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:
[Illustration: Coptic Script.]
“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,
[Illustration: Coptic Script.]
“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.
* * * * *
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]
* * * * *
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]
* * * * *