Before patriarchy erased her, people envisioned the Wisdom of God, Sophia, as female. She danced through creation, cried out in the streets, and stood beside God at the dawn of the world.

In reclaiming Sophia’s story, we recover an ancient affirmation of the divine feminine—a voice of insight, comfort, and revolutionary presence.

Sophia at the Beginning

In Proverbs 8, Sophia speaks of herself as preexistent:

“When [God] marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker” (Proverbs 8:30).

Sophia wasn’t an abstract idea. She was there, shaping the cosmos with God’s hand (Centre for Action & Contemplation, 2017).

Wisdom in the Marketplace

Sophia is not hidden in temples or locked behind palace gates. She is the voice crying out at the crossroads, calling people toward life (U.S. Catholic, 2016).

She meets humanity where it lives at the centre of daily life, offering wisdom and guidance in the mess and chaos of the streets.

Divine Embodiment

Sophia’s presence continued to echo in early mysticism. Russian Orthodox theologians, such as Sergius Bulgakov, described her as the feminine energy of God, mediating between the divine and creation (Braided Way, 2020).

This theology insisted that Sophia wasn’t marginal or symbolic—she was a living embodiment of divine Wisdom.

Sophia Searching for Us

Early interpreters even read Sophia into Jesus’ parables. In Luke 15, the woman searching for her lost coin was seen as Sophia, divine Wisdom seeking humanity with a lamp in hand (McAlister, 2018).

It’s a tender image: God searching for us not as a distant king, but as a woman sweeping her home, unwilling to stop until love is restored.

Why She Was Hidden

So why don’t we hear about Sophia anymore? Over time, church leaders worried that associating God with feminine images made theology too “pagan” or too close to goddesses like Isis. Sophia was pushed out, labelled heretical, and erased from much of mainstream Christianity (U.S. Catholic, 2016).

But she never disappeared entirely. Sophia’s voice continues to echo in scripture, poetry, and the longings of those who seek the divine feminine.

Sophia’s Return

To speak Sophia’s name today is to resist erasure. She reminds us that God is not only Father or Lord, but also Wisdom dancing, lamenting, nurturing, and present in feminine form.

Sophia is the Spirit who sings us into creation and refuses to be silenced.

References

• Centre for Action & Contemplation. (2017, November 7). Sophia: Wisdom of God. Retrieved from cac.org
• U.S. Catholic. (2016, January 4). Who is Sophia in the Bible? Retrieved from uscatholic.org
• Braided Way. (2020, July 28). Rediscovering Sophia: The Goddess in Christianity. Retrieved from braidedway.org
• McAlister, S. (2018). Christ as the Woman Seeking Her Lost Coin. Retrieved from theologicalstudies.net