Last year I posted around this time the feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, which takes place on September 8. However there is another feast day on September 8 and that belongs to the Gnostic tradition, which is of that of the Descent of the Holy Sophia. Now I do not plan on comparing the nativity of Mary with Sophia falling to matter but there is a nice homily on gnosis.org that goes into that. You can read it here: A Homily for the Descent of the Holy Sophia
With this post, I want to collect up the various texts that relate to this event of Holy Wisdom descending into matter. Let’s start from the Pistis Sophia (GRS Mead translation) and include chapters 30/31 from book 1:
And Jesus answered and said unto his disciples: "It came to pass, when Pistis Sophia was in the thirteenth aeon, in the region of all her brethren the invisibles, that is the four-and-twenty emanations of the great Invisible,--it came to pass then by command of the First Mystery that Pistis Sophia gazed into the height. She saw the light of the veil of the Treasury of the Light, and she longed to reach to that region, and she could not reach to that region. But she ceased to perform the mystery of the thirteenth aeon, and sang praises to the light of the height, which she had seen in the light of the veil of the Treasury of the Light.
It came to pass then, when she sang praises to the region of the height, that all the rulers in the twelve aeons, who are below, hated her, because she had ceased from their mysteries, and because she had desired to go into the height and be above them all. For this cause then they were enraged against her and hated her, as did the great triple-powered Self-willed, that is the third triple-power, who is in the thirteenth aeon, he who had become disobedient, in as much as he had not emanated the whole purification of his power in him, and had not given the purification of his light at the time when the rulers gave their purification, in that he desired to rule over the whole thirteenth aeon and those who are below it.
"It came to pass then, when the rulers of the twelve aeons were enraged against Pistis Sophia, who is above them, and hated her exceedingly, that the great triple-powered Self-willed, of whom I have just now told you, joined himself to the rulers of the twelve aeons, and also was enraged against Pistis Sophia and hated her exceedingly, because she had thought to go to the light which is higher than her. And he emanated out of himself a great lion-faced power, and out of his matter in him he emanated a host of other very violent material emanations, and sent them into the regions below, to the parts of the chaos, in order that they might there lie in wait for Pistis Sophia and take away her power out of her, because she thought to go to the height which is above them all, and moreover she had ceased to perform their mystery, and lamented continuously and sought after the light which she. had seen. And the rulers who abide, or persist, in performing the mystery, hated her, and all the guards who are at the gates of the aeons, hated her also.
"It came to pass then thereafter by command of the First Commandment that the great triple-powered Self-willed, who is one of the three triple-powers, pursued Sophia in the thirteenth aeon, in order that she should look towards the parts below, so that she might see in that region his lion-faced light-power and long after it and go to that region, so that her light might be taken from her.
"It came to pass then thereafter that she looked below and saw his light-power in the parts below; and she knew not that it is that of the triple-powered Self-willed, but she thought that it came out of the light which she had seen from the beginning in the height, which came out of the veil of the Treasury of the Light. And she thought to herself: I will go into that region without my pair and take the light and thereout fashion for myself light-aeons, so that I may go to the Light of lights, which is in the Height of heights.
"This then thinking, she went forth from her own region, the thirteenth aeon, and went down to the twelve aeons. The rulers of the aeons pursued her and were enraged against her, because she had thought of grandeur. And she went forth also from the twelve aeons, and came into the regions of the chaos and drew nigh to that lion-faced light-power to devour it. But all the material emanations of Self-willed surrounded her, and the great lion-faced light-power devoured all the light-powers in Sophia and cleaned out her light and devoured it, and her matter was thrust into the chaos; it became a lion-faced ruler in the chaos, of which one half is fire and the other darkness,--that is Yaldabaōth, of whom I have spoken unto you many times. When then this befell, Sophia became very greatly exhausted, and that lion-faced light-power set to work to take away from Sophia all her light-powers, and all the material powers of Self-willed surrounded Sophia at the same time and pressed her sore.
From those excerpts, the book leads into the 13 repentances of Sophia. If you have visited my page for awhile, you know I covered these and have even compiled them into a devotion. You can access that page HERE. I highly recommend reading through that if you have not.
Now lets take a look at the Apocryphon of John and see what it states:
Sophia of the Epinoia, being an Aeon, thought a thought from within herself and the thought of the invisible Spirit and Foreknowledge. She willed a likeness to appear from within herself without the will of the Spirit—It had not approved—and without her partner and without his consideration. For the countenance of her masculinity did not approve, and she had not found her partner. She deliberated apart from the will of the Spirit and the understanding of her partner. She brought forth.
Because of the unconquerable power within her, her thought did not remain idle. And an imperfect product appeared from her, and it was different from her pattern because she created it without her partner. And it was not patterned after the likeness of its Mother, for it had a different form. When she saw (the product of) her will, it was different, a model of a lion-faced serpent. His eyes were like flashing fires of lightning. She cast him out from her, outside of those places so that none among the immortals might see him, for she had created him in ignorance.
Because of the unconquerable power within her, her thought did not remain idle. And an imperfect product appeared from her, and it was different from her pattern because she created it without her partner. And it was not patterned after the likeness of its Mother, for it had a different form. When she saw (the product of) her will, it was different, a model of a lion-faced serpent. His eyes were like flashing fires of lightning. She cast him out from her, outside of those places so that none among the immortals might see him, for she had created him in ignorance.
And she surrounded him with a luminous cloud. And she placed a throne in the midst of the cloud in order that no one might see him except the holy Spirit, who is called the mother of the living. She named him Yaltabaoth. This is the Chief Ruler, the one who got a great power from his Mother.
Now let it be known there are several versions of this text, but this part seems to be pretty identical. You can compare with the translations at gnosis.org. Now you’re going to notice a pattern here. With the descent narrative also comes the birth of Yaldabaoth story. I made a post about that a few years ago (HERE), so some of this is going to feel very familiar.
Let’s take a look at On the Origin of the World and see what it says:
After the natural structure of the immortal beings had completely developed out of the infinite, a likeness then emanated from Pistis (Faith); it is called Sophia (Wisdom). It exercised volition and became a product resembling the primeval light. And immediately her will manifested itself as a likeness of heaven, having an unimaginable magnitude; it was between the immortal beings and those things that came into being after them, like [...]: she (Sophia) functioned as a veil dividing mankind from the things above.
Now the eternal realm (aeon) of truth has no shadow outside it, for the limitless light is everywhere within it. But its exterior is shadow, which has been called by the name 'darkness'. From it, there appeared a force, presiding over the darkness. And the forces that came into being subsequent to them called the shadow 'the limitless chaos'. From it, every kind of divinity sprouted up [...] together with the entire place, so that also, shadow is posterior to the first product. It was in the abyss that it (shadow) appeared, deriving from the aforementioned Pistis.
Then shadow perceived there was something mightier than it, and felt envy; and when it had become pregnant of its own accord, suddenly it engendered jealousy. Since that day, the principle of jealousy amongst all the eternal realms and their worlds has been apparent. Now as for that jealousy, it was found to be an abortion without any spirit in it. Like a shadow, it came into existence in a vast watery substance. Then the bile that had come into being out of the shadow was thrown into a part of chaos. Since that day, a watery substance has been apparent. And what sank within it flowed away, being visible in chaos: as with a woman giving birth to a child - all her superfluities flow out; just so, matter came into being out of shadow, and was projected apart. And it did not depart from chaos; rather, matter was in chaos, being in a part of it.
Here is a snippet from the Hypostasis of the Archons (Reality of the Rulers):
Sophia, who is called Pistis, wanted to create something, alone, without her partner, and what she created was celestial.
“A veil exists between the world above and the realms below, and shadow came into being beneath the veil. That shadow became matter, and that shadow was projected apart. And what she had created came to be in matter, like an aborted fetus.
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth includes a passage about Sophia and what she did and the result of it:
For those who were in the world had been prepared by the will of our sister Sophia—she who is a whore —because of her innocence that has not been uttered. And she did not ask anything from the realm of all, nor from the greatness of the assembly, nor from the pleroma, when she previously came forth to prepare lodgings and places for the son of light and the fellow workers. She took materials from the elements below to build bodily dwellings from them. But having come into being in an empty glory, they ended in destruction in the dwellings in which they were. Since they were prepared by Sophia, they stand ready to receive the life-giving word of the ineffable One and the greatness of the assembly of all those who persevere and those who are in me.
Here is a quotation from the Sophia of Jesus Christ:
The Perfect Savior said to them: "I want you to know that Sophia, the Mother of the Universe and the consort, desired by herself to bring these to existence without her male consort. But by the will of the Father of the Universe, that his unimaginable goodness might be revealed, he created that curtain between the immortals and those that came afterward, that the consequence might follow .... every aeon and chaos - that the defect of the female might appear, and it might come about that Error would contend with her. And these became the curtain of spirit. From the aeons above the emanations of Light, as I have said already, a drop from Light and Spirit came down to the lower regions of Almighty in chaos, that their molded forms might appear from that drop, for it is a judgment on him, Arch-Begetter, who is called 'Yaldabaoth'.
I believe that is it. I do feel the NHL text A Valentinian Exposition may have had some Sophia descent information if it was complete. There is a section that is heavily fragmented that I feel may have gone in that direction, but unless another copy comes forth, we’ll never know. Of all the texts I presented, I believe the Pistis Sophia is the key text in portraying the fall and the consequences, especially when you factor in the repentances. I highly recommend the book “The Fall of Sophia: A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal Consciousness” by Violet MacDermot. It features a different translation of the text (in case you didn’t care for GRS Mead’s version).
The featured artwork is that of the Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer, Altona, 1785
All text quotations were taken from gnosis.org
-bP
Culmination of Wisdom 