In every organism we necessarily have two unities;
on one hand, the unity of the active beginning which reduces the plurality of the elements to itself as to one;
on the other hand, that plurality as reduced to unity, as the definite image of this beginning.
We have the producing unity and the produced one, or unity as the beginning (in itself)
and unity in phenomena.
In the divine organism of Christ, the acting, unifying beginning, the beginning which expresses the unity of the unconditionally-extant one, obviously is the Word of Logos. The unity of the second kind, the produced unity, in Christian theosophy bears the name of Sophia. If in the absolute we differentiate in general the absolute as such, i.e., as the unconditionally-extant One, from its content, essence or idea, then we find the direct expression of the first in the Logos, and of the second in Sophia, which is thus the expressed, realized idea. And as the extant One, differing from its own idea is at the same time one with it, so Logos, too, differing from Sophia, is eternally connected with her. Sophia is God's body, the matter of Divinity*, permeated with the beginning of divine unity. Christ, who realized that unity in Himself or is the bearer of it, as the integral divine organism — universal and at the same time individual — is both Logos and Sophia.
*
Such expressions as 'body' and 'matter' we use here in the most general sense, as relative categories, not connecting with them those particular conceptions which can have place only in application to our material world but are absolutely unthinkable in relation to Divinity.
To speak about Sophia as an essential element of Divinity does not mean, from the Christian point of view, to introduce new gods. The thought of Sophia was always present in Christianity;
more than that, it existed even before Christianity. There is in the Old Testament a whole Book ascribed to Solomon which bears the title of Sophia. This book is not canonical, but, as is known, even in the canonical book of the 'Proverbs of Solomon' we find the development of this idea of Sophia (under the corresponding Hebrew name of Hohma). 'Wisdom', it is stated here, 'existed before the creation of the world' (i.e., of the natural world);
'God possessed her in the beginning of His ways', i.e., it is the idea which God had before Him in His
[work of]
creation and which He, consequently, realizes. We find this term in the New Testament as well, now in a direct relation to Christ (in St. Paul).
The representation of God as the integral being, as the universal organism, which presupposes a plurality of essential elements comprising this organism — this representation may seem to violate the absoluteness of Divinity, to bring Nature into God. But it is precisely in order that God be unconditionally distinguished from our world, from our Nature, from this visible reality, that it is necessary to acknowledge in Him His particular eternal nature. His special eternal world. Otherwise our idea of Divinity will be poorer, more abstract, than our conception of the visible world.
The negative course in the
[evolution of]
religious consciousness was always such that Divinity was first, so to speak, cleared of all actual definition, was reduced to a pure abstraction, and then religious consciousness easily dispensed with this abstract Divinity and passed into irreligious consciousness, into atheism.
If we do not acknowledge in Divinity the whole fullness of reality, and consequently, of necessity, plurality also, then, inevitably, the positive significance
[it has]
passes to the plurality and to the reality of
this
world. Then Divinity retains only a negative significance and little by little is denied;
for if there is no other reality,
[if]
the unconditional one
[does not exist],
[and if there is no]
other plurality,
[no]
other fullness of being, then our present reality is the only one;
and then Divinity is left without any positive content: it is either merged with this world, with this nature — this world, this nature are acknowledged
[then]
as the direct, immediate content of Divinity
[so that]
we pass into a naturalistic pantheism, where this finite nature is all, and God is an empty word only;
or, and this is more logical, Divinity, as an empty abstraction, is simply denied, and consciousness appears
[to be]
frankly atheistic.
Thus to God, as the integral being, together with unity belongs plurality — the plurality of substantial ideas, i.e., of potencies or forces with definite special content.
These forces, each possessing its own particular definite content,
[and]
related in a different manner to the content of the others, necessarily represent different secondary wholes or spheres. They all constitute one divine world, but this world is necessarily differentiated into a plurality of spheres.
If the divine whole is composed of essential elements, of living forces with definite individual content, then these entities must represent
[certain]
fundamental traits, which necessarily belong to every individual being — certain traits of a psychical character, common to all living forces.
If each of them realizes a definite content or idea, and if the force realizing them can, as we have seen, be related to a definite content or idea in three ways, i.e., can possess this content as an object of the will, can enclose it in itself as the desired, then represent it, and, finally, feel it;
if it
[the force]
can be related to it
[to the content]
substantially, ideally, and really or sensuously
[sensorially?]: then it is easy to see that the sensory elements of the divine whole must differ among themselves according to the predominance of this or that relationship: if the will predominates,
[it is the sphere of]
the moral principle;
if perception
[predominates], it is that of the theoretical principle;
or, finally,
[in the case of]
feeling, the principle of aesthetics.
