Sophia and the
Early French Gothic Cathedrals
Uncovering Themes of Sophia Christos
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Hidden in Plain Sight
“I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves."
- Thunder Perfect Mind, Nag Hammadi Library
This article advances a speculative but, I think, plausible thesis: that certain exterior sculptural programs on the early French Gothic cathedrals — especially Chartres and Notre Dame de Paris — encode motifs resonant with Sophianic (Gnostic Wisdom) themes preserved in late-antique revelatory texts such as the Pistis Sophia, the Secret Book of John, and the Trimorphic Protennoia. Rather than overt references to a condemned Gnosticism, the imagery may be a veiled allusion — "hidden in plain sight" — emerging within the milieu shaped by Cistercian spirituality (Bernard of Clairvaux), the Knights Templar, and the twelfth- and thirteenth-century "Gothic turn." I want to be clear at the outset that I offer this as a reading, not a proof; where the evidence is circumstantial, I say so.
I first became curious about the hypothesis after visiting Chartres Cathedral in 2009. Because I was already familiar with the Pistis Sophia, I was struck by how the odd and relatively unexplained left bay of the Royal Portal might be a veiled reference to the ascension narrative Christ gives in that obscure text. (See my article Chartres and the Pistis Sophia.)
Since then — and especially after a trip to France and England in August 2023 with my partner, Diana Kelly — I have visited a number of early Gothic cathedrals in and around Paris that suggest further links between particular sculpted images and Gnostic motifs. It is the Gnostic creation story, surviving in fragments across these texts and outlined in my Divine Spark book, that offers a possible frame tying the images together into a veiled but poignant narrative of Christ and "Our Lady."
How could obscure Gnostic themes be placed on full display across the faces of these innovative new cathedrals — especially given the Roman Catholic Church's persecution of such currents, as in the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in thirteenth-century France? Before turning to the correlation itself, I want to sketch a possible historical mechanism by which it could have happened.
Dan and Diana in front of Notre Dame
August, 2023
The Knights Templar and the Pistis Sophia
In 1095, Pope Urban II called the First Crusade, and French and Western European contingents were sent to reclaim Jerusalem from the Fatimids. With the fall of the city in 1099, there was a surge of interest in these ancient Christian sites, which had suffered centuries of deterioration and restricted access.
A small group of nobles from Champagne, Burgundy, and Flanders is said to have spent roughly nine years living in obscurity on the Temple Mount, at the traditional site of Solomon's Temple. It is believed that they came into contact with the Arabic and Sufi traditions then flourishing in the Levant, though little is known of what they actually did there. Were they on a "spiritual secret mission" — gathering learning from Arabic and Sufi sources to be transmitted back to a small educated aristocratic and ecclesiastical circle, as Strachan argues in his book on Chartres (Floris Books, 2003)? The claim that they were searching for treasures from the Second Temple beneath the al-Aqsa Mosque is a matter of speculation with little supporting evidence. What is not in dispute is the timing: the return of key figures from this Temple group to France in 1127 coincided — whether by accident or otherwise — with the beginning of a more colorful and nuanced flowering of Christian religious art. One theory holds that they brought back architectural innovations previously unknown in Europe, and possibly documents, manuscripts, or even lost texts. I flag this as tradition and conjecture rather than established fact.
Hugues de Payens (c. 1070–1136) was a central member of the group of nine. He was a vassal of one of the wealthiest and most prominent nobles of the age, Hugh of Champagne (1074–1125), Count of Troyes — the same Hugh who in 1115 granted the land at Clairvaux on which Bernard founded his monastery. Years later, Chrétien de Troyes would compose his Grail romances at the court of Champagne in nearby Troyes. On the group's return to France, the Templars were formally recognized and their Rule approved at the Council of Troyes (1129), under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, with de Payens serving as first Grand Master. In the wake of this — with the "New Style" beginning at Sens around 1135, Abbot Suger's innovations at Saint-Denis around 1140, and the West Portal at Chartres around 1145 — dramatic new developments in cathedral construction began to appear all around Paris.
Hugues de Payens (1070 – 1136)
On the basis of the sculptural images at Chartres and Notre Dame discussed below, I suspect that one of the manuscripts associated with the Templars' time in Jerusalem was the Pistis Sophia, or some version of it. The Pistis Sophia is an extremely rare text — most scholars date its composition to the third or fourth century CE — in which Christ, after the resurrection, discourses with his disciples, and above all with Mary Magdalene, about the story of Sophia. I have found no direct evidence that the Templars recovered this text; my case rests on the images. But if there is anything to it, it would mean the designers went to considerable lengths to hide these teachings in plain sight. The thesis, then, is that the Templars influenced the designers of Chartres, Notre Dame, Senlis, Sens, Saint-Denis, Laon, and others, where novel images may hint at a more Gnostic Wisdom figure standing behind Mother Mary and her Sedes Sapientiae ("Seat of Wisdom").
It is worth noting a fascinating, if fringe, argument in The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye by Weidner and Bridges (2003). The authors propose that the Templars recovered a copy of the ancient Kabbalist text the Bahir in the early twelfth century and brought it back to France from Jerusalem — a text known to have circulated among the nobility of Troyes, including Hugh of Champagne. On their reading, the Bahir helped inspire both the Gothic cathedrals and the Grail legends. The images they associate with the Bahir, however, represent a different strand of esoteric wisdom from the Pistis Sophia, and correspond to different sculptures on the cathedrals.
Here the corrected dating actually helps the argument. The Pistis Sophia survives in a single manuscript, the Askew Codex, which was unknown to European scholars until it surfaced with a London bookseller around 1772 and was purchased by the British Museum from Dr. Askew's heirs in 1785. The first printed edition (Coptic with a Latin translation, by Schwartze and Petermann) appeared only in 1851; Carl Schmidt's German edition followed in 1905; and G.R.S. Mead's influential English translation appeared in 1896, revised in 1921. In other words, the text was effectively invisible to the modern West until the late eighteenth century. Any twelfth-century knowledge of its contents could therefore not have come from a printed source — it would have required access to a manuscript. That is precisely the kind of transmission the Templar hypothesis proposes.
Sophia is the central figure of these narratives, and Christ describes descending into this region to rescue her from the tyranny of the archons.
“Perhaps the cathedrals were goddess hymns carved in stone, and the ‘Notre Dame’ to whom so many of them were dedicated was really the feminine principle itself – Sophia…”
- The Templar Revelation, Picknett and Prince
Notre Dame
Our Lady of Paris
Built mostly between 1163 - 1260
This article focuses on two of the key early Gothic cathedrals: Notre Dame de Paris and Chartres. Though Chartres precedes Notre Dame, both carry sculpted images that are strikingly novel — such as the Coronation of the Virgin — and some so similar that they were likely drawn from a common source, such as Christ standing on two animal heads (central west portal), which I illustrate below.
Chartres Cathedral
built mostly between 1135 - 1220
Uncovering the Story of Sophia
Bernard of Clairvaux was instrumental in both the founding of the Knights Templar and the new Gothic designs, alongside Abbot Suger. Many historical currents run through the complex development of these cathedrals, including their magnificent and unusual rose windows. If there is a genuine correlation between the cathedral imagery and the Pistis Sophia, we would expect to find a storyline that tracks the creation myth of Sophia as told in that text. On this reading, the rose windows appear as dramatic images of the bursting of the Holy Rose itself — Pronoia, the High Holy Sophia.
The Rose Window
Romanesque circular windows had adorned churches for centuries, but the rose window as such begins around 1130 with the new Gothic cathedrals, starting with Saint-Denis. The West Rose at Chartres is the original from the early thirteenth century.
West Rose Window, Chartres Cathedral. ~ 1215
The Great Emanation
From the Unknowable,
Ineffable Source,
All That Is,
Ein Soph,
sprang the Great Emanation.
As this Great Emanation took place, a Holy Light burst forth and filled the universe — or, more precisely, was the universe. There are three aspects to this original emanation, but it is the feminine aspect that the Gnostic texts dwell on at length, and to whom their hymns of praise are sung. If the Ineffable was "Mind," then this feminine expression was "Thought," called in Greek Pronoia.
The female Thought corresponds to the higher aspect of a twofold Sophia, and also to the concept of the Holy Spirit. She spreads her beauty throughout the vast regions as a Great Emanation. In the Kabbalah, this parallels the outpouring of Ein Soph into the Sephirot.
“And Its thinking became a thing. She appeared. She stood in Its presence in the brilliance of the light; she is the power which is before the All.”
- Secret Book of John, Nag Hammadi Library
“She is called by three names, although she exists alone since she is perfect. I am invisible within the thought of the invisible one. I am revealed in the immeasurable, ineffable things. I am intangible, dwelling in the intangible. I move in every creature”
- Trimorphic Protennoia, Nag Hammadi Library
North Portal Rose Window, Chartres Cathedral. ~ 1235
“She is the spring of the living water."
- Secret Book of John, Nag Hammadi Library
The Fall of Sophia
“I (Jesus) will tell you the mystery, how this befell her."
- Pistis Sophia:29
Out of this Great Emanation, in time, comes the daughter of Pronoia: Sophia. This is myth, though the Gnostic texts present it as history, and Sophia is depicted as a consort of Christ.
“The perfect Savior said: ‘Son of Man consented with Sophia, his consort, and revealed a great androgynous light. His male name is designated ‘Savior, Begetter of All Things.’ His female name is designated ‘All-Begettress Sophia.’ Some call her ‘Pistis’’”.
- Sophia of Jesus Christ, Nag Hammadi Library
Accounts differ, but on my reading of these mysteries — and following the Second Treatise of the Great Seth — Sophia came down from the highest heavens into this lower physical world to build bodily dwellings in which the Children of Light could dwell. The plan went awry, and she was captured by the Chief Archon, the Demiurge, whom Christ calls Yaldabaoth, "of whom I have spoken unto you many times" (Pistis Sophia).
Synagoga, or rather, The Fallen Sophia
Synagoga, Nortre Dame de Paris
This figure of Synagoga (c. 1220) stands as a large statue on the right side of the central front entrance to Notre Dame de Paris. The Church's overt interpretation is that she personifies the failures of the Synagogue, the Jewish faith. On my reading, however, she is a veiled image of the fallen Sophia. Here the lion-headed serpent has stolen her Light, replacing her fallen crown of sovereign divinity with what might be called the archonic control system.
"And all the archons of the aeons mocked me. For they have taken my light from me. And my power has begun to decrease within me.
And I lack my light."
- Pistis Sophia:35
“...She went forth from her own region, the thirteenth aeon, and went down to the twelve aeons [outside of the Pleroma]. The rulers of the aeons pursued her and were enraged against her because she was drawn towards grandeur. And she went forth also from the twelve aeons, and came into the regions of the chaos and drew nigh to that lion-faced light-power to devour it. But all the material emanations of Self-willed [Yaldabaoth] surrounded her, and the great lion-faced light-power devoured all the light-powers in Sophia and cleaned out her light and devoured it, and her matter was thrust into the chaos; it became a lion-faced ruler in the chaos, of which one half is fire and the other darkness, that is Yaldabaoth, of whom I have spoken unto you many times.” (PS:31)
Because Sophia represents our own plight, as we will see, the idea of rescue can be difficult to take in — especially given how religion can keep us disempowered through dependence on a savior figure. Yet within this broader Sophianic creation story, the theme is unmistakable across these Gothic images.
Christ's Descent
Christ reports that he descended through the regions of the archons to descend into the lower regions to rescue Sophia and also the restore the divine spark in humans.
“For as I came downward, no one saw me. For I was altering my shapes, changing from form to form. And therefore, when I was at [the archon's] gates, I assumed their likeness. For I passed them by quietly, and I was viewing the places, and I was not afraid nor ashamed, for I was undefiled” (ST).
“I am the one who was sent down in the body because of the seed which had fallen away. And I came down into their mortal mold. But they did not recognize me; they were thinking of me that I was a mortal man” (LPP).
Central Tympanum, Royal Portal, Chartres ~ 1145
In the image above, Christ has descended through the archonic realms. Though it is usually read as the Second Coming, the four figures surrounding him — conventionally the symbols of the four Gospels — are curious through the lens of this thesis, especially the lower two, the lion and the ox, which rear back from him. The scene may equally depict Christ's descent through these regions to rescue Sophia from the archons.
The Left Entrance of the Royal Portal at Chartres
This section sets out the theory that the sculptures on the left lintel, tympanum, and archivolt of the Chartres West Front depict Christ's astounding ascension and descent as described in the Pistis Sophia. In Book I of that lengthy text, Christ recounts a two-day ascension to the higher realms in which he throws the lower angelic, archonic orders into confusion and disempowerment. Because the Pistis Sophia was considered heretical by the orthodox Church, such a correlation only deepens the mystery of Chartres.
The Royal Portal was built between about 1136 and 1150, and it is part of the oldest above-ground remnant of the church to survive the devastating fire of 1194 that destroyed much of the building. These portals therefore represent some of the earliest surviving theological expression of the cathedral's designers.
I visited Chartres over the weekend of November 28–29, 2009, and took the photographs for this article on an early digital camera. Familiar with the Pistis Sophia, and reviewing the images in the days that followed, I began to suspect that a highly controversial esoteric Christian text had been referenced on the walls of Chartres.
In a remarkable passage of the Pistis Sophia, Christ ascends before his disciples to the highest region of the "First Mystery" to throw the archons into chaos, and causes the diviners of the lower powers to receive deliberately garbled messages from the Region of the Right, throwing their divination into disarray. Though the tableau has been read as the Second Coming, this composite of unusual scenes corresponds closely to that text.
Most explanations I have found describe the scene as "The Ascension of Christ" — an understandable reading, since it clearly shows Christ rising, flanked by angels, with other angels announcing him and disciples gazing up in wonder:
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Top Row — Christ's ascension or Second Coming, flanked by two angels
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Middle Row — angels singing in celebration
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Bottom Row — disciples looking up in awe
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The standard treatment, from Wikipedia's account of Chartres, runs as follo
"It came to pass then, when that light-power had come down over Jesus, that it gradually surrounded him entirely. Then Jesus ascended or soared into the height, shining most exceedingly in an immeasurable light."
- Pistis Sophia:3
"And all their (archons') bonds were unloosed and their regions and their orders; and every one left his order, and they fell down all together, adored before me, or before my vesture, and all sang praises to the interiors, being in great fear and great agitation." (PS:13)
“But now I have made them spend six months turned to the left and six months turned to the right.” (PS:21)
Left entrance of the West Portal, Chartres Cathedral. ~ 1145
This whole front entrance at Chartres, known as the Royal Portal, was built between 1136 and 1150 CE and is part of the oldest above-ground remnant of the church that survived the devastating fire in 1194 that destroyed much of the cathedral. These portals would therefore represent some of the original theological expressions of the designers of the cathedral.
This is the image that first drew my attention to the possibility that the left West Portal depicts the dramatic ascension described in the opening chapters of the Pistis Sophia. The competing explanations simply do not add up. If the top register is the Second Coming, why do the angels rear back in evident surprise rather than stand in glory? If the middle register shows angels celebrating Christ's return, why do they appear in downward, chaotic flight, with troubled expressions? And if the bottom register shows the disciples gazing up in awe, why are there only ten of them, rather than the usual twelve?
I believe this tableau is a key to decoding much of the imagery at Chartres. The passages from the Pistis Sophia set beside each register offer a more specific and detailed reading than the conventional accounts allow.
Christ ascended to the First Mystery to Receive his Vesture
South Portal, Chartres Cathedral ~ 1200's
(horizontal crossbar seems to be missing)
This scene is unusual and has no clear biblical parallel. Chartres houses the relic of Mary's Veil, said to have been worn at the birth of Jesus, and my first thought was that this referred to Christ and the Veil. But the sculpture shows angels holding a long piece of fabric above a watery boundary — the threshold of the higher dimension — and it is hard to read Mary's Veil as descending from a higher divine position.
The tableau is further complicated by the odd tall vertical element above Christ's head. On closer inspection there appears to have been a horizontal piece, now missing, with structural supports on either side of the vertical that likely once held it. If so, the image depicts a cross in the higher heavens.
In the Pistis Sophia, Jesus tells his disciples that he was taken up to the First Mystery to receive the Vesture he had left behind when he descended to rescue Sophia. He says there are five words written on it — zama zama oza rachama ozai — and Chapter 10 offers a lengthy interpretation and message from the "fellow members" present with him at the Great Emanation. This is the First Mystery, within the Ineffable, prior to the burst of creation. The Vesture — one of three he receives at his transfiguration — is worn as he descends again into the lower region, the "last mystery."
"Rejoice and exult and add joy to your joy, for the times are completed for me to put on my Vesture, which hath been prepared for me from the beginning, which I left behind in the last mystery until the time of its completion.
- Pists Sophia:8
The Crowning of Sophia with a Wreath of Light
The Coronation of the Virgin is among the most prominent themes in the early French Gothic cathedrals. It might seem that the crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven had been current since the early days of Christianity, but I have found no clear precedent for the motif before these Gothic images. It appears almost from nowhere — the scene of Christ crowning Mary, placed front and center on entrance after entrance. On our 2023 trip, Diana and I visited many examples, including Senlis, which holds the oldest surviving version in France, standing as the sole main scene of the west entrance.
Senlis Cathedral with Diana in front
Coronation of the Virgin
Senlis Cathedral ~ 1160
"And Jesus continued again in the discourse and said unto his disciples: 'It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia had finished saying these words in the chaos, that I made the light-power, which I had sent to save her, become a light-wreath on her head, so that from now on the emanations of Self-willed could not have dominion over her. And when it had become a light-wreath round her head, all the evil matters in her were shaken and all were purified in her. They perished and remained in the chaos, while the emanations of Self-willed gazed upon them and rejoiced. And the purification of the pure light which was in Pistis Sophia, gave power to the light of my light-power, which had become a wreath round her head.'"
- Pistis Sophia:59
Read mythologically, or psycho-spiritually, this looks like the activation of some vibrational frequency connected with Higher Divine Light — one that renders not only Sophia but us as well immune to the leeching energies of the archons.
Coronation of the Virgin, Notre Dame Paris ~ 1220
Coronation of the Virgin, Chartres Cathedral ~ 1204 - 1210
Coronation of the Virgin, Laon Cathedral ~ 1190
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Sens Cathedral, Coronation of the Virgin - 1190
"The Light hath become a wreath round my head and I shall not depart from it, so that the emanations of Self-willed (Yaldabaoth) may not rob it from me. For the Light is with me, and I myself am with the Light."
- Pistis Sophia:59
The Rescued Sophia
Sophia's Light has been restored to her with the placing of the Wreath of Light. She has been lifted out of the archonic regions into the thirteenth aeon — or, according to the Secret Book of John, the ninth heaven. This great sculpture stands opposite the "Synagoga" figure at the main entrance to Notre Dame de Paris. She is called Ecclesia, personifying the triumph of the Christian community; but I suspect she stands in for Sophia, her crown restored by Christ, holding what may be a Holy Grail — a theme bound up with the Templars in exactly this period in France.
Ecclesia. Notre Dame Paris ~ 1220
And Jesus continued again in the discourse and said unto his disciples: "It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia had finished saying these words in the chaos, that I made the light-power, which I had sent to save her, become a light-wreath on her head, so that from now on the emanations of Self-willed could not have dominion over her. And when it had become a light-wreath round her head, all the evil matters in her were shaken and all were purified in her. They perished and remained in the chaos, while the emanations of Self-willed gazed upon them and rejoiced. And the purification of the pure light which was in Pistis Sophia, gave power to the light of my light-power, which had become a wreath round her head.
"It came to pass then moreover, when it surrounded the pure light in Sophia, and her pure light did not depart from the wreath of the power of the light-flame, so that the emanations of Self-willed should not rob it from it,--when then this befell her, the pure light-power in Sophia began to sing praises. And she praised my light-power, which was a wreath round her head, and she sang praises, saying:
"'1. The Light hath become a wreath round
Sophia uttereth another song of praise.my head; and I shall not depart from it, so that the emanations of Self-willed may not rob it from me.
"'2. And though all the matters be shaken, yet shall I not be shaken.
"'3. And though all my matters perish and remain in the chaos,--those which the emanations of Self-willed see,--yet shall I not perish.
"'4. For the Light is with me, and I myself am with the Light.'
Pistis Sophia: Chapter 59
Christ Teaching from Above the Gates of the Archons
Central pillar South Entrance at Chartres Cathedral. ~ 1200's
Here is an odd figure of Christ at Chartres, standing on the heads of what appears to be a downward-stretched dog on his right and a winged, dog-headed serpent on his left. The same image appears at Notre Dame (below) and at Amiens — so similar that it is reasonable to assume a common original design.
It is a strange and difficult image, and its placement at the central front entrance of Notre Dame de Paris makes it all the more significant. The two animals seem to sneer and laugh at one another almost playfully, the serpentine figure on the left sticking out its tongue at the other.
This may belong to a tradition attested in the Pistis Sophia and other texts — the Gospel of Mary, and an Ophite report discussed by April DeConick in Comparing Christianities. In passing through the gates of the archons, the initiate is instructed to make certain declarations to move past each guardian and ascend to the next level of liberation. In Book 3 of the Pistis Sophia, Christ tells those who have overcome the entrapments of this world to renounce every form of worldly attachment, and in one passage to be saved from "the fire of the dog-faced one."
Here Christ stands above the gates of the archons, holding a closed book of wisdom, beckoning us through the passages of initiation — the letting go of whatever interferes with our pursuit of divine connection, both from above and from within.
From the Pistis Sophia, Chapter 102
JESUS continued again in the discourse and said unto his disciples: "When I shall have gone into the Light, then herald it unto the whole world and say unto them: Cease not to seek day and night and remit not yourselves until ye find the mysteries of the Light-kingdom, which will purify you and make you into refined light and lead you into the Light-kingdom.
"Say unto them: Renounce the whole world and the whole matter therein and all its care and all its sins, in a word all its associations which are in it, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light and be saved from all the chastisements which are in the judgments.
"Say unto them: Renounce murmuring, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light and be saved from the fire of the dog-faced [one].
"Say unto them: Renounce eavesdropping, (…litigiousness, false slander, false witness, pride and haughtiness, belly-love, babbling, craftiness, avarice, love of the world, pillage, evil conversation) that ye may [be worthy of the mysteries of the Light] and be saved from the judgments of the dog-faced [one].
Notre Dame, Central Pillar,
Central West Portal entrance
“And the lion-faced power and the serpent-form and the basilisk-form and the dragon-form and all the other very numerous emanations of Self-willed surrounded Pistis Sophia all together, desiring to take from her anew her powers in her, and they oppressed Pistis Sophia exceedingly and threatened her. It came to pass then, when they oppressed her and alarmed her exceedingly, that she cried again to the Light and sang praises, saying: ‘O Light, it is thou who hast helped me; let thy light come over me’” (PS:66).
The Region of the Right and Region of the Left
In his mystery teachings, Christ says he came from the higher regions, which he calls the Region of the Right, and then descended to the lower worlds of chaos, the Region of the Left. This cosmology is laid out on the west front of Notre Dame de Paris and on the south portal of Chartres. In it, Christ also directs our attention toward the higher regions of Light, so that we are not pulled in by the archonic systems of the Left.
Central West Portal, Notre Dame ~ 1220
The Notre Dame cathedrals are temples to the Divine Mother, and their layout is oriented according to Christ's left and right. Facing the entrance, Synagoga — the trapped Sophia — stands on the right; but from Christ's point of view she occupies the Region of the Left. Opposite her stands Ecclesia — the rescued Sophia — exalted in the Region of the Right.
Look more closely at the register above the central pillar and the two regions are clearly illustrated.
Region of the Right Region of the Left
Notre Dame, Central West Portal
On the left (the Region of the Right), the adepts gaze up at Christ, toward the divine realms. On the right (the Region of the Left), people are lured into lower spiritual consciousness, where negative emotions and energies feed the archons' appetites. The same configuration appears at the Chartres south portal.
Region of the Right, Chartres ~ 1200's
Region of the Left, Chartres
Region of the Left, close up, Chartres
“And as it is Wisdom in ‘harmony,’ there are those on the Right and those on the Left-powers, authorities, principalities, and daemons, … and the Lower Root from which hath come forth the things in genesis. This, then, is the cross which by the Word hath been the means of ‘cross-beaming’ all things – at the same time separating off the things that proceed from genesis and those below it… ”
- Acts of John
This Cross of Light theme must have belonged to Christ's mystery teachings, as suggested by this Acts of John.
As the pilgrim enters through the main doors of one of the greatest of the Catholic Notre Dame cathedrals, she is greeted by this central pillar: Christ standing over the lion-headed serpent, the fallen Sophia on his left and the rescued Sophia on his right. Below him is a most significant figure. She is called Mother Alchemy, after the many alchemical images on the front of Notre Dame — but she may equally be voicing the message of Sophia, her ladder inviting us to rise through the gates of the archonic system to meet her.
Central Pillar, Notre Dame
Mother Alchemy, Notre Dame Paris. ~ 1220
Our Holy Embodiment
Following this thesis, it is the Madonna herself who represents the more fully divine form of Sophia. On these early Gothic cathedrals she sits with the child on her lap, who holds up two fingers. As I explore in my book — and as Tabor outlines in Jesus and Paul — this represents the Second Adam, the restoration of the original plan Sophia seeded: the planting of bodily dwellings, which went awry through the interference of the archons. The Sophia Project, or the Christ Drama, works to set us back on track and to acquaint us with the broader cosmology — the creation story of our origins — so that we may realign with our truer nature.
These images of Mary and Child at Notre Dame and Chartres, in the Sedes Sapientiae or Throne of Wisdom pose, were clearly inspired by the wooden figure now displayed in the crypt at Chartres. Legend holds that it was placed there by the Druids in the second century BCE, as was often done at the sites of sacred springs. On this theory, the Christ child represents the renewal of the human form as its divine nature is reactivated after having been downgraded by the archonic control system. Here, as in all the sculpted images of Christ, he holds a book — usually taken to be the Bible. But is it?
Virgin and Child, Crypt, Chartres Cathedral
Sophia and the Holy Embodiment, Notre Dame. ~ 1145 - 1155
Sophia and the Holy Embodiment, Chartres. ~1145
Sedes Sapientiae, the Throne of Sophia ~ 1180
“For those who were in the world had been prepared by the will of our sister Sophia…because of the innocence which has not been uttered. And she did not ask anything from the All, nor from the greatness of the Assembly, nor from the Pleroma. Since she was first, she came forth to prepare monads and places for the Son of Light and the fellow workers which she took from the elements below to build bodily dwellings from them. But, having come into being in an empty glory, they ended in destruction in the dwellings in which they were, since they were prepared by Sophia.”
- Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Nag Hammadi Library
“Man, here below, born from blood, is the dwelling, and the Boundless Power dwells in him.”
- The Great Revelation, attributed to Simon Magus
The Pineal Staff - The Divine Spark Within
In several images of Christ and the Mary-Sophia, they hold a staff topped with a pinecone shape. This could carry echoes of earlier Greek mythological motifs. But given the throughline of this thesis, I suspect it concerns the process of Holy Embodiment. It may point to an activation of the pineal gland — which some call the seat of the soul — or it may image the Divine Spark, that latent seed of original Light within us. Notice how the pineal shape often sits on the same level as the pineal gland itself, in the center of the third-eye region.
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Laon Cathedral
Notre Dame
More evidence of a link between the Pistis Sophia and Gothic Cathedral themes
A further line of support comes from research into the "sacred" geometric proportions thought to underlie these designs. Frederick Bligh Bond, in his work on gematria, argued that the Pistis Sophia and the Books of Ieou contain Greek letter- and word-choices whose numeric values encode geometric proportions matching the early Gothic architectural scheme. (Gematria is a method of correlating letters and numbers in ancient Greek and Hebrew, in use from around the third century BCE.) On the basis of these calculations, Bond suggested that a Pistis Sophia text was available to the Gothic architects in the twelfth century, and that the post-crucifixion "mystery" teachings of Jesus played some part in the design of these new Christian temples. Gordon Strachan, in Chartres: Sacred Geometry, Sacred Space (Floris Books, 2003), likewise reads an esoteric Greek gematria into the design, finding at the very center of the plan a 7 × 6 proportion that he links to the "Two" of the early Christian mysteries — Christos and Our Lady Wisdom.
The Voice of Sophia
I move in everyone and I delve into them all.
I walk uprightly, and those who sleep, I awaken…
And I am inviting you into the exalted, perfect Light.
It is a mystery; it is unrestrainable by the Incomprehensible One.
It is invisible to all those who are visible in the All.
It is a Light dwelling in Light.
“It is a hidden Light, bearing a fruit of life,
pouring forth a living water from the invisible,
unpolluted, immeasurable spring, that is,
the unreproducible Voice of the glory of the Mother,
the glory of the offspring of God…”
- Trimorphic Protennoia, Nag Hammadi Library