Chapter I: Part 1

Pistis Sophia

PISTIS SOPHIA

LITERALLY TRANSLATED FROM THE COPTIC BY GEORGE HORNER

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
F. LEGGE, F.S.A.

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.

_Printed in Great Britain_

1924

PREFACE

The history of Gnosticism, which may be defined as the belief that man’s place in the next world is determined by the knowledge of it that he acquires in this, goes back probably to the very dawn of our civilisation; but its importance for most of us is mainly centred round the first three centuries of our Era. Not even Christianity, as Amélineau quotes from Pascal, was able at once to make an angel out of a beast; and no sooner did it emerge from its first home in Judæa into the broader light of the Roman Empire than there sprang up within it many more or less secret schools which sought to combine the truths of the new religion with some of the most pernicious superstitions of the old. Until lately, however, our knowledge of the teaching of these post-Christian Gnostics has been limited to the statements of their opponents. Before the close of the second century, Irenaeus and Tertullian had written against them; and, some two hundred years later, Epiphanius, then Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, repeated their accusations in his huge _Panarion_, with some doubtful additions of his own in a form which at least has the merit of restoring for us a great part of the lost Greek text of Irenaeus. These writers were avowed heresy-hunters, keenly alive to the danger to Christianity in the doctrines which they exposed, and therefore necessarily inclined to believe the worst that could be said against them. But granting the Fathers’ entire good faith in the matter—and that of Irenaeus and Tertullian at least is undoubted—there was one cogent reason why their account of Gnostic teaching had to be received with suspicion. The leaders of the Gnostics did not teach openly but in secret and by a method of initiation and allegory which was directly copied from the Mysteries then current in the Pagan world; and such of their writings as fell into the hands of the Catholics were therefore not likely to give any clear view of their doctrine without prolonged study and comparison. Hence the heresiologists, while dwelling upon minor points which seemed strange and absurd to those who had not the key to their meaning, exaggerated the differences between the different teachers and ignored for the most part the many features of their teaching which they had in common. In the words of one who certainly had no leaning towards the error which the Fathers belabour: “... they took minor and unimportant details and magnified them, and treated them as the essentials of a system or systems.... The essential principles were largely the same throughout, the difference was chiefly in regard to details. It is this conduct on the part of the Fathers that gives us such a distorted and often ridiculous view of Gnosticism.”[1]

It is true that Clement of Alexandria and his friend Origen, writing in the birthplace of post-Christian Gnosticism, afford us a more tolerant and philosophical idea of Gnostical teaching, and have even preserved for us some precious extracts from the writings of the school of Valentinus, the great leader—who at one time nearly attained to the Primacy of the Catholic Church; but save for this, it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that we had any chance of studying Gnosticism from the works of its adherents. The discovery in 1840 of an almost complete copy of Hippolytus’ _Philosophumena_ gave us for the first time sufficient excerpts from those writings to enable us to judge of their style and form; and the publication in 1851 of Schwartze’s text of the _Pistis Sophia_ first made it known to the world of scholars that there were in the Museums of London and Oxford Coptic MSS. undoubtedly written by Gnostics for Gnostics. It is the longer and more important of these which forms the subject of the following pages.

The value of our text for the study of the early days of Christianity can hardly be overrated. If I am right in my conclusions, the main part of the documents which it contains are actually from the school of Valentinus, the heresiarch just mentioned who flourished in the reign of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, and one of them was certainly written before the Fourth Gospel was known to the Christian communities of the East. Hence it is to be placed among the earliest Christian writings, and follows immediately in point of date on the Synoptics and other writings of the Apostolic Age. Both this and the other documents in the MS. show also how these heretical schools used to wring and twist Scripture for their purpose, how closely their teaching was linked with the Egyptian and other religions of the pre-Christian world, and how surely, in spite of some good and even noble elements, it was bound to end as they did in what the late Professor Tylor styled with justice “one of the most pernicious delusions which ever vexed mankind, the belief in magic.” As I am dealing with this at more length in the Introduction, I will say nothing further about it here; but I may point out that the outlandish names and words in the later documents of our text have not yet been fully elucidated, and that it is probable that many of its episodes are intended to bear an allegorical interpretation. The use of words in a double sense is also one of the many means adopted by the writers in order to conceal their meaning from the profane, and this should be constantly borne in mind by the reader.

F. L.

Footnote 1:

A. C. McGiffert, _Prolegomena to Church History of Eusebius in Schaff
and Wace_. Select Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers. I. p.
179, n. 17.

The literal translation follows the order of the words as far as possible, and with common verbs very seldom uses the passive form for which the Coptic employs the third person plural, and occasionally requires the preposition denoting the agent. There are two words for “and,” one meaning addition and the other being the common preposition “with.” As a general rule the meaning “with” is kept, and very rarely in the translation “together” precedes “with” to show that it is not “and.” “And,” “with” are often used meaning only “and.” Greek ἀλλά and δέ have not been distinguished, and all Greek words can be found printed within brackets in Dr. Schmidt’s German translation (Leipzig, 1905). The indefinitive or frequentative tense has been translated by “wont to,” with expression of “wont” repeated when the Coptic repeats this expression. The preposition “in” is often translated “from” when the sense requires the change.

Another translation made by Mr. Legge from my literal translation was carefully annotated by him, and many difficulties of terms and expression were explained. After the death of Mr. Legge it was decided by the Committee of S.P.C.K. to refrain from publishing this great addition to the work, and to print as much of Mr. Legge’s Introduction as would supply explanations required.

G. H.

ABBREVIATIONS

(M.) = margin.

(MS.) = the manuscript.

The numbers in square brackets give the pages of the manuscript.

CONTENTS

PREFACE ... iii

INTRODUCTION ... vii

1. The MS. and its History ... vii

2. The Documents in the MS. ... xiv

3. The Purpose and Composition of the MS. xxviii

4. The Authorship and Date of the Documents ... xxxviii

THE FIRST DOCUMENT ... 1

THE SECOND DOCUMENT ... 63

THE THIRD DOCUMENT ... 127

THE FOURTH DOCUMENT ... 180

THE FIFTH DOCUMENT ... 193

INDEX OF PSALMS AND ODES ... 201

GENERAL INDEX ... 203

INTRODUCTION

1. THE MANUSCRIPT AND ITS HISTORY

The Manuscript known as the _Pistis Sophia_ and now in the British Museum was bought by the authorities in 1785 for the sum of ten guineas at the sale of the library of the antiquary, Dr. Anthony Askew. How it came into Dr. Askew’s possession is not accurately known. It is written throughout in Coptic of the dialect of the Sahid or Upper Egypt, and is on vellum in an excellent state of preservation. In appearance it singularly resembles a modern book, being written on small quarto leaves measuring 8⅜ inches by 6½, in double columns on both sides of the skins. It contains 174 leaves in all, and the pages are numbered consecutively in Coptic[2] letters, at first on one side of the page only, but later on both sides. We are therefore able to establish that there are no leaves missing from the body of the MS. since its pagination, until we come to the 337th page (p. 379 of Schwartze’s printed text),[3] after which four leaves are wanting, the next page in the volume being numbered 344. On the 114th page (p. 125 of Schwartze), the scribe had left the last two-thirds of the page blank, and this was filled at some later time by the cryptogram given on p. 62, _infra_, in a different hand and in blacker ink than the foregoing part of the MS. The original writing is resumed on p. 115, but above the point at which the other pages begin is written:

“The Second Tome of the Pistis Sophia,” from which the whole MS. has taken the title by which it is known. At the foot of the first column of the front or _recto_ of p. 233 (p. 252 of Schwartze), there is also written after a line of ornament,

“A part of the Books of the Saviour,” and the same words (omitting one word) occur at the foot of the first column of the back or _verso_ of p. 317 (p. 357 of Schwartze). On the last leaf in the book has been left a blank, which some later writer has used for a sentence about the Apostles going to the four quarters of the world to preach the Gospel, which has no apparent connection with our text.[4] Two lines at the foot, now become so faint as to be illegible, may have contained the names of the scribes or owners of the MS.

Apart from this incidental use of the parchment on which it is written, all who have studied the MS. are of opinion that it is the work of more than one scribe. Uncial letters are used throughout, and for the first score or so of pages are so carefully and elegantly formed as to compare not unfavourably with those of the calligraphically perfect _Codex Alexandrinus_, also on exhibition in the British Museum. According to Mr. Crum, whose acquaintance with nearly every Coptic MS. yet brought to light is unrivalled, the second hand begins at the twenty-second page, after which the writing not only becomes more careless and the letters less well formed, but the method of correction for misspelt or omitted words alters. This second hand continues, according to the same authority, up to p. 210, when the first hand resumes and continues up to p. 386, but Mr. Crum says nothing as to the writing of the few remaining pages. Dr. Carl Schmidt of Berlin, whose work in connection with the MS. will be noticed at length later, agrees in the main with this, and would apparently put the termination of the second scribe’s task at p. 195 of the manuscript, and he says that the first scribe here resumes and continues to the end. A note, however, taken by the present writer on his first inspection of the MS. thirty years ago, records that while the writing of the Second Document, which begins at p. 125, on the whole resembles the writing of the preceding pages, yet a change takes place on the _verso_ of p. 210 which indicates yet a third hand, and this is confirmed by his later scrutiny for the purpose of this edition.[5] Save for this, there is no serious doubt as to the number of hands which have worked on the MS.; and Mr. Crum, in confirming Dr. Schmidt’s view that the alternative work of the scribes shows that the whole of the MS. must have been written at one time, adds that the corrections of the work of the second scribe seem to be in the hand-writing of the first.[6] This is of importance when we come to consider the purpose with which the MS. was made.

The date at which the MS. was written is the subject of a much greater difference of opinion. Woide, who was the first to call attention to it, thought that this was at latest the fourth century, the Abbé Hyvernat the seventh,[7] Amélineau—whose work upon it will presently be noticed—the ninth or tenth, and Dr. Schmidt the fifth. All these conclusions were apparently arrived at on paleographic grounds and I do not feel myself qualified to discuss them; but the dates of the different documents from which the MS. was copied will be dealt with later. Nearly all those who have studied it are of opinion that these documents were originally written in Greek, and that our MS. is therefore only a translation.[8]

After its purchase by the Museum, the MS. remained unnoticed until Woide, then minister at the German Chapel at St. James’ Palace and subsequently the editor of the _Codex Alexandrinus_, called attention to it in Cramer’s Beiträge for 1778. Later, he appears to have copied out the whole MS., to which he refers in his _Appendix to the Alexandrian Codex_ in 1799. The extracts that he there gave from it were sufficient to enable the Danish Bishop Münter to publish in 1812 the five “Odes of Solomon” quoted in it, of which no other copy was known until Dr. Rendel Harris’ recent discovery of them in a Syriac MS. The learned Academician, Dulaurier, when on a visit to England, in 1838, also made a copy of our MS., and proposed to publish it with a French translation, but died before doing so; and the MS. would probably have remained unknown even to scholars but for the pains of Maurice George Schwartze, a young German, who was sent over here in 1848 by the generosity of the King of Prussia, to study such of our MSS. as seemed to him valuable. Schwartze completed a fairly accurate copy of the text, and also translated it into Latin retaining untranslated the Greek words which occur on every page; but he too died before the result of his labours could be printed, and the task of editing and correcting his translation fell upon his friend Petermann, who published both Schwartze’s Coptic text and his Latin (and Greek) translation in 1853. Unfortunately, Petermann, though a competent Coptic scholar for his time, did not feel called upon to contribute anything more than textual criticism to his predecessor’s work.[9] Schwartze’s text was therefore published without introduction or notes other than corrections of mistranslated words and suggestions for alternative readings; and this prevented the book from obtaining such general notice as was given to the _Philosophumena_ of Hippolytus which appeared at nearly the same time. Bunsen, who had begun the controversy between Catholic and Protestant scholars which sprang up round Hippolytus’ work,[10] poured contempt upon the _Pistis Sophia_ as “a most worthless offshoot of the Marcosian heresy,” and, although Köstlin contributed a long discussion of the work to a Tübingen theological annual in 1854,[11] it remained practically unknown to English readers for more than thirty years.[12]

At length in 1887, Lipsius published a detailed study of it in Smith and Wace’s _Dictionary of Christian Biography_, in which full use was made of Köstlin’s analysis, and he agreed with that writer in assigning to it an Ophite origin, although he also drew attention to certain peculiarities which appeared to him Manichæan. In the same year there also appeared the second edition of C. W. King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_, which gave for the first time to English readers translations of a great part of the work. The late Mr. King, then Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, had hitherto been known chiefly as a collector of ancient gems on which he had published many useful volumes, and he proposed, like his predecessors, to publish a full translation of the _Pistis Sophia_. At his death such a translation was found among his papers; but the failure of his eyesight, which had taken place even before the issue of the second edition of his _Gnostics_, had left it in such a condition that his executors decided against giving it to the public. It was confessedly made from Schwartze’s Græco-Latin version only; but Mr. King did much to attract public notice to the _Pistis Sophia_ by the excellent and dignified English in which his extracts from it were clothed, and the erudition which he brought to bear upon points like the less-known religions of the Roman Empire and the barbarous names and words left entirely unexplained in Schwartze’s version. He also asserted in his Preface, with much show of reason, that it was the statements made by him in his first edition that led Madame Blavatsky, whom he describes as “the Sibyl of Esoteric Buddhism,” to include the relics of Gnosticism among the foundations of what he refers to as “her new religion.”

Before this hint was taken, the MS. again received attention from a scholar in many respects well fitted to deal with it. M. Amélineau, who had for many years devoted himself to the study of Coptic religious texts, and had also a very considerable working knowledge of Egyptology, published in the same year of 1887, in the _Annales du Musée Guimet_ an “Essai sur le Gnosticisme Egyptien,” in which he dealt at great length with the _Pistis Sophia_, and compared it for the first time to the _Papyrus Bruce_ of the Bodleian Library at Oxford which had hitherto defied interpretation. Both these works he assigned to the school of Valentinus, the heresiarch whom the Ante-Nicene Fathers considered the most dangerous enemy of the Catholic Church, and he followed this up in 1891 by publishing in the _Notices et Extraits_ of the Académie des Inscriptions, the text and translation into French of the Oxford Papyrus. These two publications were both made at the expense of the French Government and were therefore produced in a style worthy of the subject, and with all the notes, references, and illustrations that they seemed to demand. But the _Pistis Sophia_ remained untouched by M. Amélineau save for the excerpts from it to be found in his _Essai_, until in 1895 he astonished the learned world by publishing in a series called “_Les Classiques de l’Occulte_,” a low-priced translation into French of the whole _Pistis Sophia_ with a comparatively brief introduction devoted almost entirely to the vindication of the opinion formerly advanced by him as to its authorship. M. Amélineau will be remembered by many as the first explorer of the Protodynastic Tombs at Abydos which entirely revolutionised all our ideas of early Egyptian history; and it was probably only the difficulties under which he laboured all his life which prevented him from publishing the results of this—his first and only excavation—in a manner which would have gained him the full credit of his really epoch-making discovery.[13] It was doubtless the same difficulties which compelled him to produce his translation of the _Pistis Sophia_ in the form in which he did; and although he states in his Introduction that he inspected the MS. at the British Museum during a visit to London shortly before his translation appeared, it is plain that this translation was made from Schwartze’s text only, that the work was executed throughout in so hasty a fashion as to leave nearly all the faults of Schwartze’s version uncorrected, and that it passes by most of the difficulties presented by the MS. without attempt at solution. It was in consequence very severely criticised first by Dr. Schmidt, and then by Dr. Andersson, the editor of the Swedish Egyptological periodical, _Sphinx_, and most of these criticisms appear unfortunately to be well founded.

Such as it was, however, it gave rise to the only complete English translation of our MS. which has yet appeared in print. Mr. G. R. S. Mead, then secretary of the Theosophical Society, the year after the appearance of Amélineau’s French translation, published with the Theosophical Publishing Company an English translation of the _Pistis Sophia_, which on its title-page is expressed to be made from “Schwartze’s Latin Version ... checked by Amélineau’s French Version.” Mr. Mead laid no claims to proficiency in Coptic, and had already published more than half his work in a Theosophical magazine before Amélineau’s version saw the light. His attitude towards the original may be guessed by the statement in his Preface that the comprehensive treatment of Gnosticism “requires not only a writer who at least believes in the possibilities of magic, but also a mystic or at least a person who is in sympathy with mysticism,” and by the fact that he had already attempted to explain the Cabalistic Cryptogram on p. 125 by Sanskrit words. He further states in his Introduction that he proposes to publish a commentary on the whole book, his Introduction dealing only with the date and authorship; but up to the present this has not appeared. It is also evident that in his translation from Schwartze’s Latin version he has omitted in more than one instance to notice Petermann’s emendations, which in some cases completely change the meaning of the passage; and altogether it may be said that the most valuable part of his work is the short bibliography appended, in which he gives fairly long extracts from the authors whom he quotes.

The way was therefore still left open for a translation of the _Pistis Sophia_ by competent hands, and the appearance of Dr. Schmidt’s work in 1905 at first sight gave hopes that this was at last accomplished. The book, which bears the somewhat clumsy title of _Koptisch-Gnostischen Schriften, Ersten Buch_ only, is one of the excellent series of translations of Christian writers of the first three centuries published by the Church Fathers Committee of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science, and contains a full German translation of both the _Pistis Sophia_ and the _Bruce Papyrus_. Dr. Schmidt is a scholar whose competence in the Coptic language is probably only surpassed by that of Mr. Crum, he has all his’ countrymen’s taste for philology and grammar, and his acquaintance with the Christian literature of the early centuries of our Era is profound. It is not therefore to be wondered at that his translation of our text is from the etymological point of view as nearly perfect as our present knowledge of Coptic—still limited by the paucity of MSS. other than Biblical—allows it to be, and that very little complaint can be made against it on the score of verbal accuracy. The addition to it of a translation of the _Bruce Papyrus_ is also most convenient for purposes of reference; but perhaps by reason of this, Dr. Schmidt’s notes on his translation of the British Museum MS. are confined to Scripture references and verbal matters only, while in his Introduction he only gives seventeen pages to consideration of its history, writing, language, composition, source, and date. This cursory treatment is doubtless in part due to his having in the text and translation of the _Bruce Papyrus_, published by him in 1892 in Harnack and Gebhardt’s well-known series of “_Texte und Untersuchungen_,” already given his views on these matters, most of which he reiterates in the Introduction last mentioned. These views may be briefly stated as follows:

1. The _Pistis Sophia_ is not Valentinian, but comes from an obscure
sect of what he calls Barbelo-Gnostics, known as Severiani.

2. Its title should not be _Pistis Sophia_ but Τεύχη τοῦ Σωτῆρος.

3. While admitting that the whole work is a
“_Miszellenhandschrift_,” he thinks that the Fourth Document is the
oldest in the collection and, as it were, the root of the other
three, which in their turn form a connected whole.

Dr. Schmidt’s fellow-countrymen Drs. Lichtenhau and Preuschen have already attacked some of these positions in the _Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie_[14] and elsewhere, and after mature consideration, the present writer feels himself compelled to dissent from all three. The reasons for doing so will be best given when we come to consider the composition and authorship of the MS. Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it may be said that beside the work of Köstlin, Lipsius, and Dr. Schmidt, the _Pistis Sophia_ has been treated of at some length in Father Giraud’s _Ophitus_ (1884), and in a special work by Prof. Harnack in the _Texte und Untersuchungen_ above mentioned (1891). More recently, it has also been dealt with by M. Eugène de Faye in his _Introduction à l’Etude du Gnosticisme_ (1903) and his _Gnostiques et Gnosticisme_ (1913), by Dr. James Moffat in his article under its name in Hastings’ _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, and by the present writer in his _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_ (1915).[15] The late Sir Gaston Maspero and Prof. Lieblein (of Christiania) have also stated their conviction that it could only have been written by persons intimately acquainted with the old Egyptian religion, on which point none could speak with greater authority than they.[16]

2. THE DOCUMENTS IN THE MS.

As has been said above, Dr. Schmidt speaks of our text as a miscellany, and the phrase by no means overstates the case. It contains indeed no less than six documents, only the two first of which are directly connected or can be taken as necessarily intended to be read consecutively. The second of these breaks off in the middle of a conversation, the third has neither beginning nor end. The opening sentence of the fourth implies that it is the continuation of a conversation which cannot be certainly identified with any that has gone before, and the same document concludes with a sentence which does not seem likely to be the end of the extract. The fifth begins with what is clearly a fresh narrative without reference to anything that has preceded it and must have ended in the _lacuna_ caused by the missing pages, while the sixth, whose beginning has been lost in the same _lacuna_, ends in the middle of a phrase. Of these six documents, the third only covers one and a half pages of the MS. and is manifestly a fragment of some document which has somehow strayed over into this place; but as it appears directly after the words: “A Part of the Books of the Saviour,” I hesitate to say that it never formed part of any of the other documents in the text, and I shall therefore speak of it hereafter as “The Interpolated Fragment” merely. Only the two first of the six, also, can claim to be included under the title of the _Pistis Sophia_, but they are by far the largest and take up between them more than half the volume. This arrangement follows strictly the rule of stichometry observed by writers of the period, which prescribes that the longest document shall come first. Thus in this translation:—

Document Begin page End page
1st 63 126
2nd 63 126
Interpolated 127 128
3rd 128 179
4th 180 192
5th 193 199

Taking these in this order, we will summarise them as briefly as possible.

* * * * *

The FIRST DOCUMENT, then, tells how Jesus spent twelve years after the Resurrection teaching His disciples the mysteries of the heavenly “places,”[17] but that their instruction did not extend beyond this visible, or more accurately, this sensible, universe which corresponds, it would seem, to the Third Chorema or Space of the “First Mystery” or God Manifest, of Whom Jesus is the Incarnation. This Chorema is under the governance of a Power called the First Law, under whom are eleven others called the Five Marks, the Great Light, and the Five Parastatai or Helpers; and all these twelve came from still higher states of being from which, we are told later, they voluntarily descended to take part in the scheme of salvation. When the First Document opens, however, Jesus has only told His disciples of the existence of those Powers, but has not revealed to them their origin, function, or arrangement; and all the action in this Document passes in the lower part of this Chorema which is called the Kerasmos or Confusion, because in it Light is mingled with Matter. The highest part of the Kerasmos is the Treasure house where the Light as it is won from Matter is stored up; and then come a great number of inferior Places inhabited by Powers concerned with the administration of our universe’s more material parts, especially the heavenly bodies or sun, moon, and stars. Below these again is our earth with its firmament or “Height,” and outside this Chaos or the dark and unformed mass of Matter which has received no Light.[18]

While Jesus is sitting with His disciples on the Mount of Olives, the Document goes on to say, there descends upon Him a “Great Power of Light,” which is in fact the “vesture” or Heavenly Nature which He had left in the Limit or Lower Boundary of the upper worlds on His descent to earth in “the shape of Gabriel.” This vesture enables Him to rise to the Boundary and there assume two other vestures which are necessary for the continuation of the journey to the two transcendental “Spaces” which are higher than this. In this first vesture, also, He finds five mysterious words written which are here interpreted as an address from the higher powers hailing Him as the First Mystery, and the catalogue of names which follows enables us to form a fairly correct idea of the arrangement of this Chorema as well as of the higher ones which are known as the “Spaces” of the First Mystery and of the “Ineffable” or Supreme Unmanifested God respectively.[19]

On assuming this vesture, Jesus flies into the Height, but returns the next day clad in three vestures of dazzling light, and tells His disciples how He provided for the births of Himself and them by casting into their respective mothers Powers from the higher parts of the Kerasmos instead of the material souls which they would otherwise have received from the Rulers of the stars. In like manner also, He tells how He caused the soul of Elijah to become incarnate in the body of John the Baptist. He then goes on to describe His journey upward through the First Sphere directly above the firmament, the Second Sphere called Destiny, and the Twelve Æons,[20] which appear to be the signs of the Zodiac. The Kings or Tyrants of these last rebel against Him, and He punishes them by taking away part of their power and altering their course, so that mankind will no longer be able to foretell the future by means of the astrology and magic taught them by the sinning angels. Leaving their Place, He ascends to the thirteenth Æon, and finds below it Pistis Sophia, the heroine of the book. She is, it appears, one of the twenty-four Unseen or Invisible Ones put forth in pairs by the head of the Left Hand or most material part of the Kerasmos, and had left her spouse and her work to pursue a light which she saw below her and which she thought would enable her to mount to the Treasure-house. This light, however, was a snare sent into Chaos by one of the material Powers immediately above her; and on her advancing to seize it, she was set upon by several material Powers that her persecutor had put forth and deprived of her own light, so that she could not return to her own Place in the thirteenth Æon.

In this plight, she sings hymns of penitence to the “Light of Lights” or Light of the Treasure-house, and these are all recited at full length by Jesus to His disciples, who identify them at His instance with passages from the Canonical Psalms, and from those “Odes of Solomon” which are mentioned above. These Penitences are twelve in number, and in the course of their recital and the conversation that takes place on them, we learn something more about the arrangement of the different worlds and the process of the redemption of Light from Matter which it is apparently the object of the book to describe. Finally, after this tenth “Penitence,” Jesus, who has throughout her affliction procured for Pistis Sophia certain alleviations in her misery, calls into existence several new Powers who go into Chaos to her assistance and form a crown of light to her head, so that her tormentors dare not come near to her.

With this the Document ends, and it is manifest from the appearance of the MS. that the scribes who wrote it, at this point thought that they had come to the end of their task and did not then expect to carry it further.

* * * * *

The SECOND DOCUMENT begins with the caption “The Second Tome of Pistis Sophia” in a handwriting which Mr. Crum has no hesitation in declaring to be the same as that of the first seventy pages of the Document. Whereas the First Document ends, however, with Jesus’ approval of Mary Magdalene’s interpretation of the quotation from the Psalms about Mercy and Truth kissing each other, the Second Document opens with another interpretation of the same text offered by John. Coupled with the caption given above, this seems sufficient to show that the Second Document was intended to be taken for a continuation of the First, although this by no means proves that they were written at the same time or by the same author. The Document goes on to elaborate the story of the rescue of Pistis Sophia, and tells with great detail how Gabriel and Michael being summoned for that purpose go to her assistance. This provokes a fresh display of anger on the part of the “Self-willed God” who is Pistis Sophia’s chief persecutor, and the powers of Chaos make a fresh assault upon her. On this, Jesus orders Gabriel and Michael to bear her on their hands out of Chaos, while He Himself descends thither, smites her tormentors, and renders them powerless to follow her. He then leads her into the “Place below the thirteenth Æon” where He finds her on His ascension from the Mount of Olives, and warns her that she will again be tormented when the Gate of the Treasure-house is set open. This apparently happens just before Jesus’ ascension in the vesture of light, and He then routs her enemies for the last time and restores her to her original Place in the thirteenth Æon, where she sings a final song of praise to Him for the wonders which He has wrought for her “in the world of men.”

This ends the episode of Pistis Sophia, who is not again mentioned until we come to the Fourth Document. The author now turns to what was probably the main reason for attempting the continuation of the First Document, which is the questioning of Mary Magdalene and the other disciples upon the order and use of the Heavenly Places, and the Saviour’s replies thereto.[21] Beginning with the answer to Mary’s question as to the nature of the twenty-four Unseen Ones of whom Pistis Sophia was one, the Saviour promises Himself to lead the disciples through all the Upper worlds right up to that of the Ineffable One Himself, each successive world and even Place being, it is said, so greatly superior in size and in light to the lower ones, that they will appear like grains of dust when viewed from it. He also tells them that the beatitudes in store for them will be progressive, beginning with the Millenium which will ensue when the number of perfect souls is accomplished, the Kerasmos purified and “caught up,” and the Twelve Disciples established with Jesus as joint Kings reigning over the blessed in the Last Parastates or Helper—a name given to the world which is placed in our universe immediately over the Treasure-house. Here they will apparently receive further instruction and be given “mysteries” which will enable them to mount to the upper universes before, it is expressly said, the “Projections” or emanations of the Treasure-house who are concerned with the administration of the scheme of salvation. The details of this scheme are extremely complicated, the Saviour several times promising to explain further in a subsequent revelation constantly referred to as “the Distribution of the Universe.”

But its final aim is indicated without ambiguity. Jesus, who as we have seen was hailed in the First Document as the First Mystery in the address of the Spirits written on the vesture of light sent to Him on the Mount of Olives, is throughout this part of the Second Document always spoken of by that title; and we are told that those who receive the highest mystery of all, called the “Mystery of the Ineffable One,” will be absorbed into His being. “That Man is I, and I am that Man,” are the words in which this announcement is made, and the full meaning of the phrase can be appreciated by other sentences in the narrative which go to show that this First Mystery is the first Being to come forth from the Ineffable One, and is regarded as a “Twin Mystery” or Father and Son, the first-named or “First Mystery looking inwards” being alone capable of remaining in contemplation of the greatness of the Ineffable One, while the Son or “First Mystery looking outwards” is sent to earth in the Person of Jesus Himself.[22]

The way to obtain this elevation in the scale of being is, perhaps, left purposely obscure, but it can apparently be gained by certain initiations or mysteries, which like the Mysteries of Eleusis will give the initiate the knowledge of the universe, how it came to be, and how it will end. These also are progressive and culminate in the “One Word of the Ineffable One,” the effect of which is so tremendous that if it be spoken over the dying, or for the dead, whether partly initiate or wholly uninitiate, it will expedite his passage to the heaven to which his initiation entitles him, or, in the case of one wholly uninitiate, will ensure his reincarnation in a “righteous” body, which will “find the God of Truth and the exalted mysteries, and will inherit them and the Light for ever and ever.”[23] The way to this and to the Mysteries in general is “the renunciation of the whole world and all the matter therein.”

Beside this, however, there are lesser mysteries which will admit the faithful recipient to heaven and privileges less exalted indeed than that last described, but will yet confer on him great beatitude after death. These, known collectively as the “Mysteries of the third Space,” involve a “Defence” a “Password” and a “Symbol” which have to be handed in by the dead in his flight upward so as to procure him uninterrupted passage to the heaven of which he has received the mystery. Of these, it is said that the disciples have no need, because nothing of the sort is required by the recipients of the higher mysteries, but Jesus adds that they are to be found in “the two great Books of Jeu” which “Enoch wrote when I spake with him out of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life in the Paradise of Adam.”[24] In spite of these assurances, Andrew provokes the Saviour by asking how “men of this world” can be expected to adventure after death upon the long and dangerous journey among all the Great Powers of the Treasurehouse and their subordinates, and the Saviour reminds him in reply that they and He are all of the same origin, being made from “the same mass and the same matter and the same substance” and are all “out of the same Confusion.”[25] On this, the other disciples successfully implore Jesus to pardon Andrew, and this Document ends in the middle of a sentence in which He declares that He has been sent for the remission of sins.

Before leaving this Document, it must be noted that in it there appear long rhetorical statements in a form which has no parallel in the other documents of our text. They repeat the same phrase with the variation of two or three words at each repetition, the object being apparently to give the hearer an idea which he could not otherwise obtain—except, perhaps, by a picture or diagram[26] of the different hierarchies of Powers or arrangement of Places which the speaker is describing. Thus in one place, Jesus, after speaking of the “Mystery of the Ineffable One,” goes on to declare that “that Mystery knoweth why the Darkness came to be and why the Light,” and then after going through a string of similar antitheses in which the Treasurehouse is contrasted with Chaos, murder with the quickening of souls, Death with Life and all sorts of natural phenomena with one another, continues with “That Mystery knoweth why the Triple Powers came to be and why the Unseen Ones,” and so on through an incredible number of Spirits and Powers until He at last reaches the First Emanation of the Ineffable One which is in fact Himself. This is amplified when He says later that “That Mystery knoweth” why these higher Powers “despoiled” themselves (or stripped themselves of their exalted natures), when a great part of the Places and Powers of the highest worlds are enumerated all over again. Not long after this, He has occasion to speak of the man who receives this same Mystery of the Ineffable One, when He says that “He is a man in the world, but he excelleth all the Angels and is more excellent than them all,” and then repeats the same phrase with regard to Archangels, Unseen Ones, Triple Powers, and all the Projections of the Treasurehouse and its dependencies for the third time.[27] This kind of rhapsody does not seem to be cast into any rhythmical form, yet seems to be intended for repetition by word of mouth rather than by writing. The only likeness that I can find to this practice is in one of the Chapters of the _Book of the Dead_, where all the different parts of the Hall of Two Truths demand to be told their names, or those in the _Book of Gates_ where the parts of the Bark of Ra make the like demand. It therefore seems to be a purely Egyptian feature and may be connected with the fact that the early Egyptian Church, like the colleges formed for the worship of gods like Amen in earlier times, had “prophets,” who seem to have occupied a position in the Church next after the bishop.

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The INTERPOLATED FRAGMENT which occupies most of the first leaf of the Third Document is entirely taken up with the relation of the Ineffable one to His “members”; but is too short and disconnected to give us much information on the subject. It is put into the mouth of Jesus and it makes allusion to other revelations which Jesus is said to have previously made or “written,” or which He promises. The style is not unlike that of the First Document, so that I do not see why it may not be an extract from the same book if, as may be probable, Jesus continued in it the account of His upward journey after leaving Pistis Sophia in the thirteenth Æon.[28]

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The THIRD DOCUMENT may perhaps be called without fear of contradiction “Part of the Books of the Saviour,” because it bears that title both at its head and at its foot. It begins by an exhortation to the disciples to preach “to the whole world” a series of ἀποτάγματα or renunciations of sin which may be connected with Jesus’ speech to Andrew at the end of the Second Document. It should be noted, however, that while in the Second Document mankind is to be entreated to renounce the world and its matter so that they may “go unto the Light,” the author of this Document presses them to abjure sin lest they suffer the torments of hell. These torments are also dealt with in considerable detail, and we can gather from the description that there are four Places of Punishment called respectively Amente, Chaos, the Middle Way, and the Outer Darkness.[29] This seems to be a sort of amalgam of different traditional beliefs, for while Amente appears in the _Book of the Dead_, Chaos in the First Document does not seem to be thought of as necessarily a Place of Punishment, and we have seen Pistis Sophia speaking of it in the Second Document as “the world of men.” So, too, the location of these different hells shows some confusion of thought. Amente is probably in the West or beyond the earth as it is in the _Book of the Dead_, Chaos is either the earth itself or beneath it, while the Middle Way is, like the Place of Punishment in the Enochian literature, in the firmament or “below the Sphere.” As for the Outer Darkness, its name shows it to be a relic of Pagan Egypt where it was held that beyond the confines of the earth, the air became so thick as to be actually tangible and concrete. Among the tormentors in these various hells we find Ariel, Pistis Sophia’s persecutor Ialdabaoth, one “Iakhthanabas the Merciless” and the Dragon of Outer Darkness who is depicted as a great serpent coiled round the world having his tail in his mouth and containing places of torment within him where ice and cold come to supplement the tortures of fire and smoke.

A great part of the Document is likewise taken up by the questions of Mary Magdalene and the other disciples, among whom John is the most insistent, as to the sinners to whom they shall give their mysteries and the effect which they will have on them. We who hear in this Document of a mystery or secret whereby the dead can be raised, the sick healed, and other wonders performed, although Jesus tells His disciples that this mystery belongs to the Archons or wicked Rulers of the Stars and is not to be used save for the purpose of establishing the faith throughout the world.[30] We also have much in this Document as to the soul or incorporeal part of man which the disciples are told consists of the Power, the Soul proper, the Spirit Counterfeit, and the Fate. Of these, the Power is the most worthy and causes the man to seek after the mysteries, and the soul is really the Life or Breath and is made either out of the _ejecta_ of the Rulers or from the dregs or grosser parts of the Light which is at certain periods squeezed out of them by certain powers appointed for that purpose. The Spirit Counterfeit, on the other hand, is the envelope or mask of the soul which constantly leads it to commit sin and bears witness after death to its having done so, while the Fate is the death to which the man is predestined, and which he can never escape while uninitiate.[31] Incidentally, too, we hear a good deal in this Document as to the Gnostic belief in the transmigration of souls, reincarnation being obligatory on such souls as have not found the more sublime mysteries.[32] Several formulas are also given whereby the soul can cut itself loose from the Spirit Counterfeit and the Fate, and we are told that even an uninitiated person can escape from the torments of the Dragon of Outer Darkness if one of the names of the reptile be said by or for him. Throughout this Document the tortures of the different hells and the beast-shaped demons who administer them are much dwelt upon. Finally, Jesus tells His disciples that He came to earth to bring these mysteries, and that had He not done so neither Patriarchs nor Prophets would have entered into the Light.[33]

* * * * *

The opening sentence of the FOURTH DOCUMENT shows plainly that it comes from a book written independently of the preceding ones and not as their continuation. It ignores completely the tradition held in the time of the Antonines by orthodox and heretic alike, that Jesus spent many years on earth after the Resurrection,[34] and announces that after He “rose from among the dead the third day,” His disciples gathered round Him reminding Him that they had left the whole world to follow Him.[35] Then begins a scene that reminds one irresistibly of the magical practices rife during the first three centuries of our Era, some details of which have come down to us in the _Philosophumena_ and in the different Magic Papyri to be found in the Museums of Paris, London, Leyden, and Berlin. Jesus, standing by an altar by the side of the sea “Ocean,” makes invocation to His Father in words which are not gibberish, as at first sight they appear to be, but a jumble of Hebrew, Egyptian, and perhaps Persian words copied and re-copied by scribes ignorant of these languages until they are all but unrecognisable. He calls upon the name of the Father of the Treasurehouse of Light, whereupon the heavens open revealing the “true shapes” of the sun and moon, and Jesus and His disciples are uplifted to “the Middle Way which is below the Sphere.” Here the arrangement of the stars is explained to them and they learn that the rebellious Rulers who persisted in copulation were bound to the Sphere to the number of 1800 for each sign of the Zodiac, under the rule of 360 of that number, who are themselves under the sway of the five Planets, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. Yet the author of this Document must have known, although he varies, the tradition of the First Document, for Jesus tells His hearers that these planets were strengthened by the infusion into Saturn of a Power from the Great Unseen God who projected Pistis Sophia, into Mars of a similar Power from one of the three Triple-powered Gods, into Mercury of one from another of the Triple Powers, and into Venus of one from “Pistis Sophia the daughter of Barbelo”[36]; while one from the “Little Sabaoth the Good,” a Power of higher rank than these last, who in the story of Pistis Sophia proper is described as supplying the Power which takes the place of Jesus’ own earthly soul, is cast into the planet Jupiter and is given rule over all the others. All these planets are given barbarous names in addition to their Greek ones, as are the Great Unseen God and the two Triple Powers, these last names appearing also in the Magic Papyri, while the names of both planets and Powers appear to have a real meaning.

Jesus then shows to His disciples the five torture-chambers of the Middle Way, each of them presided over by an “Authority,” who with his (or her) assistants has been chosen from among the rebellious Rulers. Each of these Authorities sees to the punishment of particular sins, which sins his or her ministers have “entered into man” and caused him to commit. Three of these presiding demons are females, one of them being the triple-faced Hecate still famous in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and among them we find the merciless Iakhthanabas already mentioned in the Third Document, and the Egyptian God Typhon. The different terms of punishment from 150 years downwards which sinful souls will suffer in these tortures of the Middle Way are all given, and it is expressly said that these places of torment will be dissolved when the two beneficent planets, Venus and Jupiter, come into certain positions in the Zodiac.[37] These Places are, it would seem, actually shown to the disciples, Jesus thereby in part fulfilling the promise made in the First Document to lead them through all the heavenly Places. He then restores the heavens to their normal condition, and returns with the disciples to the “Mountain of Galilee,” where he celebrates for them a sacrament with “fire and water, wine and blood.” The distribution of bread also forms part of this sacrament, and it is accompanied by a “sign” which we know from other sources was the conversion of one of the cups of wine into the water of baptism.[38] This “mystery” or sacrament is said to have the effect of remitting all the sins of the disciples, and they are told to perform the same ceremony for all those who will listen to their preaching. They remind Him that there are other Baptisms of Fire and the Holy Spirit of Light respectively, and He tells them that these are more excellent than any Mystery save only those of the Seven Sounds and of the Great Name of God, which if spoken to any demon will destroy him with all his tortures. He is apparently about to perform these for the benefit of the disciples when the Document abruptly ends with the gap left by the tearing-away of the four pages already noticed.