In the Marriage at Cana episode in the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples attend a wedding feast:

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.³ When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.^{[a] 7} Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ And he said to them,“Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.⁹ When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Canna in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

This entire episode is about the Hieròs Gàmos. In other words, it is the “Sacred Wedding” that is being discussed. “Marriage” is gàmos in the Greek original of John 2:1. It actually means literally “drinking party”, “feast”, or “banquet”, but it is the Bible word normally translated gàmos by the LXX (Abbott-Smith’s Lexicon, Bibliography).

The keys of knowledge here means for that final re-union is the Sacred Wedding (Hieròs Gàmos), whereby the syzygy Christòs-Sophia is established:

“Then the Pneumatic beings, having taken their psyches off, while the Mother (Sophia) unites to the Bridegroom (the Christ), take likewise the Angels as their husbands: they enter the Bridal Chamber within the Limit where, being now Aeons of the same nature as the Noûs, proceed towards the Vision of the Father, towards the eternal (aiônios), spiritual union of the Syzygy” (Excerpta ex Theodoto 64).

The above quote indicates that the soul for the Valentinian Christian was considered feminine. Entering the Bridal Chamber within the Limit implied that the soul had to take their Cross upon themselves. This is where the soul or spiritual heart itself is crucified. The Hieròs Gàmos is thus a purely spiritual event. This has to be contrasted with what one has to read in recently published indecent “best sellers”.

This is man’s final redemption, the liberation from this world of suffering and death, the “death” into which the Mother (Sophia) had plunged us and from which the Christ delivers us (ExTh 80:1). Liberation from death means the liberation from the cycle of repeated births and deaths (ensömatôseis – plural – ExTh 28).

In the quotation above it is said that the liberated souls “enter the Bridal Chamber within the Limit”; in other words, they have to cross the Limit, to pass through the Cross, in order to“proceed towards the Vision of the Father”. This has a profound significance: salvation is inseparable from taking upon oneself the Cross of the Savior. The “rest” (anàpausis – ExTh 63) promised to the saved ones is rest from the aimlessly toiling along the deadly path traced by self-centered interests in this world of darkness and suffering. But the reached Communion with the Lord implies the becoming compassionate and self-sacrificing as He is.

All that is narrated in the second chapter of John’s Gospel.

“On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.” (2:1).

“And the mother of Jesus was there”. It is obvious that she was there, for soon she will tell Jesus “They have no wine”.  So why mention her presence, even before that of the main character, Jesus? And please notice that she does not say: “They have no wine any more”; she says: “They have no wine”. Wine is absolutely lacking.

That is also obvious from the standpoint of the teaching, for Sophia, having generated the two lower Seeds and clothed the three of them with her substance, is the Mother of the Nazarene. The diòrthösis of the Seed, the communion established of the “male” Seed with the “female” Soul, is the obvious prelude to the Sacred Marriage, which will be consummated within the Pleroma.

“They have no wine”. The human soul realizes her “Lack” and addresses the Savior for help.“Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come” (2:4) — the Savior wants to know in which way the soul feels to be related to Him.

“My hour is not yet come”. “Not yet come”: the soul is not ready yet. “His mother said to the servants: Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it”. The soul’s trust in the Savior and in whatever He may want is absolute. Now the soul is ready and the miracle can take place.

But who are the “servants”?  “Servant” is the “messenger” or the “angel” or Logos. which is what Theodotos says: “The followers of Valentinus define the Angel: a Logos who has received a mission (apangelìa) from Him Who Is” (ExTh 25:1).

The servants take “six stone jars (lìthinai hydrìai hex)” each capable of containing  anà metrëtàs dyo ê treîs  — reads the original Greek, that is “two or three measures” (2:6). John is always precise with numbers (think of the 153 fishes of Chapter 21). Therefore the Revised Version’s “twenty or thirty gallons” is just misleading, much like the rest of the RV as well as the NIV for many reasons. The jars have may also represent Achamoth, the corrupted or fallen form of Sophia, the plural meaning of Her fragmentation into individual souls like the Orphic myth of Dionysus and the death of Osiris. The first and the third are the most likely, since the jars were used “for the purification of the Jews”, and the “Jews”, in John’s Gospel, mean the Psychic nature. Which Psychic nature (water), now added to the Hylic one (stone jars), is ready to be transferred to the highest, the Pneumatic, class.

By Jesus’ order, the jars are brought to the architrìklinos, to the “steward of the feast” (RV). Apparently architrìklinos does not appear in the LXX, which forces us to look ourselves for a Hebrew translation. The obvious one is “the head of the banquet”, since moreover, according to the Abbott-Smith’s Lexicon, archi- translates “head”, as for instance archierèus for “the chief priest”, or archisynàgögos for “the head of the assembly or synagogue”. The chief characters of the whole episode include, Christ, the Son of Man, and Sophia. The wine is symbolic of Jesus disseminating the Wisdom seed or the “Seed of the Logos” into the soul of man, which is symbolized as water. The soul becomes the seat for the living presence of the Pneumatic Seed.

Unless that Seed is active no diòrthösis (restoration) is in fact possible. Thus, the water is transmuted into wine, much like how course metals like lead or copper is transformed into gold by the old alchemists to create the Philosopher’s Stone. The wine also has connections with the “blood” of Jesus as being connected with the Eucharist. In Dionysian rites, wine was used for libations dedicated to the gods and a union with Dionysus. Wine is strongly associated with the Mysteries of Dionysus.

Also, Jesus, ready for the miracle, cannot say any more: “My hour is not yet come”. Aside from the soul being not ready, this enigmatic phrase is, however, answered later when about three days before he was crucified, Jesus was in the temple and some Greeks sought him out. Jesus said to them,

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal…Now my soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” (John 12:23-27)

Gnostically viewed, the spiritualization of man is the transformation of the Psychic nature into the Pneumatic one. Its natural symbol is the transformation of water (the symbol of the Psyche) into Wine (Spirit!). That must take place in the sphere of the “fallen” Sophia, the one to be redeemed, and must be the natural consequence of the Baptism, that is the descent of the Pneumatic Seed in the Waters of the Soul. This is also called the “Baptism of Wisdom” which has strong alchemical meanings attached. The Rosicrucian Chymical Wedding by Christian Rosenkreutz might also have some interesting correlations as well but I will save that exegesis for another time!