Sophia and the Demiurge, Part I

I realize that for the family pool of theological and philosophical discussion, I suppose I should bring to light the content of one or two books that take quite a bit of effort to read that I will not burden you with. But, here I hope to give an overview of the contents in the next few postings to give an idea and further background into the topic of Gnosticism, Coptic literature, and their related mythologies and philosophies. The particular source I'll reference first is The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics written by a french historian/scholar in the earlier half of the 20th century, who published his work in the 50's to describe, in no concise manner (not to mention having been translated from french into 1950's british english), the histories of the sects behind the literature and pulling apart the technical aspects of what is referred to as the Nag Hammadi Library. The unfortunate part of the publication is that only one complete chapter of the library was translated in the book in addition to being dissected, and that is the Gospel of Thomas.

This first blog gives an over-simplified generalization of the mythologies described, which existed to different extents within different sects of Hebrew and Christian faiths as well as the obscured Hellenist- and Stoic-influenced sects which include the cult at Qumran responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The first basic premise is that there is a conscious light and a conscious dark and an ether that divides them. The dark is conscious of the light and becomes jealous of it, it tries to surge up into the light but every step it takes causes the light to go away (it's not explained that the darkness overcomes the light, but describes it as the light does not shine through the darkness but it's might is not diminished by it). The dark then becomes frustrated that it cannot be illuminated, cannot become like the light or touch it.

The next premise personifies the light, the dark, and the ether. There are different versions of the mythology depending upon the sect, but this is a generalization:

The light is known as the supreme Godhead, and as yet the darkness does not exist. An important aspect of the godhead is that it is hermaphroditic. Ether is known as Sophia, and this element is in all forms female. It gets a bit variant, because, though the Godhead is a hermaphrodite, it seems to have a heavy lean on the masculine side. The Godhead creates at will and all the creations are "of light". The Sophia decides she shall create by herself, without the "input" (yes, take it as a euphemism) of the Godhead. This creates the darkness, Elohim (as well as other names, depending on the sect), and he is ignorant of the Godhead. Elohim creates the physical world, traps the souls of angels into physical bodies, and proclaims himself god of all things. At his proclamation, Sophia bellows out to him, making him aware of his folly. In one version he simply is scrutinizing his creation and whilst ascending great heights discovers the light of perfection of the Godhead.

This all boils down to several sects of beliefs that revolve around the creator of the world itself in the physical realm as being an unenlightened act by what modern day would call the devil. In this light, the followers would then dismiss some of the Old Testament on the belief that the 'God' who was being referred to was darkness and not the Godhead.

random gnostic reference from wiki : Manichean