gnostic handbook

The Gnostic Handbook Page 30
What is Sophia
The general understanding of the Holy Spirit as found in the Christian tradition is a desexing of
the great feminine power. Sophia is the goddess or feminine principle and as such exists from
the earliest pagan traditions right through to the Greek Mysteries and Gnosticism. In Gnostic
literature she is described by many names – the All mothers, Mother of the Living, Shining
Mother and the Holy Spirit. Sophia is seen as the counterpart of the Logos and cannot work
without. It is hence suggested in esoteric Gnostic literature that it was the combined power of
Jesus and Mary Madgadene who transmitted the Mysteries, not Jesus alone.
The Sophia tradition has survived hidden under the veil of Christian piety, it is still found in the
cult of the Virgin Mary and is most powerful in the Russian orthodox traditions. It is a tradition
of great age and some beauty that personifies the power of the Holy Spirit as distinctly female.
For example, in Proverbs particularly we have Sophia wandering the street begging men to love
her. While in the following quotes we may even begin to think that Sophia or Wisdom is separate,
yet in reality, Sophia is a facet of the Lord of Wisdom himself.
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the
chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her
words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity and the scorners
delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge
Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make
known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at naught all my
counsel, and would none of my reproof: I When your fear cometh as desolation,
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh
upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me
early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not
choose the fear of the Lord:They would none of my counsel: they despised all
my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled
with their own devices.
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools
shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall
be quiet from fear of evil. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,
before his works of old....When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he
set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above:
when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree,
that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the