The Logos has taken over most of Sophia's Divine Roles

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Dear Jagbir (and All),

 

Jagbir, would you please upload this to HSS?

 

Thanks,

 

violet

 

 

 

For upload to HSS:

 

 

 

The Logos has taken over most of Sophia's Divine Roles

 

 

Dear All,

 

The church fathers of the Patristic Age preferred the male rendition of " Logos "

when describing Christ, so as to avoid gender confusion. Although Sophia was

first equated with Logos, Logos then got substituted for Sophia, until the

masculine person of the Logos took over most of Sophia's divine roles.

 

What were most of Sophia's divine roles?

 

They included being the firstborn image of God, the principle of order, and the

intermediary between God and humanity.

 

Who changed the understanding of Sophia?

 

The Patristic Age was responsible for this. The patriarchs were responsible for

restricting and limiting Sophia to heaven.

 

Please enjoy the appended article which is of great interest, and of great

import!

 

violet

 

 

The Logos has taken over most of Sophia's Divine Roles

 

The fullest development of her is in the so-called " Wisdom Books " of the

apocryphia in the Greek Pentateuch that were canonized into Christian Scripture

and are still used by the Roman Catholic and English Orthodox churches. Sophia

dominates the first nine chapters of Proverbs and is found in both the Old and

New Testaments.

 

There was no attempt in the West to maintain the integrity of the original texts

until Jerome produced the Latin Vulgate at the request of the papacy in the

fourth century. Zuntz, by using the standard practice of textual comparison, in

his detailed analysis of the oldest Pauline manuscript, notes, in his book, The

Text of the Epistles, numerous places where the text has been altered. Jerome,

himself, in letters to his colleagues, bewails the fact that he has so many

variant texts to select from for the compilation of a standardized version. At

one point before him he has the old Hieronymian text and its revision. He says,

" The differences throughout are clear and striking. " In his writings he does

leave us a clue to the subject at hand. At one point he has before him the

gospel of the Hebrews used by the Syrian Christians which, as some now say,

predated the four canonical gospels. In it, Jerome says that the Holy Spirit is

expressed in the feminine gender and is considered the mother in law of the

soul. (Library 11, commentary in Isaiah, chapter 11: Library 2, commentary. in

Micah 7.6:) So here is some additional external evidence from an unrelated

source that the Holy Spirit was originally considered feminine. In Judaism, the

medieval writers of the Kaballah concentrated on the masculine aspects of the

sefiroth (the 13 aspects of God) and relegated Sophia to an inferior sphere than

that she had heretofore occupied. Roman Catholicism explicitly associated Old

Testament Sophia texts with Mary or the Mother Church. In the Eastern Church,

Sophia survives and is often associated liturgically with the Holy Spirit and

sometimes with Christ, himself. Further, the church fathers of the Patristic Age

preferred the male " Logos " when describing Christ in order to avoid gender

confusion. Philo, who at first equated Sophia with Logos, " substituted Logos for

Sophia, until the masculine person of the Logos has taken over most of Sophia's

divine roles including the firstborn image of God, the principle of order and

the intermediary between God and humanity. Sophia's powers are restricted and

she is limited to Heaven.

 

In both Greek and English, " Spirit " is a neuter noun. And we think of a neuter

noun as an " it " rather than a he or she. Thus we think of the Holy Trinity of

orthodox theology in a peculiar way. God the Father we visualize in warm,

personal terms. God the Word (i.e., Logos) we more often speak of as God the Son

and think of personal images ranging from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem.

Not so, however, with the Holy Spirit. Both the neuter noun and the biblical

images of fire and anointing tend us away from personal to impersonal imagery,

from Spirit as divine personality to Spirit as divine emanation. How

unfortunate. In the Gospel of John, Jesus invites us to know about, expect, and

experience the Holy Spirit. And he speaks of the third member of the divine

family in terms that are personal. In fact, he challenged his original followers

to think of the Holy Spirit in the same personal ways they had experienced him.

 

http://www.spiritbride.com/A/spiritbride/wisdom%20books.htm