THREE CHRISTIAN GODDESSES

BY TORSTEN SCHWANKE

GODDESS ANNE

Anne - the original mother of Christians,

Mystical mother of Mary,
Grandmother of Jesus.

The existence of Anne,

The mother of Mary,
Is not mentioned in the Bible.
Nevertheless, there are numerous legends
About this original mother.
Anne arises from the longing
For a grandmother figure,
For a primordial mother,
A wise old woman,
As she appears in many spiritual directions
As a goddess of creation.

The existence of Anne,

The mother of Mary,
Is not mentioned in the Bible.
In contrast to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,
Which are included in the New Testament,
And which begin with the birth of Jesus
Or shed light on his male lineage,
The Protevangelium of James
Goes beyond this and tells in detail
About the origin of Mary,
The mother of Jesus.

The name Protevangelium

Derives from the Greek protos
"The first" or "beginning",
It was probably written in the middle
Of the 2nd century.
And this is one of the sources
For the many myths and legends
Surrounding Anne.

Other sources come from a longing

For a grandmother figure,
For a primordial mother,
A wise old woman,
As she appears in many spiritual directions
As a goddess of creation.
The name Anne alone refers
To much older roots and goddesses:
The Persian-Semitic Anahita,
The Indian Ananta,
The ancient Egyptian and ancient Syrian Anath,
The Sumerian Inanna,
The Hittite Hannahanna,
The Celtic goddesses Anu and Dana -
All of them primordial mothers,
Grandmothers of humanity,
Goddesses of creation.

In addition, there is the Roman

Mother goddess "Iana" (Juno),
Who made it easy for Christians
In the Roman Empire to accept and worship
The Christian primordial mother Anne.

"An" is one of the six primordial syllables

Of humanity and denotes
Something venerable, primordial female,
German: "Ahne" means ancestress, ancestor.

The name of Jesus' grandmother

Was therefore not chosen by chance,
As she had long been familiar to people
As a divine ancestress.
In Syriac versions of the Gospel of James,
By the way, Anne is called Dinah,
Which bears an interesting resemblance
To Diana (Di-Ana) - the goddess Ana.

There are also parallels to the Roman

Anna Perenna,
And the African Nana Buruku -
Both grandmothers of time.
When one speaks of great periods
Of time or eternity, it is called aeons -
The period of the primordial goddess Anne.

But back to the legend

Ssurrounding the Christian
(Actually Jewish) Anne:
She was married to Joachim,
The couple had remained childless
After 20 years of marriage.
Joachim - a rich and pious man -
Regularly donated to the poor and the temple.
But then a high priest rejected his offerings
On the reason of childlessness,
Which was taken as a sign of divine disfavour.
Joachim then withdrew to the desert,
Where he fasted and prayed for 40 days.
An angel appeared to him
(And at the same time to Anne,
Who was staying in Jerusalem).
It is worth mentioning that a Jewish angel
Also appeared to the Jewish couple, of course,
Because Christianity did not yet exist for some time.
This angel announced the birth
Of a child to both of them.
Joachim joyfully returns to Jerusalem
And embraces Anne at the Golden Gate,
The entrance to the Temple of Jerusalem.
It is precisely in this embrace
That Mary is said to have been born.
Commonly we speak of an immaculate conception.
Which is not to be confused with the virgin birth
With which she later gave life to her son Jesus.

A great feast of the Catholic Church,

Celebrated with the Solemnity of the Virgin
And Mother of God conceived
Without original sin on 8 December.
This celebration can be traced back
To the 9th century.

Exactly nine months later,

Anne gave birth to her daughter,
Which is celebrated with the Birth of Mary
On September 8.

Now opinions are divided:

Was there an exchange of bodily fluids
Iin this embrace of Anne and Joachim or not?

Does the Golden Gate really mean

The entrance to the temple of Jerusalem
Or the temple of Anne's divine body?

In the official view of the Catholic Church,

Original sin is transmitted through the sexual act.
Therefore, if Mary is free from any original sin,
Then she could not have been conceived
Through sexual interaction either.

Thus, it was long assumed that Anna conceived

Without the act of a man
And was therefore as pure as her daughter.
Which again points to the status
Of a great goddess who can create
And give birth from within herself.

In the case of Anne and Mary,

This is even clearer
Than in the case of Mary and Jesus,
Because purely biologically,
Parthenogenetic conception
Always results in a daughter.

This virgin birth of Mary

Was first accepted by the Church
Because it was a good explanation
For Mary's sinlessness.
But later the Church Fathers decided
That two virgin births were one too many.

Some might think that Mary (a woman!)

Could already have the function of redemption
And not her one born son.

So this version was discarded

In favour of the view that Anne conceived
And gave birth to her daughter Mary
In a completely normal way.

However, Mary had been freed

FFrom original sin by divine grace
At the very first moment of her life
When she was conceived.
This is why we continue to speak
Of the immaculate conception.

On 8 December 1854, after centuries

Of discussion about the immaculate
Conception of Mary,
Pope Pius IX established all this
As an irrefutable statement of faith, as dogma.

This is one of many cases

In which the official Church discussed
The matter for a long time
And finally overturned an original opinion
And adapted its world view.

Which really gives hope

That this could also happen
With many other doctrines -
In the course of the fact that we are already
In the 3rd millennium after Christ.
But this is another story...

So, according to Pope Pius' dogma,

Mary is the only human being who is free
From any stain of original sin.
God thus preserved his faithful handmaid Mary
From the power of sin.
From then on, she was allowed
To live unclouded, undefiled
In friendship with God.

But back to Anne:

The Christian veneration of Anne is very old;
As early as 550, a church was built
In her honour in Constantinople.
In Europe, the cult of Anne reached its peak
In the late Middle Ages,
When in 1481 Pope Sixtus IV
Included Anne's day of remembrance
In the Roman calendar;
In 1584 Pope Gregory XIII
Designated her feast day.

Since 1500, relics of Anne

Are said to lie in Düren,
Others lie in Vienna and other cities.
Especially in Germany,
A veritable cult of Anne
Spread in the middle of the 15th century.
After the first plague epidemics,
Tthe middle classes had regained strength
And the cohesion of a family was highly valued.

It therefore fitted very well

Into the world view of the time
To venerate Anne, the mother of Mary
And grandmother of Jesus, as a saint
And to pay special tribute to her
As the matriarch of the family
And ancestor of the entire clan.
Numerous Anne-brotherhoods
And Anne-altars were founded.

In this context, the depiction of "Anna Selbdritt"

Is also interesting - a term
That is mainly known from sacred art.
It is usually used to describe
The depiction of Anna with her daughter Mary
And the boy Jesus.
A particularly famous painting
Is an "Anna Selbdritt" depiction
By Leonardo da Vinci.

However, Anne is said to have had

Two other husbands after Joachim's death:
Cleophas and Salomas.
Each of these unions also produced
A daughter named Mary.
This can be seen as a further miracle,
Since she had actually been hoping
For a pregnancy for 20 years
When the first Mary was born
And Anne was considered infertile
Simply because of her old age.
Hence the pious saying of the simple people:
Anne was a blessed woman:
Her womb gave birth to three Marys!

This threefold Mary can be seen

As a threefold mother goddess
As "Anna Selbdritt",
As Anne who created a trilogy
Of goddesses out of herself.
In Celtic mythology, which worshipped
The trinity of Bethen in many places,
The earth mother Ambeth was known
As one of these three goddesses.
She was transformed into Anne
In the course of Christianisation,
Although the manner of her homage
And the rituals in her honour
As well as the places of worship
Remained the same.

Thus, the day of Anne in July,

Which is celebrated in many places,
Has many elements in its original form
To honour old field and harvest goddesses,
Who are to be invoked at this time of year.

And the many places and towns

That bear the name Anne in their name
(Annaberg, Annental, Annabründl)
Also suggest cult sites of old regional goddesses
That continue to exist and be honoured
Under the protective and cover of Anne.

Whether and how Anne

Was actually a grandmother
To her grandson Jesus
Has not been handed down -
A kind one, a strict one, a cheerful one,
Aa playmate, one he could cry to,
Who slipped him treats
That might have been forbidden at home,
Who told him stories as he fell asleep.
We don't know, and that is probably
Also the magic of Anne
And with her all the primordial goddesses.
But some things have been handed down
About Anne as the mother of Mary.
And this very clearly shows the image
Of a goddess of wisdom,
A mother to whom the education
Of her daughter is important.
Thus, there are numerous depictions
In Christian art where Saint Anne
Teaches her daughter Mary to read.
These show Anne and Mary,
With one of them holding a book
Into which they are both gazing intently
And absorbed in reading.
Rare depictions show the adult Mary
With the baby Jesus,
Next to Anne with the book on her knees.
This is especially remarkable
In the Christian context -
The position of women as scribes
Is very clearly documented here.

Otherwise, much of our wishes, hopes, petitions

Can be interpreted into the old mother goddess Anne.
We can only guess what this ancestress stands for
(Etymologically, ancestress is also related to Anne).
Thus Anne also stands for all the hunches we have -
Messages we receive from our ancestresses.
In time backwards and also in time forwards,
Because our descendants are also ancestors.
The word ancestor and grandchildren
Are linguistically related.
In Middle High German, "aninkila" or "enikel"
Is a diminutive of "ancestor",
Meaning "the little ancestor".
Therefore, there are ancestresses
And ancestors in both directions.

Anne is in any case venerated

As the patron saint of Florence,
Innsbruck, Naples, as well as Brittany.

And she is invoked as a personal patron saint

Or goddess by the most diverse people
And groups of people: By mothers,
Housewives, domestic servants, widows,
The poor, workers, miners, weavers, tailors,
Stocking makers, lacemakers, farmhands, millers,
Grocers, sailors, rope makers, carpenters and goldsmiths.

Last but not least, she is the matron

O midwives and wet nurses -
In some languages "Amma" is the term
Of endearment for grandmother or nannies,
For protective and wise women.

In addition, Anne is responsible

For the initiation of marriage
(A prayer of young women:
Holy Mother Anne, give us a man!),
As a result of which she is responsible
For a happy marriage,
For the blessing of children
And a happy birth,
For the recovery of lost things,
She protects us in rain and thunderstorms
And from fever, headaches,
chest pains and stomach pains.

She is thus one of those wonderful

All-embracing goddesses
Who help quickly and straightforwardly
In almost every situation in life,
Have patience, can listen,
And cast a healing blessing over those in need -
Just as we imagine and wish for
A thoroughly loving grandmother.

GODDESS MARY

Mary - Christian Mother of Heaven,

All-embracing Mother Goddess

Mary is considered to be an amalgamation

Of older goddesses from different cultures,
As there is a universally valid mythical tradition:
A people never abandons its belief
In its own goddesses.
Therefore, the Christian Mary hides
An incredible number of the ancient goddesses,
Wwho were worshipped around the globe
In the most diverse epochs,
Virtually under her skirt.
In the figure of the Madonna,
They all continue to be worshipped unbroken.

Let us briefly recall the story of Mary,

Mother of God, which has been handed down to us:
She was the daughter of Anne and Joachim.
This is not written in the Bible,
But it is recorded in many myths
Aand in the Protevangelium of James,
Which, however, did not make it into the Gospels.
The couple was childless for 20 years
Until - like a miracle - they had a daughter.
And this after an angel had announced it
And above all through an immaculate birth.
Which is not to be confused
With the virgin birth
With which she later gave life to her son Jesus.
What is meant by this
Is that she was freed from original sin
By divine grace at the very first moment
Of her life when she was conceived
And was henceforth able to live
Without any defilement -
The basic prerequisite for her
Becoming the Mother of God.

When Mary had now grown up,

She had a fiancé, the carpenter Joseph.
The angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus,
Whose father would be God Kyrios.
Gabriel also appears to the bruised
Bridegroom Joseph,
Who thereby overcomes his disappointment
And henceforth lives with her in an asexual
Joseph-marriage.
However, Jesus' siblings are also mentioned.
On the way to Jerusalem,
Where Mary and Joseph had to go
On the occasion of a census,
Mary, according to the Christmas legend,
Came down in Bethlehem in a stable
With the child Jesus,
Where the wise men from the Orient
Adored the child and gave him presents.
Later, the Holy Family emigrated
To Egypt for some time
To escape Herod's infanticide,
And returned to Nazareth after it ended.
Mary is also mentioned
At the wedding at Cana
And at the crucifixion of Jesus,
And she is mentioned one last time
A the Ascension of Jesus.

Many symbols and attributes of Mary,

As we find them on all representations in the churches -
Crescent moon, serpents, dragons,
Wreath and cloak of stars, a child on her arm,
Blue robe, spindle, nut, apple -
Point to different ancient goddesses.

Mary, for example, is reminiscent

Of the much older Egyptian goddess Isis
With the boy Horus.
The development of the cult of the Madonna
Was largely based on the form of Isis worship.
Mary is the Roman Juno,
Whose three-lobed lily
Is a symbol of parthenogenetic power
And was adopted for the Christian Virgin Mary.
Mary has roots in the star-circled Syrian Astarte,
At whose festival on 25 December
The rebirth of the sun god
By the queen of heaven was celebrated.
With the Greek Hecate,
Mary has in common the depictions with a frog.
Mary took over the temple
Of the many-breasted Artemis of Ephesus
And that of Isis in Philae.
Mary unites the Celtic Brigid, the Germanic Freya,
The Babylonian Ishtar,
The Baltic sky and sun goddess Saule,
The Gallic Rigani, the Scandinavian Man,
The Hurrian Hebat, the Greek Kybele,
The Cypriot Aphrodite.
The ancient Candomblé goddesses Oshun and Yemaja
Are equated with the Virgin Mary
After the missionary efforts of Christians.
This list of ancient goddesses
Who were worshipped long before Mary
Can be continued at will.

As the name already reveals,

Mary was the Great Water ("mare"),
The Holy Sea, the Holy Lake,
From her amniotic fluid all life came forth -
A goddess of the sea and of all life-giving waters,
Who since the earliest times was also worshipped
Under the names of Aphrodite-Mari,
Stella Maris, Maya, Mariam, Marah.

In Christianity, which originally had

A purely patriarchal structure,
It was soon realised that people
Would have a hard time
Without a female aspect in their faith,
Which would have greatly reduced
The attractiveness of this new religion.
So the figure of Mary was invented or rediscovered,
As it were, as propaganda,
Although the religious significance of Mary
Differs in the individual denominations.

The veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church

Has its roots at the beginning
Of the 5th century.
Before Christianity was instrumentalised politically
In the 4th century and became a state religion,
Mary - in keeping with the role
Of women in the Roman Empire -
Was hardly the object of special veneration.
Only when it became necessary
To make the subjects of the emperors
Christian by hook or by crook,
Since all other cults were now forbidden
To them on pain of death,
Did it become necessary to adapt in a certain way
To the religious ideas of those
Who were still oriented towards
Dominant female deities
And did not want to give up their mother goddesses
(Cybele, Isis, Artemis).
Here, suitable substitutes had to be found
That were halfway familiar to the pagans
And somewhat compatible with Christianity.

Finally, the legendary mother of Jesus,

Miriam or Mary,
Had to be used for this balancing act -
Starting from the east of the empire.
The matter was made considerably more difficult
B the fierce rivalry and power struggles
Of the highest church leaders
About the true interpretation of Holy Scripture,
In which the patriarchs of Constantinople
And Alexandria, Antioch
And Rome in particular clashed.

There was great controversy

As to whether Mary could be regarded
As the Mother of God or the God-bearer,
Or only as the Christ-bearer.
Bishop Nestorius in particular taught
That Mary had only given birth
To the man Jesus
And not to the Son of God.

He thus took the opposite position of Cyril,

The Patriarch of Alexandria.
The translation of the relatively neutral Greek term
"Theotókos" as "Mother of God"
Was considered inappropriate
Because it clearly places Mary
In the vicinity of pagan goddesses,
Which the formulation "childbearer"
Eexpressly wanted to avoid.
The opponents clashed so violently
That they not only excommunicated each other,
But also endangered the ideological basis
Of the late Roman Empire
And thus the unity of the state.

In 431 CE, the Council of Ephesus,

Convened by Emperor Theodosius II,
Finally took place to settle this issue,
At which the dispute escalated completely.
This event was held in the former centre
Of the cult of Artemis,
The great mother goddess of Asia Minor,
In Ephesus, the capital of the province of Asia,
Where the Christian community
Had already been working hard for some time,
Razing the Artemision,
The magnificent temple of Artemis, to the ground
And converting the Museion,
Te high school of the ancient city,
Into the first church of Mary in the world.

After months of fighting

By some 200 bishops in council
And counter-council and the use
Of huge sums of bribes,
Cyril's God-bearer faction prevailed,
Leading to the secession of the Nestorian Church.
The dogma, which is still valid today,
Proclaimed that Mary was indeed
"Theotokos" (God-bearer).

However, this did not prevent

Christian dignitaries from repeatedly humanising
And disparaging Mary.
She was not worthy of veneration and worship.
All this is of course no wonder
In a regime that seriously considered
Whether women had a soul at all -
A question that still preoccupied
Martin Luther in the 15th century.
For example, Epiphanius,
Bishop of Constantia (Salamis) in Cyprus ordered:
Let the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Be worshipped, but let no one worship Mary.

Of course, he also forgot

That the Holy Spirit is also a mother goddess,
Namely Sophia.

Pope Anastasius (in office from 911-913) said,

Let no one call Mary the Mother of God,
For Mary was only a woman,
And it is impossible that God
Was born of a woman.

The members of a sect

Ccalled the Marianites
Claimed that Mary possessed the true attribute of divinity.
They were therefore persecuted by the Church
As heretics until the 5th century.

Some Christian church fathers

Tried to escape the dilemma
By even attacking Mary's motherhood
To prove that she was neither divine
Nor truly maternal.
They claimed that Jesus
Had not been born in the ordinary way,
But had suddenly materialised before Mary.
The very idea that a Christian God
Could somehow have come into contact
With a woman's genitals,
Even if only through this perverse act
Of childbirth was apparently unbearable.

And Pope Nicholas III ordered

The monk Jean d'Olive to burn
With his own hands a tract
He had written in praise of Mary
Because it expressed excessive veneration for her.

Christian patriarchs plague themselves

With the cult of Mary
However, all this could not stop
The triumphal march of the Goddess,
Mother of God, God-bearer, Queen of Heaven,
Mother of Grace and Virgin Mary.
She was enormously important
In bringing new Christian faith
Closer to the people.

So the Christian patriarchs

Had to struggle with the cult of Mary
For centuries, the popular need
To worship a mother figure, a goddess,
Was so entrenched
That they had to somehow come to terms
With Mary in order not to lose people
To their original old goddess beliefs.

God the Father and his position in the faith

Were not really conducive to building trust.
Who wants someone who sees everything
And who threatens punishment?
Jealous, angry and punitive
Are not exactly congenial traits
Of a being in whom one likes to confide.
In the Middle Ages, God the Father, the Lord,
Was seen more as the persecutor
And Mary as the defender.
Wood engravings from the early 16th century
Show God shooting arrows of pestilence,
War and economic decline at the world,
With Mary holding him back.
Occasionally, Mary is also depicted
Leaning on a scale to make
A sinner's few good deeds heavier
Than his misdeeds, thus saving him
From the eternal damnation
That the oh-so-merciful Father-and-Son Gods
Would have provided.
Ordinary people have always been
Much more likely to believe that Mary
Possessed compassion and gentleness,
As this was associated with the feminine element
Of the ancestral goddesses
Handed down to them.

After all, Mary received a halo

As early as the 6th century
And gained a central position
In the churches as well.
The largest number of churches
And also often the largest room within a church
Is dedicated to her
And not to her son and his father.
Gothic cathedrals, for example, are not dedicated
To God or Jesus, but to Notre Dame.
Now who exactly is meant by this lady
Is another interesting detail surrounding Mary,
The goddess who is also considered
Aa triple goddess.

What hardly anyone knows is

That the great Notre Dame cathedrals
Were not originally dedicated to Mother Mary,
But to Mary Magdalene,
Tthe companion of Christ.
Chartres Cathedral, for example, has the famous
Magdalene window, which shows
The Bethany anointing scene.
Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, the patron saint
Of the Knights Templar,
Had also expressly sworn his order
To Mary Magdalene in 1129,
Whom he called quite bluntly the bride of Christ
In one of his works. For these initiates,
Mary Magdalene symbolised
The female principle of wisdom or enlightenment,
Which is why she was even popularly called
Notre Dame de Lumière (Our Lady of Light)
In medieval France and Flanders.
The light ("Lumière") symbolised
The highest wisdom,
Once worshipped by Gnostics as Sophia.
Whatever aspect of Mary
The many Notre Dame cathedrals are dedicated to,
They are impressive palaces
Of the Queen of Heaven
To which many Catholics prefer
To address their prayers.

Until modern times, the Catholic Church

In particular has struggled
To draw advantages from the figure of Mary
On the one hand and to avoid
Her explicit deification on the other,
Wich would also have a lasting effect
On the position of women within the Church.
Pope John XXIII, for example,
Pesumed to know Mary's innermost thoughts
And proclaimed that Our Lady
Would not be pleased if she
Were placed above her Son.

However, there were also currents

That put Mary in a completely different light:
Saint Ephraim of Syria (306-373), for example,
Even called Mary the mother
And at the same time bride or consort of Jesus -
Very much in the manner of many ancient goddesses
Who, either as goddesses of creation,
Gave birth to a son virginally
And from themselves or in some other mystical way.
Many of these ancient goddesses
Had a love relationship
With this divine son themselves
Oor in another form of the threefold goddess
(Mary Magdalene) or created the world
In union with him.
First and foremost Isis with her son Horus,
But also Gaia with her son Uranos,
Rigani with Esus (note the interesting parallel
In name to Mary's son Jesus),
Hina and her son Maui,
Ilmatar and Väinämöinen,
Aurora and Tithonius,
Eurynome and Ophion - to name but a few.
In the Protoevangelium of James,
Which was probably written
In the middle of the 2nd century
And is considered to be the first and oldest Gospel,
Te birth of Jesus is reported
And Mary's origins are told in detail.
Thus she is said to have conceived God's seed
As a hierodule ("temple maiden"
Or probably priestess of the Great Goddess)
While spinning a blood-red thread in the temple.
This is reminiscent of the Moirs or "Marys",
The Greek goddesses of fate
Who hold, spin and cut the thread of destiny.
At the crucial moment,
The angel Gabriel had come upon Mary,
Which in the Bible clearly means
Sexual intercourse.

This virgin birth, or rather the conception,

Always gives rise to many mysteries;
It is the great mystery of Christianity.
But it is not exceptional.
It is part of many ancient religions
That the deities are conceived
Or come into the world
As extraordinarily as possible.

Christianity had a little difficulty

Explaining how the divine seed,
Which undoubtedly had to exist,
Got into Mary.
That is why there is talk
Of strange variants of fertilisation.
For example, God's seed is said
To have been filtered through a holy lily
In the beak of the holy dove
Or to have been applied to Mary's ear
From the mouth of God
Or also of the archangel Gabriel
With a kind of blowpipe.

This is shown very clearly

Iin a depiction on the north portal
Of Our Lady Chapel in Würzburg:
In this Tympanum of the Annunciation,
One can see very clearly
How an already quite developed foetus
Slides on a kind of tube.
At Mary's ear, this tube then turns
Into the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove,
And the baby lands
Directly in the ear of the Mother Goddess.

Zeno, Bishop of Verona (4th century), for example,

Held the view of an ear generation.
This was also confirmed
By Pope Benedict XVI in the last part
Of his book "Jesus of Nazareth",
In which he commented on the virgin birth.
In the language of the Church Fathers,
Mary conceived through her ear, Benedict explains.
Of course, this makes sense w
Within theological thinking, because
God works through the Word.
And an ear is particularly well suited
To receive it.

Thus, in the "Salzburg Missal",

A Marian hymn attributed to Thomas Becket states:
Gaude virgo, mater christi,
Quae per aurem concepisti
(Rejoice Virgin, Mother of Christ,
Whom you have conceived with the ear).

In portraits, Mary is often depicted

With her head tilted to the right,
Which is interpreted as a distinctive element
Tthat she is holding out her ear to the Holy Spirit
For the purpose of fertilisation.

And that the Holy Spirit applied

Tthe divine seed filtered through a lily
Ito Mary's ear is also nothing new
In purely theological terms.
Even the ancient Sabine-Etruscan
And Roman mother goddess Juno
I said to have conceived the god Mars
With her holy lily.
This three-lobed lily -
The universal sign of the vulva -
Is therefore regarded as a symbol
Of parthenogenetic power,
And this mystery was apparently adopted
For the Christian Virgin Mary.

So much for procreation.

Of course, there are also many pious myths
Surrounding the birth of Mary,
Which are at least historically untenable.
The great census reported by Luke,
Which led Mary and Joseph through Bethlehem,
Is not mentioned anywhere except in Luke.
This major event would probably
Have been recorded
In the quite complete Roman historiography,
Which has handed down to us
Much less important details.
After all, a census means counting people
Where they live and not somewhere else.

And if there really had been such a census:

Would it have been ordered
In the middle of winter?
Certainly not. Even near Jerusalem,
Temperatures can drop below freezing in winter.
So people would have had to trek
From far away to Jerusalem
On muddy roads in cold,
Stormy and rainy weather.
So no sensible Roman official
Wwould have scheduled a census for winter.
For an agricultural society
Like that of Judea 2000 years ago,
Aa census in autumn, when the harvest
Had been safely gathered,
Would have made much more sense.

However, the time of birth

At the exact time of the winter solstice
Is also arbitrarily chosen.
Verse 8 of Luke's Gospel tells us,
And there were shepherds
In the same region in the field by the hurdles,
Keeping watch over their flock by night.
According to records, shepherds grazed
Their flocks in the open field
From April to October.
By the end of December, even in this area,
It is too cold for man and beast
In the field at night
And the animals are in their shelters.
The winter solstice was already regarded
I ancient religions as the birth of new light
And thus of hope for the world.
Accordingly, this was celebrated and honoured.
Therefore, the birth of the new Saviour
Had to be scheduled on this date
In order to lead people
From their old rituals to the new faith
And to provide them
With an appropriately worthy event
That justified a great celebration.

But why was it so important

That Mary's Son be born in Bethlehem?
In the 8th century BC, the prophet Micah
Predicted the birth of the Messiah.
The new ruler would be born in Bethlehem.
So either Mary deliberately
Wnt to this prophesied birthplace.
Or else the stay and birth in Bethlehem
Were constructed afterwards
In order to be able to fulfil the old prophecy
And also to establish a relationship
With King David, who was also born in Bethlehem.
Incidentally, the Gospels of Mark and John
Seak of Nazareth as the place of birth.

And as far as the star and the Magi are concerned,

We are also in dubious territory:
Astronomers have not yet succeeded
In identifying any celestial phenomenon
In the years around the birth of Christ
That could have been visible without binoculars.
Nor does the Bible mention
The Three Kings at any point -
Neither holy, nor three, nor king.
The three lords are certainly not mentioned by name.
There is only talk of magi
(Astrologers) from the East.

The K + M + B, however,
Could well be traced back to the three Beths,
Ancient mother goddesses,
Who would certainly have been more helpful
To the young mother in Beth-lehem
After a birth than three kings
Standing around with frankincense, gold and myrrh.

What is interesting about the complex history

Of Mary is that it always reflects
The ambivalent relationship
Of men towards women.
With women, man never really knows where he stands.
Therefore, there are really only two ways
To deal with them and keep them at bay:
Either they are belittled and denigrated
Or they are idealised and lifted up to heaven.

This insistence on eternal virginity,

Although the Bible clearly speaks
Of Jesus' brothers and sisters,
Was apparently also intended
To make Mary appear as small and girlish as possible
And not maternal.
Mary in her motherly aspect
Would be too powerful
And would also come too close
To the old mother goddesses.
However, it was not considered
That the classical virgin goddesses
Such as Artemis, Atargatis, Athena,
Al-Uzza or Hestia were always highly self-determined
And not bound to men.

Also interesting in this context

Are the numerous Pietàs
In which Mary is depicted
As the Mater Dolorosa,
The Mother of Sorrows or Pain,
With the body of Jesus Christ
Taken down from the cross.
She always appears here not at all like
The mother of a 33-year-old man
Bt like a 20-year-old at the most.
But perhaps it is not Mary,
The mother of Jesus, who is depicted here.
For Mary is probably also a triple goddess.
The "three Marys" who were present
A Jesus' crucifixion suggest this.
Historically, they were probably Mary Magdalene,
Mary, the mother of Jesus
And Mary, the mother of James,
Or Mary, the wife of Salomas.

Eastern churches even allowed

The old father-mother-child constellation
To apply for some centuries,
Thus referring to old goddess and god myths
(Osiris-Isis-Horus,
Zeus-Rheia-Zagreus,
Apollo-Artemis-Heracles).

Mary thus contains everything

That expresses the feminine principle of faith.
She appears, so to speak, as the rebirth
Of all the Great Goddesses.

In addition to the much more credible mercy

Of the Mother of God,
People also needed a figure
Who was responsible for fertility
(And who was better than one
Who inexplicably gives birth to a child),
For whom cakes could be baked,
Who could be sweetly decorated
In processions and parades,
And above all to whom women could confide
Their most intimate wishes,
Which no man (not even a god)
Is allowed to hear.

And of course, in the sacred infrastructure,

Countless places of worship and pilgrimage
As well as many rituals and ceremonies
In honour of the ancient goddesses
Were occupied by Mary.
Not by her personally, of course,
For it can be assumed that she
Was so sisterly and would not have taken
Anything away from one of her ancestresses,
But by those who abused her
For their propaganda machinery.

On closer inspection, the background

Of the old goddesses becomes visible everywhere -
From the large pilgrimage to Mariazell
To the smallest women's well,
From the Great Women's Day (15 August)
And the Small Women's Day (8 September),
From the carrying of women
To May devotions.

Thus the Celtic Imbolc

I honour of the goddess Brigid
Became the festival of Maria Lichtmess.
Walpurgis, the fertility festival
Iin honour of the Celtic and Germanic
Queen of May on the night of 1 May,
Was first followed by the Catholics
With all kinds of Marian customs
And finally by the communists and socialists.

Most mystery cults celebrated

The birth of the divine child
On the winter solstice, when light
Was reborn by the Great Goddess.
Customs such as Christmas trees,
Presents, candles, mistletoe, holly bushes,
Songs, celebrations and processions
Are all pagan and stem
From the worship of the Goddess
As the Mother of the Divine Child.
For example, Christmas trees
Developed from the pinea silva, pine groves,
Which were located near
The temples of the Goddess.

Many churches throughout Europe

And also in other cultural circles
Were deliberately built on cult sites
Of the old goddesses.
In Italy, for example, one can almost assume
That every site of an ancient church
Was once a sanctuary of Juno,
Isis, Minerva, Diana or Hecate.
The only Gothic church in Rome,
The basilica Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Ws built over the ruins of an earlier
Roman temple of Minerva.
Here at least they were honest enough
And also mentioned the old, underlying goddess.

In Philae, the great temple of Isis

Was dedicated to Mary in the 6th century.
In Cyprus, the sanctuaries of Aphrodite
Became places of pilgrimage to Mary.
The Cypriots, incidentally, continue
To address Mary unabashedly
Under the name of Aphrodite.
Women are flexible, after all,
And the great goddess probably listens
To every name when she is asked for something,
When people turn to her with an urgent request.

Is Mary now to be regarded as a goddess

Or is she only a construction
Of Christian church fathers? Indifferent!
She spreads out her mantle of stars
And shelters (not to say hides)
Many of her ancient ancestresses underneath.

Incidentally, it is very similar

With her Islamic-Arab sister-goddess Fatima,
Who was appropriated by Islam
As the Arabian goddess of the moon and creation
And is as alive as ever
With her motherly goddess power.
Mary and Fatima hold the fort, so to speak.

And it doesn't really matter

Whether it is the biblical Mary of the Church,
The Islamic Fatima
Or the goddess of the people
And above all of the women,
Who are very individually associated
With the respective goddesses of the region.

How often has the "Mary help" been called out.

And Mary's power has been proven
To work miracles,
How could it be otherwise
When the united Great Goddesses work through her.
So why not connect with her,
The virgin girl, the Mother Goddess,
The Queen of Heaven?
And nothing is easier than that: after all,
She has altars everywhere where you can pause -
Without being looked at funny -
And do a personal ritual
With the great Mother Goddess. Mary helps!

GODDESS SOPHIA

Sophia is worshipped by Jews

And Gnostic Christians
As the all-encompassing spirit,
The creator of all life.
Sophia is the beginning of creation,
The ancient biblical Lady Wisdom,
That divine power that was already there
Before anything else.

Sophia is revered by Jews

And Gnostic Christians
As the all-encompassing spirit,
The creator of all life.
Sophia is the beginning of creation,
The ancient biblical Lady Wisdom,
That divine power
That was already there
Before anything else,
The feminine soul of God,
The source of power.

In her most primal form,

Sophia is considered the creator of all life,
From which her male complement was born.

Many Christians may ask themselves:

If Jesus sits at the right hand of God,
Wo sits at his left?
And what is the function of this Holy Spirit?
Is it a white bird
That flies around everywhere
And scouts everything
Or maybe something like Jesus' grandfather?
Well, not quite, more like his grandmother.

Actually, it is difficult to understand

Why in almost all myths, religions
And cults the act of creation,
This primordial birth, was attributed
Either to a female deity
Or to the interaction of a female and a male deity,
And just in Judaism and Christianity
All this was supposed to have been
The sole preserve of man.
It wasn't, because after all there is also
The Holy Spirit and this has always been understood
As a divine power with clearly feminine features.

Personified and revered as Sophia,

The great mother goddess
Of Judaism and Christianity,
Who brought light to the world.
..
Little noticed, there is an interesting account
Of creation in the Hebrew Bible:

The LORD had me in the beginning of his ways,

Before he created anything, from the beginning.
I am appointed from everlasting,
In the beginning, before the earth was.
When the seas were not yet, I was born,
When the fountains of waters were not yet.
Before the mountains were subdued,
Bbefore the hills, I was born,
When he had not yet made the earth,
Nor the plains thereof,
Nor the clods of the ground.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there;
When he drew the circle over the floods of the deep;
When he made the clouds above mighty;
When he made the fountains of the deep strong;
When he set his bounds to the sea, and to the waters,
That they should not transgress his command;
When he laid the foundations of the earth,
I was with him as his favourite;
I was his delight daily,
And played before him always;
I played upon his circle of the earth,
And had my delight in the children of men.

Who is speaking here?

A being who is also repeatedly referred to
As Lady Wisdom.
Solomon, in this Old Testament book
Of Proverbs, describes the benefits of Wisdom
As if he were speaking
Of a desirable young woman.
The Bible is almost sensual here.

This passage is therefore either often concealed

Or interpreted somewhat woodenly and stiffly.
The idea of a woman of wisdom
Playing before God
And being his daily delight -
That is clearly going too far
For many patriarchal church fathers.
Nevertheless, this biblical passage
Ccannot be denied
And it at least states that God,
The Lord already had another,
Supporting power from the very beginning,
Before he created anything.
Which does not really prove
That this one is female.

However, two other biblical passages

In the creation story (Genesis)
Are very revealing in this context:
And God said, Let Us make man in Our image,
After Our likeness.

To whom is he speaking?
He's not saying, Now I'll make man
But, Let Us make man.
Okay, so maybe we can still assume
That God was speaking a bit turgidly,
Or that the translation is inaccurate.

But then: And God created man in his own image,

Male and female he created them.
So if wisdom were only
A genderless primordial state, a force or spirit -
Albeit a holy one - and God was male,
Where would the idea of creating
A woman come from?

All this makes it clear that even

I these patriarchal religions
A female force, a goddess,
Was at work from the very beginning.
So imagine: God in conviviality,
God with Sophia, that goddess
Who represents wisdom even before it all began.
Two who were highly playful with each other
And who inspire each other
In their lustful creative power.
He makes, she supplies
The ideas and the power.

What a different picture

Of the biblical creation story.
Sophia, the Lady Wisdom is the primordial power,
The whole cosmic wealth of ideas.
She manifested from the Absolute,
The primordial sound,
And as dynamic energy is the driving,
The wise, the creative force
Throughout the act of creation.

Perhaps she bounced merrily from idea to idea:

Why not a gracefully curved space?
She clapped her hands:
Why not myriads of smart molecules?
She hums her song:
Why not veil-waving vortices, gases?
Or matter, floating, flying, rotating?
She smiles and dreams:
Seas, mountains, grasses, herbs, trees,
Beings that crawl, fly, swim -
That would be pretty.
Everything is possible in this primordial state.
Sophia dances - light as time - her cosmic dance.

Her melody is the wild big bang

From which whirls, movements, sounds sprang,
Spaces, futures, first pasts.
She stretches across the joyfully expanding universe.

Joyfully Sophia stretched out her arms to God.

And God danced with her.
An image full of dynamism,
Full of playfulness, full of vibrant life.
And to top it all off,
Solomon impressively records
In the Book of Proverbs
That this feminine element
Takes great pleasure, even lust, in man.

Their common divine joy

In each other spills over, so to speak,
Into what Sophia creates in her wisdom
And God in his energy.
And not enough of all this.
If Wisdom presents herself personified
As a female figure in the first chapters
Of the book of Proverbs
With two impressive speeches,
She meets us a little later
In the busy squares of the city.

Here Lady Wisdom invites the simple

And inexperienced to listen to her
And follow her.
Wisdom in person embodies sincere speech
And good advice, she imparts
The art of government and successful living.
She appears as a prophetess
Who advocates justice and righteousness
And calls her audience to obedience.

Many biblical passages testify

To the feminine side
O the Judeo-Christian God.
The feminine side of the Judeo-Christian God
Can be found in numerous other biblical passages.
For example, in the Book of Isaiah,
Yahweh speaks of himself,
Like a woman in childbirth
Will I now cry out, I snort and pant.
Or: Listen to me, you of the house of Jacob,
And all you who are left of the house of Israel,
Who have been burdened on me from the womb,
Who have been carried by me.
Or: As a mother eagle brings forth her young
And hovers over them,
He spread out his wings and took him
And carried him on his wings.

The prophet Hosea speaks of God

As, among other things, a loving caring mother:
I was there for Israel like a mother
Who lifts the infant to her cheek and feeds it.

Further examples: the Godhead

As a nursing mother, as a midwife,
As a mother bear, as a lioness,
As a housekeeper, as a baker.

What male God would think of such comparisons?

The often used predicate of God,
Mercy (rachamim) comes from rächäm (womb).
The grace of God charis is feminine!
God conceived Israel,
Carries her at the breast, in the hidden place (womb),
Like a mother he comforts his people.
And for Matthew, God is like a hen
That takes her chicks under her wings.

All this suggests the goddess Sophia.

And this great (about 4000 years old)
Wisdom goddess was also alive
And worshipped for a long time.

However, she became a problem

For the later Jewish and Christian
Representatives of this God on earth:
This symbol of the light,
Creative-feminine lust for life,
O the nurturing and protective mother
Can of course easily undermine
The power of a punishing, angry, jealous God -
And thus the power of the church fathers
And all men is endangered.

So with the rise of patriarchy

And the accompanying suppression
Of the right of the mother
At the time of Hellenism,
She was pushed out of culture
And everyday life.

Hand in hand with this went the transfer

O numerous names and insignia
Of the old mother goddesses
To the new male ruler gods.
Thus Iahu, an epithet of Astarte
Meaning holy dove,
Became the strict father god
Of the Israelites Yahweh.
Hawwa-Eve, another goddess of Jerusalem,
Who brought forth all life
With her primeval serpent,
Became Jehovah.

The version of the biblical creation story

Described above is also reminiscent
Of other cults and religions
In which a god can work
Through female powers:
Of Metis, devoured by Zeus,
With whose wisdom the father of the gods
Created the world;
Of Devi, with whose sole power
The god Brahma can create,
Vishnu preserve and Shiva destroy,
Or also of Eurynome and Ophion,
Who boasted that he was the supreme creator
Who had created all things.
Whereupon the goddess knocked his teeth out.

The wisdom and creation goddess Sophia

Was therefore increasingly depicted
As a Holy Spirit, a sexless spherical being, a bird.
Jewish sages who lived in exile at the time
Bbelieved she dwelt in the Temple of Jerusalem
In the form of the doves that nested there.

Thus the dove became the symbol of Sophia -

A symbol she shares with a number
O other ancient great goddesses:
Ishtar, Astarte, Anahita, Eurynome
And later also Aphrodite and Venus.
Sophia is thus also in good company
With numerous other winged or bird goddesses,
Such as Isis.

And when the Church became Roman,

She underwent her final gender transformation
Through the grammatically clearly male term
Spiritus Sanctus.

In truth, however, this Holy Spirit

Or Supreme Intuitive Wisdom
Is the feminine pole of the Christian Trinity.
This is shown in the representation of God
As an eye in a triangle.

If God the Father is the eye,

Then the triangle surrounding him
Is the power of Sophia,
In which he is embedded, so to speak.
As a symbolic triangle,
It represents the threefold expression
Of the life cycles of birth, death and rebirth,
Iis an expression of the ancient triad of goddesses,
Consisting of the Virgin, the Mother
And the Wise Ancient One,
And shows the three phases
Of white, red and black,
From which all life arises.

Sophia therefore always means perfection.

A self-contained cycle.
The Byzantine Emperor Michael Palaiologos,
In his 1274 Creed, refers to the Holy Spirit
As the complete, perfect and true God.

According to a Gnostic creation myth,

Sophia even has a family -
Mother and children.
According to this, Sophia was born
Of the great, infinite silence,
Personified as the goddess Sige.

This makes Sige the actual creative force

From which all wisdom (Sophia) emerged.
The great silence breathed out
And produced a sound.
This is often translated as "word".
And so Sophia is also understood
As the first word - the logos of creation.
This also gives the biblical quotation:
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God.
This takes on a further meaning:
Who was with God from the beginning?

Sophia, the wise goddess of the first word,

The first sound of creation.
The myths of many other peoples also tell:
The world was created from a sound
And this sound still echoes on and on.
And in this sound lies all truth
And wisdom (see Echo).

Some Gnostic traditions

Even saw Sophia
As the actual mother of Christ.
Besides this male child,
She is also said to have given birth
To a female spirit - the Achamoth.
This light-filled daughter of Sophia
Brought forth from herself the elements
And life on the earthly world.
Afterwards Achamot gave birth
To the new god Ildabaoth (son of darkness)
And other five planetary spirits.
These in turn are said to have created
The archangels, the angels and finally humans.
Ildabaoth or Jehovah
Did not want humans
To eat of the fruit of knowledge,
but Achamoth sent her own spirit to earth
In the form of the serpent Ophis
To teach humans
To disobey this jealous god.

In Gnostic belief, this serpent

Is also referred to as Christ,
Who taught the first man to eat
Of the fruit of knowledge.
Later, Sophia is said to have sent Christ
To earth again, hence the idea
That she was the true mother of Jesus.
After all, Mary conceived Jesus
Through the Holy Spirit.

Sige, Sophia and Achamot

Also form a female primordial trinity
Of the Great Goddess.
In Russian religious philosophy,
The daughters of Sophia are faith,
Love and hope.
Jewish wisdom literature is also very indebted
To the cult of Sophia, who reappeared
In medieval Jewish Kabbalism
As the Shechina of God.

And Sophia made her presence felt

Again and again over the millennia
And lived on in the consciousness of many:
For the Gnostics, Sophia was
The mother of all creation.
They said the world soul was born from her smile.

Jehovah was her companion and helper.

The Gnostic Gospel of Philipp,
On the other hand, claims that Sophia
Was the companion of the Christ
As his female counterpart.
This mediating function of Sophia
Was then increasingly replaced by the Logos,
The masculine Reason, whose personification
Or better incarnation is then Jesus Christ.

The original power of Sophia, however,

Is a very necessary complement
To Logos and Ratio - that knowledge
Which is advancing frighteningly fast,
Which often only serves egoism
Or the pursuit of profit
And where wisdom is held in low esteem.
Even today, which is dominated
By the male logos,
By purely fact- and intellect-related knowledge,
A renaissance of Sophia would do us good,
Because only that which is also experienced
From within is wise.

In the Middle Ages, Sophia reappeared

As Lady Wisdom, under the Latin name Sapientia.
The women mystics (including
Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila
And the Beguine movement)
Tried to revive the tradition of Sophia.

They showed that their inspirations

And insight into the divine
Did not come primarily from intellectual actions.
This discredited many women mystics,
Because by having inspirations,
They proclaimed what only God could know.
However, this subsequently inspired
Many Renaissance philosophers.
Eastern Christians also continued
To devoutly worship Sophia
For a very long time.
She is the mythical divine figure
Especially in the Orthodox churches
Of Russia, Greece and other countries.

As an icon, Sophia is always depicted

In the Middle East crowned with stars,
Which is supposed to emphasise
Her absolute divinity.
There are many cathedrals dedicated to Sophia.
The most impressive testimony
To this worship of Sophia is her holy shrine -
The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul,
Built in the sixth century AD
And one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Roman Christians were so embarrassed

By this marvellous monument
To the Great Christian Goddess in Istanbul
That they claimed it was dedicated
To a St. Sophia, one
Of the many virgin martyrs.
Usually there are detailed legends
About these martyrs, describing
Their origin, the reason and the method
Of torture in a drastically cruel way.
However, there are only a few scanty details
About this Saint Sophia,
So that one can assume that a fictitious martyr
Was quickly conjured out of the hat here
So that the greatness of the old goddess
Would not be recognised.

This martyr Sophia is said

To have suffered martyrdom
Around 304 during the Diocletianic persecution
Of Christians. Nothing more is known of her.
The saintly vita of St. Sophia of Rome
Is usually mixed up with that
Of St. Sophia of Milan.
The latter was a wealthy widow who,
After the death of her husband,
Wanted nothing more than to suffer martyrdom
In Rome. She thus became
The patron saint of widows
And helper in distress and affliction.

Incidentally, Santa Sophia -

The one from Rome -
Always appears to us in mid-May
As "Cold Sophia",
The last of the "Ice Saints".
In pious Catholic customs, Sophia is invoked
Against late frosts
And for the flourishing of crops and rich harvests.
This in turn reminds us of Sophia -
The Holy Spirit.
As the goddess of creation,
She stands not only for the original
Great creation of the world,
But also for the normal power of creation
That is constantly taking place.
And therefore Sophia also brings
The plants and crops
And thus food for the people.

According to the farmer's rule,

The mild spring weather only becomes stable
With the passing of "Cold Sophia".
She thus draws a line under the cold rages
Of Pancratius, Servatius and Boniface.
And is thus also a goddess of spring.

The worship of Wisdom

Is a widespread religious movement
In ancient Israel and its environs,
Reflected in the Book of Job, Proverbs
And tales, such as that of Shifra and Puah.

Wisdom is identified in the early

Christian communities with Jesus
And with Mary, the Mother of God.

She is also depicted from ancient times

With breasts that give milk:
Here Sophia-Wisdom is the royal woman
Seated on a throne under a canopy,
Wearing a wide robe
And precious ermine fur cloak.

She embraces with her arms two men

Who kneel before her, join hands
And drink at her breast.
These are Moses and Paul,
Representing the two Testaments.

In Catholic myths, Sophia often appears

As "Mary-Sophia".
Whenever we encounter a black Madonna,
It could mean Sophia rather than Mary.
Devotion to the Black Madonna
Began in the 1st century AD
In Languedoc in southern France.

Sixteen centuries later,

There were already over two hundred
Of these ornamental black Madonnas in France.
Incidentally, they do not wear negroid features -
Their skin colour is simply black.
A Christian treatise from the 3rd century
Gives the explanation:
Wisdom (Sophia) is black
Because she already existed in chaos,
Even before the world was created.

Sophia was understood to be

The Spirit of God who hovered over the waters,
Who brought light to the world
When darkness was over the face of the deep.

Over the millennia, Sophia smiles

And gently outshines the patriarchal oddities
Of monotheistic religions.
These rays of light always come through
When it comes to thinking skills,
Insight and knowledge, wise decisions,
Female creativity and intuition.

It is no coincidence that Sophia

Is also called the spirit of divine knowledge,
Which comes out through menstruation,
The light seed of Sophia.
Thus wisdom is born from menstruation.
This feminine wisdom manifests itself
In inner images and intuition,
Which has its seat in the womb.

Erich Neumann has given a sensitive

And impressive description
Of the wisdom goddess Sophia
In "The Great Mother":

There is at work in the unconscious

Of the birthing and nourishing,
Protecting and transforming feminine power
Of the deep a wisdom infinitely superior
To the wisdom of daytime consciousness
And which, as the source of vision
And symbol, ritual and law, poetry
And truth vision, redeeming and giving direction,
Called and uncalled, intervenes in human life.
This feminine-maternal wisdom
Is a wisdom of loving relatedness,
Not an abstract disinterested knowledge.
Just as the unconscious reacts and responds,
So Sophia is a living, present and close,
A loving and ever-present deity,
A deity that can be constantly called upon
And is ready to intervene,
Not a deity that proves to be inaccessible
To man in numinous distance
And alienated detachment from the world.
That is why Sophia, as a spiritual power,
Is loving and saving, her streaming heart
Wisdom and nourishment at the same time.

This wisdom is related to the living

In its indissoluble and paradoxical unity
Of life and death, of nature and spirit,
Of the order of time and destiny,
Of growth, dying and overcoming death.
This feminine figure of wisdom
Does not correspond to an unrelated
Abstract law order in which
Dead world bodies or atoms circle in empty space,
But is a wisdom that is and remains
Connected to the earth,
To the growth of the organic on it
And to the experience
Of the ancestors within us.

The elemental power of Sophia

Cannot be shaken by anything,
For all wisdom is within her.
For people who want to consciously connect
With this power, it gives them equanimity,
Patience, a great overview
And the deepest insights.

Nothing remains hidden from Sophia,

She understands all things, all beings
And their nature, the laws of the world
And its ages. She knows how everything
Was, is and will be.
She possesses a strength that is equal to anything,
That masters everything;
Ultimately, no one can stand against her
Vast and incomprehensible wisdom
And her majestic and calm power.

For this reason, her compassion

Is also unlimited and inexhaustible.
She is not only the divine wisdom
From which everything arose
But a companion for human beings
Through time, for she still has
Delight in the children of men.

And she is living proof that wisdom

Has nothing to do with stagnation and boredom.
For her nature shows itself in playfulness,
In cheerfulness, in pleasure and inner freedom.