Skip to main content

Sophia and the Apocryphon of John

 In 1945, thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. 

These early Christian texts date from the 3rd century CE, and include writings attributed to John the Baptist.  The writings of John became known as the Secret Book of John, or the Apocryphon of John.  A translation by Frederik Wisse can be read online.

In the Apocryphon, there is a female counterpart to the Father - the holy Mother, Barbelo.  "She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power...  The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation... she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father."

I became aware of the Apocryphon of John after reading a graphic novel by Marisa Acocella, The Big She-Bang, The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother (highly recommended, by the way).  In addition to the divine mother Barbelo, Marisa Acocella also focuses on the divine daughter, Sophia.  

Sophia and Barbelo in the Pleroma
Sophia is mentioned in the Apocryphon of John as well as many other Gnostic texts.  She even has her own detailed Wikipedia page.

In Gnosticism, Sophia is considered to be the syzygy (divine feminine twin) of Christos (aka Jesus).

So, God the Father, God the Mother (Barbelo), Sophia, Christos, and the other divine aeons are living happily in the pleroma, the place of light, fullness, and knowledge, until Sophia gets a bit restless.  

Teenagers...

Right:  Original painting available via Saatchi Art.


When the Father and the Mother aren't looking, Sophia (whose name means wisdom) sneaks out of the pleroma.  She needs to know what's out there.  Turns out, there's darkness.  In the darkness, she is frightened.  Darkness and fear didn't exist in the pleroma.  It's an entirely new thing. In the darkness, Sophia's fear takes physical form, as the monster Yaldabaoth, "a lion-faced serpent...and its eyes were like lightning fires which flash."  

Sophia and Yaldabaoth
Sophia Manifesting Yaldabaoth original painting, prints, merch available in shop or through Redbubble and Fine Art America.

Sophia was horrified by her creation.  "She cast it away from her..."  She hid Yaldabaoth in a "luminous cloud".  

Since he possessed a small shard of Sophia's power, Yaldabaoth was able to make other lower monsters, the archons. "The name of the first one is Athoth, whom the generations call the reaper.  The second one is Harmas, who is the eye of envy...."  

From the cloud where Sophia had encased him, Yaldabaoth could not see the pleroma.  In his ignorance, he thought he was God, rather than just a monster, manifested from fear.  "And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him.  For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me.'"

The Gods became angry with his arrogance, and one revealed a reflection of himself to Yaldabaoth.  "And the whole aeon of the chief archon trembled, and the foundations of the abyss shook.  And the waters which are above matter, the underside was illuminated by the appearance of his image which had been revealed."

Immediately jealous, Yaldabaoth tried to recreate the form he had seen.  This would become Adam.  Yaldabaoth tried and tried to breathe life into Adam, but he could not.  Sophia, in an attempt to atone for her creation of the monster, gave life and wisdom to Adam, that he might one day rise up and overthrow Yaldabaoth.  

Yaldabaoth and Sophia Creation of Adam
Creation of Adam original painting, prints, and other merch available  in shop or through Redbubble or Fine Art America.  Original painting available via Saatchi Art.

"The body moved and gained strength and it was luminous.  And in that moment the rest of the powers became jealous, because...his intelligence was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater than that of the chief archon. And when they realized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they, and that he was free from wickedness, they took him and threw him into the lowest region of matter."

"And the archons took him and placed him in paradise.  And they said to him, "Eat, that is at leisure," for their luxury is bitter and their beauty is depraved.  And their luxury is deception and their trees are godlessness and their fruit is deadly poison and their promise is death."

"But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness."  

Adam in the Garden of Eden, archons
Adam in the Garden - Can you find him?  Original painting, prints, and other merch available in shop or through Redbubble or Fine Art America.  Original painting available via Saatchi Art.

"It is not the way Moses wrote."

This is as far as I've gotten with paintings.  I should continue.  I loved finding this story because I grew up with weekly church, Sunday school, Bible camp, and I ended up with some serious cognitive dissonance about the official doctrine.  Years later, learning that there were suppressed girl power versions is soothing to me.

Comments

  1. Paul Joseph RovelliApril 28, 2021 at 9:45 AM

    You might enjoy my commentary on this text.
    http://www.gclvx.org/Comments%20on%20the%20Apocryphon%20of%20John.pdf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LauraApril 28, 2021 at 10:20 AM

      I like how you make a connection between Barbelo and Isis. It reminds me of Helena Blavatsky. I enjoyed painting her.

      Delete
    2. LauraApril 28, 2021 at 10:21 AM

      Helena Blavatsky is here https://www.echoingmultiverse.com/political-and-historical-goddesses

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Asherah

 An inscription from Khirbet El-Qôm (near Jerusalem) dated to the 700s BCE and translated by archaeologist Judith Hadley reads, "Uriyahu the Rich wrote it. Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh for from his enemies by his Asherah he has saved him by Oniyahu by his Asherah and by his A[she]rah.” ( Source ) Asherah was the Great Goddess of the Ancient Near East.  From this inscription and other evidence, it is surmised that Yahweh, the God of the Jews, once had a wife - Asherah.  Asherah was also sometimes known as Astarte and was associated with lions and the planet Venus, like her relative, Ishtar/Inanna.  Asherah's symbol was the tree of life, and her worship involved sacred groves and asherah poles.   Asherah original painting available through  Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available in shop or through  RedBubble  or  Fine Art America.   All of the Asherahs in my painting are based on figurines housed in the Isra...
1 comment
Read more

Nut

 Nut is one of the oldest goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, Mother of Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys.  She swallows the Sun every evening and rebirths it every morning.  She is the Goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, mother of the gods, she who holds a thousand souls.  Her fingers and toes touch the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.  In her human depiction, she is represented by cat pose in yoga.   Nut original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . She is also sometimes represented as a cow, with her milk representing the heavenly river, the Milky Way.  Interesting, cat and cow poses alternate in yoga practice.  The first domestic cattle were bred from the wild aurochs. Both male and female aurochs had large horns.  Modern Texas longhorns are thought to be a relatively close relation to the aurochs.  I once slept ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Known Artists were Women

 In 2013, Dean Snow of the University of Pennsylvania published research on sexual dimorphism of hand prints present in Upper Paleolithic cave art.  His analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of hand prints present in the European cave art analyzed belonged to women ( source ).  Marija Gimbutas and others write that in Old European religion caves represented the womb of the earth Goddess.  Women, in the womb of the Earth Mother, creating artwork at the dawn of time.  The Creator creating creators, matrilineally. The Creator original painting.   Blogger Art Chester writes, "There is also an indirect argument based upon observations of modern primates.  Blogger Greg Laden, who studied with Prof. Snow at Penn State, states that when you study chimpanzees, you find that the males are virtually technophobes: 'Virtually all chimp technology is used by females, invented by females, passed from female to female, and so on.  Males don’t seem ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sheela Na Gig and the Power of the Vagina

 The Guardian published a piece on Sheela Na Gigs for International Women's Day on Monday.  Here's a link.   A few weeks ago, I painted two Sheelas. Found on churches throughout the British Isles and Europe, Sheela Na Gigs are "figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva."  There are over 100 documented examples just in Ireland.  The carvings may be remnants of a pre-Christian mother goddess.  They may also have been thought to ward off evil spirits.  They're often found over doors or windows, and they're generally smiling.   The two I have painted are from the Church of St. Mary and St. David at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England and the Parish Church of Oaksey, Wiltshire. While I was researching the Sheelas I came across other related stories of, as the Guardian so deftly put it, "big vagina energy".  The power of women (especially the nude form) to create life, protect it, or - conversely - take it away. My favorit...
3 comments
Read more

Tanit, Great Goddess of Carthage

 Tanit was the Great Goddess of Carthage.  She was the chief deity of the wealthy African port city, located on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Tunisia.  Tanit was a heavenly goddess of war, a "virginal" (unmarried) mother goddess and nurse, and, less specifically, a symbol of fertility.  She is considered to be an avatar of Astarte/Asherah/Ishtar/Inanna/Anat, and was adopted by the Romans as Juno Caelestis.  She may also be personified by legendary Etruscan queen Tanaquilo.  Additionally, like Astarte, Tanit is a Goddess of the sea and sailors. Tanit is sometimes portrayed with the head of a lion, wearing a garment made of feathers.  This fits with an identity related to the Great Mother Goddesses of the ancient Mediterranenan.  Astarte, Asherah , Ishtar, and Inanna are all associated with lion imagery.  The Burney Relief famously shows Ishtar or another Great Mother avatar with wings and feet reminiscent of a bird of prey.  Ana...
Post a Comment
Read more

Athena

 I painted Athena in December 2020 as part of a Goddess painting challenge, at the very beginning of my deep-dive into Goddess traditions.  I painted her as a mean girl, inspired by Regina George.  I had never liked Athena, and the result was an unflattering portrait. Athena, the Mean Girl, original painting by Echoing Multiverse, December 2020 Inspiration:  The pop culture Mean Girl, Regina George My perception of Athena was based on the story of her punishment of Medusa.  I had recently seen a YouTube video from Medusa's perspective.  I wasn't yet aware of the complexity of Greek mythology, especially with respect to representations of the divine feminine.  Later I learned that this story of Medusa was written by Ovid, a Roman poet, around 8 AD, well after the classical period of Greek mythology. From Robert Graves, I read that Plato identified Athene with the Libyan Goddess Neith, "who belonged to an epoch when fatherhood was unrecognized...Virgin...
Post a Comment
Read more