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Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom & God's Wife
Sophia Figurine available from SacredSource.com

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

But just who is Sophia?

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

Is it any wonder that Sophia is constantly associated with wise King Solomon? 1 Kings 4:29-31 tells us that God gave wisdom to Solomon, and that he became wiser than all the kings of the East and all the wise people of Egypt. Wisdom 8:2, 16, 18 tells us Solomon was considered to be married to Sophia. One of the many layers of symbolism attributed to the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles) is that it speaks of Solomon's marriage to Holy Sophia. Wisdom 9:8-11 even tells us that Sophia instructed Solomon in building the Temple!

The Jews revered Sophia. King Solomon even put her right in the Temple, in the form of the Goddess Asherah. However, after the brutal "reforms" of King Josiah described in 1st and 2nd Kings in your Bible, the veneration of Sophia went underground. Josiah slaughtered all her priests and priestesses and destroyed all her shrines and places of worship. But Sophia adherents remained active in the "underground stream" for centuries even while patriarchal Christianity held total sway in the Western World. Thanks to her continuing presence in the world and her presence in the Bible, veneration of Sophia surfaced in the Eastern Christian tradition with the construction of the Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople (now a Muslim museum in Instanbul). The Russian Catholic liturgical service to Sophia combined with the assumption of Mary on May 15. The Russian Orthodox Church has also begun a school of "Sophiology" to explore the thealogy (spelled with an "a") of Sophia without contradicting the Russian Orthodox theology.

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

Sophia and her 3 Daughters, Faith, Hope & Charity (aka Love), Russian Icon on Katia's altar

The Creed of the Holy Spirit

I believe in the Blessed Sophia.
I believe that she is Our Heavenly Father's Beloved Daughter.
I believe our souls dwelled with them in the Beginning, in harmony and love.

I believe that Sophia is the Divine Daughter.
That She lives in all women, and her strength and grace inspires all;
And she has sinned, learnt and is now strong and free.

I believe that Sophia is the Great Mother.
She is the Eema, the image of the hight of our strength;
And she has tutored me along Her Holy Path.

I believe that Sophia is the Holy Soul.
The Pneuma, the inner Crone of death and understanding within me;
And that She will bring completion in my waning days.

I believe that Sophia is the Spirit of God.
She is the Celestial Mother, and unites the Father and Child;
And She has given us knowledge of Their nurturing ways.

I believe in the Aeons, the Spirits, the gods of the Unknown God.
They are ruled by Sophia, they are Her children;
They all come from the Mother and to Her they shall return.

I believe in Reincarnation.
Her soul allows us to cycle throughout the prinsonhosue of matter;
Until we achieve the Liberation of the Light of Her Unknown Source.

I live in duty to restore honour to The Holy Spirit.
In prayer and reverence of all Her rituals;
From the masks of saints and goddesses, to restore honour to the True Queen.

Faith, Hope and Charity, Daughters of Sophia

O holy and most praiseworthy ones, Faith, Hope and Charity, and wise mother Sophia of these glorious daughters: to you do we now hasten in heartfelt prayer, for what better representation can we have than faith, hope and charity, the three cornerstone virtues, which, bearing their names, ye embodied in fact. We entreat you to shield us, save us and keep us in every sorrow and trouble, because you are good and loveth humankind. We pray that your Mother Sophia's glory, like a sun that never setteth, be with us in our humble prayers; may the Godhead forgive our sins (mistakes) and iniquities (transgressions), and have mercy on us who are forgetful of our Being-ness. Pray indeed for us, ye holy daughters, also unto our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of Man, and the Holy Bride Magdalene, to whom we practice to be present with, together with his Father and Mother, the All-holy, and Good, and Life-creating Sophia, who are from the Everlasting. We join our energy and our consciousness to the Everlasting the combined Godhead, merging with their presence now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen in the Now.

Pictured Left: Faith, Hope & Charity charm very popular charm in the Victorian era and today.

Esoteric Christianity doesn't typically support the theory of the Demiurge. It believes that creation is inherently good, and as such so is the Creator. However, the Mystery School does look at other theories and myths such as Shaitan (aka Satan or Shatan), the devil, was the ruler of this world and was accidentally given the keys to the Otherworlds by Goddess. He had these keys until the passion, death, and descent into hell of Yeshua, when Yeshua retrieved them and holds them still. Sophia, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene are three Christian Goddesses, making up a female Trinity. Both the earthly forms of Mary and Mary Magdalene shared the name Mary, and both in their Heavenly forms share the Hebrew letter Heh in the God-Name YHVH. So how does Sophia fit into the Godhead? Wisdom of Solomon, a book in the apocrypha says clearly that Sophia is the Holy Spirit. There could be a feminine Trinosophia - Mother, Daughter, and Pneuma (Holy Soul).

REVEREND MIKKI'S CHURCH OF SOPHIA