IN THE VIDEO BELOW I INTRODUCE THE BLOG –
Sophia is the name the ancient Greeks gave to that which in the Bible is known as Holy or Divine Wisdom. The Hebrew prophets regarded Holy Wisdom as a divine Being and always addressed It in terms of the feminine and tried to make clear that she was the closest conceivable companion of their supreme God, Yahweh. This conception of an archetypal masculine/feminine pair or couple at the origin of the Creation is not, however, confined to the ancient Hebrews. In Egyptian mythology, for instance, we find such a pair in Osiris and Isis; in Sumer mythology we find them in Anu (the sky father) and Ki (the earth mother); in Hinduism we find them in Krishna and Radha and in Greek mythology we have Zeus and Hera.
In the early history of Christianity this archetypal pair came to be expressed theogonically in the relationship of the Logos to Sophia. The Logos, conceived of by the ancient Greek philosophers in the masculine sense, was the name they gave to the creative principle or prototype of the human personality. Early Christianity was deeply influenced and informed by this Greek philosophy. The magisterial truth and beauty of the 4th Gospel (John’s) actually arises from an incarnation of a divine personality in a perfect human being, signified by the opening sentence of the Gospel where Christ is identified with the Logos: ‘In the beginning was the Word (Logos)’ ……. ‘And the Word was made flesh.’ (John 1:14).
However, as the erudite theologian Martin Scott has so eloquently shown in his book on Sophia, ‘the Christology of the Fourth Gospel is nothing less than a thoroughgoing Sophia Christology.’ 1 It is clear that the early Christian Fathers struggled hard, and with limited concepts, to understand the relationship of Holy Wisdom or Sophia to the Logos or the Christ. Scott demonstrates very clearly however that the Fathers were keenly aware of a theogonic relationship between Sophia and Jesus, as distinct from the Christ. He states that ‘the New Testament writers applied the concept of Wisdom in varying degrees directly to Jesus’,2 and he elaborates this thesis in a very scholarly way.
In the first couple of centuries of the Christian era, what came to be known (disparagingly in later Christian terminology) as Gnosticism was a very popular movement in the formation of the Church. The Gnostics developed a mythology of Sophia based essentially on the Biblical concept of The Fall.3 They were very much in favour of an ascendent Christology (see The Two Ways to Christ below), meaning that they believed in self-development as being a necessary part of Christian practise. However, as the Church grew in worldly power and authority, it rejected Gnosticism for its Christology, as well as (and perhaps more importantly) for its alleged dualistic understanding of God. In our time however, the place of Gnosticism in the early Church is being re-evaluated by many enlightened thinkers and authors.
One of the key ideas or teachings of the Gnostics is contained in the word syzgy, which means essentially a union of opposites. A good example of a syzgy (in the context of understanding Sophia) is the figure of Adam as described in Genesis 1:27-28. There Adam is described as containing both male and female elements and only later is this unitary being made into two separate beings (Genesis 2:18).
The Logos and Sophia form an ‘earlier’ syzgy than Adam, i.e. one at the very beginning of Creation. In early Christianity this syzgy idea was accepted and understood: ‘….. some Church fathers identified the Logos with Sophia as two sides of the same person of the Trinity.’4 Michael Debus (see his book reference below) refers here to the 3rd person of the Divine Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We can appreciate therefore how the early Fathers struggled with Sophia, knowing in their heart of hearts that she holds the key to a true understanding of Christ and Christianity.
Michael Debus’s book is difficult and deep. However, he does show very clearly that while the Virgin Mary may be, in a certain sense, regarded as a human incarnation of Sophia, the Church has managed, as it were, to make her ‘untouchable’ by declaring Marian dogmas like the Assumption5 or trying to give her titles like co-redemptrix (co-saviour), etc. All of this of course is legitimately concerned with properly placing and honourably regarding the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God in the teaching of the Church. She was there from the very beginning and is actually seen as the Mother of the Church. However the future of true Christianity in our modern scientistic world depends on the development of a new understanding of her as Mary-Sophia. The old but prevailing theology of the Church must be informed or reformed by restoring to Sophia her rightful place in the Church’s thinking, teaching and feeling. And Pope Leo’s recent and emphatic rejection of Mary as co-redemptrix is a step in the right direction.
THE TWO WAYS TO CHRIST
In the early Church essentially two opposing strands of Christology emerged which can be characterised as an ascending and a descending Christology. Orthodox teaching emerged out of the Church’s exclusive espousal of a descending Christology, meaning essentially that salvation comes down to us from God, bestowed on us by His grace alone. An ascending Christology on the other hand supports the idea of self-knowledge and self-development; in other words we ourselves can and should play a part in our personal salvation.
What seems to have happened historically in the Church’s development is that the Wisdom of Sophia, the cultivation of which is key to an ascendant Christology, was suppressed, and a devotional cult of Mary emerged and was promoted instead. However, while a descending Christology may have been unavoidable in the thinking of the Church’s theologians of the past, in the new or modern age of individual freedom an ascending Christology is far more appropriate. On a basic level this means opening up our hearts and minds to receive knowledge of Sophia.
Understanding Sophia is also key to understanding the nature of the Great Schism of 1054 which divided the Church into an Eastern and a Western bloc. The Orthodox Church managed to at least keep the Spirit of Sophia alive, a Spirit which led in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the emergence of an authentic sophianic theology which has to be taken up and developed by the West if Christianity is to thrive in the new millennium. One of the best known Russian sophiologists, Sergi Bulgakov wrote: ‘The future of living Christianity rests with the sophianic interpretation of the world and of its destiny.’ 6
Sophia is the key to a new evangelical stage in the evolution of Christianity in the modern world, in which Mary as the human Mother of God is united with her divine counterpart Sophia.
We must therefore get to know Sophia. Knowledge of Sophia is achieved through spiritual study, contemplation, etc., coupled with the dedicated practise of meditation. This is how Sophia reveals her knowledge and Wisdom to us so that we may become perfect practitioners of Christ-consciousness in the world.
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Footnotes:
1. Martin Scott – Sophia And The Johannine Jesus; Sheffield Academic Press, 1992.
2. ibid.
3. See The Fall Of Sophia – This book is a modern translation of the Gnostic Text, the Pistis Sophia. (Translated by Violet McDermott with a commentary by her.) Lindisfarne Books, 2001
4. Michael Debus – Mary and Sophia, (p. 131); Floris Books 2013
5. It is a dogma of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faith that Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven at her death.
6. Sergi Bulgakov – The Wisdom of God; Lindisfarne Press, 1993