On September 17, it is the Orthodox feast day for Saint Sophia and her Daughters. The daughters being Faith, Hope and Love. Now while these characters (presented as literal people) were all given a back story by the church, they are actually allegorical figures. This past year I joined a Freemason fraternity and it has opened a new way of thinking for me on various ideas. It has re-kindled my love of Hermeticism as well as looking at various Christian related allegories in a new perspective. I have been writing various essays along my journey and I am not sure how to present them. Most of them would not work on this blog, but I do feel this essay would. In the first degree (Entered Apprentice) of Freemasonry, the theological virtues are taught which are Faith, Hope and Charity (Love). When I was informed of this, I immediately thought of the Saint Sophia and her Daughters icon. This ignited a thought in my mind to write out a short essay of it. Below is my essay. I think it may come off more as a homily though.
Wisdom and her Daughters
The above icon represents Saint Sophia and her three daughters, Faith, Hope and Love. While there is a church legend stating them to be literal people, complete with a back story, they are actually a set of allegorical saints. I will go through each one and describe their role in detail.
We start with Saint Sophia. For those who do not know Greek, Sophia is the word for WISDOM. So an alternative name for this icon would be “Wisdom and her Daughters”. Faith, Hope and Love are the three theological virtues or the three graces. Corinthians 13:13 states “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (ESV)
Depending on the translation, love is replaced with charity, thus the two terms are synonymous.
In Freemasonry, these three concepts are taught at the initiation. Faith is the believe in a higher power, Hope in immortality, and Charity / Love is what we have for all mankind. The icon above represents that all three of these virtues come from Divine WISDOM. If one does not have WISDOM, then Faith in a higher power is typically not believed. Any Hope for immortality is laughed at by the ignorant. Charity for mankind is ignored by the selfishness of the individual. To have Divine WISDOM, these concepts would flow freely from the individual.
The definition of Faith is a complete trust or confidence in someone or something. We are told that in FM to have Faith in a supreme deity. To have complete trust in something, one must have absolute knowledge of that concept. To have that kind of knowledge, is to have WISDOM. This is not to say we have complete knowledge of the supreme deity, far from it, but we have full knowledge in that supreme deity’s existence.
The definition of Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. We hope for immortality. In Christian ideology, immortality would be salvation. The definition of salvation is preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss. So we are expecting, or having a desire, to be preserved or delivered from harm, ruin or loss. How does one desire to be preserved from harm? This takes knowledge/gnosis of the situation to be able to keep oneself from meeting that dreadful end. In Christian thought, it is the belief in Christ that saves the individual from harm. To know Christ is to know Divine WISDOM. In Orthodoxy, Christ is Wisdom. In early Christianity/Gnostic belief, Christ is the Bridegroom of WISDOM, as Christ is the Word (LOGOS) and together with WISDOM (Sophia), form the bond that helps one escape the material world. Whether one believes in the singular or plural concept of Wisdom, as long as one possesses Divine Wisdom, they will have that desire of being delivered from an undesirable end.
The definition of Charity is the voluntary giving of help to those in need. By offering charity to a person, we are offering them love. Hence their relation in how they are used in this concept. This is why Corinthians 13:13 states that Charity (Love) is the greatest virtue of them all. One may lose their faith and their hope in salvation, but to show charity towards others, that act would be the greatest of all. Once again, having the WISDOM of Divine Love towards others shows us the true love of “God’s” grace. There is no greater act one could perform on this planet than that of charity, and unfortunately, an act that is often not given.
To summarize this essay, when one has a knowledge of a greater power, this spawns out the concepts of having trust in that particular power, having the desire to be persevered from ignorance and showing our fellow mankind love.
-bP
Featured picture is an icon of St. Sophia and her Daughters.
Culmination of Wisdom 