The Fall of Sophia: A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal Consciousness [Paperback]

Violet MacDermot (Translator), Stephan A. Hoeller (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005

"This new translation of the Pistis Sophia ... brings clarity to the Gnostic myth of the exile of feminine wisdom whose dwelling place is with the people. Her story, like that of the Hebrew Shekinah and of Mary Magdalene herself, is the story of the exclusion of the sacred feminine over millennia of human history and its eventual restoration to a place of honor." -Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels. "Sophia (the world soul) fell from her place in the heavens to the chaos below..." Sophia is among the most haunting and mysterious figures in Western spirituality. She is also one of the great symbols of the divine feminine in world civilization. The personification of divine Wisdom, Sophia is praised in the biblical book of Proverbs as co-creator of the universe with God. In the secret teachings of early Christianity known as Gnosticism, she represents our shared consciousness, trapped in the material world as a result of the Fall. One of the most sublime Gnostic texts is the Pistis Sophia or "Faith Wisdom," a great allegory in which the resurrected Christ explains how he freed the divine Sophia from her imprisonment by the forces of spiritual wickedness. Christ goes on to show his disciples how they will share in this cosmic act of redemption. In this profound yet accessible work, Egyptologist Violet MacDermot gives us a fresh translation of the Pistis Sophia from the Coptic and discusses it in its historical setting. She also shows us how Sophia's story of is our story. It is a tale of our separation and isolation as a result of ego-consciousness, but it is one in which we, too, can share spiritual liberation. Her engaging discussion relates this work not only to ancient teachings but to the thought of C.G. Jung, Emanuel Swedenborg, and the Kabalah. Violet MacDermot studied Egyptology at University College, London, and was a board member of the Egypt Exploration Society. She has translated two Coptic texts, Volumes IX and XIII in the Nag Hammadi Studies series: Pistis Sophia and The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex. Stephan A. Hoeller, born in Hungary, speaks regularly at the Los Angeles Gnostic Society on Western inner traditions, with emphasis on Jungian psychology and Gnostic wisdom. He is the author of The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead and Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Egyptologist MacDermot has produced a curious hybrid of a book. It is at once a sober-sided translation of the valuable Gnostic text Pistis Sophia (lightly edited for its internal repetitions) as well as a curious potted history of the Gnostic temper through Western history, beginning with Mani and stopping along the way for the likes of Pico della Mirandola and Lewis Mumford. While it might have been better, even for the educated reader, for MacDermot to have annotated and explicated the mysterious text as fully as possible rather than prefacing it with metahistory, this volume still elicits considerable interest. For larger collections or where interest in neopaganism is strong.
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Review

McDermot brings clarity to the Gnostic myth of the exile of feminine wisdom whose dwelling place is with the people. -- Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Lindisfarne Books (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584200006
• ISBN-13: 978-1584200000
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #765,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Participating in the "Gnostic Renaissance", April 27, 2007

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calmly - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Fall of Sophia: A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal Consciousness (Paperback)

Violet MacDermot translated the Pistis Sophia from the original Coptic text found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt into English as part of the Coptic Gnostic Library effort. Her translation of Books One and Two that focus on the fall of Sophia are reprinted here.

MacDermot here supplements her translation with essays on Sophia's story and the significance of the Pistis Sophia and the Gnostic spirit in general in Western history. The foreword by Stephen Hoeller, "Sophia and the Gnostic Renaissance" adds further to understanding the place of the Pistis Sophia and the ancient Gnostic enterprise in human history.

MacDermot observes that the Gnostic Christians have views that conflict both with that of orthodox Christianity and materialism. Orthodox Christianity seemed to Gnostic Christians demanding of faith and obedience and fearful of self-knowledge. Science today seems too mechanical. From a Gnostic Christian viewpoint, if orthodox Christians complain about science's materialism, it often seems out of a desire to replace it with literalism. Gnosticism offers a third way, one that remembered favorably the ancient Western mythological wisdom of the Persians, Egyptians and Greeks and is today compatible with Eastern wisdom traditions such as Buddhism.

MacDermot follows the spirit of Gnosticism into modern times, presenting a summary of Emmanuel Swedenborg, Otto Weininger, Vladimir Solovyov, Auguste Comte, Rudolf Steiner, Lewis Mumford, Patrick Geddes, Dimitrije Mictrinovic, and Carl Jung, a wealth of leads who presented an organic vision of life. A bibliography of their works and others is included. One can see how the work of the early Gnostics is compatible with and has contributed to similar thought of more recent times

The Fall of Sophia itself is presented as a mythic way to explain the transition from collective consciousness to individual self-consciousness that occurred in the first few centuries of the Common Era. After Jesus finds Sophia fallen, Jesus and his disciples interpret the repentences of Sophia as she finds herself beset upon by evil powers within a chaotic realm. Jesus helps restore Sophia and then shares the mystery of the Ineffable, which can make one a ruler with Jesus, of this world and yet not of this world. By the middle of this story, you may feel like Sophia, overwhelmed by the evil powers. By the end of this story, you may share with the disciples, in an appreciation of the richness of your spirit, something materialism and literalism do not convey.

Macdermot has provided an exquisite context in which to understand the Fall of Sophia and its relationship to some recent thought. If you choose then to read more of the Gnostic texts and/or more of the more recent thinkers Macdermot presents, you may become a participant in a "Gnostic Renaissance" that might transform our challenged society.

Since I first read this book a month ago, it has weighed on my mind. What I had found to be some repetitiveness upon first reading, I'm realizing was a careful reiteration to convey the teaching forcefully.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Mystery of the Ineffable, October 23, 2009

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Patrick Curren "The no self" (The Happy Dream) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fall of Sophia: A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal Consciousness (Paperback)

Apparently this material is a reprint of another book originally printed by E. J. Brill back in 1978. While this is a new book, it is not new material. However it is interesting to note that E. J. Brill still publishes the hardback version of the complete Nag Hammadi Library.

Stephan Hoeller puts together a good "Forward" to the book; then the author, Violet MacDermot writes two parts to this book. Part one consists of her perceptions of sparse references to Gnosticism from the time that the Pistis Sophia was written until now. Part two is her translation of the Pistis Sophia from Egyptian Coptic to English.

Part one in my opinion is interesting but is uninspiring. The author's modern parallels to the Pistis Sophia are weak. The strength of part one for me was the Carl Jung and Emanuel Swedenborg references/parallels. While these parts were interesting, they were still weak.

Part two is the author's translation from Coptic to English of books 1 & 2 of the Pistis Sophia. While there are 50 footnotes to help understand the Pistis Sophia myth/belief system, you will be left with many unanswered questions that still need at a minimum scholarly interpretation.
For $25 and with the many good Gnostic books that are out there, this is probably the weakest one I have read and owned.

One of the author's only shimmers of light is located in one small section of her Epilogue:

"The development of modern psychology, particularly that of Jung, has enabled us to interpret the myth of the fall of Sophia as expressing the inner experiences of the human soul during the painful transition from collective consciousness to the individual consciousness of today. The myth can also be seen to foretell a further step which humanity will take when individuals unite to experience themselves consciously as one single entity: universal humanity. At the time when the Pistis Sophia was written, that could only have been foreseen as happening in the distant future. In this account, Jesus reveals himself in paragraphs 92-93 as possessing what today we would call universal consciousness. His inner experiences could only have been described to other less developed individuals in mythological terms."

Thus the supreme goal of the "Mystery of the Ineffable" continues to unfold.