Who Sophia is

Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. In Hebrew the word is chokmah (also spelled hokhmah). Both words are grammatically feminine, and several ancient texts go further: they speak of Wisdom as a woman who calls out, teaches, and was present at creation.

The same figure appears in very different places. She is in the Hebrew Bible, in Greek Jewish writings, in Christian theology, and in the texts often called Gnostic. This page walks through each one.

1. Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs

Column A: Documented

• Proverbs 8 opens: "Does not wisdom call and understanding raise her voice?" (Proverbs 8:1, NRSVUE). In the Hebrew, the verb forms and the word "her voice" (qolah) are feminine.
• In Proverbs 8:22-31, Wisdom speaks about existing before the world was made. In the JPS translation on Sefaria: "I was created at the beginning of GOD's course, as the first of the works of old." She says she was beside God "as a confidant" (the translators note "protégée" as an alternative), "a source of delight every day, rejoicing before [God] at all times."
• Proverbs 9:1 describes Wisdom building her house with seven pillars.
• Proverbs is part of the Hebrew Bible and of every Christian Old Testament.

Column B: Interpretation

• Scholars debate whether Wisdom in Proverbs is a poetic personification (a way of speaking about God's own wisdom) or a figure with a life of her own. Claudia V. Camp's study Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (1985) is a standard starting point for this question.
• The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (Yehudah Mirsky, "Feminine Images of God") summarizes it this way: in Proverbs, Wisdom, "God's first creation and the guiding spirit of the world, is personified as woman." The same article notes that medieval Jewish philosophers tended to read her more abstractly, for example as the Torah.
• The Hebrew word translated "confidant" or "master worker" in 8:30 (amon) is one of the hardest words in the chapter. Translations differ, and so do readings of Wisdom's role.

2. Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon

Column A: Documented

• The Wisdom of Solomon is a Jewish book written in Greek. It is part of the Old Testament in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, appears among the Apocrypha in many Protestant Bibles, and is not part of the Jewish Hebrew Bible.
• Wisdom of Solomon 7:25-26 (NRSVUE): "For she is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness."
• In his Festal Letter 39 (367 CE), Athanasius of Alexandria lists the books he counts as the canon, then names the Wisdom of Solomon among books that are "not indeed included in the Canon" but are appointed to be read by new believers. (Translation in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4.)

Column B: Interpretation

• Most scholars place the book in Greek-speaking Judaism, often in Alexandria, around the first century BCE. The exact date is debated.
• Early Christian writers drew on this language ("reflection," "image," "radiance") when speaking about Christ. Compare Hebrews 1:3. This is why Eastern Christianity has long linked Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) with Christ, the Word. The great church in Istanbul is named Hagia Sophia, "Holy Wisdom."

3. Sophia in the Nag Hammadi texts

Column A: Documented

• The find. In December 1945, near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, local farmers found a jar of papyrus books. The commonly told story names Muhammad Ali al-Samman as the finder. The books (thirteen codices, in Coptic) are now in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Scholars date the copies to the fourth century CE. The texts inside are older.
• The Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John. This text survives in four copies: three at Nag Hammadi and one in the Berlin Codex (Papyrus Berolinensis 8502). It tells a creation story in which Sophia, one of the divine beings called aeons, acts on her own. In the translation by Frederik Wisse: "She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit... and without her consort." The result is a flawed ruler, Yaltabaoth, who goes on to make the material world.
• The same text later calls her "our sister Sophia... who came down in innocence in order to rectify her deficiency. Therefore she was called Life, which is the mother of the living."
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ (Nag Hammadi Codex III, and the Berlin Codex) is a dialogue in which the risen Savior teaches the disciples, including Mary, about the divine realm.
• Valentinian accounts. The introduction to the Tripartite Tractate in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (James M. Robinson, general editor) explains that in several Valentinian versions "the problem in the godhead arises because of a female aeon, Sophia (Wisdom)," who either tries to produce offspring without her partner or tries to know the unknowable source.

Column B: Interpretation

• Scholars do not agree on the word "Gnostic" itself. Michael A. Williams (Rethinking "Gnosticism", 1996) and Karen L. King (What Is Gnosticism?, 2003) argue that the label groups very different texts together. Many scholars now prefer more specific terms such as "Sethian" or "Valentinian."
• Who buried the books, and why, is debated. James M. Robinson proposed that monks of a nearby Pachomian monastery hid them, possibly after Athanasius's letter of 367. Nicola Denzey Lewis and Justine Ariel Blount ("Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices," Journal of Biblical Literature 133:2, 2014) argue that the find-spot was a burial ground, that Athanasius's letter was aimed at other groups, and that the books may have been private copies placed in graves. Both views are scholarly hypotheses, not settled facts.
• In these texts Sophia is not simply a heroine. She makes a mistake, grieves, repents, and is restored. Many readers see in her story a picture of the soul's own fall and return.

4. The Pistis Sophia

Column A: Documented

• Pistis Sophia ("Faith Wisdom") is a long Coptic work preserved in the Askew Codex, now British Library Additional MS 5114. It is named after Dr. Anthony Askew, a London physician who owned it in the eighteenth century, and, in G. R. S. Mead's words, it "was bought by the British Museum in 1785 from the heirs of Dr. Askew."
• In the text, the risen Jesus teaches his disciples over many years. A large part tells how the figure Pistis Sophia is deceived, falls into the chaos, and sings a series of "repentances" until she is rescued.
• Mary Magdalene is the most active questioner among the disciples in the text. At one point Peter complains (Mead's translation): "My Lord, we will not endure this woman, for she taketh the opportunity from us and hath let none of us speak." Jesus answers that anyone moved by the Spirit may come forward and speak.
• English translations: G. R. S. Mead (1896, revised 1921), and Violet MacDermot, with the Coptic text edited by Carl Schmidt (Brill, 1978).

Column B: Interpretation

• Scholars generally date the composition to the third century CE. The exact date and community are uncertain.
• Many modern esoteric writers have built their own systems on the Pistis Sophia. Those works are interpretations of the text, not part of it, and are listed separately on the reading list.

Column C: Spiritual reading

This section is a symbolic and contemplative reading. It is offered as meaning, not as historical proof.

Across these texts, Wisdom is the one who was there at the beginning, who delights in the world and in people, and who calls out in public places for anyone willing to listen. In the Nag Hammadi story she is also the one who stumbles and comes home. For many readers, Sophia holds both of these at once: the bright mirror of the divine and the grieving, repentant heart. To restore her is to make room again for a wisdom that is close, alive, and relational, not only a set of rules.

Sources

• Bible Gateway, Proverbs 8 (NRSVUE): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+8&version=NRSVUE
• Sefaria, Proverbs 8 (Hebrew text and The JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition): https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.8
• Bible Gateway, Wisdom of Solomon 7 (NRSVUE): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Wisdom+of+Solomon+7&version=NRSVUE
• Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, trans. R. Payne-Smith, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4 (New Advent): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm
• Yehudah Mirsky, "Feminine Images of God," Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Jewish Women's Archive: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/feminine-images-of-god
• The Gnostic Society Library, The Nag Hammadi Library: http://gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html
• The Apocryphon of John, trans. Frederik Wisse: http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html
• The Apocryphon of John, Long Version, trans. Michael Waldstein and Frederik Wisse: http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-long.html
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ: http://gnosis.org/naghamm/sjc.html
• The Gnostic Society Library, Pistis Sophia (G. R. S. Mead translation and introduction): http://gnosis.org/library/psoph.htm
• James M. Robinson (general editor), The Nag Hammadi Library in English, introduction to the Tripartite Tractate (Harper and Row / Brill). Read from a local copy.
• G. R. S. Mead, introduction to Pistis Sophia, section "The Askew Codex": http://gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/ps003.htm
• Pistis Sophia, Peter's complaint about Mary, trans. G. R. S. Mead: http://gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/ps040.htm
• Wikipedia, "Askew Codex": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askew_Codex
• Nicola Denzey Lewis and Justine Ariel Blount, "Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices," Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 2 (2014): 399-419: https://www.tonyburke.ca/wp-content/uploads/Lewis-and-Blount-Rethinking-NHL.pdf
• Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Almond Press, 1985).
• Michael A. Williams, Rethinking "Gnosticism" (Princeton University Press, 1996).
• Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Harvard University Press, 2003).