[L. sophia, a. Gr. σοφία, f. σοφός wise. Cf. SOPHY2.]
1. Wisdom, knowledge; spec. the Divine Wisdom. (Freq. personified.)
1649. J. Ellistone, Behmen’s Epist., Pref. (1886), 5. This knowledge,… this garland, and crown of virgin Sophia. Ibid., 117. The fair and noble Sophia … which now at present standeth at the doore of your soule.
[1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xl. IV. 91. The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of Constantinople to saint Sophia, or the eternal wisdom.]
1840. Milman, Hist. Christianity, II. 124. The great mother Sophia, would at length be admitted into the Pleroma or intellectual sphere.
1865. trans. Hugo’s Nôtre Dame, II. vii. 95. Hermetics, that sophia of all sophias.
2. Used attrib. to designate the type of Jewish literature represented by the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, etc. Hence Sophian a.1
1904. Alex. R. Eagar, in Expositor, Aug., 117. The influence of the Sophia-literature in S. Luke’s Gospel is distinctly marked. Ibid. Undoubtedly a Sophian word from the Apocrypha.
