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FRATERNAL GREETINGS FRATERNAL
I THAT AM THAT I THAT AM BREATHE THE SPIRIT BREATH
The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. John Donne. 1573–1631. 196. ... Or who cleft the Devil's foot; Go and catch a falling star,
THE ACT OF A CAT
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Chapter 17. The promise of Isaac in whom the line of Christ Page 27 AND GOD SAID UNTO ABRAHAM AS FOR SARAI THY WIFE THOU SHALT NOT CALL HER NAME SARAI BUT SARAH SHALL HER NAME BE
16 AND I WILL BLESS HER AND GIVE THEE A SON ALSO OF HER YEA I WILL BLESS HER AND SHE SHALL BE A MOTHER OF NATIONS KINGS OF PEOPLE SHALL BE OF HER
17 THEN ABRAHAM FELL UPON HIS FACE AND LAUGHED AND SAID IN HIS HEART SHALL A CHILD BE BORN UNTO HIM THAT IS AN HUNDRED YEARS OLD AND SHALL SARAH THAT IS NINETY YEARS OLD BEAR
RED DESERTS DESERTS RED HURRAH FOR RAH FOR RAH HURRAH A SAHARA SARAH SARAH A SAHARA SAHARASARAHSARAHSAHARA SAHARASAHARA A SARAH A SAHARA
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Chapter 16. The birth of Ishmael Page 25 NOW SARAI ABRAMS WIFE BARE HIM NO CHILDREN AND SHE HAD AN HANDMAID AN EGYPTIAN WHOSE NAME WAS HAGAR
2 AND SARAI SAID UNTO ABRAM BEHOLD NOW THE LORD HATH RESTRAINED ME FROM BEARING I PRAY THEE GO IN UNTO MY MAID IT MAY BE THAT I MAY OBTAIN CHILDREN BY HER AND ABRAM HEARKENED TO THE VOICE OF SARAI
3 AND SARAI ABRAMS WIFE TOOK HAGAR HER MAID THE EGYPTIAN AFTER ABRAM HAD DWELT TEN YEARS IN THE LAND OF CANAAN AND GAVE HER TO HER HUSBAND ABRAM TO BE HIS WIFE
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Chapter 17. Ishmael to be a nation Page 27 24 AND ABRAHAM WAS NINETY YEARS OLD AND NINE WHEN HE WAS CIRCUMCISED IN THE FLESH OF HIS FORESKIN
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Chapter 17. Ishmael to be a nation Page 27 25 AND ISHMAEL HIS SON WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD WHEN HE WAS CIRCUMCISED IN THE FLESH OF HIS FORESKIN
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Page 26 Chapter 17. 5 Abram becomes Abraham
NEITHER SHALL THY NAME ANY MORE BE CALLED ABRAM BUT THY NAME SHALL BE CALLED ABRAHAM FOR A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE THEE
HOLY BIBLE Scofield References GENESIS Page 26 Chapter 17. The revelation of God as El Shaddai Almighty God
AND WHEN ABRAM WAS NINETY YEARS OLD AND NINE THE LORD APPEARED TO ABRAM AND SAID UNTO HIM I AM THE ALMIGHTY GOD WALK BEFORE ME AND BE THOU PERFECT
Ahaziah, king of Israel -Biblical people There are two people named Ahaziah in the Bible, and both were kings. One was king of the northern kingdom of Israel and the other was king of the southern ... www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/p117.htm
Ahaziah There are two people named Ahaziah in the Bible, and both were kings. One was king of the northern kingdom of Israel and the other was king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Both profiles are included below:
Ahaziah, King of Israel Ahaziah, King of Israel, was the uncle of Ahaziah, King of Judah. Israel's Ahaziah was the eighth king of the northern kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Ahab and Jezebel. He reigned for two years (852-851 BC).
Ahaziah, king of Judah Ahaziah reigned for one year (843-842 BC) as the king of Judah when he was 22 years old. He was the son of Jehoram. His mother, Athaliah, was King Ahab's daughter. He had many of the same failings as did King Ahab, and his mother encouraged him in doing wrong.
A biography of Saladin (Salah al-Din), with particular reference to his legacy on Cairo.
Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub)
Saladin (1138-1193) was born into a prominent Kurdish family, and it is said that on the night of his birth, his father, Najm ad-Din Ayyub, gathered his family and moved to Aleppo. There, his father entering the service of 'Imad ad-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur, the powerful Turkish governor in northern Syria. Growing up in Ba'lbek and Damascus, Saladin was apparently an undistinguished youth, with a greater taste for religious studies than military training. There appears to have been few if any depictions of Saladin, but apparently tradition holds that he was a short man with a neat beard and even somewhat frail. His formal career began when he joined the staff of his uncle Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, an important military commander under Nur al-Din. Nur al-Din, the ruler of Damascus and Aleppo, succeeded his father, Zengi, after that ruler's death, engaged in a race with the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem to take over Egypt. During three military expeditions led by Shirkuh into Egypt to prevent its falling to the Latin-Christian (Frankish) rulers of the states established by the First Crusade, a complex, three-way struggle developed between Amalric I, the Latin king of Jerusalem, Shawar, the powerful vizier of the Egyptian Fatimid caliph, and Shirkuh. In the last of these military expeditions, together with his uncle, Saladin approached the walls of Cairo on January 2, 1169 at which point the Franks, who had the city of Cairo under siege, retreated. Six days later, after allowing the Franks to evacuate unopposed, his troops reached the walls themselves. Thereafter, Saladin lured the rather untrustworthy Shawar into an ambush on January 18th, killing him. His uncle, Shirkuh then became vizier. However, he also died unexpectedly on the 23rd of March. Subsequently, Saladin became vizier to the last Fatimid caliph (who died in 1171), earning him the title al-Malik al-Nasir ('the prince defender'), and therefore his relations and successors were all given this title. It took Saladin, or more properly, Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub (meaning Righteousness of Faith, Joseph, Son of Job), only a few more years to became the sole master of Cairo and the first Ayyubid sultan of Egypt in 1174. The Fatimid caliph's death on September 12th of 1171 left the reins of power in Saladin's hands, under the suzerainty of Nur al-Din. The situation could not have lasted indefinitely, but the death of Nur al-Din on May 15, 1174 allowed Saladin, as the sole ruler of Egypt, to assert his right to the throne. Saladin soon moved out of Egypt and occupied Damascus and other Syrian towns, though Egypt continued to be a base of his operations. Saladin claimed legitimacy not from his lineage, but from his upholding of Sunni orthodoxy. The Fatimids had failed, despite their long rule, to impart their faith to the mass of the Egyptian population, and Saladin and his successors addressed the task of making Egypt once more a center of orthodox belief. Saladin, like the great Amr Ibn el 'As, is a romantic historical figure in whom it is difficult to find much fault. In fact, some of his most ardent admirers have often been his Christian biographers. They, as much as the Arabs, have made a myth of him, and what always attracted Europeans to Saladin was his almost perfect sense of cultured chivalry. It is said that the crusader knights learned a great deal about chivalry from him. For example, when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 they murdered virtually all of its inhabitants, boasting that parts of the city were knee-high in blood. When Saladin re-took the city in 1187, he spared his victims, giving them time to leave and safe passage. It was, after all, a holy city, and it was captured by the Muslims in a 'just war'. In fact, despite his fierce opposition to the Christian powers, Saladin achieved a great reputation in Europe as a chivalrous knight, so much so that there existed by the 14th century an epic poem about his exploits, and Dante included him among the virtuous pagan souls in Limbo. His relationship with King Richard I of England, who managed to repel him in battle in 1191, was one of mutual respect as well as military rivalry. When Richard was wounded, Saladin even offered the services of his personal physician. Trade and commerce was essentially built into the Muslim faith and Mohammed himself had laid down the religious rules for honorable behavior because caravan trade and business demanded a particular kind of trust in the words of others. Thus, it is said that Largesse was an essential part of Saladin's faith. Saladin brought an entirely different concept of a city to Cairo after the Fatimids, because he wanted a unified, thriving, fortified place, protected by strong walls and impregnable defenses, but functioning internally with a great deal of commercial and cultural freedom, and with no private or royal enclaves and no fabulous palaces. He wanted a city that belonged to it's inhabitants even though he would be it's absolute ruler. Many historians have attributed Saladin's plan for Cairo to purely local or military considerations, but Saladin had what would now be called a world view. He was, in fact, trying to defend a whole culture as well as it's territory, an ideology as well as a religion. He looked on Egypt as a source of revenue for his wars against Christian and European encroachments, and against the dissident Muslim sects who divided Islam at this time. Apparently, he wanted Cairo to be the organizing center for an orthodox cultural and ideological revival, as well as a collecting house for the vast wealth he needed for his defense against the crusades. Though he began his career in Egypt under the Fatimids, he sought to re-educate Egypt in orthodoxy (Sunni faith) rather than simply crush his rival Muslims with the sword, which he did only when necessary (though he did lock up or execute the entire Fatimid court). In fact, while his most famous creation in Cairo today may be the military fortress known as the Citadel, his greatest architectural contribution to Cairo was probably the madrasa, a college-mosque where the interpretive ideology of the religion and Islamic law could be taught once more instead of Shi'a dogma. To this end, he imported Sunni professors from the East to staff his new schools. In eleven years, he built five such colleges as well as a mosque. However, they taught more than religion, with studies in administration, mathematics, geodesy, physics and medicine. One of the schools that he built was near the grave of the Imam el Shafi'i, the founder of one of the four main rites of the orthodox Sunni sect, and the school to which many Egyptians still belong and to which Saladin himself was a member. This was in the southern cemetery known as Khalifa. But, of course, Saladin did think of the city's defenses. Even though he opened up the royal city, he still had to have a genuine fortress that would be invulnerable to any kind of military attack. Thus, between 1176 and 1177, he began to build the Citadel, today, one of Cairo's most famous monuments. He also needed a center of absolute authority within the city, and this need would also be met. Saladin's imprint on Cairo is still very visible today. Above all, he wanted to enclose the whole of it, including the ruins of Fustat-Misr with a formidable wall, and he began with Badr's wall to the north and extended it west to the Nile and the port of al Maks. On the east, under the Mukattam Hills, he carried Badr's walls south to his Citadel, which was built two hundred and fifty feet above the city on its own hill. Regrettably, however, though he may have shaped Cairo, little of his building work remains. None of his religious monuments have survived, and little of Saladin's Citadel or his city walls are left. Perhaps the most impressive work that does still remain is the original perimeter of the Citadel, especially when viewed from the rear, which makes its medieval character absolutely real. However, most of today's Citadel was not built by Saladin, and in fact most every conqueror including the British added something to it. Perhaps one of the most regrettable losses within the Citadel that Saladin built was a hospital, who his secretary, Ibn Gubayr, described almost in terms of any good modern clinic today. He said it was a "palace goodly for its beauty and spaciousness". Saladin staffed it with doctors and druggists, and it had special rooms, beds, bedclothes, servants to look after the sick, free food and medicine, and a special ward for sick women. Nearby, he also built a separate building with barred windows for the insane, who were treated humanely and looked after by experts who tried to find out what had happened to their minds. Saladin opened the palaces of al-Qahira (Cairo) and sold off the fabled treasure of the Fatimids, including a 2,400 carat ruby, and an emerald four fingers in length and the caliph's splendid library, to pay his Turkish troops. He replaced the Fatimid's elaborate bureaucracy with a feudal system that gave his military officers direct control over all Egypt's rich agricultural lands, an act that has been blamed for a very sever famine which occurred during his successor's reign. Such wealth enabled Saldin to stride from success to success in Palestine. At the Battle of Hattin (where he captured Jerusalem) in 1187, he dealt the Crusader kingdoms a blow from which they never recovered. Thousands of Christian prisoners were marched the 400 miles back to Cairo, where they were forced to work extending the city's fortifications and building the Citadel. Saladin left Cairo in 1182 to fight the crusaders in Syria, and he never returned. By the time he died in Damascus in 1193, he had liberated almost all of Palestine from the armies of England, France, Burgandy, Flanders, Sicily, Austria and, in effect, from the world power of the Pope, as well as establishing his own family in Cairo. In his battles against these European crusaders, he often had the aid of eastern Christians, who were as much the victims of the western armies as anybody else in the eastern lands. The Proud Georgians, for instance, preferred Saladin to the Pope, and so did the Copts of Egypt. In the end, Saladin was succeeded by his brother al Adil, but the groundwork of the city of Cairo was now developed and it would struggle on often through the reigns of cruel, arbitrary, intelligent, cultured, brutal, artistic rulers with a populace who lived a very full and risky life of hard work, trade, gaiety, terrible suffering, calamity, patience and extraordinary passions who somehow managed to break the confines of the religion and the harsh authority which governed their lives in future years. A timeline of Saladin's Life:
IN MEMORIAM "SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"
Children of Llullaillaco, sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago. It is believed the Children of Llullaillaco, as they have come to be known, were sacrificed during a ceremony thanking the Inca gods for the annual corn ... www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/ duboard.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6983300.stm Mummified Inca maiden wows crowds "A mummy of an Inca girl, described as "perfect" by the archaeologists who found her in 1999, has gone on display for the first time in Argentina . Hundreds of people crowded into a museum in the north-western city of Salta to see "la Doncella", the Maiden. The remains of the girl, who was 15 when she died, were found in an icy pit on top of a volcano in the Andes, along with a younger boy and girl. Researchers believe they were sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago. The three were discovered at a height of 6,700m (22,000ft) on Mount Llullaillaco, a volcano in north-west Argentina on the border with Chile. At the time, the archaeologist leading the team, Dr Johan Reinhard, said they appeared "the best preserved of any mummy I've seen". It is believed the Children of Llullaillaco, as they have come to be known, were sacrificed during a ceremony thanking the Inca gods for the annual corn harvest. 'Great mistake' The mummy of la Doncella is on display in a chamber that is filled with cold air that recreates the sub-freezing conditions in which she was found. Visitors told Argentina media they were impressed at the mummy's state of conservation. "I'm amazed," one woman said. "You just expect her at any moment to get up and start talking." But the exhibition has angered several indigenous groups who campaigned to stop the mummy from going on display. Miguel Suarez from the Calchaquies valley tribes in and around Salta told the Associated Press news agency that the exhibit was "a great mistake", adding that he hoped visitors would show respect for the dead." The civilisation we discuss, which does not appear to have found a need to develop writing, is that of the Incas. The Inca empire which existed in 1532, ... www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/It is often thought that mathematics can only develop after a civilisation has developed some form of writing. Although not easy for us to understand today, many civilisations reached highly advanced states without ever developing written records. Now of course it is difficult for us to know much about such civilisations since there is no written record to be studied today. This article looks at the mathematical achievements of one such civilisation. The civilisation we discuss, which does not appear to have found a need to develop writing, is that of the Incas. The Inca empire which existed in 1532, before the Spanish conquest, was vast. It spread over an area which stretched from what is now the northern border of Ecuador to Mendoza in west-central Argentina and to the Maule River in central Chile. The Inca people numbered around 12 million but they were from many different ethnic groups and spoke about 20 different languages. The civilisation had reached a high level of sophistication with a remarkable system of roads, agriculture, textile design, and administration. Of course even if writing is not required to achieve this level, counting and recording of numerical information is necessary. The Incas had developed a method of recording numerical information which did not require writing. It involved knots in strings called quipu. The quipu was not a calculator, rather it was a storage device. Remember that the Incas had no written records and so the quipu played a major role in the administration of the Inca empire since it allowed numerical information to be kept. Let us first describe the basic quipu, with its positional number system, and then look at the ways that it was used in Inca society. The quipu consists of strings which were knotted to represent numbers. A number was represented by knots in the string, using a positional base 10 representation. If the number 586 was to be recorded on the string then six touching knots were placed near the free end of the string, a space was left, then eight touching knots for the 10s, another space, and finally 5 touching knots for the 100s. (Illustration omitted) 586 on a quipu. For larger numbers more knot groups were used, one for each power of 10, in the same way as the digits of the number system we use here are occur in different positions to indicate the number of the corresponding power of 10 in that position. Now it is not quite true that the same knots were used irrespective of the position as would be the case in a true positional system. There seems only one exception, namely the unit position, where different styles of knots were used from those in the other positions. In fact two different styles were used in the units position, one style if the unit were a 1 and a second style if the unit were greater than one. Both these styles differed from the standard knot used for all other positions. The system had a zero position, for this would be represented as no knots in that position. This meant that the spacing had to be highly regular so that zero positions would be clear. There are many drawings and descriptions of quipus made by the Spanish invaders. Garcilaso de la Vega, whose mother was an Inca and whose father was Spanish, wrote (see for example [5]):-
Now of course recording a number on a string would, in itself, not be that useful. A quipu had many strings and there had to be some way that the string carrying the record of a particular number could be identified. The primary way this was done was by the use of colour. Numbers were recorded on strings of a particular colour to identify what that number was recording. For example numbers of cattle might be recorded on green strings while numbers of sheep might be recorded on white strings. The colours each had several meanings, some of which were abstract ideas, some concrete as in the cattle and sheep example. White strings had the abstract meaning of "peace" while red strings had the abstract meaning of "war" As well as the colour coding, another way of distinguishing the strings was to make some strings subsidiary ones, tied to the middle of a main string rather than being tied to the main horizontal cord. (Illustration omitted) Quipu with subsidiary cords. We quote Garcilaso de la Vega again [5]:-
It was not only judges who sent quipus to be kept in a central record. The Inca king appointed quipucamayocs, or keepers of the knots, to each town. Larger towns might have had up to thirty quipucamayocs who were essentially government statisticians, keeping official census records of the population, records of the produce of the town, its animals and weapons. This and other information was sent annually to the capital Cuzco. There was even an official delivery service to take to quipus to Cuzco which consisted of relay runners who passed the quipus on to the next runner at specially constructed staging posts. The terrain was extremely difficult yet the Incas had constructed roads to make the passing of information by quipus surprisingly rapid. Much information on the quipus comes from a letter of the Peruvian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala to the King of Spain, written about eighty years after the Spanish conquest of the Incas. This remarkable letter contains 1179 pages and there are several drawings which show quipus. A fascinating aspect of one of these drawing is a picture of a counting board in the bottom left hand corner of one of them. This is called the yupana and is presumed to be the counting board of the Incas. (Illustration omitted) This is what the yupana looked like. Interpretations of how this counting board, or Peruvian abacus, might have been used have been given by several authors, see for example [9] and [11]. However some historians are less certain that this really is a Peruvian abacus. For example [2] in which the authors write:-
It is a difficult task to gain further insights into the mathematical understanding of the Incas. The book [6] by Urton is interesting for it examines the concept of number as understood by the Inca people. As one might expect, their concept of number was a very concrete one, unlike our concept of number which is a highly abstract one (although this is not really understood by many people). The concrete way of conceiving numbers is illustrated by different words used when describing properties of numbers. One example given in [6] is that of even and odd numbers. Now the ideas of an even number, say, relies on having an abstract concept of number which is independent of the objects being counted. However, the Peruvian languages had different words which applied to different types of objects. For example separate words occur for the idea of [6]:-
This is a fascinating topic and one which deserves much further research. One wonders whether the Incas applied their number system to solve mathematical problems. Was it merely for recording? If the yupana really was an abacus then it must have been used to solve problems and this prompts the intriguing question of what these problems were. A tantalising glimpse may be contained in the writings of the Spanish priest José de Acosta who lived among the Incas from 1571 to 1586. He writes in his book Historia Natural Moral de las Indias which was published in Madrid in 1596:-
What a pity that de Acosta did not have the mathematical skills to give a precise description which would have allowed us to understand this method of calculation by the Incas. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson January 2001 MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Inca_mathematics.html]
THE MASK OF TIME Joan Forman 1978 Page 89 / 90 "In Man and Time, Mr. Priestley uses an illustration which has since been frequently quoted. It is so excellent and apt an example of time dislocation that I hope he will forgive me for referring to it once again. It came originally from an American publication, the Journal of Parapsychology, and concerns a young mother who dreamed that she and her baby boy had gone camping' with friends. The camp was near a / Page 90 / river, and at one point she went to the water to wash clothes, taking the child with her. In the dream she left the child for a few minutes while she returned to the camp, and in that time, the baby fell into the water and was drowned. Months later, during the course of ordinary waking life, she found herself in the precise situation of her dream, but remembering its circumstances, when she briefly took the child with her, and presumably saved him from death."
SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS SENDING OUT AN SOS MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE GREETINGS 795529571 CITIZENS OF PLANET EARTH 39298551 66 731552 51928 WELCOME TO MY WORLD BUILT WITH YOU IN MIND 5533645 26 47 56934 23932 5928 763 95 4954
THE POETICS OF ASCENT Theories of Language in a Rabbinic Asd=cent Text Naomi Janowitz 1989 Page 25 Introduction to the Text The Ideology of the Divine Name "You spoke and the world existed/ By the breath of your lips you established the firmament" (lines 850-851) Page 26 These themes about the prohibitions and power of the divine Name are developed in a series of anecdotes found in widely disparate Jewish texts.29 No single rabbinic text includes all of the anecdotes we will survey about the divine Name; subplots include its restriction, its use in creating the world, and its use and abuse by Israelites, biblical figures, and individual rabbis.31 The particular articulation of the theme depends on the other points the story is trying to make.
THE GNOSTIC JUNG Including "Seven Sermons to the Dead" Selected and Introduced by Robert A, Segal 1992 JUNG'S WRITINGS ON GNOSTICISM Page 119 (number omitted) Chapter 6. Gnosticism and Mainstream Christianity "While Jung certainly recognizes the existence of non-Christian varieties of Gnosticism, he regularly appeals to Christian Gnosticism as a standard by which to measure mainstream Christianity. Where, according to Yung, Gnosticism deals fully with both evil and the feminine, mainstream Christianity barely tends to either. While both varieties of Christianity tout the symbol of the Cross, only Gnosticism aspires to the state of wholeness represented by this quaternity symbol; mainstream Christianity confines itself to the partial state signed by the Trinity. In the first selection in this section Jung analyzes the psychological meaning of the Cross. In the second selection he contrasts Gnostic Christians to mainstream ones as embodiments of distinct psychological types: mainstream Christianity sacrifices thinking for sensation and feeling; Gnosticism prizes thinking over sensation and feeling. Although a mainstream Church Father, Origen is "almost a Christian Gnostic" because of his commitment to thinking over sensation and feeling—a commitment manifested most dramatically in his castration of himself. From "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," CW 11, pars. 433-40 The cross signifies order as opposed to the disorderly chaos of the formless multitude. It is, in fact, one of the prime symbols of order, as I have shown elsewhere. In the domain of psychological processes it functions as an organizing centre, and in states of psychic disorders caused by an invasion of unconscious contents it appears as a mandala divided into four. No doubt this was a frequent / Page 120 / phenomenon in early Christian times, and not only in Gnostic circles.2 Gnostic introspection could hardly fail, therefore, to perceive the numinosity of this archetype and be duly impressed by it. For the Gnostics the cross had exactly the same function that the atman or Self has always had for the East. This realization is one of the central experiences of Gnosticism. The definition of the cross or centre as alopusryk, the "boundary" of all things, is exceedingly original, for it suggests that the limits of the universe are not to be found in a nonexistent periphery but in its centre. There alone lies the possibility of transcending this world. All instability culminates in that which is unchanging and quiescent, and in the self all disharmonies are resolved in the "harmony of wisdom." As the centre symbolizes the idea of totality and finality, it is quite appropriate that the text should suddenly start speaking of the dichotomy of the universe, polarized into right and left, brightness and darkness, heaven and the "nether root," the omnium genetrix. This is a clear reminder that everything is contained in the centre and that, as a result, the Lord (i.e., the cross) unites and composes all things and is therefore "nirdvanda," free from the opposites, in conformity with Eastern ideas and also with the psychology of this archetypal symbol. The Gnostic Christ-figure and the cross are counterparts of the typical mandalas spontaneously produced by the unconscious. They are natural symbols and they differ fundamentally from the dogmatic figure of Christ, in whom all trace of darkness is expressly lacking. O name of the cross, hidden mystery! O grace ineffable that is pronounced in the name of the cross! O nature of man, that cannot be separated from God! O love unspeakable and indivisible, that cannot be shown forth by unclean lips! I grasp thee now, I that am at the end of my earthly course. I will declare thee as thou art, I will not keep silent the mystery of the cross which was once shut and hidden from my soul. You that hope in Christ, let not the cross be for you that which appears; for it is another / Page 121 / thing, and different from that which appears, this suffering which is in accordance with Christ's. And now above all, because you that can hear are able to hear it of me, who am at the last and farewell hour of my life, hearken: separate your souls from everything that is of the senses, from everything that appears to be but in truth is not. Lock your eyes, close your ears, shun those happenings which are seen! Then you shall perceive that which was done to Christ, and the whole mystery of your salvation. . . . Learn the mystery of all nature and the beginning of all things, as it was. For the first man, of whose race I bear the likeness, fell head downwards, and showed forth a manner of birth such as had not existed till then, for it was dead, having no motion. And being pulled downwards, and having also cast his origin upon the earth, he established the whole disposition of things; for, being hanged up in the manner appointed, he showed forth the things of the right as those of the left, and the things of the left as those of the right, and changed about all the marks of their nature, so that things that were not fair were perceived to be fair, and those that were in truth evil were perceived to be good. Wherefore the Lord says in a mystery: "Except ye make the things of the right as those of the left, and those of the left as those of the right, and those that are above as those below, and those that are behind as those that are before, ye shall not have knowledge of the kingdom." This understanding have I brought you, and the figure in which you now see me hanging is the representation of that first man who came to birth. In this passage, too, the symbolical interpretation of the cross is coupled with the problem of opposites, first in the unusual idea that the creation of the first man caused everything to be turned upside down, and then in the attempt to unite the opposites by identifying them with one another. A further point of significance is that Peter, crucified head downwards, is identical not only with the first created man, but with the cross: For what else is Christ but the word, the sound of God? So the word is this upright beam on which I am crucified; and the sound is the beam which crosses it, the nature of man; but the nail / Page 122 / which holds the centre of the crossbeam to the upright is man's conversion and repentance (Greek word omitted).3 In the light of these passages it can hardly be said that the author of the Acts of John—presumably a Gnostic—has drawn the necessary conclusions from his premises or that their full implications have become clear to him. On the contrary, one gets the impression that the light has swallowed up everything dark. Just as the enlightening vision appears high above the actual scene of crucifixion, so, for John, the enlightened one stands high above the formless multitude. The text says: "Therefore care not for the many, and despise those that are outside the mystery!" This overweening attitude arises from an inflation caused by the fact that the enlightened John has identified with his own light and confused his ego with the self. Therefore he feels superior to the darkness in him. He forgets that light only has a meaning when it illuminates something dark and that his enlightenment is no good to him unless it helps him to recognize his own darkness. If the powers of the left are as real as those of the right, then their union can only produce a third thing that shares the nature of both. Opposites unite in a new energy potential: the "third" that arises out of their union is a figure "free from the opposites," beyond all moral categories. This conclusion would have been too advanced for the Gnostics. Recognizing the danger of Gnostic irrealism, the Church, more practicatin these matters, has always insisted on the concretism of the historical events despite the fact that the original New Testament texts predict the ultimate deification of man in a manner strangely reminiscent of the words of the serpent in the Garden of Eden: "Ye shall be as gods."5 Nevertheless, there was some justification for postponing the elevation of man's status until after death, as this avoided the danger of Gnostic inflation.6 Had the Gnostic not identified with the self, he would have been bound to see how much darkness was in him—a realization that comes more naturally to modern man but causes him no less diffi-/ Page 123 / culties. Indeed, he is far more likely to assume that he himself is wholly of the devil than to believe that God could ever indulge in paradoxical statements. For all the ill consequences of his fatal inflation, the Gnostic did, however, gain an insight into religion, or into the psychology of religion, from which we can still learn a thing or two today. He looked deep into the background of Christianity and hence into its future developments. This he could do because his intimate connection with pagan Gnosis made him an "assimilator" that helped to integrate the Christian message into the spirit of the times. The extraordinary number of synonyms piled on top of one another in an attempt to define the cross have their analogy in the Naassene and Peratic symbols of Hippolytus, all pointing to this one centre. It is the ev to new of alchemy, which is on the one hand the heart and governing principle of the macrocosm, and on the other hand its reflection in a point, in a microcosm such as man has always been thought to be. He is of the same essence as the universe, and his own mid-point is its centre. This inner experience, shared by Gnostics, alchemists, and mystics alike, has to do with the nature of the unconscious—one could even say that it is the experience of the unconscious; for the unconscious, though its objective existence and its influence on consciousness cannot be doubted, is in itself undifferentiable and therefore unknowable. Hypothetical germs of differentiation may be conjectured to exist in it, but their existence cannot be proved, because everything appears to be in a state of mutual contamination. The unconscious gives the impression of multiplicity and unity at once. However overwhelmed we may be by the vast quantity of things differentiated in space and time, we know from the world of the senses that the validity of its laws extends to immense distances. We therefore believe that it is one and the same universe throughout, in its smallest part as in its greatest. On the other hand the intellect always tries to discern differences, because it cannot discriminate without them. Consequently the unity of the cosmos remains, for it, a somewhat nebulous postulate which it doesn't rightly know what to do with. But as soon as introspection starts penetrating into the psychic background it comes up against the unconscious, which, unlike consciousness, shows only the barest traces of any definite contents, surprising the investigator at every turn with a / Page124 /confusing medley of relationships, parallels, contaminations, and identifications. Although he is forced, for epistemological reasons, to postulate an indefinite number of distinct and separate archetypes, yet he is constantly overcome by doubt as to how far they are really distinguishable from one another. They overlap to such a degree and have such a capacity for combination that all attempts to isolate them conceptually must appear hopeless. In addition the unconscious, in sharpest contrast to consciousness and its contents, has a tendency to, personify itself in a uniform way, just as if it possessed only one shape or one voice. Because of this peculiarity, the unconscious conveys an experience of unity, to which are due all those qualities enumerated by the Gnostics and alchemists, and a lot more besides. Page 119 Note 1I Symbolized by the formless multitude Page 122 3 Based on James, pp. 334f.
THE GNOSTIC JUNG Selected and Introduced by Robert A, Segal 1992
Page 181 (number omitted) "Septem Sermones ad Mortuos" (1916) THE SEVEN SERMONS TO THE DEAD WRITTEN BY BASILIDES IN ALEXANDRIA, THE CITY WHERE THE EAST TOUCHETH THE WEST Sermno I The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought. They prayed me let them in and besought my word, and thus I began my teaching.
The name is Yahweh Shammah and it means literally that the Lord God is present. ... The Israelite army fled, but Shammah held his ground in the middle of ... www.ancientworlds.net/member/Ben%20Judah/Shammah Bayith What's in a name? Many of us are more deeply defined by our names than we may realize. But why choose the name Shammah, you may ask? 2 Samuel 23:11,12 NLT
Shammah was the son of Agee, a Haratite, and one of King David's three legendary "mighty men". His greatest deed was the defeat of a troop of Philistines. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shammah
Shammah was the son of Agee, a Haratite, and one of King David's three legendary "mighty men". His greatest deed was the defeat of a troop of Philistines. After the Israelite people fled from the troop of Philistines, Shammah stood alone and defeated them himself. He is referenced in only a few verses of the second book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible 23:11-12. There are other people named Shammah in the Bible who are only mentioned in passing. Shammah is best noted as David's Mighty Man who, single handedly, defeated an entire army of 300-800 men over a lentil patch.
Jehovah-Shammah Brethren, there was none but this—Jehovah-Shammah, "the Lord was there." The Lord being there, immortality, nay, eternity was in the Church. ... www.spurgeon.org/sermons
Jehovah-Shammah. Meaning: Jehovah is there. the symbolical title given by Ezekiel to Jerusalem,which was seen by him in vision (Ezek. 48:35) ... www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jehovah-Shammah.html
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HAMMASH SHAMMAH MMA = 9 9 = AMM HAMMASH SHAMMAH
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Chapter 10 The Dimension Wars - Page 6 Moorcock's Miscellany "Hashra Hashra Ha Ha Ha Hahhoorthionikius" "Ha Ha Ha Ha Hashra Homalus Heertrophen" Boris looks at Subotai and says: 'Bring the ogre, I have an idea as to ... www.multiverse.org
DAILY MAIL Coffee Break and Brain Gym Page 10 Fred Bassett "HA HA - WE'RE WICKED WITCHES AND WE SHALL TURN YOU INTO A TOAD - KAPOW" "Hocus Pocus!" "HA HA HEE HEE" "CROAK"
NAMES OF GOD HASHEM In conversation, many Jewish people will call God "Hashem", which is Hebrew for "the Name" (this appears in Leviticus 24:11). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names of God in Judaism
Search ResultsEucharist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe Eucharist, also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a sacrament or ... Eucharist in the Catholic Church EucharistFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Real Presence Theologies contrasted Important theologians The Eucharist, also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a sacrament or ordinance that Christians celebrate in accordance with the instruction that, according to the New Testament, Jesus gave at his Last Supper to do in his memory what he did when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and wine, saying, "This is my blood".[1][2] There are different interpretations of the significance of the Eucharist, but "there is more of a consensus among Christians about the meaning of the Eucharist than would appear from the confessional debates over the sacramental presence, the effects of the Eucharist, and the proper auspices under which it may be celebrated."[1] The phrase "the Eucharist" may refer not only to the rite but also to the consecrated bread (leavened or unleavened) and wine or, unfermented grape juice (in some Protestant denominations) or water (in Mormonism), used in the rite,[3] and, in this sense, communicants may speak of "receiving the Eucharist", as well as "celebrating the Eucharist".
ISHI TELL IRISH RISHI HOW MANY FISH WERE LANDED AT GALILEE We be of one blood, ye and I ! Rudyard Kipling. 1865 - 1936 ... If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts ... vivovoco.rsl.ru The Thousandth Man One man in a thousand, Solomon says, 'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show You can use his purse with no more talk His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
"Nine hundred and ninety-nine..." "Nine hundred and ninety-nine..." "Nine hundred and ninety-nine..." "Nine hundred and ninety-nine... "With the whole round world agin you.
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DOES GOD PLAY DICE THE NEW MATHEMATICS OF CHAOS Ian Stewart 1989 Page 1 PROLOGUE CLOCKWORK OR CHAOS? "YOU BELIEVE IN A GOD WHO PLAYS DICE, AND I IN COMPLETE LAW AND ORDER." Albert Einstein, Letter to Max Born
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Sophia (s?f?a, Greek for "wisdom") is a central idea in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, ..... Ancient Greek philosophical concepts · Adiaphora (nonmoral) · Anamnesis (recollection) · Apatheia (equanimity) · Apeiron (the unlimited) · Aponia (pleasure) ... Personification of wisdom (in Greek, "S?f?a" or "Sophia") at the Celsus Library in Ephesus, Turkey. Sophia is a goddess of wisdom by Gnostics, as well as by some Neopagan, New Age, and Goddess spirituality groups. In Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity, Sophia, or rather Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), is an expression of understanding for the second person of the Holy Trinity (as in the dedication of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople), as well as in the Old Testament, as seen in the Book of Proverbs 9:1, but not an angel or goddess.[2] Plato, following his teacher, Socrates (and, it is likely, the older tradition of Pythagoras), understands philosophy as f???s?f?a (philo-sophia, or, literally, a friend of Wisdom). This understanding of philosophia permeates Plato's dialogues, especially the Republic. In that work, the leaders of the proposed utopia are to be philosopher kings: rulers who are friends of sophia or Wisdom. Sophia is one of the four cardinal virtues in Plato's Protagoras. The Pythian Oracle (Oracle of Delphi) reportedly answered the question of "who is the wisest man of Greece?" with "Socrates!" Socrates defends this verdict in his Apology to the effect that he, at least, knows that he knows nothing. As is evident in Plato's portrayals of Socrates, this does not mean Socrates' wisdom was the same as knowing nothing; but rather that his skepticism towards his own self-made constructions of knowledge left him free to receive true Wisdom as a spontaneous insight or inspiration. This contrasted with the attitude of contemporaneous Greek Sophists, who claimed to be wise and offered to teach wisdom for pay. Old Testament and Jewish texts[edit] Septuagint[edit] Further information: Chokhmah The Greek noun sophia is the translation of "wisdom" in the Greek Septuagint for Hebrew ????? ?okmot. Wisdom is a central topic in the "sapiential" books, i.e. Proverbs, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, Wisdom of Sirach, and to some extent Baruch (the last three are Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament.) Philo and the Logos[edit] Further information: Logos Philo, a Hellenised Jew writing in Alexandria, attempted to harmonise Platonic philosophy and Jewish scripture. Also influenced by Stoic philosophical concepts, he used the Greek term logos, "word," for the role and function of Wisdom, a concept later adapted by the author of the Gospel of John in the opening verses and applied to Jesus Christ as the eternal Word (Logos) of God the Father.[3] Christianity[edit] Further information: Sophiology Ukrainian (Kiev) Icon, Sophia, the Holy Wisdom, 1812. Cf. Proverbs 9:1. New Testament[edit] Jesus directly mentions Wisdom in the Gospel of Matthew: The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified by her deeds. —?Matthew 11:19 His wisdom is recognized by the people of Nazareth, his hometown, during his 'return' visit, there which in Matthew's gospel separates his major Galilean ministry and his final Galilean ministry They were astonished and said, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?" —?Matthew 13:54 St. Paul refers to the concept, notably in 1 Corinthians, but obscurely, deconstructing worldly wisdom: Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? —?1 Corinthians 1:20 Paul sets worldly wisdom against a higher wisdom of God: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. —?1 Corinthians 2:7 The Epistle of James (James 3:13-18; cf. James 1:5) distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom. One is a false wisdom, which is characterized as "earthly, sensual, devilish" and is associated with strife and contention. The other is the 'wisdom that comes from above': But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [and] easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. —?James 3:17 Eastern Orthodoxy[edit] In the mystical theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Holy Wisdom is understood as the Divine Logos who became incarnate as Jesus Christ;[5] this belief being sometimes also expressed in some Eastern Orthodox icons.[6][7][8][9][10] In Eastern Orthodoxy humility is the highest wisdom and is to be sought more than any other virtue. Not only does humility cultivate the Holy Wisdom, but it (in contrast to knowledge) is the defining quality that grants people salvation and entrance into Heaven.[11] The Hagia Sophia or Holy Wisdom church in Constantinople was the religious center of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly a thousand years. Exterior view of the Hagia Sophia or the Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, Turkey The concept of Sophia has been championed as a key part of the Godhead by some Eastern Orthodox religious thinkers. These included Vladimir Solovyov, Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Sergei Bulgakov whose book Sophia: The Wisdom of God is in many ways the apotheosis of Sophiology. For Bulgakov, the Sophia is co-existent with the Trinity, operating as the feminine aspect of God in concert with the three masculine principles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Vladimir Lossky rejects Solovyev and Bulgakov's teachings as error. Lossky states that Wisdom as an energy of God (just as love, faith and grace are also energies of God) is not to be ascribed to be the true essence of God, as to do so is to deny the apophatic and incomprehensible nature of the Divine essence.[12] Bulgakov's work was denounced by the Russian Orthodox as heretical.[5][13] Roman Catholic mysticism[edit] Artwork from a medieval codex depicting Hildegard of Bingen's vision of Ecclesia and Sophia. Protestant mysticism[edit] Within the Protestant tradition in England, Jane Leade, 17th-century Christian mystic, Universalist, and founder of the Philadelphian Society, wrote copious descriptions of her visions and dialogues with the "Virgin Sophia" who, she said, revealed to her the spiritual workings of the Universe.[15] Virgin Sophia design on a Harmony Society doorway in Harmony, Pennsylvania, carved by Frederick Reichert Rapp in 1809. Sophia can be described as the wisdom of God, and, at times, as a pure virgin spirit which emanates from God. The Sophia is seen as being expressed in all creation and the natural world as well as, for some of the Christian mystics mentioned above, integral to the spiritual well-being of humankind, the church, and the cosmos. The Virgin is seen as outside creation but compassionately interceding on behalf of humanity to alleviate its suffering by illuminating true spiritual seekers with wisdom and the love of God. The main difference between the concept of Sophia found in most traditional forms of Christian mysticism and the one more aligned with the Gnostic view of Sophia is that to many Christian mystics she is not seen as fallen or in need of redemption. Conversely, she is not as central in most forms of established Christianity as she is in Gnosticism, but to some Christian mystics the Sophia is a very important concept. In the Heavenly Faith school of thought, the Holy Spirit is synonymous with Sophia, being the feminine counterpart to the masculine Logos. Whereas the latter is incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth, the former is effectively incarnate in the Church in so far as She is the spirit which circulates through and binds together all Christians.[18] In Christology[edit] Further information: Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament Icon of Sophia from St George Church in Vologda: Christ is represented above her head (16th century) Proverbs vividly personifies the divine attribute or function of wisdom, which existed before the world was made, revealed God, and acted as God's agent in creation (Prov 8:22–31 cf. 3:19; Wisdom 8:4-6; Sir 1:4,9). Wisdom dwelt with God (Prov 8:22–31; cf. Sir 24:4; Wisdom 9:9-10) and being the exclusive property of God was as such inaccessible to human beings (Job 28:12–13, 20–1, 23–27). It was God who "found" wisdom (Bar 3:29-37) and gave her to Israel: "He found the whole way to knowledge, and gave her to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. Afterward she appeared upon earth and lived among human beings" (Bar 3:36-37; Sir 24:1-12). As a female figure (Sir. 1:15; Wis. 7:12), wisdom addressed human beings (Prov. 1:20–33; 8:1–9:6) inviting to her feast those who are not yet wise (Prov. 9:1-6). The finest passage celebrating the divine wisdom (Wis. 7:22b-8:1) includes the following description: "She is a breath of the power of God, and the radiance of the glory of the Almighty... She is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness" (Wisdom 7:25-26). No wonder then that Solomon, the archetypal wise person, fell in love with wisdom: "I loved her and sought her from my youth; I desired to take her for my bride, and became enamored of her beauty" (Wisdom 8:2). Such was the radiant beauty of the wisdom exercised by God both in creation and in relations with the chosen people.[21] In understanding and interpreting Christ, the New Testament uses various strands from these accounts of wisdom. First, like wisdom, Christ pre-existed all things and dwelt with God John 1:1–2); second, the lyric language about wisdom being the breath of the divine power, reflecting divine glory, mirroring light, and being an image of God, appears to be echoed by 1 Corinthians 1:17–18, 24–5 (verses which associate divine wisdom with power), by Hebrews 1:3 ("he is the radiance of God's glory"), John 1:9 ("the true light that gives light to everyone"), and Colossians 1:15 ("the image of the invisible God"). Third, the New Testament applies to Christ the language about wisdom's cosmic significance as God's agent in the creation of the world: "all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3; see Col 1:16 Heb 1:2). Fourth, faced with Christ's crucifixion, Paul vividly transforms the notion of divine wisdom's inaccessibility (1 Cor. 1:17-2:13). "The wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:21) is not only "secret and hidden" (1 Cor. 2:7) but also, defined by the cross and its proclamation, downright folly to the wise of this world (1 Cor. 1:18-25; see also Matt 11:25-7). Fifth, through his parables and other ways, Christ teaches wisdom (Matt 25:1-12 Luke 16:1-18, cf. also Matt 11:25–30). He is 'greater' than Solomon, the Old Testament wise person and teacher par excellence (Matt 12:42). Sixth, the New Testament does not, however, seem to have applied to Christ the themes of Lady Wisdom and her radiant beauty. Pope Leo the Great (d. 461), however, recalled Proverbs 9:1 by picturing the unborn Jesus in Mary's womb as "Wisdom building a house for herself" (Epistolae, 31. 2-3).[19] Strands from the Old testament ideas about wisdom are more or less clearly taken up (and changed) in New Testament interpretations of Christ. Here and there the New Testament eventually not only ascribes wisdom roles to Christ, but also makes the equation "divine wisdom=Christ" quite explicit. Luke reports how the boy Jesus grew up "filled with wisdom" (Luke 2:40; see Luke 2:52). Later, Christ's fellow-countrymen were astonished "at the wisdom given to him" (Mark 6:2). Matthew 11:19 thinks of him as divine wisdom being "proved right by his deeds" (see, however, the different and probably original version of Luke 7:35).[22] Possibly Luke 11:49 wishes to present Christ as "the wisdom of God". Paul names Christ as "the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24) whom God "made our wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:30; cf. 1:21). A later letter softens the claim a little: in Christ "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lie hidden" (Col 2:3). Beyond question, the clearest form of the equation "the divine wisdom=Christ" comes in 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:13. Yet, even there Paul's impulse is to explain "God's hidden wisdom" not so much as the person of Christ himself, but rather as God's "wise and hidden purpose from the very beginning to bring us to our destined glory" (1 Cor. 2:7). In other words, when Paul calls Christ "the wisdom of God", even more than in the case of other titles, God's eternal plan of salvation overshadows everything.[19] In Patristics[edit] See also: Patristics and Logos (Christianity) At times the Church Fathers named Christ as "Wisdom". Therefore, when rebutting claims about Christ's ignorance, Gregory of Nazianzus insisted that, inasmuch as he was divine, Christ knew everything: "How can he be ignorant of anything that is, when he is Wisdom, the maker of the worlds, who brings all things to fulfilment and recreates all things, who is the end of all that has come into being?" (Orationes, 30.15). Irenaeus represents another, minor patristic tradition which identified the Spirit of God, and not Christ himself, as "Wisdom" (Adversus haereses, 4.20.1–3; cf. 3.24.2; 4.7.3; 4.20.3). He could appeal to Paul's teaching about wisdom being one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:8). However, the majority applied to Christ the title/name of "Wisdom". Eventually the Emperor Constantine set a pattern for Eastern Christians by dedicating a church to Christ as the personification of divine wisdom.[19] In Constantinople, under Emperor Justinian, Santa Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") was rebuilt, consecrated in 538, and became a model for many other Byzantine churches. Nevertheless, in the New testament and subsequent Christian thought (at least Western thought) "the Word" or Logos came through more clearly than "the Wisdom" of God as a central, high title of Christ. The portrayal of the Word in the prologue of John's Gospel shows a marked resemblance to what is said about wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-31 and Sirach 24:1-2. Yet, that Prologue speaks of the Word, not the Wisdom, becoming flesh and does not follow Baruch in saying that "Wisdom appeared upon earth and lived among human beings" (Bar 3:37. When focusing in a classic passage on what "God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:10), Paul had written of the hidden and revealed wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:17–2:13). Despite the availability of this wisdom language and conceptuality, John prefers to speak of "the Word" (John 1:1, 14; cf. 1 John 1:1; Rev 19:13), a term that offers a rich array of meanings.[19] Gnosticism[edit] Main article: Sophia (Gnosticism) Contemporary pagan Goddess worship[edit] Sophia is worshiped as a goddess of wisdom by gnostics and pagans today, including Wiccan spirituality.[23][24] Books relating to the contemporary pagan worship of the goddess Sophia include: Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom, by Caitlin Matthews, The Cosmic Shekinah by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine (which includes Sophia as one of the major aspects of the goddess of wisdom), and Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection by Robert A. Johnson. New Age spirituality[edit] The goddess Sophia was introduced into Anthroposophy by its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in his book The Goddess: From Natura to Divine Sophia[25] and a later compilation of his writings titled Isis Mary Sophia. Sophia also figures prominently in Theosophy, a spiritual movement which Anthroposophy was closely related to. Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, described it in her essay What is Theosophy? as an esoteric wisdom doctrine, and said that the "Wisdom" referred to was "an emanation of the Divine principle" typified by "...some goddesses -- Metis, Neitha, Athena, the Gnostic Sophia..."[26] Sancta Sophia Seminary, located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, was an educational institution associated with the Light of Christ Community Church from 1992 until its closure in 2012.[27] Art[edit] statue of Sophia in Sofia, Bulgaria There is a monumental sculpture of her in the capital of Bulgaria. (The city itself is named after its Saint Sofia Church.) [29] The sculpture was erected in 2000 to replace a statue of Lenin. She is also depicted on the city's seal. See also[edit] References[edit] 1.Jump up ^ "Blood, Gender and Power in Christianity and Judaism". www2.kenyon.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-13. Bibliography[edit] External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saint Sophia. Ancient Greek philosophical concepts Adiaphora (nonmoral) · Sophia (wisdom) - Wikipedia Sophia (s?f?a, Greek for "wisdom") is a central idea in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, ..... Ancient Greek philosophical concepts · Adiaphora (nonmoral) · Anamnesis (recollection) · Apatheia (equanimity) · Apeiron (the unlimited) · Aponia (pleasure) ... Sophia (Gnosticism) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(Gnosticism) Sophia is a major theme, along with Knowledge among many of the early Christian ... Because of these longings, matter (Greek: hyle, ???) and soul (Greek: ... as the prototype of what is repeated in the history of all individual souls, which, ... Sophia (Gnosticism) Sophia (Greek S?fía, meaning "wisdom," Coptic tc?f?a tsophia[1]) is a major theme, along with Knowledge (Greek ???s?? gnosis, Coptic sooun), among many of the early Christian knowledge-theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikos, "learned." Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions.[2] In Gnostic tradition, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God.[citation needed] Gnostics held that she was the syzygy of Jesus Christ[citation needed] (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth (??aµ??, Hebrew ???? chokhmah) and as Prunikos (?????????). 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: hyle, ???) and soul (Greek: psyche, ????) 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, p?e?µa). 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 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 of us as the Divine Spark. Book of Proverbs[edit] 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 all insight and 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 of 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 meter photeine (Epiph. 40, 2) or the ano dynamis (Epiph. 39, 2) from which all pneumatic souls draw their origin. Descent[edit] 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 (kenoma) beneath it. The concept was that of a seizure or robbery of light, or of an outburst and diffusion of light-dew into the kenoma, 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. Mythos of the soul[edit] 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. Syrian Gnosis[edit] 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. Formation of the lower world[edit] As described by Irenaeus, the great Mother-principle of the universe appears as the first woman, the Holy Spirit (ruha d'qudsha) 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 the 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 fulness 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 photos, ??µ?? f?t??), 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 hyle. 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 these spreading out herself 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." Creation and redemption[edit] 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). As world-soul[edit] 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 (he 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 hyle; 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. Prunikos[edit] For I am the first and the last. —The Thunder, Perfect Mind[3] 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). Etymology[edit] 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 tauten. 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 aphrodision kai tes prounikias tes nykterines. This would be decisive, if we could be sure that these words were earlier in date than Epiphanius. In favour of the explanation of Epiphanius is the fact, that in the Gnostic cosmogonical myths, the imagery of sexual passion is constantly introduced. It seems on the whole probable that prouneikos is to be understood in the sense of propheres which has for one of its meanings[4] "precocious in respect of sexual intercourse." According to Ernst Wilhelm Möller (1860) the name is possibly meant to indicate her attempts to entice away again from the lower Cosmic Powers the seed of Divine light.[5] In the account given by Epiphanius (Haer. 37:6) the allusion to enticements to sexual intercourse which is involved in this name, becomes more prominent. However, in the Exegesis on the Soul text found at Nag Hammadi, the soul is likened to a woman which fell from perfection into prostitution, and that the Father will elevate her again to her original perfect state.[6] In this context, the female personification of the soul resembles the passion of Sophia as Prunikos
The womb, metra[edit] Nigh related to this is the notion widely diffused among Gnostic sects of the impure metra (womb) from whence the whole world is supposed to have issued. As according to the Italian Valentinians the Soter opens the metra of the lower Sophia, (the Enthymesis), and so occasions the formation of the universe (Iren. I. 3, 4) so on the other hand the metra itself is personified. So Epiphanius reports the following cosmogony as that of a branch of the Nicolaitans: In the beginning were Darkness, Chaos, and Water (skotos, kai bythos, kai hydor), but the Spirit indwelling in the midst of them, divided them one from another. From the intermingling of Darkness with Spirit proceeds the metra which again is kindled with fresh desire after the Spirit; she gives birth first to four, and then to other four aeons, and so produces a right and a left, light and darkness. Last of all comes forth an aischros aion, who has intercourse with the metra, the offspring whereof are Gods, Angels, Daemons, and Spirits. —?Epiphanius, Haer. 25, 5 The Sethians (Hippolytus. Philosophum. v. 7) teach in like manner that from the first concurrence (syndrome) of the three primeval principles arose heaven and earth as a megale tis idea sphragidos. These have the form of a metra with the omphalos in the midst. The pregnant metra therefore contains within itself all kinds of animal forms in the reflex of heaven and earth and all substances found in the middle region. This metra also encounters us in the great Apophasis ascribed to Simon where it is also called Paradise and Edem as being the locality of man's formation. These cosmogonic theories have their precedent in the Thalatth or Tiamat of Syrian mythology, the life-mother of whom Berossus has so much to relate, or in the world-egg out of which when cloven asunder heaven and earth and all things proceed.[7] The name of this Berossian Thalatth meets us again among the Peratae of the Philosophumena (Hippolytus, Philosophum. v. 9) and is sometimes mistakenly identified with that of the sea—thalassa. Baruch-Gnosis[edit] A similar part to that of the metra is played by Edem, consort of Elohim in the Gnostic book Baruch (Hippolytus, Philosoph. v. 18 sqq.) who there appears as a two-shaped being formed above as a woman and from the middle downwards as a serpent (21). Among the four and twenty Angels which she bears to Elohim, and which form the world out of her members, the second female angelic form is called Achamos [Achamoth]. Like to this legend of the Philosophumena concerning the Baruch-Gnosis is that which is related by Epiphanius of an Ophite Party that they fabled that a Serpent from the Upper World had had sexual intercourse with the Earth as with a woman (Epiphanius, Haer. 45: 1 cf. 2). Barbeliotae[edit] Very nigh related to the doctrines of the Gnostics in Irenaeus are the views of the so-called Barbeliotae (Iren. I. 29). The name Barbelo, which according to one interpretation is a designation of the upper Tetrad, has originally nothing to do with the Sophia. This latter Being called also Spiritus Sanctus and Prunikos is the offspring of the first angel who stands at the side of the Monogenes. Sophia seeing that all the rest have each its syzygos within the Pleroma, desires also to find such a consort for herself; and not finding one in the upper world she looks down into the lower regions and being still unsatisfied there she descends at length against the will of the Father into the deep. Here she forms the Demiurge (the Proarchon), a composite of ignorance and self-exaltation. This Being, by virtue of pneumatic powers stolen from his mother, proceeds to form the lower world. The mother, on the other hand, flees away into the upper regions and makes her dwelling there in the Ogdoad. The Ophites[edit] We meet this Sophia also among the Ophiana whose "Diagram" is described by Celsus and Origen, as well as among various Gnostic (Ophite) parties mentioned by Epiphanius. She is there called Sophia or Prunikos, the upper mother and upper power, and sits enthroned above the Hebdomad (the seven Planetary Heavens) in the Ogdoad (Origen, Against Celsus. vi. 31, 34, 35, 38; Epiphan. Haer. 25, 3 sqq. 26, 1,10. 39, 2 ; 40, 2). She is also occasionally called Parthenos (Orig. c. Cels. vi. 31) and again is elsewhere identified with the Barbelo or Barbero (Epiph. Haer. 25, 3 ; 26, 1, 10). Simon Magus[edit] Helen on the Ramparts of Troy by Frederick Leighton; an incarnation of the Ennoia in the Simonian system. This mythos of the soul and her descent into this lower world, with her various sufferings and changing fortunes until her final deliverance, recurs in the Simonian system under the form of the All-Mother who issues as its first thought from the Hestos or highest power of God. She generally bears the name Ennoia, but is also called Wisdom (Sophia), Ruler, Holy Spirit, Prunikos, Barbelo. Having sunk down from the highest heavens into the lowest regions, she creates angels and archangels, and these again create and rule the material universe. Restrained and held down by the power of this lower world, she is hindered from returning to the kingdom of the Father. According to one representation she suffers all manner of insult from the angels and archangels bound and forced again and again into fresh earthly bodies, and compelled for centuries to wander in ever new corporeal forms. According to another account she is in herself incapable of suffering, but is sent into this lower world and undergoes perpetual transformation in order to excite by her beauty the angels and powers, to impel them to engage in perpetual strife, and so gradually to deprive them of their store of heavenly light. The Hestos himself at length comes down from the highest heaven in a phantasmal body in order to deliver the suffering Ennoia, and redeem the souls held in captivity by imparting gnosis to them. The lost sheep[edit] The most frequent designation of the Simonian Ennoia is "the lost" or "the wandering sheep." The Greek divinities Zeus and Athena were interpreted to signify Hestos and his Ennoia, and in like manner the Tyrian sun-god Herakles-Melkart and the moon-goddess Selene-Astarte. So also the Homeric Helena, as the cause of quarrel between Greeks and Trojans, was regarded as a type of the Ennoia. The story which the fathers of the church handed down of the intercourse of Simon Magus with his consort Helena (Iren. i. 23; Tertullian de Anima, 34; Epiphanius Haer. 21; Pseudo-Tertullian Haer. 1; Philaster, Haer. 29; Philos. vi. 14, 15; Recogn. Clem. ii. 12; Hom. ii. 25), had probably its origin in this allegorical interpretation, according to Richard Adelbert Lipsius (1867).[8] Hestos[edit] In the Simonian Apophasis the great dynamis (also called Nous) and the great epinoia which gives birth to all things form a syzygy, from which proceeds the male-female Being, who is called Hestos (Philos. vi. 13). Elsewhere nous and epinoia are called the upper-most of the three Simonian Syzygies, to which the Hestos forms the Hebdomad: but on the other hand, nous and epinoia are identified with heaven and earth (Philos. vi. 9sqq.). Valentinus[edit] "Plérome de Valentin," from Histoire critique du Gnosticisme; Jacques Matter, 1826, Vol. II, Plate II. Motive[edit] The motive for the Sophia's fall was defined according to the Anatolian school to have lain therein, that by her desire to know what lay beyond the limits of the knowable she had brought herself into a state of ignorance and formlessness. Her suffering extends to the whole Pleroma. But whereas this is confirmed thereby in fresh strength, the Sophia is separated from it and gives birth outside it (by means of her ennoia, her recollections of the higher world), to the Christus who at once ascends into the Pleroma, and after this she produces an ousia amorphos, the image of her suffering, out of which the Demiurge and the lower world come into existence; last of all looking upwards in her helpless condition, and imploring light, she finally gives birth to the spermata tes ekklesias, the pneumatic souls. In the work of redemption the Soter comes down accompanied by the masculine angels who are to be the future syzygoi of the (feminine) souls of the Pneumatici, and introduces the Sophia along with these Pneumatici into the heavenly bridal chamber (Exc. ex Theod. 29-42; Iren. i. 2, 3). The same view, essentially meets us in the accounts of Marcus, (Iren. i. 18, 4; cf. 15, 3; 16, 1, 2; 17, 1) and in the Epitomators of the Syntagma of Hippolytus (Pseudo-Tertullian Haer. 12; Philaster, Haer. 38). Achamoth[edit] The Italic school distinguished on the other hand a two-fold Sophia, the ano Sophia and the kato Sophia or Achamoth. Ptolemaeus[edit] Fall[edit] According to the doctrine of Ptolemaeus and that of his disciples, the former of these separates herself from her syzygos, the theletos through her audacious longing after immediate Communion with the Father of all, falls into a condition of suffering, and would completely melt away in this inordinate desire, unless the Horos had purified her from her suffering and established her again in the Pleroma. Her enthymesis, on the other hand, the desire which has obtained the mastery over her and the consequent suffering becomes an amorphos kai aneideos ousia, which is also called an ektroma, is separated from her and is assigned a place beyond the limits of the Pleroma. The place of the Midst[edit] From her dwelling-place above the Hebdomad, in the place of the Midst, she is also called Ogdoad (??d???), and further entitled Meter, Sophia also, and he Hierousalem, Pneuma hagion, and (arsenikos) Kyrios. In these names some partial reminiscences of the old Ophitic Gnosis are retained. Repentance[edit] The Achamoth first receives (by means of Christus and Pneuma hagion the Pair of Aeons within the Pleroma whose emanation is most recent), the morphosis kat' ousian. Left alone in her suffering she has become endued with penitent mind (epistrophe). Now descends the son as the common fruit of the Pleroma, gives her the morphosis kata gnosin, and forms out of her various affections the Demiurge and the various constituents of this lower world. By his appointment the Achamoth produces the pneumatic seed (the ekklesia). Redemption[edit] The end of the world's history is here also (as above) the introduction of the lower Sophia with all her pneumatic offspring into the Pleroma, and this intimately connected with the second descent of the Soter and his transient union with the psychical Christus; then follows the marriage-union of the Achamoth with the Soter and of the pneumatic souls with the angels (Iren. i. 1-7; exc. ex Theod. 43-65). Two-fold Sophia[edit] The same form of doctrine meets us also in Secundus, who is said to have been the first to have made the distinction of an upper and a lower Sophia (Iren. i. 11, 2), and in the account which the Philosophumena give us of a system which most probably referred to the school of Heracleon, and which also speaks of a double Sophia (Philos. vi.). The name Jerusalem also for the exo Sophia meets us here (Philos. vi. 29). It finds its interpretation in the fragments of Heracleon (ap. Origen. in Joann. tom. x. 19). The name Achamoth, on the other hand, is wanting both in Hippolytus and in Heracleon. One school among the Marcosians seems also to have taught a two-fold Sophia (Iren. i. 16, 3; cf. 21, 5). Etymology[edit] August Hahn (1819) debated whether the name Achamoth (??aµ??) is originally derived from the Hebrew Chokhmah (????????), in Aramaic ?achmuth or whether it signifies 'She that brings forth'—'Mother.'[9] The Syriac form ?achmuth is testified for us as used by Bardesanes (Ephraim, Hymn 55), the Greek form Hachamoth is found only among the Valentinians: the name however probably belongs to the oldest Syrian Gnosis. Bardesanes[edit] Cosmogonic myths play their part also in the doctrine of Bardesanes. The locus foedus whereon the gods (or Aeons) measured and founded Paradise (Ephraim, Hymn 55) is the same as the impure metra, which Ephraim is ashamed even to name (cf. also Ephraim, Hymn 14). The creation of the world is brought to pass through the son of the living one and the Ruha d' Qudsha, the Holy Spirit, with whom ?achmuth is identical, but in combination with "creatures," i.e. subordinate beings which co-operate with them (Ephraim, Hymn 3). It is not expressly so said, and yet at the same time is the most probable assumption, that as was the case with the father and mother so also their offspring the son of the Living One, and the Ruha d' Qudsha or ?achmuth, are to be regarded as a Syzygy. This last (the ?achmuth) brings forth the two daughters, the "Shame of the Dry Land" i.e. the metra, and the "Image of the Waters" i.e. the Aquatilis Corporis typus, which is mentioned in connection with the Ophitic Sophia (Ephraim, Hymn 55). Beside which, in a passage evidently referring to Bardesanes, air, fire, water, and darkness are mentioned as aeons (Ithye: Hymn 41) These are probably the "Creatures" to which in association with the Son and the Ruha d' Qudsha, Bardesanes is said to have assigned the creation of the world. Though much still remains dark as to the doctrine of Bardesanes we cannot nevertheless have any right to set simply aside the statements of Ephraim, who remains the oldest Syrian source for our knowledge of the doctrine of this Syrian Gnostic, and deserves therefore our chief attentions. Bardesanes, according to Ephraim, is able also to tell of the wife or maiden who having sunk down from the Upper Paradise offers up prayers in her dereliction for help from above, and on being heard returns to the joys of the Upper Paradise (Ephraim, Hymn 55). Acts of Thomas[edit] These statements of Ephraim are further supplemented by the Acts of Thomas in which various hymns have been preserved which are either compositions of Bardesanes himself, or at any rate are productions of his school.[10] Hymn of the Pearl[edit] In the Syriac text of the Acts,[11] we find the Hymn of the Pearl, where the soul which has been sent down from her heavenly home to fetch the pearl guarded by the serpent, but has forgotten here below her heavenly mission until she is reminded of it by a letter from "the father, the mother, and the brother," performs her task, receives back again her glorious dress, and returns to her old home. Ode to the Sophia[edit] Of the other hymns which are preserved in the Greek version more faithfully than in the Syriac text which has undergone Catholic revision, the first deserving of notice is the Ode to the Sophia[12][13] which describes the marriage of the "maiden" with her heavenly bridegroom and her introduction into the Upper Realm of Light. This "maiden," called "daughter of light," is not as the Catholic reviser supposes the Church, but ?achmuth (Sophia) over whose head the "king," i.e. the father of the living ones, sits enthroned; her bridegroom is, according to the most probable interpretation, the son of the living one, i.e. Christ. With her the living Ones i.e. pneumatic souls enter into the Pleroma and receive the glorious light of the living Father and praise along with "the living spirit" the "father of truth" and the "mother of wisdom." First prayer of consecration[edit] The Sophia is also invoked in the first prayer of consecration.[14] She is there called the "merciful mother," the "consort of the masculine one," "revealant of the perfect mysteries," "Mother of the Seven Houses," "who finds rest in the eighth house," i.e. in the Ogdoad. In the second Prayer of Consecration[15] she is also designated, the "perfect Mercy" and "Consort of the Masculine One," but is also called "Holy Spirit" (Syriac Ruha d' Qudsha) "Revealant of the Mysteries of the whole Magnitude," "hidden Mother," "She who knows the Mysteries of the Elect," and "she who partakes in the conflicts of the noble Agonistes" (i.e. of Christ, cf. exc. ex Theod. 58 ho megas agonistes Iesous). There is further a direct reminiscence of the doctrine of Bardesanes when she is invoked as the Holy Dove which has given birth to the two twins, i.e. the two daughters of the Ruha d' Qudsha (ap. Ephraim, Hymn 55). Pistis Sophia[edit] A special and richly coloured development is given to the mythical form of the Sophia of the Gnostic Book Pistis Sophia.[16] The two first books of this writing to which the name Pistis Sophia properly belongs, treat for the greater part (pp. 42–181) of the fall, the Repentance, and the Redemption of the Sophia. Fall[edit] She has by the ordinance of higher powers obtained an insight into the dwelling-place appropriated to her in the spiritual world, namely, the thesauros lucis which lies beyond the XIIIth Aeon. By her endeavours to direct thither her upward flight, she draws upon herself the enmity of the Authades, Archon of the XIIIth Aeon, and of the Archons of the XII. Aeons under him; by these she is enticed down into the depths of chaos, and is there tormented in the greatest possible variety of ways, in order that so she may incur the loss of her light-nature. Repentance[edit] In her utmost need she addresses thirteen penitent prayers (metanoiai) to the Upper Light. Step by step she is led upwards by Christus into the higher regions, though she still remains obnoxious to the assaults of the Archons, and is, after offering her XIIIth Metanoia, more vehemently attacked than ever, until at length Christus leads her down into an intermediate place below the XIIIth Aeon, where she remains until the consummation of the world, and sends up grateful hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Redemption[edit] The earthly work of redemption having been at length accomplished, the Sophia returns to her original celestial home. The peculiar feature in this representation consists in the further development of the philosophical ideas which find general expression in the Sophia mythos. According to Karl Reinhold von Köstlin (1854), Sophia is here not merely, as with Valentinus, the representative of the longing which the finite spirit feels for the knowledge of the infinite, but at the same time a type or pattern of faith, of repentance, and of hope.[17] After her restoration she announces to her companions the twofold truth that, while every attempt to overstep the divinely ordained limits, has for its consequence suffering and punishment, so, on the other hand, the divine compassion is ever ready to vouchsafe pardon to the penitent. Light-Maiden[edit] We have a further reminiscence of the Sophia of the older Gnostic systems in what is said in the book Pistis Sophia of the Light-Maiden (parthenos lucis), who is there clearly distinguished from the Sophia herself, and appears as the archetype of Astraea, the Constellation Virgo.[18] The station which she holds is in the place of the midst, above the habitation assigned to the Sophia in the XIIIth Aeon. She is the judge of (departed) souls, either opening for them or closing against them the portals of the light-realm (pp. 194–295). Under her stand yet seven other light-maidens with similar functions, who impart to pious souls their final consecrations (p. 291 sq. 327 sq. 334). From the place of the parthenos lucis comes the sun-dragon, which is daily borne along by four light-powers in the shape of white horses, and so makes his circuit round the earth (p. 183, cf. p. 18, 309). Manichaeism[edit] This light-maiden (parthenos tou photos) encounters us also among the Manichaeans as exciting the impure desires of the Daemons, and thereby setting free the light which has hitherto been held down by the power of darkness (Dispuiat. Archelai et Manetis, c. 8, n. 11; Theodoret., h. f. I. 26).[19][20][21] On the other hand, the place of the Gnostic Sophia is among Manichaeans taken by the "Mother of Life" (meter tes zoes), and by the World-Soul (psyche hapanton), which on occasions is distinguished from the Life-Mother, and is regarded as diffused through all living creatures, whose deliverance from the realm of darkness constitutes the whole of the world's history (Titus of Bostra, adv. Manich. I., 29, 36, ed. Lagarde, p. 17 sqq. 23; Alexander Lycopolitus c. 3; Epiphan. Haer. 66, 24; Acta dispatat. Archelai et Manetis, c. 7 sq. et passim).[22][23] Their return to the world of light is described in the famous Canticum Amatorium (ap. Augustin. c. Faust, iv. 5 sqq). Nag Hammadi texts[edit] In On the Origin of the World, Sophia is depicted as the ultimate destroyer of this material universe, Yaldabaoth and all his Heavens: She [Sophia] will cast them down into the abyss. They [the Archons] will be obliterated because of their wickedness. For they will come to be like volcanoes and consume one another until they perish at the hand of the prime parent. When he has destroyed them, he will turn against himself and destroy himself until he ceases to exist. And their heavens will fall one upon the next and their forces will be consumed by fire. Their eternal realms, too, will be overturned. And his heaven will fall and break in two. His [...] will fall down upon the [...] support them; they will fall into the abyss, and the abyss will be overturned. The light will [...] the darkness and obliterate it: it will be like something that never was. Mythology[edit] Carl Jung linked the figure of Sophia to the highest archetype of the anima in depth psychology.[24] The archetypal fall and recovery of Sophia is additionally linked (to a varying degree) to many different myths and stories (see damsel in distress). Among these are: Note that many of these myths have alternative psychological interpretations. For example, Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz interpreted fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty as symbolizing the 'rescue' or reintegration of the anima, the more 'feminine' part of a man's unconscious, but not wisdom or sophia per se. References[edit] 1.Jump up ^ Layton, Bentley, ed. (1989). Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2-7. Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 158–9, 252–3. ISBN 90-04-09019-3.
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