Thou Mother of Compassion, come

Come, thou revealer of the Mysteries concealed...

Come, thou who givest joy to all who are at one with Thee

Come and commune with us in this thanksgiving...

—Gnostic hymn [Drinker, 150]

Before Christianity's Roman triumph, serious disagreements had already appeared among the believers. Gnostics were the first Christians to be expelled from the church as heretics. But not all Gnostics were Christian. Jewish Gnosticism predated Christianity. There were also pagan Gnostics who praised Prometheus and the Titans for opposing the tyranny of Zeus. [Geger, 168; Godwin, 85] Persian dualism, Hellenistic Neo-Platonism, and Egyptian mysticism were all influential in shaping Gnosticism. But there was no one unified body of Gnostic belief.

Though the Gnostic gospels were among the earliest Christian texts, they were banned from the orthodox canon that became the New Testament. Most people don't realize that the New Testament is a carefully screened selection from a much larger body of Christian scriptures. The others were not only excluded from the official collection, but were systematically destroyed when Christianity became the state religion. [Epiphanius, in Legge, xliii] Egyptian Gnostics managed to protect an important cache of scriptures from the book-burners by burying them in jars. Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls in 1947, what little was known of the Gnostics came mostly from their sworn enemies, the orthodox clergy. [Pagels, xxxv, xvii; Allegro, 108; Wentz, 363fn, lists a few surviving manuscripts known by 1900.]

Among the anathematized scriptures were writings featuring Wisdom as a creative female divinity. Others highlighted female disciples of Yeshua as advanced initiates into secret teachings unknown to the male disciples. For example, the Pistis Sophia names Mary Magdalene, Salome and Martha. [Legge/Horner, 51, 55] Some Gnostics maintained that the three Marys were part of the inner circle of Christian disciples and that women were present at the Last Supper. They must have been, since it was a Seder; the Christian bible says that Jesus “lay down at table” with the disciples, reclining as customary at Seders. [Schussler-Fiorenza, 55]) A woman, probably Mary Magdalene sits at the Last Supper in early murals of the Roman catacombs. [Drinker, 154-5]

Tertullian complained that Gnostics elected women priests, bishops and prophets to baptize, teach, exorcize and heal. They rejected authoritarian priesthood and gave the kiss of peace to all: “they all have access equally, they listen equally, they pray equally—even pagans, if any happen to come.” [Pagels, 42] Tertullian was horrified that females were not barred from priestly acts:

These heretical women—how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and, it may be, even to baptize! [De Praescriptione Haereticorum, in Pagels, 60]

Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons noticed that women were especially drawn to heresy. He explained the female defections from his own congregation by calumniating the Gnostic Marcus as a sorcerer and seducer who used aphrodisiacs. The bishop had to acknowledge, however, disparagingly, that Marcus encouraged women to prophesy (“preach,” in early Christian parlance). Another aspect of his congregation’s appeal were its prayers to feminine forms of the Divine—Wisdom, Silence, Grace. [Pagels, 59]

The Gnostic approach to Christianity had a strong pagan tinge. Its symbolic teachings were transmitted “in secret and by a method of initiation and allegory which was directly copied from the Mysteries then current in the pagan world...” [Legge, iii, xli] For the institutional church, Jesus was divine in a way humans could never attain, and salvation came only through him. But Gnostics saw Jesus as a person who had attained realization, and they followed him in seeking the source of divinity in “the depth” of Being. [Valentinus, in Pagels, 37] In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out... He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.” [Gospel of Thomas, 13, 108, online] Even in the canonical scriptures, similar passages survived here and there: “... you will do the same things I do. You will do even greater things than I do.” [John 14:12]

Gnostic spiritual practice aimed for reunion of human consciousness with the Pleroma, the “fullness” pervading the universe. [Allegro, 112-3] A saying attributed to Simon Magus describes “an infinite power... the root of the universe” living in everyone. [Hippolytus, in Pagels, 134] The Gospel of Truth says “... in you dwells the light that does not fail...” [Pagels, 128] The Arab Gnostic Monoimus taught that theology was not the right starting point, and counselled seekers to stop thinking about external matters, but to look for the divine within. Understanding would come from investigating the origins of the passions and involuntary states, and the discovery of Deity, “unity and plurality, in thyself.” The human is a reflection of the Mother-Father, which is like a musical harmony that “manifests all things, and generates all things.” [Hippolytus, VIII, V, online]

These teachings were not new, nor uniquely Christian (though the Gospel of Luke also says that “The kingdom of God is within you”). Kemetic temple inscriptions exhorted the seeker to “Know thyself,” a saying later inscribed at Delphi. It was adopted by Greek sages like Socrates and Pindar, who wrote “Learn what you are and be such.” [Allegro, 223] Self-knowledge involved becoming aware of past lives, according to the Anatolian Theodotus, seeking consciousness of “who we were, and what we have become... from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth.” [Pagels, xix] Gnostics believed in the growth and perfectibility of the soul over countless lifetimes. Meditation, chanting, retreats to the wilderness, austerities, belief in reincarnation and the praise of silence: the similarities to Hinduism remarked by modern scholars were recognized by the Gnostics themselves. Around the year 225, Hippolytus named the “brahmins” as an influence on Gnosticism, citing vegetarianism, the concept of god as light, and adepts wise in Nature’s mysteries. [Pagels, xxi]

Many Christians believed in reincarnation, especially the Egyptians, including Origen and Synesius of Ptolemais. Origen's writings indicate a conviction that past actions bore fruit in later lifetimes. He was later declared a heretic for it, and he was not the last. Centuries later, the Church hierarchy was fighting this still-widespread belief. In 553 the council of Constantinople declared: “Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema.” [Wentz, 359fn, 362]

Gnostics passed on secret, unwritten teachings about how to reach heightened states of consciousness. Traces remain in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, which recommend austerities, chanting, and meditation in silence. The sage Zostrianos went into the desert seeking visions of the eternal Light. He counseled seekers to overcome physical desires and still the “chaos in mind” through meditation. [Pagels, 135-6] In Allogenes , the glorious Youel speaks of a Triple Power which exists in silence, but emits a sound: “zza zza zza...” This state can be realized by stilling the self. [Allogenes, online] The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth also recommends seeking in silence. The teacher tells his disciple, “Language is not able to reveal this. For the entire Eighth, my son, and the souls that are in it, and the angels, sing a hymn in silence.” [tr by James Braschler, Peter Dirkse, Douglas Parrot, in The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. James Robinson, Harper Collins, SF 1990]

Gnostics often conceived of this eternal mystic Silence as the Mother. Some said that Sige (Silence) was God's female partner, as bishop Irenaeus reported, while the scripture Eugnostos the Blessed names her as "Sophia, Mother of the Universe, whom some call Love." [Translated by Doughlas Parrot, Online: <www.webcom.com/gnosis/haghamm/eugn.html>] Others declared that God was neither male nor female—or both. [Arthur, 54] Sige (Silence) was called “God the Father and God the Mother.” [Alexandre, 426] The Apochryphon of John refers to Deity as the “mother-father." [Arthur, 7]

SOPHIA

The Goddess was still well-loved in Egypt, whose ancient religion deeply influenced Gnostic philosophy. Isaic aretalogies (praise-songs based on the affirmation “I am”) made their way into several Gnostic scriptures. The Gospel of Thomas contains an invocation from ancient litanies of Isis: “Come, lady revealing hidden secrets...” [Holland-Smith, 68] In an aretology embedded in the Apocryphon of John, a goddess descends into "the inner part of Emente" —Amentet, the old Kemetic name for the underworld — much like Persephone or Inanna. [Arthur, 167]

Kemetic goddess veneration

had a strong impact on Gnosticism.

Molded statuettes of Isis

nursing her child were

hugely popular in Egypt

at the time of the

Nag Hammadi gospels.

Isis Lactans, Antinoë, circa 200 CE.

Great Isis had become syncretized with Judaic Wisdom traditions of Khokhmah, the female presence that took part in the creation. Her name was translated into Greek as Sophia and other Hellenistic names. The writings of Philo and Plutarch identified Isis as Sophia (“Wisdom”). [Long, 46; Allegro, 157] Early pre-Christian Gnostic scriptures hail “the all-wise Sophia, Genetrix” (Eugnostos the Blessed), she “who created great luminaries and all of the stars and placed them in the heaven so that they should shine upon the earth” (Origin of the World). [Arthur, 65] This scripture echoes the Isis aretalogy of Cyme: “I divided earth from heaven, I created the ways of the stars...” [Long, 84]

Isis Thermouthis (or Ermouthis) was a Greek name for Isis of Buto, worshipped

as the serpent goddess Uadjet. Terracotta, Medinet Madi, 1st-2nd century CE.

Other scriptures name the Divine Female as Ennoia (Thought), Pronoia (Forethought) or Protennoia (Primal Thought), Pistis (Faith), Eidea (Image, Ideal), or Charis (Grace). [Long, 87ff; Arthur, 55; Legge, xxxix] These Greek titles were often used interchangeably with Sophia. Several texts address the goddess as Arche (“beginning”), from the Hebrew Reshit, who represents Wisdom in the Palestinian Targum and the Samaritan Liturgy. [Arthur, 61] The first words in the Bible are Be reshiit: “In the beginning…”

The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth emphasizes the primacy of Arche: “I have found the Arche of the power which is over every power, she who is without Arche. I see a spring which is bubbling over with life.” [in Arthur, 172] In another text, the waters reflect the image of Pistis Sophia, infused with animist power: “the holy water makes all things alive. It purifies.” [Pronoia intrusion, Origin of the World, in Arthur, 129] Irenaeus tells us that the Gnostics regarded Arche as “another Monogenes,” a mother without origin. The title of “singly-born” was still in play as an attribute of Goddess, although the evangelist version of Jesus as "only-begotten son" was fast overtaking the old meaning. [Arthur, 61; see chapter 3]

Goddess traditions persisted among the Sethian Gnostics. Hippolytus wrote that they celebrated rites “very closely bordering upon those orgies of the 'Great Mother' which are observed among the Phliasians.” [Arthur, 32, 31; Hippolytus meant Phlya, known for its ancient Goddess mysteries, and not Phlious as implied by the text.] Epiphanius reported that the Sethians revered “the Mother and Female.” They said that the “Mother of All” planted a seed of power in her creation, which became Seth, the ancestor of the Perfect and of Jesus. [Doresse 39] The biblical god sent the Flood to punish humans for not worshipping him, but “Wisdom opposed him.” She saved Noah's family by showering light on them. [Pagels, 55]

THE DIVINE BARBELO

Another syncretic goddess of the Egyptian Gnostics is Barbelo. She resembles Khokhmah in her presentation as a divine emanation. The Sethian scripture Allogenes calls her “the first Arche of blessedness, the Aeon of Barbelo, full of divinity, and the first Arche of that one without Arche, the spiritual invisible Triple Power, the All that is higher than perfect.” [Arthur, 165] Many writers refer to Mother Barbelo as part of a trinity, along with the Father and Son. Here the Christian influence comes into view, but it is tempered by Egyptian themes: the trinity abides in the female sphere of the “Eighth.” [Pagels, 166; Arthur, 166] Epiphanius reports that the Gnostics placed Barbelo with Christ in the Eighth heaven. [Doresse, 43]

Attempts to reconcile conflicting traditions results in contradictions in the Barbelo literature. The Gospel of the Egyptians says that Barbelo originated from herself, as the ancients had said of Neit, Mother of the Gods. But the Three Stelas of Seth represent her as “the first shadow of the holy Father,” who existed before her. Its author addresses her with feminine pronouns, but paradoxically praises her as “the male virginal Barbelo.”[Arthur, 165-6] A later passage reverts to goddess imagery:

Thou art a Sophia. Thou art a Gnosis. Thou art truth. Because of thee, there is life. Life is from thee. Because of thee, there is mind... Thou art a cosmos of truth.

Thou art a triple power... [Arthur, 166]

The Sethians said that this trinity was made up of Light, Breath, and Darkness. The Peratae had it as Father, Son and Matter, with the Son mediating between the exalted Father and a passive female principle. [Both according to the Philosophumena, in Doresse, 52, 50]

But the Trimorphic Protennoia exalts “Barbelo, the perfect glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden." She is called Protennoia—Primal Thought—who "dwells in the Light," and from her originated a trinity of Father, Mother, Son. This scroll begins with an aretalogy that praises her as "the movement that dwells in the All...she who exists before the All." [Trimorphic Protennoia, tr by John D. Turner, <www.gnosis.org/naghamm/trimorph.html>]

I move in every creature... I am the Invisible One within the All... It is I who poured forth the water. It is I who am hidden by radiant waters. It is I who gradually put forth the All by my Thought. It is I who am laden with the Voice. It is through me that Gnosis comes forth.” [Ibid]

Protennoia's connection with the waters recalls the primal flood of Neith and Isis, who brought forth the Nile inundation. And like both goddesses who were mothers of the sun, Neit to Ra and Isis to Horus, Protennoia proclaims, "I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendor. I am the Aeon to come. I am the fulfilment of the All, that is, Meirothea, the glory of the Mother." [Ibid check is this Arthur?]

The Apochryphon of John contains another aretalogy of “the perfect Pronoia of the universe,” who was the First. She represents “the light which exists in light,” but wandered in the great darkness, “into the midst of the prison,” and the depths of the underworld. [not Arthur?, 132, 162-7] However, this book unfavorably compared “sister Sophia” to Barbelo. A splitting of Gnostic goddess images was underway, in the process of subordinating her to “the Father.” The Christian authors now disparaged the independence of a goddess not firmly partnered to a male god. These derivative Gnostic aretalogies reflect an emerging concept of the “fallen” goddess.

The longest aretalogy appears in Thunder, Perfect Mind, which follows the form of the old Isis litanies:

I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin

I am the mother and the daughter

I am the members of my mother

I am the barren one, and many are her sons....

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

And the idea whose remembrance is frequent

And the word whose appearance is multiple

I am the utterance of my name.

[Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of an Ancient Religion, 1984, in Long]

Further on there is a veiled but pointed reference to Isis: “I am the Sophia of the Greeks/ And the Gnosis of the barbarians/ I am one whose image is great in Egypt...” Unlike the pagan aretalogies, however, Thunder is dualistic, pairing negatives—”ignorance... shame... fear”—with Barbelo's divine qualities. [Arthur, 7, 164, 173-5. She reasons that Thunder was originally titled The Divine Barbelo, based on abbreviations and the association of Barbelo with the title "Perfect Mind."] Some of the lines in Thunder resemble verses in the “Song of the Woman” in the Origin of the World. This version attributes the song to Eve, assigning her a male lord not present in Thunder. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, similar declarations about Eve are put in Adam’s mouth. [Arthur, 162, 148]

FEMALE CREATORS AND CULTURE HEROINES

To understand the demotion of goddesses in Gnostic mythology, we need to examine the older strands in which Egyptian Gnostics go out of their way to affirm the creative power of a Mother of All, and to critique her omission from the biblical acccount. They embraced the Wisdom goddess as a power higher than the god who created the world. A markedly Egyptian sensibility is expressed in the Origin of the World, a Sahidic Coptic scripture among the Nag Hammadi scrolls. Although this text has been Christianized, it still shows a goddess as the major force in creation, and restores Eve to her primordial sacred status as the Mother of All Living. Negative comments about the male creator are embedded in the beginning and end of this text, but conflict with its main thrust. [check this with note below: Arthur, 188-89; Young, 54]

The author is keenly aware of the Genesis account, but interprets it very differently, mixing in Greek names with Hebrew ones. The biblical name for god, Elohim, is taken literally as a grammatical plural, and in the text stands for the archons (powers). Sophia is described as existing in the beginning, even before Chaos. She flowed out of Pistis (“faith”). Her wish brought a great power into being, which became like a veil between the immortals and those who came into being after them. A shadow arose, that gave birth to envy and wrath, and became like dark waters of immeasurable deepness. Pistis appeared over it, and was disturbed at what had come into being "through her fault." [Arthur, 188-89; Young, 54]

Gnostics revived the ancient meaning of Eve's name, “Mother of All Living,” honoring her as the one who raised up Adam, and the Serpent as a Teacher. Michaelangelo painted the snake as a goddess in the Sistine chapel.

Then Pistis Sophia caused a lion-like spirit to come into being out of the waters, to rule over the world of matter. She called him Yaldabaoth. He had power, but did not know how he came to be, and was “ignorant of the power of Pistis.” And she “withdrew up to her light.” The godling concluded that he alone existed. Now the author makes a deliberate link to the Genesis creation story: Yaldabaoth's thought becomes the word, and moves over the waters as a spirit, and he separates the waters and land, making heaven and earth. But this male godling is unaware of the goddess who brought him into being. He says, “I am God, and there is none other existing beside me.” [Arthur, 193]

Pistis retorts, “You are wrong, Samael… there is an immortal light man that exists before you.” He later realizes the truth of her words when he glimpses her image on the water, and repents. This sotry is repeated by Irenaeus in his description of Ophite cosmology. When Ialdabaoth proclaims himself sole god, Sophia shouts, “Do not lie!” [Doresse, 38. A similar story appears in a Buddhist critique of Hinduism, where Brahma thinks he is creator. See Klein, Bliss Queen, 158]

The seven archons mold a man, but he had no spirit, and they left him. After forty days, “Sophia sent her breath into Adam. Yaldabaoth and his archons were disturbed when they found him, but rejoiced when they found that Adam was not able to rise. After a day of rest, they “withdrew up to their heavens.”

Now, in a section known as the “Eve intrusion,” Sophia creates “the Living-Eva, that is, the Instructoress of Life.” This androgynous being takes form from a drop of light that Sophia cast upon the waters, according to the image of the Mother, and proclaims her identity with her. The text says this being was androgynous, but its Hebrew mother called her the Living Eva. She assumes titles of Isis, such as “consoler of the labor pains.” [Arthur, 99, 117, 131] “Sophia sent Zoë, her daughter, who is called Eve ('of Life') as an instructor to raise up Adam...” so that his offspring would become “vessels of the light.” [Young, 54]

Eve saw her co-likeness cast down, she pitied him, and she said, 'Adam, live! Rise up on the earth!' And he rose, opened his eyes, and saw Eve. 'You will be called the mother of the living because you are the one who gave me life.'

The Origin of the World thus reverses the primacy of Adam over Eve in Genesis.

After all this, the archangels beheld Eve and compared her to Sophia, “the likeness which appeared to us in the light.” They plotted to rape and “pollute” her, and to cast Adam into a sleep, teaching him that she came into being from his rib “so that the woman will serve and he will rule over her.” But Life/Eve laughed at their scheming, darkened their eyes and left her likeness beside Adam. “She entered the tree of knowledge, and remained there. She revealed to them that she had entered the tree and become tree.” The archons ran away in fear, then defiled Eve's likeness. “And they were deceived, not knowing that they had defiled their own bodies.” Later, the couple ate fruit, and the archons cursed them, the earth, and its fruit. Sophia became furious at this and cast down the archons from heaven. [Young, 54; Arthur 207]

This “Eve-Intrusion” contains an aretalogy called “Song of the Woman.” [The Origin of the World, 114.4-15] Rose Arthur points out that it repeats lines form the famous aretalogy, Thunder, Perfect Mind [VI, 2, in Arthur, 99] But Origin attributes the song to Eve, assigning her a male lord not present in Thunder. Fragments of this “Song of the Woman” are repeated in a related text, the Hypostasis of the Archons. Here, Eve does not speak the verses; it is Adam who speaks about Eve. [Arthur, 131, 162, 143]

Several other Gnostic scriptures present Eve in a similar light, as a culture hero rather than the culpable temptress of the Church fathers. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve is “the spirit-endowed Woman.” Adam calls her his mother and “Mother of the Living,” the original Hebrew title of Eve. “It is she who is the physician, and the Woman, and She Who Has Given Birth.” The “Female Spiritual Principle” entered into the Snake, the Teacher, explaining that god's threat of death came out of jealousy, and that they would be able to tell good from evil. [Pagels, 31]

Gnostic sects often reversed meanings of biblical myths. The villains of the Bible, such as Cain and Esau, were heroes to the Ophites (“Snake-people”). They revered the Serpent of paradise as the source of Gnosis, and cast Jesus as its incarnation. The Ophites “kept and fed [snakes] in baskets; they held their meetings close to the holes where they lived. They arranged loaves of bread upon a table, and then, by means of incantations, they allured the snake until it came coiling its way among these offerings...” [Doresse, 44] This scene closely resembles the old Goddess Mysteries, whose priestesses often kept snakes, who are shown coiling around baskets or circular chests.

According to bishop Epiphanius, the Eleusinian and Phrygian Mysteries also influenced the Naassene sect of Christians, who took their name from Naas, a Hebrew word for “serpent.” [Doresse, 47-8] The Perates also embraced the Serpent as the true savior. [Couliano, 128] In the heavens they saw “the beautiful form of the Serpent coiled up in the grand beginning of the heavens and becoming, for all born Beings, the principle of all movement.” The serpent entwined around an egg was a divine symbol of the Ophites. Sethians agreed that generation began with the serpent, who was the (male) Instructor. They also compared the heavens to the belly of a pregnant woman. (This sky-mother symbolism has very ancient Egyptian origins, going back to Neith, Hathor, and Nut.) All pregnant beings carry this “imprint of heaven, of earth, and of all that is situated immovably in the midst.” The wind born of water stirred the waves, which are like a womb bringing forth. The Sethian compared the wind to the hiss of a serpent. [Doresse, 51-2; Arthur, 137]

A Nag Hammadi scroll called the Testimony of Truth is sympathetic to the Serpent in the Genesis account of the Tree of Knowledge. The wise Serpent convinces Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom: “the eyes of your mind will be opened.” The author points out that the lord's threat of immediate death didn't come true, but the Serpent's promise of knowledge did. The god of Genesis is called “a malicious envier” who begrudged humans the power of knowing. [Pagels, 30] The theme of an imperfect creator god recurs in other Gnostic texts. Sophia rebukes this god as a liar and fool when he claims sole divinity. Provoked to anger by his hubris in refusing to acknowledge the female principle, or grieved that he created inferior beings, she withdraws to the upper heavens. [Hubbs, 253; Pagels, 58]

The Apocryphon of John says that by proclaiming his jealousy, this god proved that another Power did in fact exist, “for if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?” This jealousy caused “the mother” to become distressed. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Wisdom and her daughter Life cry out that the arrogant god is wrong to proclaim his supremacy. Sophia answers his challenge by sending forth light into matter, all the way down to the realm of Chaos. [Pagels, 58]

THE FALLEN SOPHIA

Though Sophia was prominent in the Gnostic creation accounts, she was being stripped of the radiant holiness the Egyptians attributed to Isis, and the Hebrews to Khokhmah. In her groundbreaking The Wisdom Goddess, Rose Arthur showed how the positive view of Sophia in the early, pre-Christian scriptures was gradually broken down and degraded by a masculinizing, Christianizing movement. Her work shows that “...the fallen Sophia appears to be a specifically Christian soteiriological motif.” Arthur demonstrates that the older texts were consistently re-edited to reduce and subordinate female divinity, while exalting the male god. [Arthur, 4, 50, 67, 71] The Hypostasis of the Archons is no more than “a Christianized, patriarchalized and defeminized summary of On the Origin of the World.” It blatantly replaces the original goddess with the Christian god. The line “But all this came to pass according to the Pronoia of Pistis” becomes “But all these things came to pass in the Will of the Father of the All.” [94, 152]

The pre-Christian scripture Eugnostos the Blessed was revamped as the Sophia Jesu Christi, in which Sophia rebels against the “Father of the Universe,” repents of her fault, and is saved by her male partner, Jesus Christ. [Arthur, 4-5] The revisionist text repeatedly refers to the “fault of the woman.” [Couliano, 80-5. He estimates that 80% of the Gnostic Sophia myths are negative or ambivalent.] The same process was at work on the Pistis Sophia, where the fallen Sophia is made to sing thirteen hymns of repentence before Jesus helps her to regain the Heights. [Legge/Horner] The Origin of the World also appears to contain editorial revisions in this direction that are out of character with the main text.

The earlier view of the goddess as god's perfect partner gave way to myths which cast her as a lower being needing pardon and restoration. New authors developed themes of a deluded and foolish Sophia (despite her name “Wisdom”). They accuse of her of breaking cosmic law by creating without a male partner, and describe her creation as defective. [Couliano, 78-9]

The Gnostic Hippolytus described Sophia as a junior aeon who tried to imitate the Father's generation without a partner. Due to her inferior powers, her creation was “devoid of form and perfection.” The Father then emanated the aeon Limit-Cross to bar her from the Pleroma (“Fullness”). As a result Sophia undergoes a four-fold passion—Anguish, Pain, Confusion, and Supplication—and must be rescued by other aeons. [Couliano, 78] The Apocryphon of John also converted Sophia into an inferior, fallen power: “... when the mother understood that the veil of darkness had come into being imperfectly and she knew her partner had not agreed with her, then she repented...” [Arthur, 70]

The creation of Eve. Orthodox Christian writers blamed her for original sin, but

early Gnostic texts praised her as the “spirit-endowed woman.”

The Exegesis of the Soul took an even more extreme position. The female soul was debauched by “many robbers” and bore defective offspring. The author blames these events on Aphrodite, and compares the soul to a prostitute who must repent and pray to the father god. Her genitals are presented as defective, being on the outside like the male genitals. (This sounds like a justification of the Egyptian practice of clitorical excision.) But if the soul repents and prays to the father, he will turn her organs back to the inside “so that the soul will regain her proper character.” Then she will fulfill the Father's will, receiving a salvific male partner and bearing good children. [Ibid, 36-8, 40-8]

These new patriarchal discourses are still contending with a deep-rooted conviction that Goddess is the ultimate source of life. Even hostile writers acknowledge that Sophia gives the breath of life to Adam, though indirectly. But they view the material creation as evil, imprisoning the souls who live in it. [Arthur, 64, 88] Often Sophia herself is shown falling into bondage. In one Gnostic myth, Sophia is taken prisoner by the seven archons. They subject the essence of Wisdom made flesh in female form to every indignity, including forcing her into whoredom. In another version, Simon Magus rescues “Helena” from a brothel in Tyre. In actuality she is the creator of the angels who made the world. She is called Kyria (Lady), a Greek term corresponding to the Christian god's title Kyrie. [Allegro, 141-2, 145] In another account, Sophia mistakes the lion-headed archon for an emissary of the Pleroma and he swallows her power, depriving her of her light. Weakened, Sophia “repents repeatedly” and calls to the Pleroma to rescue her. The aeon Christ is sent to her aid. [Couliano, 79]

The Kukeans said that god was born out of the Awakened Sea in the midst of the World of Light. He looked into the waters of his mother and saw his own image. He had sex with this image, the Mother of Life. She gave birth to “a multitude of gods and goddesses,” creating seventy worlds and twelve aeons. God animated a great dead image using the life of these worlds. By breathing on the Mother of Life, this image caused her fall: “its breath penetrated even to the sexual organs of the Mother and defiled her.” She was no longer able to enter the divine planes, and remained in an impure state for seven days. The Savior came to rescue her and her seven virgins. [Doresse, 59] Again the female is singled out as the symbol for sexual defilement.

In the Origin of the World, Sophia sends forth a drop of light “upon the water,” and it takes shape as a divine female. The Sophia of Jesu Christi repeats this creative act, but later retracts it, replacing Sophia with a male creator. It is he who sends forth the drop of light over the veil between the worlds, says the revisionist, “so that the fault of the woman should be made manifest, and that she should come into being contending with error.” [Arthur, 83, 75-6]

DOCTRINES OF THE FLAWED FEMALE

Under the oppressive climate of imperial society, with its heavy taxation, displaced populations, urban crowding, plagues, and arena executions, a profound negativity had seeped into religious consciousness. This sense of hopelessness manifested as what has been called Gnostic pessimism. People felt like prisoners in the world, and a conviction arose that creation itself was flawed. The taint reached back to the Goddess herself, since she manifested herself in matter, in birth, in bodies. This new doctrine identifying the female with bondage, weakness, inferiority and fault was the final means of overthrowing the Goddess Mysteries.

The process was erratic. Judaic Wisdom mysticism, so influential in early Gnosticism, exalted the creative power of Khokhmah, and held that creation was good. But increasingly Gnostics gravitated toward a “value-inversion,” not only revolting against the Biblical god, but rejecting creation as well. [Geger, 168]

Even before Christianity, Judaism was a powerful influence in the pagan Mediterranean. Gem amulets with Hellenistic inscriptions often invoke Sabaoth, IA, IAO, IAIA and other names of the Judaic god, which even appear engraved on goddess images. But slurs against this god became current among Romans and Egyptians, who portrayed him as ass-headed. [Doresse, 42fn101, 43] Although Gnostic Christians were strongly influenced by Judaism, many of their writings evince a strong animus against it.

Much of Gnostic scripture reinterprets the biblical cosmogony, casting the Hebrew god as a deluded archon called Ialdabaoth or Saklas or Authades. Junior to the creating Wisdom goddess, he is unaware of her presence but works with her light. Possibly this theme originated as a reassertation of the Egyptian goddess, whose scattered signatures are visible in the Gnostic amalgam of Hellenistic, Judaic and Persian cosmologies. But she too has undergone massive reinterpretation.

Gnosticism's rejection of the “lower” world ended up dragging down the Goddess in the midst of its attack on Judaism. New Christian doctrines stripped Sophia of her divine qualities and subordinated her to the Father and to Christ as her male partner and savior. Later writers dropped the name Sophia altogether. They equated the Goddess with matter, darkness, ignorance and fault. She was literally subjected to erasure on a 2nd-century Italian relief of Aeon surrounded by the zodiac; the inscription Felix Pater (“auspicious father”) remains intact, while a female name beside the figure has been removed. [Godwin, 170-1]

A Christian Gnostic writer revised the Origin of the World, adding an introduction and conclusion with a negative tone and very different values than the work itself. These passages assert that the universe suffers from a Shta (“lack, flaw”) which is blamed on an “envious” Sophia. By conceiving alone, without a partner, she “brought forth envy.” The revisionist author declares Sophia's need for redemption by the male Logos, the “Father.” He predicts that in the apocalypse she will return in “mindless fury” to drive out chaos and uproot fault. [Arthur, 103-5, 122]

In the Apocryphon of John, Sophia created Yaldabaoth alone, without a partner or the male Spirit's approval. Because of this her creation was imperfect, occluding her power, and she cast it away. The writer rebukes the Wisdom goddess several times for creating without male help, but never reproaches the male deity for doing the same. “And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her.” Then the holy spirit poured on Sophia “that he might correct her deficiency.” [Buckley, 43-46] But this text is ambivalent; Sophia still remains a creator. Yaldabaoth receives power from her, and the angels trick him into transferring Sophia's light to Adam. Christ gets Adam to eat from the tree of Epinoia (Thought) rather than that of the archons, “and the Epinoia of the light hid herself in [Adam].” Again the vivifying principle is imagined as female. And while the supreme Spirit is called male in some places, in others it is “the Mother-Father.” [Buckley, 49-51]

As Sophia is mythologically cast down, other female figures such as Epinoia pick up aspects of her power. An Egyptian text introduces Eve's daughter Norea as "the virgin whom no power hath defiled." She is a redeemer whose blood is salvific. Rose Arthur suggests that she is a substitute for the now-discredited figure of Sophia. [Arthur, 136-7] She also foreshadows the syncretic, deified Virgin Mary.

The Apocalypse of Adam calls the fallen goddess Eve. One of the Nine Muses sat up on a high mountain for a long time: “she desired herself in order to become androgynous. She fulfilled her desire, and became pregnant from her desire...” By parthenogenesis, she became Eve, Mother of All Living, the “great creative power from whom all things originate.” But her desire violated the pairing principle, so what she produced was defective. [Pagels, 54]

The Christian Gospel of Truth replaces Sophia with Plane (“error”), who “fashioned her own matter out of vanity without knowing the truth.” She created disorder and terrors, capturing souls in matter, but the Father saves them. In a similar vein, the Tripartite Tractate blames a female archon for creating an imperfect world by parthenogenesis. Its author specifically names “the sickness which is femininity, and “the Church” as a group of people who have left this “sickness” behind. [Arthur, 178-9, 181-6]

Ermouthis, from an Iraqi triptych

with Isis Lactans and Serapis.

West Asian sources emphasize

the goddess as a serpent and

mother of zodiacal powers.

The Gnostic Book of Baruch shows a tripartitle “power of the All”: male powers called the Good and Elohim, and the deceitful, less powerful Eden. She had two bodies, “women to the hips and snakes below.” She and Elohim desired each other, and united “in heart-felt love.” Twelve of their offspring—the angels—were his, while the twelve demons—archons, malignant zodiac spirits and the four rivers of paradise—belonged to her. [Buckley, 4-6; Couliano, 76, snake-quote on “the duplicitous Eden-Israel”]

Eden is earth; the angels create man for her. She gives him soul, and Elohim spirit. Then Elohim ascends to the superior light. It comes as a surprise to him; he wants to go back and destroy the world he created. The Good intervenes, saying, “let Eden have the creation so long as she will.” She tries to lure Elohim back, without success. Thwarted and vengeful, she unleashes her anger on humanity. Her angel Naas (the Serpent again) causes adultery, divorce, and pederasty. [Buckley, 5-9]

Contemporary Mandaean scriptures debase the goddess in a similar manner. She is still named Ruha, “spirit,” or even Ruha d'Qudsha, “the holy spirit,” but is demonized as “leader of the dark forces.” Ruha is taken up out of the dark underworld and imprisoned in the earthly realm. There she gives birth to the monster Ur, and by him bears the evil planets and zodiac spirits. She also seduces the son of Adam. [Buckley, 22-3]

Some Iraqi texts specifically name Ruha as Simat, the earth. “She raised up physical life and she is the Great Mother....” But she is called deficient and defective, needing to be uplifted by the Father: “and her baser mysteries he drew upwards, he steadied her babbling tongues, cleared her vision and turned the spheres.” Other passages dismiss Ruha as a lying, demonic seductress. A demigod from the “lightworld” scolds her: “Thine eyes are eyes of falsehood, whilst my eyes are eyes of truth.” [Buckley, 24-7]

The goddess is still present, but derided as fallen, erring, inferior, and tainted. A corollary belief claims that creation and bodies are evil. This pessimistic form of Gnosticism eventually prevailed. [Allegro, 109] It confused the evils of an oppressive social order with a presumed evil in Nature. The revisionist scriptures go out of their way to declare that the rightful position of the Goddess is always under the masculine godhead. As in orthodox Christianity, the truly Divine must be—can only be—masculine:

The hidden assumption of Gnosticism would thus be that femaleness is equated with weakness, error and imperfection... [Couliano, 85]

This is a far cry from the Great Mother of the ancient mystery religions, whom the Pythagoreans called “the great soul of the world who gives birth, preserves and renews... the divine Goddess who bears along all souls in her mantle of Light.” [Arthur, 5] The Pistis Sophia presents pagan deities as demons who torment souls in the realm of Chaos. Among these fiends is the planet Venus “called Bubastis” (one of the names of Isis). Others are “three-faced Hecate,” Typhon, Adonis, Persephone, and “the counterfeit spirit with the Fate also, whose name is 'The Moira'.” [Legge/ Horner, 186, xxv, xxvii-iii, 173]

Astrology comes under heavy fire from many Gnostic writers, who tie the planets to the evil archons and cursed matter. In the Apochryphon of John, Yaldabaoth unites with his twin sister Ignorance or Insanity, who gives birth to the twelve signs of the zodiac. [Couliano, 97, 106ff] In the Pistis Sophia, Jesus ascends to the Second Sphere of Destiny to punish the rebellious zodiacal Aeons. He fixes things so humans can no longer foretell the future through astrology and magic. [Ibid, xv-xvii] The Peratae and Archontici , on the other hand, invoked the seven planets and laid great emphasis on Chaldaean and Ptolemaic astrology. [Doresse, 50-1]

The Magdalene of the Gnostics

As above, so below. Degradation of the Goddess was accompanied by attacks on female leadership. While some Gnostics allowed a greater scope to women and female godhead than the institutional church, a severe patriarchal bias is visible in many Gnostic texts. Probably the baldest declaration of male supremacy appears in the Gospel of Thomas, which ends with a declaration that femaleness conflicts with spiritual attainment:

Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her, in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.” [Gospel of Thomas, 114, online]

In the Gospel of the Egyptians, Salome asks how long death will prevail. Jesus replies, “As long as you, women, bear children, for I have come to destroy the work of women.” [Markale, 139; Pagels, 66, has “destroy the works of femaleness,” Dialogue of the Savior.] Here misogyny mixes with the pronounced anti-reproductive bias of classic Gnosticism. But at the next turn, the text shifts to embrace androgyny. Jesus goes on to tell Salome that all would be known “when you have trampled on the garment of shame; when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female.” [Lane, 358] The Sophia Jesu Christi reveals the Christian savior himself "as bisexual,” paired with “his female Sophia, ‘Mother of All,’ whom some call Pistis.” [Schussler-Fiorenza, 52] Some Gnostic scriptures show androgynous archons, or pair them off in syzygy, in a manner that calls to mind the Shiva-Shakti pairings in India.

In the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples ask Jesus, “When wilt thou be revealed to us and when will we see thee?” Jesus answers, “When you take off your clothing without being ashamed, and take your clothes and, like little children, put them on the ground and tread on them; then [shall ye behold] the Son of the Living and ye shall not fear.” [Thomas, in Allegro, 117] The title “Son of the Living” recalls Eve, who is called Mother of the Living. This expression offers a feminine parallel to the Aramaic expression usually translated as “the Son of Man.”

Certain scrolls present women as the most advanced disciples. The Dialogue of the Savior shows Mary Magdelene as the greatest apostle, a “woman who knew the All.” The Pistis Sophia emphasizes Mary's prominence, indeed her leading role, among the disciples: “Sprang up in front again Mariam, she came into the midst...” Jesus calls her “Mariham the Happy” and encourages her: “Speak in boldness, because thou art she whose heart straineth toward the kingdom of the heavens more than all thy brothers.” He praises her as “she who will become the Pleroma of all the Pleromas and the completion of all the completions.” [Legge/ Horner, 36, 13-14]

The Gospel of Mary says that she alone received secret teachings from Jesus. After the crucifixion, she discloses them to the others. Peter goes into a rage: “Did he really speak privately with a woman, not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her?” Levi defends Mary, reproaching Peter for his anger and for “contending against the women like the adversaries.” He adds that if Jesus found her worthy, who was Peter to reject her? The disciples then embrace her words. [Gospel of Mary, online]

Peter also challenges Mary's standing as a disciple in the Pistis Sophia. Mary tells Jesus, “Peter makes me hesitate; I am afraid of him because he hates the female race [genos].” Jesus responds with an affirmation that speech is divinely ordained, by inspiration by the Spirit, not by gender. [Pagels, 65] Later, the implication is that the women are speaking too often, as Peter demands that the women cease to question, so that the men may also question, and Jesus asks them to “Give way to the men, your brethren, that they may question also.” [IV, in Schmidt/MacDonald, 377]

These Gnostic texts display intense gender conflict among early Christians. The tension is more open in the Gnostic gospels precisely because the female presence is so much more pronounced than in the canonical scriptures. There the discipleship of Mary Magdalene is missing. John Crossan argues persuasively that the gospel authors took pains to deemphasize her role and that of other women. For example, in John's account Magdalene does not "see" Yeshua; he is shown appearing first to Peter. As Crossan observes, this apparition signifies a transfer of authority in the emerging Christian myth. [Crossan, 170-190]

Modern icon of St Mary Magdalene, by Robert Lentz

It was in Egypt and other centers of the Mysteries that the last stand for open Goddess worship was fought, and ultimately lost, on the battleground of Gnosticism. Eradicating the Goddess proved to be a long and complex process. She survived in a myriad of vestigial forms in popular belief, veiled as Mary or other Christian saints. In Church doctrine and scriptures, the Virgin Mary occupied a much less powerful position than the ancient goddesses. But she escaped the degradation that the Gnostics ended up heaping on Sophia, and the stigma that Christians cast over Eve. While Gnosticism gradually shed goddess veneration, Catholicism ended up absorbing them, through progressive engorgements, over the next millennium.