literally she is Wisdom, because the Greek word Sophia means "wisdom" in English. More than that, Sophia is the Wisdom of Deity. She has been revered as the Wise Bride of Solomon by Jews, as the Queen of Wisdom and War (Athena) by Greeks, and as the Holy Spirit of Wisdom by Christians. She is known as Chokmah (pronounced HOK-mah with the H being said like -ch in the name Bach) in Hebrew, and Sapientia in Latin.

But just who is Sophia?

Sophia is found throughout the wisdom books of the Bible. There are many references to her in the book of Proverbs, and in the apocryphal books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (accepted by Catholics and Orthodox, found in the Greek Septuagint of the early Church). She is Wisdom Incarnate, the Goddess of all those who are wise.

The Hebrews revered Sophia. King Solomon even put her right in the Temple, in the form of the Goddess Asherah. However, after the brutal "reforms" of King Josiah described in 1st and 2nd Kings in your Bible, the veneration of Sophia went underground. Josiah slaughtered all her priests and priestesses and destroyed all her shrines and places of worship. But Sophia adherents remained active in the "underground stream" for centuries even while patriarchal Christianity held total sway in the Western World. Thanks to her continuing presence in the world and her presence in the Bible, veneration of Sophia surfaced in the Eastern Christian tradition with the construction of the Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople.

Yet the Eastern Christians are not the only Christians to venerate Sophia. Sophia was very likely venerated by early Followers of the Way, and her veneration has survived in the West today in the form of Gnosticism. Gnostics see her as one of the aeons, one of the quasi-deities who live in the ethereal realm known as the pleroma. Gnostics believe that she gave birth to or brought about the creation of a negative aeon, who later came to be called an archon, called the Demiurge, creator and ruler of this world. Gnostics see the Demiurge as the God of the Old Testament, with his strict rules and chains that bind the people of the Earth. Gnostics believe that Sophia and the Father God (not the Demiurge) sent Yeshua to right this wrong. In Gnostic tradition, Sophia plays a very active role in our world.

Esoteric Christianity doesn't typically support the theory of the Demiurge. It believes that creation is inherently good, and as such so is the Creator. However, the Mystery School does look at other theories and myths such as Shaitan (aka Satan or Shatan), the devil, was the ruler of this world and was accidentally given the keys to the Otherworlds by Goddess. He had these keys until the passion, death, and descent into hell of Yeshua, when Yeshua retrieved them and holds them still.

Sophia, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene are three Christian Goddesses, making up a female Trinity. Both the earthly forms of Mary and Mary Magdalene shared the name Mary, and both in their Heavenly forms share the Hebrew letter Heh in the God-Name YHVH. So how does Sophia fit into the Godhead? Wisdom of Solomon, a book in the apocrypha says clearly that Sophia is the Holy Spirit. There could be a feminine Trinosophia - Mother, Daughter, and Pneuma (Holy Soul).

Just a thought ...

~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.