INTRODUCTION
The Askew CodexTHE unique MS. of the Coptic Gnostic document commonly called
'Pistis Sophia' was bought by the British Museum in 1785 from the
heirs of Dr. Askew, and is now catalogued as MS. Add. 5114. The
title on the back of the modern binding is '
Piste Sophia Coptice.' On top of the first page of the MS.
is the signature 'A. Askew, M.D.' On the first page of the binding
is the following note, probably in the hand of Woide, the most
famous Coptic scholar of those days and Librarian of the
Museum:"
Codex dialecti Superioris Ægypti, quam Sahidicam seu
Thebaidicam votant, cujus titulus exstat pagina 115: Pmeh snaou
ǹtomos ǹ̀tpiste Sophia--Tomos secundus fidelis Sapientiæ--deest
pagina 337-344."The title 'Piste Sophia' is incorrect. Nowhere is this form
found in the very numerous instances of the name in the text, and
the hastily suggested 'emendation' of Dulaurier and Renan to read
'Piste Sophia' thoughout has perforce received no support.Woide, in a letter to Michaelis (Bibliography, 4), says that
Askew bought the MS. from a book-seller (apparently in London); its
previous history is unknown. Crum informs us in an official
description (Bib. 46, p. 173) that at the end of a copy in the B.M.
of the sale-catalogue of Askew's MSS. is the entry: 'Coptic MS.
£10. 10. 0.,' and that this refers presumably to our Codex--a good
bargain indeed!The best descriptions of the MS. are by Schmidt (Introd. to
his Trans., Bib. 45, pp. xi f.), and Crum (
l.c.). The Codex is of parchment and contains 178 leaves =
356 pages 4to (8¾ x 6½ in.). The writing is in two columns of from
30 to 34 lines each. There are 23 quires in all; but the first has
only 12 and the last 8 pages, of which the last page is left blank.
It is, as a whole, in an exceptionally well-preserved state, only 8
leaves being missing (see ch. 143, end).The ScriptsThe writing as a whole is the work of two scribes, whose
entirely different hands are very clearly distinguishable. The
first (MS. pp. 1-22, 196-354) wrote a fine, careful, old uncial,
and the second (MS. pp. 23-195) in comparison a careless, clumsy
hand with signs of shakiness which S. thinks might suggest the
writing of an old man. They used different inks and different
methods both of paging and correction, not to speak of other
peculiarities. These scribes must have been contemporaries and
divided the task of copying fairly equally between them. So far
Crum and Schmidt are in complete agreement; they differ only as to
the handwriting of a note on MS. p. 114, col. 2, of the
superscription on p. 115 and of the last page (see pp. 105, 106 and
325 of Trans.).The ContentsFrom an external point of view the contents fall into 4 main
Divisions, generally referred to as Books i.-iv.i. The first extends to the end of ch. 62, where in the MS.
more than a column and a half has been left blank, and a short, but
entirely irrelevant, extract has been copied on to the second
column, presumably from some other book of the general allied
literature.There is no title, either superscription or subscription, to
this Div. Why the second scribe left a blank here in his copying is
a puzzle, for the text which follows on MS. p. 115 runs straight on
without a break of subject or incident.ii. The next page is headed 'The Second Book (or Section) of
Pistis Sophia.' Crum assigns this superscription to the second
hand, and the short extract on the second column of the preceding
page to the first. But Schmidt thinks that both are later additions
by another hand, and this is borne out both by the colour of the
ink and also by the very important fact that the older Coptic MSS.
have the title at the end and not at the beginning of a volume,
conserving the habit of the ancient roll-form. And as a matter of
fact we find at the bottom of MS. p. 233, col. 1, the subscription:
'A Portion of the Books (or Texts) of the Saviour' (see end of ch.
100).iii. There follows a short piece on the Gnosis of the
Ineffable (ch. 101), which is without any setting and entirely
breaks the order of sequence of ideas and is the end of a larger
whole. It is clearly an extract from another 'Book.'After this again with ch. 102 we have a very distinct change
of subject, though not of setting, from the ending of ii., so that,
in my opinion, it is difficult to regard it as an immediate
continuation. Later, at ch. 126, occurs another abrupt change of
subject, though not of setting, preceded by a lacuna in the text.
At the end of ch. 135 (bottom of MS. p. 318, col. 1) we have again
the subscription: 'A Portion of the Books of the Saviour.'iv. The last piece has no title, either superscription or
subscription. From the change of setting in its introduction and
the nature of its contents it is generally assigned to an earlier
phase of the literature. Here again a complete change of subject
occurs with ch. 144, after a lacuna of 8 leaves. Finally, on the
last page is an appendix, somewhat in the style of the
Mark-conclusion, beginning quite abruptly in the middle of a
sentence and presumably part of a larger whole. The contents,
measurements and writing make it almost certain that it formed no
part of the original copy. At the very end two lines surrounded by
ornamentation are erased. These may have contained the names of the
owner or scribes, or possibly a general subscript title.The TitleFrom the above indications and from a detailed study of the
contents it is evident that, though the episode of the adventures
of Pistis Sophia, her repentances and songs and their solutions
(chh. 30-64), occupy much space, it is by no means the principal
theme of the collection; it is rather an incident. The blundering
heading of a later scribe, 'The Second Book of Pistis Sophia,' some
two-thirds of the way through this episode, has misled earlier
scholars and set up the bad habit of referring to the whole
document as the 'Pistis Sophia'--a habit it is now too late to
change. If there is any general title to be derived from the MS.
itself, it should be rather 'A Portion' or 'Portions of the Books
of the Saviour.' Whether this title can be made to cover Div. iv.
is an open question. In any case we have before us extracts from a
more extensive literature which belonged to the same group, and of
which there were at least two strata. The contents of the Askew
Codex are thus a collection or a miscellany, and not a single
consistent work. It is very difficult, therefore, to distinguish
the contents by any consistent nomenclature. I have followed the
usual custom of calling the whole 'Pistis Sophia,' and let Divv. i.
and ii. stand as Books i. and ii., as is usually done, though this
is clearly improper, judged from the point of view of contents.
Thereafter I have distinguished the extracts in Div. iii. as being
from two different 'Books' (apart from the short insertion at the
beginning), and again those in Div. iv. as being from two different
'Books,' these 'Books' meaning simply subdivisions of or excerpts
from larger wholes.It seems highly probable that our scribes did not do the
extracting themselves, but found it already done in the copy which
lay before them.The Date of the MSThe date of our MS. is undecided, owing to the difficulty of
making exact judgments in Coptic paleography. The general view
assigns it with Schmidt to the 5th century. It may be noted that
Woide (Bib. 3) assigned it to the 4th, and Crum seems to agree with
him. Hyvernat (Bib. 21) suggests the 6th, and Wright (Bib. 16) the
7th. Amélineau (Bib. 35) goes to a ridiculous extreme by placing it
in the 9th or 10th century, but his too radical views have been
severely criticized.Translated from the GreekThe Coptic of the P.S. is in pure Sahidic--that is, the
dialect of Upper Egypt,--preserving many features of antiquity. It
is, however, clearly not the original language in which the
extracts were written. These, like the rest of the extant Coptic
Gnostic documents, were originally composed in Greek. This is shown
by the very large number of Greek words, not only names, but
substantives, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and even conjunctions,
left untranslated, on well-nigh every page, and this applies to the
O.T. and N.T. quotations equally with the rest. The
Schwartze-Petermann Latin version preserves every Greek word
throughout untranslated, and Schmidt's German translation
invariably adds them in brackets. In the P.S. a large number of
abstract qualificative general names of exalted super-æonic orders
is given, such as 'Unapproachables,' 'Uncontainables,' which could
not possibly be native to Coptic diction. In a number of passages
again, where the translator had difficulty, he slavishly follows
the Greek construction. Frequently also he gives alternative
renderings. The fact of translation from the Greek is well-nigh
universally acknowledged; and indeed we now possess decisive
objective proof, for one of the documents in the Berlin Codex,
which presents identical linguistic phenomena, lay before Irenæus
in its Greek original form (Bib. 47). Nevertheless Granger (Bib.
44) and Scott-Moncrieff (Bib. 56) have questioned this fact of
translation, and quite recently Rendel Harris (Bib. 60), after
accepting the general consensus of opinion (Bib. 49), has changed
his mind and thinks that the matter should be reinvestigated. None
of these scholars, however, has set forth any objective grounds for
his opinion. It is difficult to believe that any one who has
laboured through the versions line by line and word by word can
have the slightest doubt on the matter. The whole style of the work
is foreign to the Coptic idiom, as may be seen from Amélineau's
Introduction to his French version (Bib. 35), where he writes (p.
x): "Whoever has any knowledge of the Coptic language knows that
this idiom is foreign to long sentences; that it is a tongue
eminently analytic and by no means synthetic; that its sentences
are composed of small clauses exceedingly precise, and almost
independent of each other. Of course all Coptic authors are not
equally easy, some of them are even exceedingly difficult to
understand; but this much is certain, that never under any
circumstances in Coptic do we come across those periods with
complicated incidental sentences, of three or four different
clauses, whose elements are synthetically united together so that
the sense of the entire sentence cannot be grasped before we arrive
at the last clause. Nevertheless, this is just what the reader
meets with in this work. The sentences are so entangled with
incidental and complicated propositions, that often, indeed very
often, the Coptic translator has lost the thread, so to say, and
made main propositions out of incidental clauses. . . . The one
thing that it conclusively proves is that the book was originally
written in a learned language."Amélineau makes rather too much of the abstruse nature of the
subject; for, though many passages are transcendental or mystical,
nevertheless the whole is conceived in a narrative or descriptive
style. There is no attempt at philosophical argument, no really
involved logical propositions. We may then take it as sufficiently
established that Greek originals underlay the whole contents of the
Askew Codex. It is on this basis at any rate that rests every
methodical attempt which has hitherto been made to determine the
most probable place and date of origin and to discover the school
or circle to which the P.S. miscellany can be referred.Originals composed in EgyptAmid much else that is uncertain no one has questioned that
the immediate place of origin must be sought in an Egyptian
environment. In other words, the 'Books' of the miscellany were all
composed or compiled in Egypt, though where precisely it is
impossible to conjecture. But the clearly Egyptian elements are not
the more numerous; moreover, they do not seem to be the most
fundamental, but are blended with, or rather superimposed upon,
others which clearly did not originate in Egypt.The date of composition is a difficult problem, and is bound
up with the more puzzling question of the sect to which the P.S.
literature should be ascribed. There is as yet no certainty; it is
a matter of cumulative probabilities at best.Date: The 2nd-century TheoryThe earlier view ascribed the P.S. to Valentinus, who died
probably about the middle of the, or a decade later, or
alternatively to an adherent of the Valentinian school. We may call
it the 2nd-century theory. A succession of scholars were of this
opinion, among whom may be mentioned Woide, Jablonski, La Croze,
Dulaurier, Schwartze, Renan, Révillout, Usener and Amélineau. This
earlier view can hardly be said to have been supported by any great
show of detailed argument, except by the French Egyptologist and
Coptic scholar Amélineau, who was its most stalwart supporter.
Seven years prior to his translation of P.S. in 1895, Amélineau
devoted 156 pp. of a voluminous essay (Bib. 19), in which he sought
to prove the Egyptian origins of Gnosticism--a general thesis which
can hardly be maintained in the light of more recent research,--to
a comparison of the system of Valentinus with that of the
P.S.The 3rd-century TheoryMeantime in Germany, shortly after the appearance of
Schwartze's Latin version in 1851, the careful analysis of the
system of the P.S. by Köstlin in 1854 gave rise to or confirmed
another view. It abandoned the Valentinian origin, and pronounced
generally in favour of what may be called an 'Ophitic' derivation.
Köstlin placed the date of the P.S. in the 1st half of the 3rd
century, and Lipsius (Bib. 15) and Jacobi (Bib. 17) accepted his
finding. We may call this alternative general view the 3rd-century
theory.In 1891 Harnack, accepting Köstlin's analysis of the system,
attacked the problem from another point of view, basing himself
chiefly on the use of scripture, as shown in the quotations from
the O.T. and N.T., and on the place of the doctrinal ideas and
stage of the sacramental practices in the general history of the
development of Christian dogma and rites. He pointed out also one
or two other vague indications, such as a reference to persecution,
from which he concluded that it was written at a date when the
Christians were 'lawfully' persecuted. These considerations led him
to assign the most probable date of composition to the 2nd half of
the 3rd century. Schmidt in 1892 accepted this judgment, with the
modification, however, that Div. iv. belonged to an older stratum
of the literature, and should therefore be placed in the 1st half
of the century. This general view has been widely adopted as the
more probable. In Germany it has been accepted by such well-known
specialists as Bousset, Preuschen and Liechtenhan; and in France by
De Faye. Among English scholars may be mentioned chiefly E. F.
Scott, Scott-Moncrieff and Moffat.The only recent attempt to return to the earlier 2nd-century
view is that of Legge in 1915 (Bib. 57), who roundly plumps for
Valentinus as the author. In order to do this he thinks it
necessary first of all to get out of the way Harnack's parallels in
P.S. with the fourth gospel. They may just as well, he contends, be
compilations from the synoptics. One clear parallel only can be
adduced, and this may be due to a common source. I am not convinced
by this criticism; nor do I think it germane to Legge's general
contention, for it is precisely in Valentinian circles that the
fourth gospel first emerges in history. In the Introduction to the
first edition of the present work I registered my adhesion to the
Valentinian hypothesis, but, as I now think, somewhat too
precipitously. On general grounds the 3rd-century theory seems to
me now the more probable; but, even if Harnack's arguments as a
whole hold, I see no decisive reason why the P.S. may not equally
well fall within the 1st half as within the 2nd half of the
century.The 'Ophitic' BackgroundThe question of the sect or even grouping to the P.S.
literature should be assigned is still more difficult. To call it
'Ophitic' is nebulous at best. Ophitism in Gnosticism is
ill-defined, if not chaotic, owing to the confusing indications of
the Church Fathers. They called Ophitic or classed as Ophitic very
different sects who never used the name for themselves. It ought to
mean people either who worshipped the serpent or in whose symbolism
or mythology the serpent played the most characteristic or dominant
rôle. But most of what we are told of the views and
doctrines of circles directly referred to under this opprobrious
designation (as it is clearly intended to be by the heresiologists)
and of those brought into close connection with them, has not the
slightest reference to what by hypothesis should have been their
chief cult-symbol.
Sed et serpens is conspicuous by its absence. All that we
can legitimately say is that along this confused line of heredity
we have to push back our researches in any endeavour to discover
the earliest developments of Gnosticism in Christian circles. These
took place unquestionably first on Syrian ground, and doubtless had
already a long heredity behind them, former phases of syncretism,
blendings of Babylonian, Persian, Semitic and other elements. The
'Ophitic' elements in P.S. are of Syrian origin, but developed on
Egyptian soil. If there is also a slight Hellenistic tinging, it is
not of a philosophizing nature.Three vague PointersCan we, however, find any indications in the P.S. which might
be thought to direct us whither to search in the jumble of sects
which the chief heresiological Fathers bring into an 'Ophitic'
connection? There are three vague pointers: (1) Philip is declared
pre-eminently (chh. 22, 42) to be the scribe of all the deeds and
discourses of the Saviour, but with him are associated Thomas and
Matthew (ch. 43); (2) in Div. iii. Mary Magdalene stands forth as
the chief questioner, no less than 39 of the 42 questions being put
in her mouth; (3) in Div. iv. a foul act of obscene sorcery is
condemned as the most heinous of all sins (ch. 147).Now, Epiphanius (writing about 374-377 A.D.) groups together
certain sects under the names Nicolaïtans, Gnostics, Ophites,
Cainites, Sethians and Archontics; these possessed a rich
apocalyptic literature. Among the titles of their books reference
is made to a
Gospel of Philip (
Hær. xxvi. 13) and
Questions of Mary, both
The Great and
The Little (
ib. 8). A quotation is given from the former, and several
from the latter. But in both cases they are of an obscene nature
and have clearly nothing whatever to do with P.S. in any way. It is
true that the more abundant quotations are from
The Great Questions, and this has led Harnack and others
to assume that
The Little Questions may have been of a different and even
ascetic character. But Epiphanius classes the two writings together
without distinction; and even if the title
Questions of Mary could be legitimately given to part of
the contents of P.S., surely these would be more appropriately
styled
The Greatand not
The Little Questions? Finally, the document from which
Epiphanius quotes belongs to a different type of setting. Mary
questions apart, is alone with Jesus. She is not with the rest of
the disciples, as in the P.S.In describing these sects Epiphanius repeatedly dwells on
certain unspeakably foul rites and practices which he would have us
believe were widely spread among them. P.S. condemns with even
greater severity a similar obscene abomination, introducing this
stern reprobation with the solemn words, the only instance of such
an outbreak in the whole narrative: "Jesus was wroth with the world
in that hour and said unto The libertinist Sects of Epiphanius.
Thomas: 'Amēn, I say unto you: This sin is more heinous than all
sins and all iniquities.'" There is, however, no indication that in
the experience of the writers of the P.S. such a practice was
widespread; on the contrary, it would seem for them to have been a
rare occurrence--indeed, the most horrible thing of which they had
ever heard. If Epiphanius is to be relied on here, it is vain to
look for the Gnostics of the P.S. in such an environment. But
Epiphanius has no great reputation for accuracy in general, and it
is very difficult to believe in such widespread iniquity of so
loathsome a nature. In any case he is writing at a later date.
Liechtenhan's hypothesis (Bib. 41), that a certain common body of
literature was rewritten--on the one hand to serve libertinist
propensities, and on the other in the interest of ascetic
tendencies,--though more or less accepted by Harnack, seems to me
to be too facile a generalization to meet the special difficulty
with which we are confronted. Epiphanius in his youth had certain
unfortunate experiences with the adherents of a libertinist sect in
Egypt, and the moral shock it gave him seems to have warped his
judgment as a historian in this part of his work; it led him to
collect every scrap of evidence of obscenity he could lay hands on
and every gross scandal that had come to his ears, and freely to
generalize therefrom.The Severians Into relation with the above-mentioned Epiphanian group of
names Schmidt brings the ascetic Severians; these, according to our
heresiologist (xlv.), still in his own day maintained a miserable
existence in the upper Thebaid. To them S. would specifically refer
the P.S. But, in my opinion, it is very difficult indeed to fit in
what Epiphanius tells us so sketchily of these people, however
skilfully it is analyzed, with the main doctrines and practices in
the P.S.The Bruce CodexWith nothing but Patristic indications before us, no matter
what pains are taken to submit them to microscopic critical
inspection, it seems impossible to place the P.S. precisely. But
our Codex does not stand in isolation as the only directly known
Christian Gnostic document--that is to say, as coming straight from
the hands of the Gnostics themselves, though by way of translation.
We have first of all the two MSS. of the Bruce Codex in the
Bodleian, Oxford. One of these,
The Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery, is
closely connected with the literature from which the P.S.
miscellany is excerpted, especially with Div. iv. We can say with a
high degree of confidence that it belonged to the same tradition,
though whether to an earlier or later stratum is not quite decided.
There are, however, no indications in it which will further help us
as to date or name of sect. The second MS., a lofty apocalypse,
which unfortunately bears no title, is of another line of tradition
or type of interest. Schmidt, in the Introduction to his
translation (p. xxvi, Bib. 45), thinks he can refer it with
certainty to the Sethian-Archontic group, placing it in the 1st
half of the 3rd century, in-stead of, as previously (Bib. 28), in
the last quarter of the 2nd. His reason for this change of view may
be seen from the following observations, which introduce us to the
third extant, but unpublished, collection of Coptic Gnostic
works.The Berlin CodexOn July 16, 1896, Schmidt surprised and delighted students of
Gnosticism by reporting, at a sitting of the Royal Prussian Academy
of Sciences, on the contents of a precious Coptic Gnostic Codex
which had in January of the same year been procured by Dr Reinhardt
at Cairo from a dealer in antiquities from Akhmīm, and is now in
the safe custody of the Berlin Egyptian Museum (
Sitzungsberichte d. k. p. Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin,
xxxvi). This notice and a more detailed study of one of the
treatises by S. in 1907 (Bib. 47) give us all the information we
possess so far concerning this very important Codex. In 1900 I
summarized S.'s first notice in the first edition of my
Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (pp. 579-592). The Codex
consists mainly of three original Greek Gnostic works in Coptic
translation: (1)
The Gospel of Mary; (2)
The Apocryphon of John; (3)
The Wisdom of Jesus Christ. At the end there is an extract
from
The Acts of Peter, which are also of Gnostic origin,
setting forth an episode from the healing wonders of the
Apostle.The Gospel of Mary relates visions of John and Mary
Magdalene, but Schmidt gives us none of their contents. He is
equally reserved as to the contents of
The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, giving only the introduction.
After the resurrection the twelve disciples and seven
women-disciples of Jesus go into Galilee to a certain mountain (as
in Div. iv. of P.S.). To them Jesus appears as a great angel of
light and bids them lay all their questions before him. The
disciples bring forward their questions and receive the desired
replies. Schmidt must have told Harnack more about the contents,
for in an appendix to the report, the latter ventures on the
suggestion that it may possibly be found that this treatise is the
lost book of Valentinus referred to under the title of
Wisdom.The so-called Barbēlō-GnosticsIt is the second treatise,
The Apocryphon of John, to which S. devotes most of his
attention in both the papers to which we are referring, the titles
of which are respectively, 'A Pre-irenæic Gnostic Original Work in
Coptic' and 'Irenæus and his Source in
Adv. Hær. i. 29,' S. proves beyond a shadow of doubt that
the Greek original of this Gnostic apocryphon lay before Irenæus
(c. 190 A.D.), and that the Church Father's method of quotation and
summarizing is, to say the least of it, misleading, for it
practically makes nonsense of what is by no means absurd. The
treatise tells us much of interest concerning the part played by
Barbēlō, 'the perfect Power,' 'the Æon perfect in glory'; the
system is of the philosophized type and by no means inconsistent.
Hitherto the clumsy treatment of it by Irenæus has been generally
referred to as descriptive of the tenets of the Barbēlō-Gnostics,
and to them Scott (Bib. 54) and Moffat (Bib. 58) have sought
variously to ascribe the P.S. These Gnostics are brought by Irenæus
into a confused relationship with some of the sects of the group on
which Epiphanius two centuries later animadverted so
severely.The SethiansSchmidt, however, has shown that the document in question
belongs immediately to the literature of the Sethians, to whom also
he now ascribes the Untitled Apocalypse of the Bruce Codex.
The Apocryphon of John is clearly imbued with a very
similar spirit of philosophizing to that of the Valentinian school,
and Schmidt promises to compare the two systems in detail, so as to
determine their relationship, when he publishes his translation of
these new documents, which are of so great importance for the
history of the Christianized Gnosis.The present Position of the EnquiryWhat precise light the publication of Schmidt's labours will
throw, directly or indirectly, on the puzzling question of the
exact placing of the P.S. literature, we must wait to see; it is
highly probable, however, that it will throw some light on its
problems. But from what we glean so far from the above indications
it may be again suggested that, though the Valentinian hypothesis
will have to be definitely abandoned, there seems nothing to compel
us to lean to the 2nd rather than to the 1st half of the 3rd
century for the date. Here the view of Lipsius (Bib. 20) and
Bousset (Bib. 48), that similar features in the P.S. and the
religion of Mani are in a more primitive form in the former than in
the latter, has to be considered. Manichæism emerged somewhere
about 265 A.D., but it is very difficult to say what was its
precise original form. The similarities in the two systems may of
course be due to their coming from a common source.The new and the old Perspective in Gnostic StudiesWhat is certain is that we have in the contents of the Askew,
Bruce and Berlin Codices a rich material which hands on to us
valuable direct information concerning what I have called 'The
Gnosis according to its Friends,' in distinction from what
previously used to be our only sources, the polemical writings of
the heresiological Fathers, which set forth 'The Gnosis according
to its Foes.' We have thus at last a new standpoint from which to
review the subject, and therewith the opportunity of revising our
impressions in a number of respects; a considerably different angle
of vision must needs change the perspective of no little in the
picture.The chief business or interest of the orthodox Fathers was to
select and stress what appeared to them to be the most bizarre
points and elements, all that was most absurd in their judgment, in
the many Gnostic systems, and of course, and rightly, everything
that could be thought to be ethically reprehensible. Good, bad and
indifferent were only too frequently lumped together. It was of no
interest to this polemic to mention similarities in belief and
practice between the heretics and their opponents, to dwell on the
lofty faith of numbers of these Gnostics in the transcendent
excellence and overmastering glory of the Saviour, or on many signs
of spiritual inwardness, and especially of high virtue, in which
they were at the least not less scrupulous than their critics.
Doubtless there were sects and groups whose tenets were absurd at
any valuation, and some whose laxity of ethics demanded severe
reprobation. But the majority could not be accused on the score of
moral delinquency, indeed no few were rigidly ascetic; and some of
their speculations again have a sublimity of their own, and in a
number of cases anticipated Catholic dogma. If we turn to our
direct sources in Coptic translation, we find that the ethic is
admirable, even if we are averse from over-asceticism in the
religious life, and that their whole-souled devotion to and worship
of the Saviour is unbounded.It is no part of the plan of this translation to attempt
anything in the nature of a commentary. That would mean a second
volume, and would in any case be an unsatisfactory performance; for
much would still remain obscure, even if every ray of light shed on
this or that special point by those who have most deeply studied
the subject, were gathered together. One or two very general
remarks, however, may be ventured.The Ministry of the First MysteryIn the P.S. Jesus is everywhere pre-eminent and central. He
is here revealed as Saviour and First Mystery, who knows all and
unveils all, infinite in compassion. As such he is pre-existent
from eternity, and his ministry is not only earthly, but cosmic and
supercosmic; indeed, it is the chief feature in the divine economy.
Yet nowhere is he called the Christ. If this is intentional, no
reason seems to be assignable for such an abstention. There is no
sign of antagonism to Judaism or to the O.T. On the contrary, the
psalms and other utterances which are quoted, are validated by the
theory that it was the Power of the Saviour which so prophesied of
old through the mouth of a David, a Solomon, or an Isaiah.The post-resurrectional SettingThe whole setting is post-resurrectional. In Divv. i.-iii.
Jesus has already, for eleven years after the crucifixion, been
instructing his disciples, men and women, in the Gnosis. The scene
now depicts the disciples as gathered round the Saviour on the
Mount of Olives on earth. The range and scope of this prior
teaching may be seen in Div. iv., where the introductory words
speak of it as taking place simply after the crucifixion. In this
stratum the scene is different. The sacramental rite is solemnized
on earth; it takes place, however, on the Mount of Galilee and not
on the Mount of Olives. But the scene is not confined to earth
only, for the disciples are also taken into some of the regions of
the invisible world, above and below, have vision there conferred
upon them, and are instructed on its meaning. Now in Divv. i.-iii.
Jesus promises to take the disciples into the spheres and heavens
for the direct showing of their nature and quality and inhabitants,
but there is no fulfilment of this promise in the excerpts we have
from 'The Books of the Saviour.' It is not to be supposed, however,
that Div. iv. is part of the fulfilment of the high promise made in
the prior extracts; for in it we move in an earlier phase of the
instruction and in an atmosphere of lesser mysteries than those
indicated in the preceding part.The higher Revelation within this SettingDivv. i.-iii. throughout proclaim the revelation of higher
mysteries. This is only now made possible by the supremely joyous
fact that in the twelfth year of the inner-teaching-ministry a
great, if not supreme, moment in the life of the Saviour has been
accomplished: his earthly ministry is now achieved, and he is
invested with the full radiance of his triple robe of glory, which
embraces the whole powers of the universe. He ascends into heaven
in dazzling light which blinds the disciples. After thirty hours he
returns again, and in compassion withdraws his blinding splendour,
so as to give his final teaching to his faithful in his familiar
form. This means that 'The Books of the Saviour' purport to contain
not only a post-resurrectional teaching, and therefore a Gnostic
revelation supplementary to the public preaching before the
crucifixion, but also a still higher and more intimate unveiling
within the post-resurrectional instruction already current in the
tradition. If there had been apocalyptic elements and visions in
the prior literature, there were to be still more transcendental
revelations now on the completion of the ministry. Until the
investiture, or rather reinvestiture, had taken place according to
the divine command, it had not been possible for the Saviour to
speak in utter openness face to face on all things; now it is
possible. Such is the convention.The Æon-loreIn Divv. i.-iii. there is presupposed throughout a system of
æons and the rest, which is already highly complex and shows
manifest signs of consisting of stages once severally at the summit
of earlier systems, but now successively subordinated. It is clear
then that, if still loftier hierarchies are to be brought on to the
stage, it can only be by again reducing what had previously been
regarded as 'the end of all ends' to a subordinate position. This
is the method adopted, and we lose ourselves in the recital of the
designations and attributes of ever more transcendental beings and
spaces and mysteries.The Sophia EpisodeIn all of this, however, there is no sign of interest in
metaphysical speculation; there is no philosophizing. It is then
not any element of Hellenic thought proper in the æonology, which
is said to have been so strongly the case with the teaching of
Valentinus himself, that has led so many to conjecture a
Valentinian derivation. It is rather the long episode of the
sorrowing Sophia which has influenced them. This episode reflects
on a lower level of the cosmic scale somewhat of the
motif of the 'tragic myth' of the world-soul, the
invention of which is generally ascribed to Valentinus himself,
though he may possibly have transformed or worked up already
existing materials or notions. It is this long Sophia episode and
its skilfully inverted mystical exegesis and allegorical
interpretation, following the methods developed by Alexandrine
contemplatives, which has produced the impression on many that it
was of fundamental importance for the system of the P.S.The ethical InterestIt is certainly an indication of the deep interest of the
circle in repentance and the penitential psalms. But the interest
is here ethical rather than cosmological. Pistis Sophia would seem
to be intended to represent the type of the faithful repentant
individual soul. Throughout, the chief interest is in salvation and
redemption. This is to be acquired by repentance and by
renunciation of the world, its lures and cares, but above all by
faith in the Saviour, the Divine Light, and his mysteries. The
first requisite is sincere repentance. The chief topic round which
all the ethical teaching naturally centres, is sin, its cause and
its purification, and the revelation of the mystery of the
forgiveness of sins and of the infinite compassion of the First
Mystery. Though there is very much also concerning the complex
schematology of the invisible worlds and the hierarchies of being,
much concerning the soul and its origin, of how it comes to birth
and departs from earth-life, much of the light-power, the spiritual
element in man,--all is subordinated to the ethical interest in the
first place, and in the second to the efficacy of the high
mysteries of salvation.The MysteriesThe whole is set forth in terms of these mysteries, which are
now conceived in a far more vital way than was apparently the case
in the earlier literature. On the lower side the mysteries still in
some respects keep in touch with the tradition of words-of-power,
authentic and incorruptible names, and so forth, though there is
little of this specifically in Divv. i.-iii. But it is evidently
intended that the higher mysteries should now be conceived in the
light of the fact that the Saviour himself is in himself concretely
the First Mystery and indeed the Last Mystery, and that the
mysteries are not so much spiritual powers as substantive beings of
transcendent excellence. The light-robe is a mystery of mysteries,
and they who have received of the high mysteries become
light-streams in passing from the body. The mysteries are closely
intertwined with the lore of the glory and its modes.The astral LoreOne of the main elements in the lower schematology is the
ancient astral lore, those ground-conceptions of sidereal religion
which dominated the thought of the times and upheld their sway
directly and indirectly for long centuries after. But here again
our Gnostics, while retaining the schematology for certain
purposes, placed it low in the scale. Moreover, while not denying
that previously there was truth even in the astrological art, they
reduced the chances of the horoscope-casters to zero, by declaring
that the Saviour in the accomplishment of his cosmic ministry had
now drastically changed the revolution of the spheres, so that
henceforth no calculations could be counted on; these were now of
no more value than the spinning of a coin.TranscorporationOur Gnostics were also transmigrationists; transcorporation
formed an integral part of their system. They found no difficulty
in fitting it into their plan of salvation, which shows no sign of
the expectation of an immediate end of all things--that prime
article of faith of the earliest days. So far from thinking that
reincarnation is alien to gospel-teaching, they elaborately
interpret certain of the most striking sayings in this sense, and
give graphic details of how Jesus, as the First Mystery, brought to
rebirth the souls of John the Baptizer and of the disciples, and
supervized the economy of his own incarnation. In this respect the
P.S. offers richer material for those interested in this ancient
and widespread doctrine than can be found in any other old-world
document in the West.The magical ElementA far more distressingly puzzling immixture is the element of
magic. In Div. iv. especially there are invocations and many names
which resemble those found in the Greek magical papyri and other
scattered sources. But no one has so far thrown any clear light on
this most difficult subject of research in general, much less on
its relation to the P.S. It is evident that the writers of Div. iv.
and of the first treatise of the Bruce Codex set a high value on
such formulæ and on authentic names; nor are these entirely absent
from the excerpts from 'The Books of the Saviour,' as witness the
five words written on the light-robe. Our Gnostics unquestionably
believed in a high magic, and were not averse from finding in what
was presumably its most reputable tradition, material which they
considered to be germane to their purpose. In this tradition there
must have been a supreme personage possessing characteristics that
could be brought into close connection with their ideal of the
Saviour, for they equate a certain Aberamenthō with him. The name
occurs once or twice elsewhere; but who or what it suggested, we do
not know. In any case, as they utilized and attempted to sublimate
so much else which was considered by many in those days to be most
venerable, in order that they might the more extend and exalt the
glory of the Saviour and take up into it what they considered the
best of everything, so did they with what was presumably the
highest they could find in the hoary tradition of magical power,
which had enjoyed empery for so long in the antique world and still
continued to maintain itself even in religio-philosophical circles,
where we should, from the modern standpoint, least expect to find
it.History and psychic storyAs to the setting of the narrative,--if we had not such an
abundance of instances of pseudo-historic and pseudo-epigraphic
scripture-writing, if this were not, so to speak, the commonplace,
not only of apocryphal and apocalyptic literature, but also of no
little that falls within the borders of canonical sanction, we
might be more surprized than we are at the form in which the
composers or compilers have framed their work. It is clear that
they loved and worshipped Jesus with an ecstasy of devotion and
exaltation; they do not fall short in this of the greatest of his
lovers. What sort of authority, then, could they have supposed they
had for conceiving the setting of their narrative in the way they
have?Objective physical history, in the rigid sense in which we
understand it to-day, was of secondary interest to them, to say the
least; indeed, it was apparently of little moment to the Gnostics
of any school, and their opponents were not in-frequently rowing in
the same boat. The Gnostics were, however, less disingenuous; they
strenuously declared their belief in continued revelation, they
delighted in apocalyptic and in psychic story. The belief in a
post-resurrectional teaching had doubtless existed for long in many
forms in Gnostic circles. It must have been widespread; for, as
shown by Schmidt quite recently (Bib. 59), a Catholic writer in
Asia Minor found himself compelled to steal the fire of the
Gnostics and adopt the same convention in an orthodox document that
was intended to be a polemic against Gnostic ideas, somewhere in
the 3rd quarter of the 2nd century. However they arrived at their
conviction, it seems highly probable that the writers of the P.S.
must have sincerely believed they had high authority for their
proceeding, and were in some way emboldened by 'inspiration' to
carry out their task. As far as they were concerned, they do not by
any means seem conscious of belonging to a decadent movement or of
deterioration in the quality of the ideas they were attempting to
set forth, as so many modern critics would have it. On the
contrary, they thought they were depositories or recipients of
profound mysteries never hitherto revealed, and that by a knowledge
of these mysteries they could the more efficiently evangelize the
world.The P.S. a reserved DocumentIt is evident, however, that the P.S. was never intended to
be circulated as a public gospel. Certain things are to be preached
or proclaimed to the world, but only certain things. Certain
mysteries, again, the recipients were to bestow under certain
conditions, but others were to be reserved. The 'Books of the
Saviour' are, therefore, to be regarded as apocrypha in the
original sense of the word--that is, 'withdrawn' or 'reserved'
writings. As such they fell within the proscriptions of artificial
secrecy common to all the initiatory institutions of the time and
of all time. And artificial secrecy can with difficulty, if ever,
avoid the moral and intellectual hazard of its innate obscurations.
The P.S. was intended for already initiated disciples, for chosen
learners, though no pledge of secrecy is mentioned. It was
intended, above all, for would-be apostles, for those who should go
forth to proclaim what was for them the best of good news; it is
clearly the inner instruction of a zealously propagandist
sect.Its general ValueIf 'The Books of the Saviour' in their full original
form--for in the extant P.S. we have but selections from them and
the formulæ of the higher mysteries are omitted,--and if what is
given of the lower mysteries in Div. iv. were held back from public
perusal owing partly at least to the fear of the unworthy making
improper use of them, there is little danger to-day on this score,
for this part of the miscellany remains so far the most securely
incomprehensible. And indeed no little else remains obscure, even
when we are of those who have made a protracted study of the
psychical elements in mysticism and of the general psychology of
religious experience. But there is much also in our Codex which has
a charm of its own. There are things of rare, if exotic, beauty,
things of profound ethical significance, things of delicate
spiritual texture. In any case, however all these very various elements and
features in the syncretism be judged and evaluated, the Pistis
Sophia is unquestionably a document of the first importance, not
only for the history of Christianized Gnosticism, but also for the
history of the development of religion in the West.A Skeleton of the Scheme of the SystemIn conclusion, a skeleton of the scheme under-lying the P.S.
is added. It may prove of service generally to assist the reader in
the maze of details.The Ineffable.The Limbs of the Ineffable.I. The Highest Light-world or Realm of Light.i. The First Space of the Ineffable.ii. The Second Space of the Ineffable, or The First Space of
the First Mystery.iii. The Third Space of the Ineffable, or The Second Space of
the First Mystery.II. The Higher (or Middle) Light-world.i. The Treasury of the Light.1. The Emanations of the Light.2. The Orders of the Orders.ii. The Region of the Right.iii. The Region of the Midst.III. The Lower Light or Æon-world, or The Mixture of Light
and Matter.i. The Region of the Left.1. The Thirteenth Æon.2. The Twelve Eons.
p. li3. The Fate.4. The Sphere.5. The Rulers of the Ways of the (Lower) Midst.
1 6. The Firmament.ii. The World (Kosmos), especially Mankind.iii. The Under-world.1. The Amente.2. The Chaos.3. The Outer Darkness.Finally, the bibliography which follows is not simply a list
of authors' names and of the titles of their contributions to the
subject, but is furnished with notes which may serve briefly to
indicate the chief moments in the development of the literature and
in the history of opinion. There doubtless are a few articles
hidden away in the back numbers of periodicals which should be
added fully to complete the list; but they cannot be of any
importance, or they would have been referred to by some one or
other of the subsequent writers.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. 1770. Art. in
Brittische theol. Magazin (?); see Köstlin below,
13.2. 1773. Woide (C. G.). Art. in
Journal des Savants (Paris).3. 1778. Woide (C. G.). Art. in J. A. Cramer's
Beyträge zur Beförderung theologischer und andrer wichtigen
Kenntnisse (Kiel u. Hamburg), iii. 82 ff.It was by W. that the New Testament, according to the text of
the famous Codex Alexandrinus, was edited, in uncial types cast to
imitate those of the MS., in 1786. In an Appendix to this great
undertaking, in 1799 (see below, 5), he added certain fragments of
the New Testament in the Thebaico-Coptic dialect, together with a
dissertation on the Coptic version of the New Testament. The date
of the C.A. is generally assigned to the 5th cent., and, with the
exception of the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, which
are sometimes assigned to the 4th cent., is the oldest extant MS.
of the New Testament. This being the case, it is of interest to
quote from the
Beiträge W.'s opinion on the date of the MS. of P.S.,
which was lent to this careful scholar by Dr. Askew and which he
copied from the first word to the last:"It [P.S.] is a very old MS. in 4to on parchment in Greek
uncial characters, which are
not so round as those in the Alexandrine MS. in London,
and in the Claromontain MS. in Paris [Codex Regius Parisiensis,
also an Alexandrine text]. The characters of the MS. [P.S.] are
somewhat longer and more angular, so that I take them to be
older than both the latter MSS., in which the letters eta,
theta, omicron, rho and sigma are much rounder."Thus W. would date the MS. towards the end of the 4th
cent.4. 1794. Buhle (J. G.).
Literarischer Briefwechsel von Johann David Michaelis
(Leipzig), 3 vols., 1794-96, iii. 69.Under date 1773 there is a letter from Woide to Michaelis, in
which the former says in reference to the P.S. Codex that Askew had
picked it up by chance in a book-shop. There follows a description
of the MS.5. 1799. Woide (C. G.).
Appendix ad Editionem Novi Testamenti Græci e Codice MS.
Alexandrino . . . cum Dissertatione de Versione Bibliorum Ægyptiaca
quibus subjictur Codicis Vaticani Collatio (Oxford), p.
137.W. gives the date of the P.S. Codex as about the 4th cent.,
and considers the writer of the Greek original to have been
Valentinus.6. 1812. Münter (F.).
Odæ Gnosticæ Salomoni Tributæ, Thebaice et Latine, Prefatione
et Adnotationibus philologicis illustratæ; (Hafniæ).Bishop Münter, a learned Dane, probably got his text from
Woide's copy. His brief pamphlet is of no particular importance;
nevertheless it was solely upon these few selections, the five Odes
of Solomon, that, with the exception of Dulaurier, scholars formed
their opinion of the P.S. up to the time of the publication of
Schwartze's translation in 1851. Münter believed that the original
treatise belonged to the 2nd cent. For Odes of Solomon see below,
49, 53 and 60.7. 1838. Dulaurier (É.). Art. in
Le Moniteur (sept. 27).8. 1843. Matter (J.).
Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme et de son Influence sur les
Sectes religieuses et philosophiques des six premiers Siècles de
l’Ère chrétienne (Paris), 2nd ed., ii. 41 ff., 350 ff. The
first edition appeared in 1828 and contains no reference to P.S. In
Dörner's German translation the references are ii. 69 ff. and 163
ff.M. rejects the authorship of Valentinus, though he bases
himself otherwise entirely on Woide. He vaguely places the date of
the original treatise between the end of the 2nd and the end of the
5th cent., but gives no opinion as to the school to which it
belongs (p. 352).9. 1847. Dulaurier (É.). Art. in the
Journal Asiatique, 4
e série, tom. ix., juin, pp. 534-548, '
Notice sur le Manuscript copte-thébain, intitulé La Fidèle
Sagesse; et sur la Publication projetée du Texte et de la
Traduction française de ce Manuscript.'D. had prepared a translation of the P.S. He writes: "The
translation of the Pistis Sophia and the glossary which forms a
complement to it are finished, and will be sent to the printers,
when I have convinced myself that I have fulfilled the requirements
that this task imposes, taking into consideration the present state
of science and my own capabilities. The MS. from which I have made
my translation is a copy which I have taken from the original,
during my stay in England in 1838-1840, when I was charged by MM.
De Salvandy and Villemain, successive ministers of public
instruction, with the commission of proceeding to London to study
this curious monument." (p. 542). D., however, did not publish his
labours, nor have I as yet come across any record of the fate of
his MS. He ascribes the treatise to Valentinus.10. 1851. Schwartze (M. G.).
Pistis Sophia, Opus Gnosticum Valentino adjudicatum, e Codice
Manuscripto Coptico Londinensi descriptum. Latine vertit M. G.
Schwartze, edidit J. H. Petermann (Berlin).In 1848 Schwartze made a copy of the Codex in London, but
unfortunately died before the completion of his labours on the
P.S., and the MS. translation he left behind contained a number of
blanks and passages which he intended to fill up and correct. His
friend Petermann confined himself in his notes strictly to verbal
corrections and suggestions as to
variæ lectiones. The consequence is that we have a
translation without the notes of the translator and without a word
of introduction. P. says the task of editing was so severe that he
frequently suffered from fits of giddiness. In spite of numerous
blemishes this first edition is said to be 'an outstanding
achievement.' S. considers the original treatise, as we see from
the title of his work, to have been written by Valentinus; but P.
is of the opinion that it is the work of an Ophite, and promises to
set forth his reasons at length in a treatise, which has
unfortunately never seen the light. A review of S.'s work appeared
in the
Journal des Savants of 1852 (p. 333).11. 1852. Bunsen (C. C. J.).
Hippolytus and seine Zeit, Anfänge and Aussichten des
Christenthums and der Menschheit (Leipzig), i. 47, 48.
Hippolytus and his Age (London, 1852), i. 61, 62."Great, therefore, were my hopes in 1842, that the ancient
Coptic manuscript of the British Museum, inscribed Sophia, might be
a translation, or at least an extract, from that lost text-book of
Gnosticism [the work quoted by Hippolytus,
sub Valent.]: but unfortunately the accurate and
trustworthy labours of that patient and conscientious Coptic
scholar, Dr. Schwartze, so early taken away from us, have proved to
me (for I have seen and perused his manuscript, which I hope will
soon appear), that this Coptic treatise is a most worthless (I
trust, purely Coptic) offshoot of the Marcosian heresy, of the
latest and stupidest mysticism about letters, sounds and
words."B.'s Marcosian theory has been partially revived by Legge
(below, 57), but is supported by no one else, and we doubt whether
B. could have read Schwartze's MS. with any great care.12. 1853. Baur (F. C.).
Das Christenthum and die christliche Kirche der drei ersten
Jahrhunderte (Tübingen), notes on pp. 185, 186, and 205,
206.B. evidently added these notes at the last moment before
publication. On page 206 he leans to the idea of an Ophite
origin.13. 1854. Köstlin (K. R.). Two arts. in Baur and Zeller's
Theologische Jahrbücher (Tübingen), xiii. 1--104 and
137--196, '
Das gnostische System des Ruches Pistis Sophia.'K. was the first to make an exhaustive analysis of the
contents of the treatise, with the special object of setting forth
the system of P.S., and his labours were used later by Lipsius in
his art, in Smith and Wace's
Dictionary of Christian Biography(below, 20). He assigns
its date to the first half of the 3rd cent., and thinks that it is
of Ophite origin. In a note to page 1, K. writes:"The MS. from which the work is published belongs to the
collection of MSS. collected by Dr. Askew of London during his
travels in Italy and Greece, of which
The British Theological Magazine (
Das Brittische theol. Magazin) for the year 1770 (vol. i.
part 4, p. 223) gives more particulars."We know nothing of these travels, and there is no such
magazine in the catalogue of the British Museum.
The Theological Repository for 1770 contains no
information on the subject; and no permutation of names solves the
mystery. There were very few magazines published at that early
date, so that the choice is limited.14. 1856. An Anonymous Translation in Migne's
Dictionnaire des Apocryphes, tom. i. app. part. ii. coll.
1181--1286; this tome forms vol. xxiii. of his third
Encyclopédie Théologique.The translation is a sorry piece of work, more frequently a
mere paraphrase from Schwartze's version than translation; there
are also frequent omissions, sometimes as many as 40 pages of
Schwartze's text;
e.g. pp. 18, 19, 36 ff., 50, 51, 72, 73, 86-90, 108-135,
139, 157-160, 162, 171, 179, 180, 184-186, 221-243, 245-255,
281-320, 324-342. These are some of the omissions; but there are
many more. It is, therefore, entirely useless to the student. The
anonymous writer vaguely suggests a late date for the treatise
because of the complicated nature of the system.15. 1860. Lipsius (R. A.). Art. '
Gnosticismus,' in Ersch and Gruber's
Encyclopädie, separately published at Leipzig, 1860, pp.
95 ff. and 157 ff.L. considers P.S. an Egypto-Ophite treatise, and with Köstlin
assigns its date to the first half of the 3rd cent. See his Art. in
Dict. of Christ. Biog. (1887).16. 1875-1883.
The Palæographical Society, Facsimiles of MSS. and
Inscriptions, Oriental Series, ed. by William Wright
(London).Plate xlii. The editor says that the original is later than
Valentinus, and places the MS. in the 7th cent. There is a careful
analysis of the text from the technical standpoint, and the
facsimile is of f. 11 a.17. 1877. Jacobi (H.). Art. '
Gnosis,' in Herzog's
Theolog. Real Encyclopädie (Leipzig), 2nd ed., 1888;
Translation (New York), 1882, 1883.J. believes in an Ophite origin.18. 1887. King (C. W.).
The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Mediæval
(London), 2nd ed. The first ed. appeared in 1864, but contains no
reference to P.S.K. regards the P.S. as the most precious relic of Gnosticism.
Besides many references scattered throughout the volume, there are
translations from Schwartze of pages 227-239, 242-244, 247-248,
255-259, 261-263, 282-292, 298-308, 341, 342, 358, 375. K. does not
venture an opinion on either the date or author.19. 1887. Amélineau (E.).
Essai sur le Gnosticisme égyptien, ses Développements et son
Origine égyptienne, in Annales du Musée Guimet(Paris),
xiv.See the third part for system of Valentinus and of P.S., pp.
166-322.20. 1887. Lipsius (R. A.). Art. 'Pistil Sophia,' in Smith and
Wace's
Dict. of Christ. Biog. (London), iv. 405-415.