Chapter LXI: Section IV: Sophia

Perhaps we ought to consider Sophia (Σοφία) as one of the words most closely connected with divine attributes, since its use as a name was owing to the dedication of that most gorgeous of Christian temples by which Justinian declared that he had surpassed Solomon. It was called, and it has borne the title through its four hundred years of bondage to Islam, Sta. Sophia (the holy wisdom of God), that figurative wisdom whom Christians considered the Book of Proverbs to point out as the Word of God. Moreover, the words of the ‘Preacher,’ in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “Wisdom (Σοφία) is the mother of fair Love and Hope and holy Fear,” suggested an allegory of a holy woman with three daughters so called, and thus, in compliment, no doubt, to the glorious newly-built church, the niece of Justinian’s empress, afterwards wife to his nephew and successor, was called Sophia, a name which thenceforward became the fashion among the purple-born daughters, and spread from them among the Slavonian nations, who regarded Constantinople as the centre of civilization.

Through these Slavonians Sophia spread to Germany. A Hungarian princess was so called in 999; another, the daughter of King Geysa, married Magnus of Saxony, in 1074, and Saxony scattered its Sophias in the next centuries all over the neighbouring states and into Denmark, where it has always been a royal name. Very nearly had the Electress Sophia brought it to our throne, and though the unhappy Sophia Dorothea of Zelle never took her place in the English Court, her grand-daughters made it one of the most fashionable ladies' names under the House of Hanover; and though its reign has passed with the taste for ornamental nomenclature, yet the soft and easy sound of Sophy still makes her hold her own.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ German. │ Danish. │ Frisian. │
│Sophia │Sophie │Sophia │Saffi │Vye │
│Sophy │ │Fieke │ │ │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Italian. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Lett. │ Hungarian. │
│Sofia │Ssofija │Zofia │Sappe │Zsofia │
│ │Ssonia │Zosia │Wike │Zsofe │
│ │Ssoniuska │ │ │ │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘