Sophia
Sophia means wisdom in Greek.
In early Gnostic Christianity, Sophia was the Great Mother,
and often was symbolized
by a dove. She represented God's female soul, the Divine Feminine
aspect of deity. Seven is the number sacred to Sophia, and
in some early Gnostic traditions, they held that God and Sophia
together merged into an androgyne. Sophia, like the Shekinah
of Cabalism, was regarded as the female soul of God, who can
never be complete, or repair the world’s imbalances,
without being re-united with Her. As human beings cannot find
the path to holistic wisdom without achieving a union of both
the intuitive (moon) and reason (sun) natures within, so God
cannot create until He is in balance and union with Sophia.
The wisdom of Sophia is the
wisdom of Gnosis, wisdom that comes from deep and intuitive
knowing and ecstatic experience.
Sophia was much loved by early eastern Christians, and one
of Sophia’s greatest shrines was the basilica of Hagia
Sophia (Holy Sophia) in what is now Istanbul.
This worship of Sophia was not, however, acceptable to the
evolution
of an all male church, and She was eliminated from what became
the
orthodox Bible. Roman Christians, disturbed by such monuments
to
the Great Mother as Hagia Sophia, claimed it was dedicated
to a "virgin martyr", and created “St.
Sophia”.
Although Catholic tradition has it that
St. Sophia was a virgin, it seems that she also somehow managed
to produce
three daughters: St. Hope, St. Faith, and St. Charity— which
are, indeed,
the divine progeny of Wisdom.
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