By Saint Seraphim (Sobolev)
Chapter Thirteen. The Designation of Sophia as an Eternally United Being, Temporally Uniting All That Is with the Divinity
1. The Gnostic Character of This Designation, Given the View of Sophia as a Gnostic Mediator. The Teaching on the Gnostic Mediators of Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Saturninus, Basilides, the Barvelites, and the Ophites
But let us continue our examination of this Sophian definition. Its subsequent words contain designations for Sophia that express both the pantheistic and Gnostic views of Father Florensky. In these designations, Sophia is presented as “the highest and all-encompassing form and living soul of nature and the universe, eternally united and temporally united with the Divinity, and uniting with Him all that exists.” “Undoubtedly, this is the full meaning of the Great Being…”
As we see, the first half of Fr. Florensky’s words offers a teaching on Sophia as the soul of the world. This is discussed in more detail in the works of Fr. Bulgakov. Therefore, we will discuss this when we turn our attention to Archpriest Bulgakov’s teaching on Sophia as the soul of the world. For now, we will express the Orthodox perspective on the second half of Fr. Florensky’s words, where Sophia is presented as a being through whom all that exists is united with God, in which Fr. Florensky sees the meaning of the great Sophian being.
Thus, Sophia is presented here through nothing other than a Gnostic medium. Indeed, this Gnostic medium contains the entire meaning of Sophia, and consequently, the entire meaning of Fr. Bulgakov and Florensky’s teachings on Sophia. If they had taught in accordance with the Orthodox Church on the question of God’s relationship to the world, they would not have invented a mediating Sophian being to unite God with the created world and everything in it. But this is where their divergence from Orthodox teaching begins, for the Gnostic teaching on God’s relationship to the world is akin to their hearts.
When speaking of Gnostic teaching, we have in mind primarily the Gnostic teaching on intermediary beings or an intermediary being, through whom God supposedly created the world and, in general, interacts with it and with everything in the world. In some Gnostic systems, which are expounded in such astonishing detail and so forcefully refuted by St. Irenaeus in his five books against heresies, these intermediary beings are angels. Thus, the first forerunner of Gnosticism and the progenitor of all Gnostics, Simon Magus, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, taught that Ennia, the thought or concept of His soul, came from God, and from God and Ennia, in successive generations, flowed pairs of male and female aeons. And this Ennia, issuing from the Pleroma, produced a multitude of angels, by whom the world was created.
The Gnostic Cerinthus, also a heretic of the apostolic era, according to St. Irenaeus, taught that the world was created not by the first God, but by a power that was far removed from this supreme, first principle and knew nothing of the supreme God.
According to Robertson, author of the “History of the Christian Church,” this power, through which, according to Cerinthus, the world was created, was an Angel.
As the same St. Irenaeus testifies, According to Irenaeus, the founder of Syrian Gnosticism, Saturninus, the supreme God, or “unknown Father,” produced a multitude of spiritual beings. The world was created from a portion of the material mass by seven angels, who occupied the lowest level of the spiritual world, near the boundaries separating the realm of light from the chaos of matter. These same seven angels also created man, whose body, due to the weakness of angels, could not stand upright and crawled like a worm. Then “the higher power took pity on him and sent a spark of life, which straightened him, made him agile, and revived him.”644
According to the teachings of other Gnostic systems—Basilides, the founder of Alexandrian Gnosticism, the Barvelites, and the Ophites—the world was created with the participation of one of the Divine Aeons—Sophia. Basilides said that the world was created by angels of the last, 365th class, which is the same as the heaven of spirits, flowing or originating from the supreme God. The angels of this heaven, visible from earth, created the world according to the pattern shown to them by Wisdom, one of the seven intelligences, belonging by their origin from the supreme God to the rank of the first class of spirits.645
As is evident from the first book against the heresies of St. Irenaeus, the name Barveliotes derives from Barvelos—the never-aging aeon in the virginal spirit to whom the unnameable Father revealed himself. After this, other divine aeons began to appear in dual combinations. The Barveliotes taught of the “Holy Spirit—Wisdom” as the creator of the world; Wisdom, in their opinion, proceeded from the first angel, present with the Only-Begotten. This “Holy Spirit (Wisdom),” moved by simplicity and goodness, produced a creation in which there was ignorance and audacity. This said work of His, they say, is the first, the chief, the creator of the universe… And as ignorant, He created all the powers subject to Him, angels of the firmament and all earthly things”646.
In the Gnostic Ophite system, the “mediating beings between God and creation, the creators of the world and ‘all that is in the world,'” are Wisdom and her son Waldabaoth, who stand far removed from the supreme Father—the Depths. It is interesting to note that, according to the Ophites, “Wisdom” is characterized by folly, due to which she descended into the waters to the very depths and could be submerged by matter.647
2. The Valentinian Doctrine of the Two Wisdoms. The Imperfection of Both. The Doctrine of Achamoth as the Creator of the World and of Creatures as Images of the Pleroma and Achamoth
In the teaching of the Gnostic Valentinus, although the creator of the world is the Demiurge, nevertheless, the primary mediating being, through whom the world and even the Demiurge himself were created, was Sophia. Valentinus’s system was the most coherent, refined, and influential of all the Gnostic systems. Using biblical verses, it accepted all the books of Holy Scripture, although it tended to eliminate their true salvific significance through its own distorted interpretations of divinely revealed evidence. Valentinus even distinguished himself from other Gnostics in that he allowed for a kind of redemption, although his teaching was quite unlike the Church’s teaching on redemption, since he recognized neither the divinity nor the humanity of the Savior as true. The extent to which Valentinus’s teaching influenced his contemporaries is evidenced by the letter of St. Irenaeus to the Roman presbyter Florinus. The latter, like St. Irenaeus, was a disciple of the famous apostolic father, St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. And yet, he became captivated by Valentinus’s teaching on the origin of evil. It must be borne in mind that the more Valentinian’s teaching influenced his contemporaries, the more harmful and dangerous it was for the Church. Therefore, St. Irenaeus had to combat the false teachings of Valentinian and his followers more than other Gnostic teachings.649
For us, the teachings of Valentinian and his followers are of greater interest than those of other Gnostics. In them, we find more similarities with the Sophian teachings of Fr. Bulgakov and Florensky than in other Gnostic systems. Therefore, we will examine Valentinian Gnostic teaching in more detail, keeping in mind its exposition and refutation by St. Irenaeus.650
Valentin taught the existence of a self-existent and perfect principle, which he called Bithos, i.e., unfathomable depth. From him and Ennia, or the thought of his soul, a pair of aeons arose: the male, Nous (mind), and the female, Aithia (truth). From these aeons came the next pair of male and female aeons. In this sequential order, including Bithos, there were a total of 30 aeons, with Sophia being the 30th aeon. Besides them, there was another unmarried aeon, Oros, a branch of Bithos and Ennia, whose duty it was to maintain all being in its appointed place.
In particular, the most important for us is the Valentinian teaching on the Divine Sophia, and especially on the other Sophia, descended from the first, who is called Achamoth. Both Sophias, according to the Valentinians, are presented with significant defects. The first, filled with an uncontrollable thirst for knowledge, emerged from the Pleroma with the goal of ascending to the prototype of her being, but nearly perished in the infinite void of space had Oros not restored her to the realm she had so foolishly abandoned.
As for the second Wisdom—Achamothe—the very circumstance of her birth reveals her imperfection. Achamoth was born from an irrational thought with passion, for after the failed flight of Divine Sophia and her restoration by Oros to her former place, she became convinced that the Father was incomprehensible and set aside her former thought, along with the passion that arose from her desire to explore the Father. This thought is Achamoth, which is why St. Irenaeus also calls the latter “Contemplation.” The Valentinian teaching also testifies to the imperfection of Achamoth, from which it is evident that after the separation of the Achamothe-Contemplation from Sophia, along with the passion, Sophia herself remained within the Pleroma, as the primordial Wisdom and divine aeon, while the Achamothe-Contemplation, as a distinct being, the second Wisdom, found itself outside the Pleroma with a nature distinct, according to St. Irenaeus, and directly opposed to that of her mother.652
The Valentinians even call Achamoth a premature, formless, and imperfect being. As St. Irenaeus says, referring to Valentinian’s teaching, she is a spiritual essence, being a certain aspiration of the aeon, but lacks form and appearance, because she did not receive it from her mother—the Divine Sophia.653 The publisher of St. Irenaeus’s book states that, according to the Gnostic teaching, form comes from birth through the male sex, and essence from the female. Depth, as a masculine-feminine being, produced both. Therefore, Wisdom, as a feminine aeon, could produce from itself only essence.654
True, the Valentinians claim that Christ, a product of the Divine Aeon Nous, showed Achamoth a momentary glimpse of heavenly light, granting her “an image only in essence, but not in knowledge.”655 And the Paraclete, or Savior, created by the entire Pleroma, appeared to Achamoth with the luminous angels, his peers, and granted her an image in knowledge as well.656 The Valentinians even consider Achamoth the creator of the world. But at the same time, they ascribe to her such a defect in her creative activity that all the positive traits they mention are drowned, like a drop in the sea. We are referring to the Valentinian teaching that Satan and his evil spirits descended from Achamoth.657
That Achamoth, according to Valentinian teaching, is the creator of the world, we find information about this in the same St. Irenaeus. The latter shows us what, according to the Valentinian theory, originated from Achamoth as its essence or substance. According to his testimony: “Three kinds (of beings), they (the Valentinians) say, were produced by the Mother (Achamoth): the first, produced from confusion, sadness, and fear—this is matter; the second—from aspiration (turning toward the light)—this is the soulish; the third—that which she produced from the contemplation of the angels surrounding Christ—this is the spiritual.”658
“So, since, according to them, material essence originated from three passions: fear, sadness, and confusion, they believe that the soulish derived its origin from fear and conversion, and that it is from conversion that they produce the Demiurge, and from fear—all other animate beings, such as the souls of dumb animals, beasts, and humans.” Therefore, they say, the Demiurge, being incapable of knowing anything spiritual, thought that he himself alone was God, and said through the prophets: “I am God, and there is none else besides me.” They further teach that evil spirits arose from sorrow; from this came into being the devil, whom they call the ruler of the world, demons and angels, and every spiritual evil being… But although the Demiurge thought, they say, that he created this by himself, he nevertheless created with the assistance of Achamoth.”659
From these words of St. Irenaeus, it is clear that Achamoth was not only an essence, but also the true creator of the world, and the main actor in its creation was not the Demiurge, but his mother, Achamoth. In Valentinian’s teaching on Achamoth as the creator of the world, it is necessary to note the fact that here all creation is presented as images and likenesses of the Pleroma.660 The absurdity of this idea was very well revealed in the writings of St. Irenaeus, when he pointed out to the Valentinians that in this case the eternal fire, the devil, and his angels must be recognized as images and likenesses of the Pleroma.661 Unwilling to be complicit in such an absurdity, the Valentinians declared that these things are images of the Thought of the aeon that fell into passion (i.e., the primordial Sophia).662
Notes
640.Acts 8:9–11; 18–24.
641.The Works of St. Irenaeus, Book I, pp. 86–88. History of the Christian Church. Robertson, Vol. I, p. 36.
642.The Works of St. Irenaeus; Against Heresies; Book I, pp. 94–95.
643.The History of the Christian Church. Robertson, Vol. I, pp. 38–39.
644.The Works of St. Irenaeus; Against Heresies; Book I, pp. 88–89; “History of the Christian Church.” Robertson, Vol. I, p. 42.
645.The Works of St. Irenaeus, pp. 89–91. “History of the Christian Church.” Church.” Robertson, pp. 44–44.
646.Works of St. Irenaeus, Book I, pp. 98–100.
647.Ibid. pp. 101–103.
648.Works of St. Irenaeus, pp. 11–12; cf. p. 59.
649.Ibid. p. 14.
650.Works of St. Irenaeus. Five Books Against Heresies; cf. “History of the Church.” Robertson, Part I, pp. 46–52.
651.This name is borrowed from the Kabbalah from the Hebrew…………………………..
652.Works of St. Irenaeus. p. 30.
653.Ibid., pp. 24–25.
654.Ibid, p. 24, note. 12.
655.Ibid., p. 29, note. 42.
656.Ibid., p. 32, cf. approx. 51, p. 29.
657.Ibid., p. 34.
658.Creation St. Irenea, book. 2nd, p. 198; compare page 160.
659.Ibid., book. I, page 34.
660.Ibid., book. 2nd, pp. 124–129.
661.Creation St. Irenea, page 127.
662.Ibidem.
Source in Russian: The New Teaching on Sophia, the Wisdom of God / Archbishop Seraphim Sobolev. – (Reprinted edition of 1935) / Publisher: Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NI, USA, 1993. – 525 pp. ISBN 0-88465-054-5.
(to be continued)
