Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

CHAPTER X THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS^[459]

In 1765, the British Museum purchased from the celebrated antiquarian, Dr Askew, a parchment MS. written in Coptic^[460]. On palaeographic grounds it is said to be not earlier than the VIth century A.D., which agrees fairly with its state of preservation and the fact that it is written on both sides of the skins so as to present the appearance of a modern book^[461]. Woide, then librarian of the Museum and pastor of the King’s German Chapel at St James’, published some extracts from it in his Appendix to the Codex Alexandrinus in 1799, and Dulaurier gave others in the Journal Asiatique in 1847^[462]. It remained, however, untranslated until 1850, when Maurice Schwartze, a young German scholar who was sent over here to study our MSS. at the expense of the king of Prussia, turned it into Latin; and he having died soon after, his translation was published the following year by the learned Petermann. The British Museum text is written throughout in the Sahidic 135dialect; and is the work of more than one scribe; but it seems to be agreed by those who have studied it with knowledge that the documents it contains are neither continuous nor necessarily related; and that it is in fact a series of extracts from earlier MSS.^[463] Of these documents, the second commences with a heading, in a handwriting other than that of the scribe of this part, reading “the Second Book of Pistis Sophia”; but as such a heading implies that the foregoing document was the First Book of Pistis Sophia, the whole MS. is generally known by that name^[464].

The story presented in these two documents, although uncompleted, is, so far as it goes, perfectly consistent, and presupposes belief in a Gnostic system resembling at once those of the Ophites and of Valentinus. An introduction in narrative form informs us that Jesus, after rising from the dead, spent eleven years in teaching His disciples the arrangement of the heavenly places “only so far as the places” of a power whom He calls “the First Mystery,” and declares to be “before all mysteries,” and to be “within the veil,” being “the father of the likeness of a dove^[465].” The result of this 136limitation was, we are told, that the disciples were ignorant not only that any power existed higher than the First Mystery, but also of the origin of the “places” or worlds of those material and quasi-material powers who, here as in the earlier systems, are responsible for the governance of the world and the fate of mankind. While the disciples are sitting with Jesus on the Mount of Olives, however, He is carried away from them into Heaven by a great “power” or shape of light which descends upon Him. On His return, He tells them that this shape was “a vesture of light” or His heavenly nature which He had laid aside before being born into this world^[466]. He also informs them that, when He first came into this world before His Incarnation, He brought with Him twelve powers which He took from “the Twelve Saviours of the Treasure house of Light^[467],” and planted them in the mothers of the 137twelve Apostles, so that when these last were born into the world they were given these powers instead of receiving, like other men, souls “from the archons (or rulers) of the aeons^[468].” He also describes how He appeared among the archons of the Sphere in the likeness of the angel Gabriel, and found among them the soul of “Elijah the Prophet^[469].” This He caused to be taken to “the Virgin of Light,” that it might be planted in Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist^[470], 138and He adds that He bound to it a power which He took from “the Little Iao the Good, who is in the middle.” The object of this was, we are told, that John the Baptist might prepare the way of Jesus and baptize with water for the remission of sins.

Jesus then proceeds to describe His own Incarnation. When speaking, still in the shape of the angel Gabriel, with Mary His “mother after the body of matter,” He planted in her the first power he had received from “Barbelo,” which was the body He had worn “in the height^[471]”; and, in the 139place of the soul, a power which He received from “the Great Sabaoth the Good, who is in the place of the right.” After this digression, He resumes His account of what happened after His receiving the vesture of light on the Mount of Olives, and declares that He found written in this vesture five mysterious words “belonging [viz. in the language of] to the height^[472],” which He interprets to His disciples thus:

“The mystery who is without the world, through whom all things exist, he is the giving forth and the lifting up of all and he has put forth all the emanations and the things which are in them all. And it is through him that all the mysteries exist and all their places. Come unto us, for we are thy fellows and thy members^[473]! We are one with thee, for thou and we are one. This is the First Mystery which existed since the beginning in the Ineffable One 140before he [i.e. the First Mystery] went forth, and we all are his name^[474].

“Now therefore we all await thee at the last boundary which is the last mystery from within^[475]. This also is part of us. Now therefore we have sent to thee thy vesture which is thine from the beginning, which thou didst place in the last boundary, which is the last boundary from within, until the time should be fulfilled according to the commandment of the First Mystery. And now that the time is fulfilled, clothe thyself in it! Come unto us, for we all stand near to thee that we may clothe thee with all the glory of the First Mystery by His command. Which glory is as two vestures, besides that which we have sent unto thee. For thou art worthy of them since thou art preferred before us and wast made before us. Wherefore the First Mystery has sent thee by us the mystery of all his glory, which is as two vestures. In the first is the glory of all the names of all the mysteries and of all the emanations which are in the ranks of the receptacles of the Ineffable One. And in the second vesture is the glory of the names of all the mysteries and of all the emanations which are in the ranks of the 141two receptacles of the First Mystery. And in this vesture which we have sent thee now, is the glory of the name of the Recorder who is the First Precept^[476], and the mystery of the Five Marks^[477], and the mystery of the great Legate of the Ineffable One who is the same as that Great Light^[478], and the mystery of the Five Prohegumeni who are the same as the Five Parastatae^[479]. And there is also in that vesture the glory of the name of the mystery of all the ranks of the emanations of the Treasure-house of Light, and of their Saviours, and the ranks of those ranks which are the Seven Amen and which are the Seven Sounds, and also the Five Trees^[480] and also 142the Three Amen, and also the Saviour of the Twins who is the boy of a boy^[481], and the mystery of the Nine Guards of the Three Gates of the Treasure-house of Light. And there is also within it the glory of the name which is on the right, and of all those who are in the middle. And there also is the glory of the name of the Great Unseen One, who is the Great Forefather^[482], and the mysteries of the 143Three Triple Powers, and the mystery of all their places, and the mystery of all their unseen ones, and of all the dwellers in the Thirteenth Aeon, and the name of the Twelve Aeons with all their Archons, all their Archangels, all their Angels and all the dwellers in the Twelve Aeons, and all the mystery of the name of all the dwellers in Heimarmene^[483], and all the heavens, and the whole mystery of the name of all the dwellers in the Sphere and their firmaments with all they contain and their places. Lo, then, we have sent unto thee this vesture, which none knoweth from the First Precept downward, because that the glory of its light was hidden within it, and the Spheres and all the places from the First Precept downward knew it not. Hasten, then, do on the vesture, and come unto us, for we have remained near thee to clothe thee with these two vestures by the command of the First Mystery until the time fixed by the Ineffable One should be fulfilled. Now, then, the time is fulfilled. Come unto us quickly, that we may clothe thee with them until thou hast accomplished the entire ministry of the completion of the First Mystery, the ministry which has been laid upon thee by the Ineffable One. Come then unto us quickly in order that we may clothe thee with them according to the command of the First Mystery. For yet a little while, a very little while, and thou wilt cease to be in the world. Come then quickly, that thou mayest receive all the glory which is the glory of the First Mystery.”

This long address, in which the whole arrangement of the universe as the author supposes it to exist is set forth, is clearly the utterance of the heavenly powers belonging to the higher worlds whom Jesus has left on His descent to earth. Unintelligible as it seems at first sight, it can be explained to some extent by the tenets of the Ophites described in Chapter VIII, which formed, as we have seen, the basis on which Valentinus also constructed his system. The Ineffable 144One may be assumed to be the Bythos whom both the Ophites and Valentinus called by that epithet^[484] and held to be the first and final source of all being. Although something is said here and elsewhere in the book of his “receptacles” and “places^[485],” no particulars of them are given, they being apparently reserved for a future revelation^[486]. The First Mystery, however, is spoken of later as a “Twin Mystery, looking inward and outward^[487],” which seems to correspond to the Father-and-Son of the Ophite diagram. Later in the book, Jesus reveals to His disciples that He Himself is the First Mystery “looking outward^[488],” and this seems to show that the author’s conception of the relations between Him and the First Person of the Trinity did not differ much from that of the Catholic Church^[489]. The world of this First Mystery extends downwards as far as what is here, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews^[490], called “the veil,” which is perhaps the veil of sense separating all things contaminated by mixture with matter from the Divine. This First Mystery is said to consist of twenty-four “mysteries”; but these do not seem to be, as in the older systems, places or worlds, but rather attributes or aspects of the Deity which together go to make up His whole being, as a number of letters are required to make up a word or name^[491]. But from some words of Jesus 145given later in the book, it would appear that its author did not at all discard the view of the earlier Ophites that the Supreme Being was to be figured as of human form, for we find him remarking that the First Mystery himself proceeded from the “last limb” or member of the Ineffable One^[492]. For the rest, it need only be pointed out here that the powers who address Jesus in the quotation just given also speak of themselves as His “members”; but that notwithstanding this, they must be looked upon as purely spiritual entities having no direct connection with any material forms except as paradigms or patterns^[493]. Whatever the worlds which they 146inhabit may be thought to be like—and Jesus more than once tells His disciples that there is nothing on earth to which they can be compared—we can only say that they are two in number, and that it is the two “vestures of light” sent to Jesus on the Mount of Olives, or, in other words, His two natures, which give Him the means of ascending to the heavens of the Ineffable One and of the First Mystery respectively. If the author ever intended to discuss them further, he has certainly not done so in the Pistis Sophia properly so called^[494].

On the other hand, the worlds and powers existing “below the veil,” or within the comprehension of the senses, and symbolized by the third and inferior “vesture” sent to Jesus, are indicated even in the address given above with fair particularity. Their names and relative positions are not easy to identify; but, thanks to some hints given in other parts of the book, the universe below “the veil” may be reconstructed thus^[495]:—Its upper part contains the Treasure-house of light where, as its name implies, the light as it is redeemed from matter is stored up. There are below it five other worlds called the Parastatae or Helpers, in one of which Jesus is to reign during the millennium, and the ruler of the last of which arranges the pure spirits who dwell below it^[496]. The highest 147spirit in the Treasure-house is called the First Precept or the Recorder, and with him is associated the Great Light, who is said to be the “legate” of the Ineffable One^[497]. In the Treasure-house there are also the orders of spirits set out in the address just quoted, the only two to which it is necessary to refer here being the Five Trees^[498] and the Twelve Saviours. From the Five Trees emanated the great “Powers of the Right Hand” to be next mentioned; while, as is before described, the Twelve Saviours furnished the spotless souls required for the Twelve Apostles^[499]. The lower part of the same universe is called the Kerasmos or Confusion, because here the light, which in the upper part is pure, is mingled with matter. It is divided in the first instance into three parts, the Right-hand, the Middle, and the Left-hand^[500]. Of these, the Right-hand contains the spirits who emanated from the Five Trees of the Treasure-house. At their head is Jeû, who has supreme authority over all the Confusion^[501]. He is called the Overseer 148of the Light, and in his name we may possibly recognize a corruption of the Hebrew Yahweh. With him and of similar origin is Melchisedek,^[502] the Inheritor, Receiver or Purifier of the Light, whose office it is to take the portions of light as they are redeemed into the Treasure-house^[503]. Another emanation from the Five Trees is an otherwise unnamed Guard of the Veil of the Treasure-house^[504] which seems to be the veil dividing the 149Treasure-house from the Place of the Right-hand, and there are two others of equal rank who are called simply the two Prohegumeni or Forerunners^[505]. Below these again is the Great Sabaoth the Good, who supplied, as we have seen, the soul which was in Jesus at His birth, and who is himself the emanation, not of any of the Five Trees, but of Jeû^[506]. He seems to have a substitute or messenger called the little Sabaoth the Good, who communicates directly with the powers of matter. In the Middle come the powers who are set over the reincarnation of souls and the consequent redemption of mankind. Of these, the only two named are “the Great Iao the Good^[507],” spoken of in one passage as the Great Hegumen (or Leader) of the Middle^[508]. He, too, has a minister called “the Little Iao” who supplies the “power” which, with the soul of Elijah, animated the body of John the Baptist^[509]. He also has twelve deacons or ministers under him^[510]. The other 150great Leader of the Middle is the Virgin of Light^[511]. She it is who chooses the bodies into which the souls of men shall be put at conception, in discharge of which duty she sends the soul of Elijah into the body of John the Baptist, her colleague Iao’s share in the work being apparently limited to providing the “power” accompanying it. She has among her assistants seven other virgins of light^[512], after whose likeness Mary the Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are said to have been made, and we also read of “receivers” who are under her orders^[513]. The light of the Sun “in its true shape” is said to be in her place^[514], and there is some reason for thinking that she is to be considered as the power which directs the material Sun, while her colleague Iao has the same office as regards the Moon^[515].

We now come to the places of the left, the highest of which seems to be that which is called the Thirteenth Aeon. This is a part of the universe the existence of which Jesus conceals from His disciples until He receives his “vestures,” and there is much mystery as to its origin. It seems to have been governed in the first instance by a triad consisting of an unnamed power referred to as the Great Forefather or the Great Unseen One, a female power called Barbelo^[516], and a second 151male called the Authades or Proud God^[517] who plays a principal part in the episode of Pistis Sophia which forms the ostensible theme of the book. Of the Great Forefather, we are told nothing of importance, but what is said of the female power Barbelo bears out fully the remark which Hippolytus attributes to Valentinus that among the lesser powers or aeons the female merely projects the substance, while it is the male which gives form to it^[518]. It is doubtless for this reason that it is from her that the body of Jesus is said to have come—i.e. that she provided the matter out of which it was formed in the first instance, and which had, as He says later in the present book, to be purged and cleansed by Himself^[519]. She is also spoken of throughout as the origin of all the matter within the world of sense^[520]. This triad, constantly referred to throughout the book as the Three Tridynami or Triple Powers, have put forth, before the story opens, twenty-four other powers arranged in twelve syzygies or pairs who are spoken of as the Twenty-four Unseen Ones, and who inhabit with them the Thirteenth Aeon. Only one of these is named and this is the inferior or female member of the last syzygy. She is named Pistis Sophia, and gives, as we have seen, her name to the book^[521].

We now pass from the unseen world, which can nevertheless be comprehended as being in part at least material, to the starry world above us which is plainly within the reach 152of our organs of sense. The controlling part in this is taken by the powers called the Twelve Aeons, who are ruled before the advent of Jesus by a power called, like the Supreme Being in the Ophite system, Adamas^[522]. As they are called in one passage the 12 hours of the day, it may be concluded that they are the 12 zodiacal signs or, in other words, the Zodiac or 12 constellations of fixed stars through which the sun appears to pass in his yearly course^[523]. Although nowhere expressly stated, it may be concluded that they emanated from the last member of the triad of the Left, i.e. the Authades, who is here said to have been disobedient in refusing “to give up the purity 153of his light,” no doubt when the earth was made, and is accused of ambition in wishing to rule the Thirteenth Aeon. Through his creature, Adamas their king, he induces the rulers of the Twelve Aeons to delay the redemption of the light from matter. It is from their matter that are made the souls, not only of men, but of beasts, birds, and reptiles^[524], and if they were allowed to do as they pleased, the process would go on for ever, as it is the habit of these Archons “to turn about and devour their own ejecta, the breath of their mouths, the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their bodies,” so that the same matter is used over and over again^[525]. Below the starry world comes the Sphere of Heimarmene or Destiny, so called apparently because both the earthly and heavenly lot of each soul is determined on its downward passage through it, and below that again the Sphere simply so called, which is the visible firmament apparently stretched above us. The Archons of the Aeons, of whom Adamas is the chief, rule their own and both these lower spheres, and the only hindrance to their dilatory manoeuvres prior to the advent of Jesus was caused by Melchizidek the Receiver of the Light^[526], who came among them at stated times, took away their light, and, after having purified it, stored it up in the Treasure-house. This was 154apparently done through the medium of the sun and moon, who seem to have acted in the matter as the “receivers” of Melchizidek^[527].

We can now resume the narrative of the book which has been interrupted in order that a description of the universe through which Jesus passes on His ascension might be given. He tells His disciples that clothing Himself in His third or least glorious “vesture,” He flew up to the firmament, the gates of which opened spontaneously to give Him passage^[528]. Entering in, the Archons there were all struck with terror at the light of His vesture, and wondered how the “Lord of the Universe^[529]” passed through them unnoticed on his descent to earth^[530]. The same scenes are repeated when He enters the Sphere of Destiny, and again when He reaches the Twelve Aeons or Zodiac of fixed stars. Before leaving the Twelve Aeons, Jesus takes away from its rulers a third part of their power, and alters their course, so that its direction is changed every six months. This He does, as He tells His disciples, for a double reason. He thereby prevents the Aeons from devouring their own matter, and so delaying the redemption of the light, and He further hinders their movements from being used by mankind in the divination and magic which the sinning angels taught when “they came down”—a clear reference to the story in Genesis of the fall of the angels as amplified in the Book of Enoch. This alteration, He declares, 155was foreshadowed by the text “I have shortened the times for my elect’s sake^[531].”

Passing upward to the Thirteenth Aeon, Jesus tells His disciples that he found Pistis Sophia dwelling alone in a place immediately below it, and He here makes a long digression to recount her history. She is, as has been said above, one of the twenty-four invisible but material emanations projected by the Great Unseen Forefather and his consort Barbelo, and formerly dwelt with her own partner, whose name is not mentioned, in the Thirteenth Aeon^[532]. But one day happening to look forth from her place and beholding the light of the Treasure-house, she longed to ascend towards it and began to sing praises to it. This angered exceedingly the Authades or Proud God, the Third Triple Power or chief of the Thirteenth Aeon, who had already, as has been said, shown his disobedience in refusing to give up his light. Out of envy and jealousy of Pistis Sophia, he sends forth from himself a great power with a lion’s face who is “half flame and half darkness” and bears the name of Jaldabaoth, which we have met with before among the Ophites^[533]. This Jaldabaoth is sent below into the regions of Chaos, the unformed and shapeless darkness which is either below or surrounds the earth^[534], and when Pistis Sophia sees him shining 156there, she mistakes his light for the light of the Treasure-house, and, leaving her consort, plunges downwards towards it. She is instantly seized by Jaldabaoth and other wicked powers sent forth by the Proud God, and grievously tormented with the object of taking from her her light, so that she may never again be able to return to her own place. In this plight, she sings several Metanoiae or hymns of penitence to the light, and after seven of these, Jesus, as He says, “from pity and without commandment,” raises her to the uppermost parts of Chaos where she is slightly more at ease^[535]. She continues here to sing hymns of penitence, but is tormented afresh until, after her ninth repentance, Jesus receives command from the First Mystery to succour her. This he does in a battle with fresh emanations from the Authades, including one in the shape of “a flying arrow^[536].” Adamas, the king of the wicked Eons, also sends a power to the assistance of Jaldabaoth, and the other emanations of the Proud God turn into serpents, a basilisk with seven heads, and a dragon^[537]. The powers of light sent by Jesus, however, defeat all her enemies, and the archangels Gabriel and Michael bear her aloft and establish her in the place below the Thirteenth Aeon, where Jesus finds her on His ascension as here recorded. But this is not the end. Jesus tells her that when “three times” are fulfilled^[538], she 157will be tormented again. This happens as predicted immediately before the descent of the “vesture” on Him on the Mount of Olives. Thereupon, He delivers her for the last time and restores her to her place in the 13th Aeon, where she sings to him a final hymn of thanksgiving.

This completes the episode of Pistis Sophia, and the rest of the book is filled with the questionings upon it of Mary Magdalene and the other disciples, among whom are prominent Mary the Mother of Jesus, Salome, Martha, St John the Divine, St Philip, St Thomas, and St Matthew, to which last-named three is said to be entrusted the recording of the words of Jesus, together with St Peter, St James and St Andrew. This has led some commentators to think that the work may possibly be the Interrogations of Mary (Ἐρωτήσεις Μαρίας), concerning which Epiphanius says that two versions, a greater and a lesser, were used by several Gnostic sects^[539]. These questionings and the answers of Jesus are extremely tedious, and include the comparison of the hymns of Pistis Sophia, fourteen in all, with certain named Psalms and Odes of David and Solomon of which they are said to be the “interpretation^[540].” In the course of this, however, the purpose of the book is disclosed, 158and appears as the revelation of the glories awaiting the believer in the world to come, the coming of the Millennium, and the announcement that Jesus has brought the “mysteries” to the earth for the salvation of men. But before describing these, it may be as well to draw attention to the manifest likeness between the theology and cosmology of the Pistis Sophia proper and what has been said above of the tenets of the Ophites and of Valentinus.

At first sight, the Pistis Sophia in this respect seems to be almost entirely an Ophite book. The Ineffable One, as has been said, is not to be distinguished from the Ophite Bythos, while “the First Mystery looking inward and outward” is a fairly close parallel to the First Man and the Son of Man of the Ophite system. The names Sabaoth, Iao, and Jaldabaoth also appear both here and with the Ophites, although the last-named power now occupies a greatly inferior position to that assigned to him by them, and from a merely ignorant power has now become an actively malignant one. The work assigned to Sophia Without in the older system is here taken in the Place of the Middle by the Virgin of Light, who is throughout the working agent in the salvation of mankind; but it should be noted that she here operates directly and not through a grosser power as with the Ophites. The idea of a female divinity ordering the affairs of men for their good as a mother with her children had already gained possession of the heathen world in the character of (the Greek) Isis, and in the hint here given as to the resemblance between her delegates and the Virgin Mary, we may see, perhaps, the road by which the Christian world travelled towards that conception of the Theotokos or Mother of God which played such an important part in its later creed. Among the powers inferior to her the names and places are changed, but the general arrangement remains nearly the same as with the Ophites, especially the Ophites of the diagram. The starry world in particular here comes much into evidence, and is given more important functions than in any other Gnostic system except the Ophite^[541]. The “Gates” of the firmaments are met 159with both here and in the Ophite prayers or “defences” recorded by Origen^[542], and an allusion put by this last into the mouth of Celsus and not otherwise explained, to “gates that open of their own accord,” looks as if Origen’s heathen adversary may himself have come across the story of the Pistis Sophia^[543]. The general hostility of this starry world and its rulers towards mankind is a leading feature in both systems.

On the other hand, the parallels between the theology of the Pistis Sophia and that of Valentinus are even closer, and are too important to be merely accidental. The complete identification of Jesus with the First Mystery strongly recalls the statement of Valentinus, rather slurred over by the Fathers, that Jesus was Himself the Joint Fruit or summary of the perfections of the whole Pleroma or Godhead, and is a much more Christian conception than that of the earlier Ophites as to His nature^[544]. So, too, the curious theory that each of 160the lower worlds has its own “saviour” finds expression in both systems, as does the idea that Jesus received something from all the worlds through which He passed on His way to earth. One may even find a vivid reminiscence of the Valentinian nomenclature in the name of Pistis Sophia herself, which combines the names of the feminine members of the first and last syzygies of the Valentinian Dodecad^[545], Pistis there being the spouse of Paracletus or the Legate, and Sophia that of Theletus or the Beloved, while the cause of her fall in the present book is the same as that assigned in the system of Valentinus. Hence it may appear that the author of the Pistis Sophia, whoever he may have been, was well acquainted with the Ophite and Valentinian theology, and that he continued it with modifications of his own after the innovating habit current among the Gnostics and noticed by Tertullian.

In the cosmology of the Pistis Sophia, again, the preference given to Valentinian rather than to the older Ophitic views is clearly marked. The cause of the descent of the light into 161matter in the first instance is no accident as with the Ophites, but is part of the large scheme for the evolution or, as the author calls it, the “emanation” of the universe which was devised and watched over in its smallest details by the First Mystery^[546]. Whether the author accepted the wild story attributed to Valentinus by Irenaeus concerning the Fall of Sophia and her Ectroma, it is impossible to say, because, as we have seen, he omits all detailed description of the way in which the two higher worlds which we have called the heavens of the Ineffable One and the world of the First Mystery came into being^[547]. But it is plain that both must have been made by or rather through Jesus, because it is stated in the mysterious five words written on the vesture of Jesus that it is through the First Mystery that all things exist, and that it was from him that all the emanations flowed forth^[548]. As the Pistis Sophia also says that Jesus is Himself the First Mystery, this corresponds to the opening words of St John’s Gospel, that “by Him all things were made^[549].” Hence the author of 162the Pistis Sophia, if confronted with the story of the Ectroma, would doubtless have replied that this was merely a myth designed to teach the danger for the uninstructed of acting on one’s own initiative instead of waiting for the commands of God, and that in his book he had told the same story in a slightly different way. This seems to be the only construction to be placed on the trials of Pistis Sophia herself, since her desire for light seems not to have been looked upon as in itself sinful, and the real cause of her downfall was the mistaking the light of Jaldabaoth for that of the Treasure-house. But her descent into Chaos, unlike the Fall of her prototype, apparently had nothing to do with the creation of the universe and its inhabitants, which in the Pistis Sophia seems to have taken place before the story opens. If they were supposed by the author to have originated in the passions of Sophia Without, as Hippolytus tells us Valentinus taught^[550], they were none the less the direct work of Jesus, and the statement in Hippolytus, that in the Valentinian teaching Jesus made out of the supplication of Sophia Without a path of repentance, finds a sort of echo in the Pistis Sophia, where it is the “Metanoiae” or hymns of penitence many times repeated of Pistis Sophia, her antitype or copy, which bring Jesus to her succour. A further parallel may be found in Hippolytus’ other statement from Valentinus that Jesus gave this “supplication” power over the psychic substance which is called the Demiurge^[551]. In the Pistis Sophia, the heroine defeats the Authades with the assistance of Jesus; and there does not seem much doubt that Pistis Sophia is eventually to receive her adversary the Authades’ place, an event which is foreshadowed by the quotation of the text “His bishopric let another take” in one of her penitential psalms^[552]. It would 163also appear that Adamas, the wicked king of the Twelve Aeons, may be the Adversary or Diabolos described by the Valentinians^[553] as the cosmocrator or ruler of this world, his rule being exercised in the Pistis Sophia through his servants, the Archons of “Heimarmene and the Sphere.” The epithet of Adamas or ἀδαμαστὸς given in classical literature to Hades as the Lord of Hell would seem appropriate enough in his case. This would only leave Beelzebub, prince of the demons, unaccounted for; but the author does not here give any detailed description of Chaos which may be supposed to be his seat. Although the omission was, as we shall see, amply repaired in other documents put forth by the sect, it may be here explained by the conviction of the nearness of the Parusia or Second Advent which marks the Pistis Sophia^[554]. On the fulfilment of this hope, the Cosmos was, as we are informed, to be “caught up,” and all matter to be destroyed^[555]. What need then to elaborate the description of its most malignant ministers?

The joys of the elect in the world to come, on the contrary, receive the fullest treatment. In the “completion of the Aeon, when the number of the assembly of perfect souls is made 164up^[556],” or in other words when all pneumatic or spiritual men have laid aside their material bodies, they will ascend through all the firmaments and places of the lesser powers until they come to the last Parastates, where they are to reign with Jesus over all the worlds below it^[557]. This is the place from which the power, which the Great Light, the legate of the Ineffable One, took from the First Precept and passed into the Kerasmos or Confusion, originated; and it was this world, or rather its ruler, who arranged Jeû and the other Powers of the Right Hand in their Places and thus set going the whole machinery of salvation. Its “light” or glory is said to be so tremendous that it can be compared to nothing in this world, and here Jesus will reign with the disciples for 1000 “years of light” which are equal to 365,000 of our years^[558]. Here the thrones of the twelve “disciples” (μαθηταί) will depend on His^[559], “but Mary Magdalene and John the Virgin shall be higher than all the disciples^[560].” In the midst of these beatitudes they will apparently receive further instruction or further mysteries, the effect of which will be that they will at the conclusion of the Millennium be united with Jesus in so close a union that, as it is expressly said, they will become one with Him, and finally they will become members of the Godhead and, as it were, “the last limb of the Ineffable One^[561].” In the meantime they will be at liberty to visit any of the worlds below them. All those who have received lesser mysteries,—that is to say, who have received a lesser degree of instruction and have not become wholly pneumatic or 165spiritual—will after death in this world go to the heaven of which they have received the mystery, or, in cases where their instruction has only just begun, be brought before the Virgin of Light, who will cause their souls to be sent back to earth in “righteous” bodies, which will of themselves seek after the mysteries, and, having obtained them, will, if time be allowed, achieve a more or less perfect salvation. Here, again, we meet with a close resemblance to the system of those later Ophites who possessed the diagram described by Origen; for Jesus tells His disciples that those who have only taken these lower mysteries will have to exhibit a seal or token (σύμβολον) and to make an “announcement” (ἀπόφασις) and a defence (ἀπολογία) in the different regions through which they pass after death^[562]. No such requirements, He says, will be made from those who have received the higher mysteries, whose souls on leaving the body will become great streams of light, which will pass through all the lower places “during the time that a man can shoot an arrow,” the powers therein falling back terror-stricken from its light until the soul arrives at its appointed place. As, therefore, these seals and announcements and defences will be of no use to the disciples, the Jesus of the Pistis Sophia declares that He will not describe them in detail, they having been already set out in “the two great Books of Jeû^[563].”

What now are these “mysteries” which have so tremendous an effect on their recipient as actually to unite him with the Deity after death? The Greek word μυστήριον, which is that used in the Coptic MS., does not seem to mean etymologically more than a secret, in which sense it was applied to the ceremonies or secret dramas exhibited, as has been said, at Eleusis and elsewhere, and later, to the Christian Eucharist^[564]. In the early part of the Pistis Sophia it is the word used to denote the First Mystery or first and greatest emanation of God, who is withdrawn from human contemplation and, as it were, concealed behind a veil impenetrable by the senses of man. 166But in the part of the book with which we are now dealing it seems to refer not to hidden persons, but to secret things. These things seem to fall into two categories, one of which is spoken of as the Mystery of the Ineffable One, and the other as the Mysteries of the First Mystery. The Mystery of the Ineffable One is said to be one, but, with the provoking arithmetic peculiar to the book, it is immediately added that it “makes” three mysteries and also another five, while it is still one^[565]. The Mysteries of the First Mystery on the other hand are said to be twelve in number, and these figures may possibly cover some allusion to the Ogdoad and the Dodecad of Valentinus^[566]. It is also fairly clear that each of these Twelve Mysteries of the First Mystery must be some kind of ceremony, and a ceremony which can be performed without much preparation 167or many participants. This we may deduce from the following description of the merits of one of them:

“For the second mystery of the First Mystery, if it is duly accomplished in all its forms, and the man who accomplishes it shall speak the mystery over the head of a man on the point of going forth from the body, so that he throws it into his two ears:—even when the man who is going forth from the body shall have received it aforetime, and is a partaker of the word of Truth^[567],—verily, I say unto you that when that man shall go forth from the body of matter, his soul will make a great flash of light, and will pass through every Place until it come into the kingdom of that mystery.

“But and if that man has not [aforetime] received that mystery, and is not a partaker of the word of Truth,—verily I say unto you that man when he shall go forth from the body shall not be judged in any Place whatever, nor shall he be tormented in any Place whatever, and no fire shall touch him on account of that great mystery of the Ineffable One which is in him; and all shall make haste to pass him from one hand to the other, and to guide him into every Place and every order, until they shall lead him before the Virgin of Light, all the Places being filled with fear before the sign of the mystery of the kingdom of that Ineffable One which shall be with him.

“And the Virgin of Light shall wonder and she shall try him, but he will not be led towards the light until he shall have accomplished all the service of the light of that mystery, that is to say, the purifications of the renunciation of the world and all the matter that is therein^[568]. But the Virgin of Light shall seal that soul with 168the excellent seal which is this XXXX^[569], and she shall have it cast in the same month in which it went forth from the body of matter into a righteous body which will find the God of Truth and the excellent mysteries in order that it may receive them by inheritance and also the light for eternity. Which is the gift of the second mystery of the First Mystery of that Ineffable One^[570].”

The only ceremony to which such grace as is here set forth was likely to be attributed by any Christian in the early age of the Church was that of Baptism. It was called by writers like Gregory of Nazianza and Chrysostom a μυστήριον^[571]; while we hear as early as St Paul’s time of “those who are baptized over [or on behalf of] the dead” (βαπτιξόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν)^[572], the theory being, according to Döllinger, that those who had wished during their lives to receive baptism but had not done so, could thus obtain the benefit of the prayers of the Church, which could not be offered for an unbaptized person^[573]. So much was this the case with some sects, that it was an offence charged by writers like Tertullian against the Valentinians that they were in the habit of delaying baptism as long as possible and even of putting it off till they were about to die^[574], as in the case in the text. Baptism, too, was 169spoken of in sub-Apostolic times as the “seal” (σφραγίς)^[575], or impress, which may be that which the soul has to exhibit, both in the Ophite system and in that of the Pistis Sophia, to the rulers of the next world. In any event, the rite was looked upon by Catholic and heretic alike as an initiation or commencement of the process by which man was united with Christ. The other eleven “mysteries of the First Mystery” are not specifically described in the Pistis Sophia; but it is said that the receiving of any one of them will free its recipient’s soul from all necessity to show seals or defences to the lesser powers and will exalt him after his death to the rank of a king in the kingdom of light, although it will not make him equal to those who have received the mystery of the Ineffable One^[576]. It therefore seems probable that these “twelve mysteries of the First Mystery” all refer to the rite of baptism, and are called twelve instead of one only to accord with some trifling juggling with words and letters such as was common with the followers of Valentinus^[577]. That baptism was held in the sub-Apostolic age to be, in the words of Döllinger, “not a mere sign, pledge, or symbol of grace, but an actual communication of it wrought by the risen and glorified Christ on the men He would convert and sanctify, and a bond to unite the body of the Church with its Head^[578],” will perhaps be admitted. According to the same author, St Paul teaches that “by Baptism man is incorporated with Christ, and puts on Christ, so that the sacramental washing does away with all natural distinctions or race;—Greek and Jew, slave and free, men and women, are one in Christ, members of His body, children of God and of the seed of Abraham^[579].” He tells us also that the same Apostle “not only divides man into body and spirit, but distinguishes in the bodily nature, the gross, visible, bodily frame, and a hidden, inner, ‘spiritual’ body not subject to limits of space or cognizable by the senses; 170this last, which shall hereafter be raised, is alone fit for and capable of organic union with the glorified body of Christ, of substantial incorporation with it^[580].” If Döllinger in the XIXth century could thus interpret St Paul’s words, is it extraordinary that the author of the Pistis Sophia should put the same construction on similar statements some sixteen centuries earlier? So the late Dr Hatch, writing of baptism in this connection, says: “The expressions which the more literary ages have tended to construe metaphorically were taken literally. It was a real washing away of sins; it was a real birth into a new life; it was a real adoption into a divine sonship^[581].”

If this be so, it seems to follow that the Mystery of the Ineffable One must be the other and the greatest of the Christian sacraments. Jesus tells His disciples that it is the “One and unique word,” and that the soul of one who has received it “after going forth from the body of matter of the Archons” will become “a great flood of light” and will fly into the height, no power being able to restrain it, nor even to know whither it goes. He continues:

“It shall pass through all the Places of the Archons and all the Places of the emanations of light, nor shall it make any announcement nor defence nor give in any symbol; for no Power of the Archons nor of the emanations of light can draw nigh to that soul. But all the Places of the Archons and of the emanations of light shall sing praises, being filled with fear at the flood of light which clothes that soul, until it shall have passed through them all, and have come into the Place of the inheritance of the mystery which it has received, which is the mystery of the sole Ineffable One, and shall have become united with his members^[582].”

He goes on to explain that the recipient of this mystery shall be higher than angels, archangels, and than even all the Powers of the Treasure-house of Light and those which are below it:

171“He is a man in the Cosmos; but he is a king in the light. He is a man in the Cosmos, but he is not of the Cosmos, and verily I say unto you, that man is myself and I am that man.”

“And, in the dissolution of the Cosmos, when the universe shall be caught up, and when the number of perfect souls shall be caught up, and when I am become king in the middle of the last Parastates, and when I am king over all the emanations of light, and over the Seven Amen, and the Five Trees, and the Three Amen, and the Nine Guards, and over the Boy of a Boy, that is to say the Twin Saviours, and when I am king over the Twelve Saviours and all the numbers of perfect souls who have received the mystery of light, then all the men who have received the mystery of that Ineffable One shall be kings with me, and shall sit on my right hand and on my left in my kingdom. Verily I say unto you, Those men are I and I am those men. Wherefore I said unto you aforetime: You shall sit upon thrones on my right hand and on my left in my kingdom and shall reign with me. Wherefore I have not spared myself, nor have I been ashamed to call you my brethren and my companions, seeing that you will be fellow-kings with me in my kingdom. These things, therefore, I said unto you, knowing that I should give unto you the mystery of that Ineffable One, and that mystery is I and I am that mystery^[583].”

That this is the supreme revelation up to which the author of the Pistis Sophia has been leading all through the book, there can hardly be any doubt. Its position shortly before the close of the book^[584], the rhapsodic and almost rhythmical phrases with which the approach to it is obscured rather than guarded, and the way in which directly the revelation is made, the author falls off into merely pastoral matters relating to the lesser mysteries, all show that the author has here reached his climax. But does this revelation mean anything else than that Jesus is Himself the victim which is to be received in the Sacrament or μυστήριον of the Altar? That the Christians of the first centuries really thought that in the Eucharist they united themselves to Christ by receiving His Body and Blood there can be no question, and the dogma can have come as no novelty to those who, like the Ophites, had combined with 172Christianity the ideas which we have seen current among the Orphics as to the sacramental efficacy of the homophagous feast and the eating of the quivering flesh of the sacrifice which represented Dionysos. Döllinger gives the views of the primitive Church concisely when he says it is “because we all eat of one Eucharistic bread, and so receive the Lord’s body, that we all become one body, or as St Paul says, we become members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” “We are nourished by communion,” he continues, “with the substance of His flesh and blood, and so bound to the unity of His body, the Church; and thus what was begun in Baptism is continued and perfected in the Eucharist^[585].” Thus, Justin Martyr, who lived in the reign of Antoninus Pius, says “the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh^[586].” That the same idea was realized by the heretics may be gathered from what has been said above as to the wonder-working celebration of the Eucharist by Marcus, when the wine was made to change visibly into blood before the eyes of the recipient^[587].

It is plain also that the Pistis Sophia does not look upon this perfect union as within the reach of all. Basilides, the first of the Egyptian Gnostics, had said that not one in a thousand or two in ten thousand were fit to be admitted to the higher mysteries, and the same phrase is repeated by Jesus Himself in one of the later documents of the MS. of which the Pistis Sophia forms part^[588]. Those who were worthy of admission to the 173mysteries of the Ineffable One and of the First Mystery were the pneumatics or spiritual men predestined to them from before their birth. For the others, the psychic or animal men, there were the mysteries “of the light,” which are, so to speak, the first step on the ladder of salvation^[589]. These are nowhere described in the Pistis Sophia or first document of the book, the hearer being therein always referred for their details to the two great Books of Jeû mentioned above, “which Enoch wrote when I (i.e. Jesus) spoke with him from the tree of knowledge and from the tree of life, which were in the Paradise of Adam^[590].” It is here expressly said that Jesus’ own disciples have no need of them; but their effect is described as purifying the body of matter, and transforming their recipient into “light” of exceeding purity. On the death of one who has taken them all, his soul traverses the different heavens repeating the passwords, giving in the defences, and exhibiting the symbols peculiar to each mystery until it reaches the abode assigned to its particular degree of spiritual illumination. These mysteries of the light are open to the whole world and there is some reason for thinking they are the sacraments of the Catholic Church, the members of which body, Irenaeus says, the “heretics” (Qy the Valentinians?) held not to be saved but to be only capable of salvation^[591]. If the recipient of these 174lesser mysteries dies before complete initiation, he has to undergo a long and painful series of reincarnations, his soul being sent back into the Sphere of Destiny and eventually into this world by the Virgin of Light, who will, however, take care that it is placed in a “righteous” body which shall strive after the mysteries until it finds them. But the way to these lower mysteries is the complete renunciation of this world. Man naturally and normally is entirely hylic or material, being, as Jesus tells His disciples in the Pistis Sophia, “the very dregs of the Treasure-house, of the Places of those on the Right Hand, in the Middle, and on the Left Hand, and the dregs of the Unseen Ones and of the Archons, and, in a word, the dregs of them all^[592].” Hence it is only by the cleansing grace of the mysteries that he can hope to escape the fate which is coming upon the Kerasmos, and to obtain these, he must avoid further pollution.

“Wherefore preach you to the whole race of men, saying: Slacken not day and night until ye find the cleansing mysteries. Say unto them: Renounce the world and all the matter that is therein; for whoso buys and sells in the world and eats and drinks in its matter, and lives in all its cares and all its conversations, takes unto himself other matter as well as his own matter.... Wherefore I said unto you aforetime: Renounce the whole world and all the matter that is therein lest ye add other matter to your own matter. Wherefore preach ye to the whole race of men ... cease not to seek day and night and stay not your hand until ye find the cleansing mysteries which will cleanse you so as to make you 175pure light, that ye may go into the heights and inherit the light of my kingdom^[593].”

We see, then, that the author of the Pistis Sophia really contemplated the formation of a Church within a Church, where a group of persons claiming for themselves special illumination should rule over the great body of the faithful, these last being voluntarily set apart from all communion with their fellows^[594]. This was so close a parallel to what actually occurred in Egypt in the IVth century, when the whole male population was said with some exaggeration to have embraced the monastic life^[595], and submitted themselves to the rule of an ambitious and grasping episcopate, as to give us a valuable indication as to the authorship and date of the book. It may be said at the outset that the conception of the universe which appears throughout is so thoroughly Egyptian that it must have been written for Egyptian readers, who alone could have been expected to understand it without instruction. The idea of the Supreme Being as an unfathomable abyss was, as has been said in Chapter II, a very old one in Egypt, where one of the oldest cosmogonies current made Nu or the sea of waters the origin of both gods and men^[596]. So was the peculiar theory that the lesser gods were the limbs or members of the Supreme^[597]. An Ogdoad^[598] or assembly of eight gods arranged in syzygies or 176couples was also well known in the time of the early dynasties, as was the Dodecad of twelve gods which Herodotus knew, and which M. Maspero refers on good evidence to the time of the Pyramid-Builders^[599]. So was the view that men and other material things were made from the tears of the celestial powers^[600], a notion well known to Proclus the Neo-Platonist, who attributed it to the legendary Orpheus^[601]. Not less Egyptian—perhaps in its origin exclusively Egyptian—is the view that the knowledge of the places of the world after death and their rulers was indispensable to the happiness of the dead. “Whosoever,” says M. Maspero in commenting upon some funerary texts of the Ramesside period, “knows the names of these (gods) while still on earth and is acquainted with their places in Amenti, will arrive at his own place in the other world and will be in all the places reserved for those who are justified^[602].” The resemblance between the system of the Pistis Sophia and the doctrines of the Egyptian religion in the days of the Pharaohs has been pointed out in detail by the veteran Egyptologist the late Prof. Lieblein and has been approved by M. Maspero^[603]. It extends to particular details as well as to general ideas, as we see from the ritual inscribed on the tombs at Thebes, where each “circle” or division of the next world is said to 177have its own song and its own “mystery,” an idea often met with in the Pistis Sophia^[604]. Even the doctrine in the Pistis Sophia that the dead had to exhibit a “seal” as well as a “defence” to the guardians of the heavenly places is explained by the Egyptian theory that no spell was effective without an amulet, which acted as a kind of material support to it^[605]. The greater part of the allusions in the Pistis Sophia are in fact unintelligible, save to those with some acquaintance with the religious beliefs of the Pharaonic Egyptians.

At the same time it is evident that the MS. of the Pistis Sophia that has come down to us is not the original form of the book. All the scholars who have studied it are agreed that the Coptic version has been made from a Greek original by a scribe who had no very profound acquaintance with the first-named tongue^[606]. This appears not only from the frequent appearance in it of Greek words following Coptic ones of as nearly as possible the same meaning; but from the fact that the scribe here and there gives us others declined according to the rules not of Coptic but of Greek accidence. We must therefore look for an author who, though an Egyptian and acquainted with the native Egyptian religion, would naturally have written in Greek; and on the whole there is no one who fulfils these requirements so well as Valentinus himself. The fact that the author never quotes from the Gospel according to St John indicates that it had not come to his knowledge; for the opening chapter of St John’s Gospel contains many expressions that could easily on the Gnostic system of interpretation be made to accord with the Valentinian theology, and is in fact so used by later writers of the same school as the author of the Pistis Sophia^[607]. Now the first direct and acknowledged quotation 178from St John’s Gospel that we have is that made by Theophilus, who was made bishop of Antioch in A.D. 170, and the generally received opinion is that this Gospel, whenever written, was not widely known long before this date^[608]. The only founders of Gnostic sects of Egyptian birth prior to this were Basilides and Valentinus, and of these two, Valentinus is the more likely author, because he, unlike his predecessor, evidently taught for general edification, and possessed, as the Fathers agree, a numerically large following. We have, moreover, some reason for thinking that Valentinus actually did write a book with some such title as the Sophia. Tertullian, in his declamation against the Valentinians, quotes a sentence from “the Wisdom (Lat. Sophia) not of Valentinus but of Solomon^[609].” It has been suggested that he is here referring to some saying of the Valentinian aeon Sophia; but no writings would in the nature of things be attributed to her, and, as M. Amélineau points out, it is more natural to think that he was here comparing a book with a book^[610]. This figure of rhetoric was a favourite one with Tertullian, for in his treatise De Carne Christi we find him quoting in like manner the Psalms—“not the Psalms of Valentinus, the apostate, heretic, and Platonist, but the Psalms of David^[611].” The fact that the story in the British Museum MS. is called Pistis Sophia instead of Sophia only need not hinder us from identifying this with the work presumably referred to by Tertullian, because this title is, as has been said, the work of another scribe than those who transcribed the original; and Pistis Sophia 179is sometimes spoken of in the MS. itself as Sophia only^[612]. Moreover, there is some reason for thinking that certain of the Fathers and even their Pagan adversaries had seen and read the story of Pistis Sophia. The allusion quoted above from Origen to gates opening of their own accord seems to refer to one of its episodes, and Tertullian, in the treatise in which he says he is exposing the original tenets of the sect^[613], uses many expressions that he can hardly have borrowed from any other source. Thus, he speaks of Sophia “breaking away from her spouse^[614]” which is the expression used by Pistis Sophia in her first Metanoia and is in no way applicable to the Valentinian Sophia of Irenaeus or Hippolytus. He again speaks of the same Sophia as being all but swallowed up and dissolved in “the substance” evidently of Chaos, which is the fate which Pistis Sophia anticipates for herself in the MS. Tertullian, like the Pistis Sophia, also assigns to the psychic substance the place of honour or right hand in the quasi-material world, while the hylic is relegated in both to the left hand^[615]. The Paradise of Adam is said by him to be fixed by Valentinus “above the third heaven^[616]” as it is in the Pistis Sophia, if, as we may suppose, the soul of the protoplast dwelt in the same place as that of Elijah. The name of Ecclesia or the Church is given not only to a particular aeon in the Pleroma, but also to the divine power breathed into man from a higher world in both Tertullian and the Pistis Sophia^[617], and, in the treatise De Carne Christi, Tertullian alludes contemptuously to an heretical doctrine that Christ possessed “any new kind of flesh miraculously obtained from the stars^[618],” which seems to refer to the taking by Jesus in the opening of the Pistis Sophia of a body from “Barbelo” the goddess or Triple Power 180set over matter and inspiring the benefic planet Venus. For all which reasons it seems probable that in the Pistis Sophia we have the translation of an authentic work by Valentinus.

The Pistis Sophia, however, is not the only work in the British Museum MS. The first and second books of it, as they are called by the annotator, come to an end, rather abrupt but evidently intentional, on the 252nd page of the MS. There then appears the heading in the hand of the annotator “Part of the Texts of the Saviour^[619],” and on this follow two pages dealing with the “members” of the Ineffable One, as to which it is expressly said that only a partial revelation is made^[620]. These seem to have slipped out of their proper place, and are followed by two discontinuous extracts from another treatise, the second of which is also headed by the annotator “Part of the Texts of the Saviour.” This second part, which we shall venture to take before the other, is evidently the introduction to or the commencement of a new treatise, for it begins with the statement that “After they had crucified Our Lord Jesus He rose from the dead on the third day,” and that His disciples gathered round Him, reminding Him that they had left all to follow Him^[621]. Jesus “standing on the shore of the sea Ocean,” then makes invocation to the “Father of every Fatherhood, boundless light,” in a prayer composed of Egyptian and Hebrew words jumbled together after the fashion of the spells in the Magic Papyri^[622]. He then shows 181the disciples the “disk of the sun” as a great dragon with his tail in his mouth drawn by four white horses and the disk of the moon like a ship drawn by two white steers^[623]. The two 182steering oars of this last are depicted as a male and a female dragon who take away the light from the rulers of the stars among whom they move. Jesus and His disciples are then translated to the place called the “Middle Way^[624].” He there describes how the Archons of Adamas rebelled and persisted in engendering and bringing forth “rulers and archangels and angels and ministers and decans.” We further hear, for the first time, that the Twelve Aeons, instead of being, as in the Pistis Sophia, all under the rule of Adamas, are divided into two classes, one Jabraoth ruling over six of them and Sabaoth Adamas over the other six; that Jabraoth and his subjects repented and practised “the mysteries of the light,” including, as we have seen, abstinence from generation^[625], whereupon they were taken up by Jeû to the light of the sun between the “places of the middle and those of the left.” “Sabaoth Adamas,” on the other hand, with his subjects to the number of 1800, were bound to the sphere, 360 powers being set over them, the 360 being controlled by the five planets Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. Jesus then describes in great detail the different tortures in the Middle Way and two other hells called Chaos and Amenti, wherein the souls of uninitiated men who commit sins are tormented between their incarnations^[626], the final punishment being in the worst cases 183annihilation. He then affords His disciples a vision of “fire and water and wine and blood” which He declares He brought with Him on His Incarnation, and celebrates a sacrament which He calls “the baptism of the First Oblation,” but which seems to be a peculiar form of the Eucharist with invocations in the jargon alluded to above, and a thaumaturgic conversion of the wine used in it into water and vice versâ^[627]. There are several lacunae in this part of the MS., and the tortures for certain specified sins are differently given in different places, so that it is probable that with the Part of the Texts of the Saviour has here been mixed extracts from another document whose title has been lost^[628].

The remaining document of the British Museum MS., being the third in order of place, was probably taken from the same book as that last described, and was placed out of its natural order to satisfy the pedantry of the scribes, the rule in such cases being that the longer document should always come first. Like its successor, it deals largely with the “punishments” of the souls who have not received the mysteries of the light, and introduces a new and still more terrible hell in the shape of the “Dragon of Outer Darkness” which it declares to be a vast dragon surrounding the world, having his tail in his mouth, and containing twelve chambers, wherein the souls of the uninitiated dead are tortured after their transmigrations are ended until they reach the annihilation reserved for them at the last judgment^[629]. There is also given here a 184very curious account of man’s invisible part, which is said to be made up of the “Power” infused into it by the Virgin of Light which returns to its giver after death^[630], and the Moira or Fate which it derives from the Sphere of Destiny and has as its sole function to lead the man it inhabits to the death he is predestined to die^[631]. Then there is the Counterfeit of the Spirit, which is in effect a duplicate of the soul proper and is made out of the matter of the wicked Archons. This not only incites the soul to sin, but follows it about after death, denouncing to the powers set over the punishments the sins it has induced the soul to commit^[632]. All these punishments, to describe which is evidently the purpose of all the extracts from the Texts of the Saviour here given, are escaped by those who have received the mysteries.

The Texts of the Saviour therefore clearly belong to a later form of Gnosticism than the Pistis Sophia properly so called. The author’s intention is evidently to frighten his readers with the fate reserved for those who do not accept the teaching of the sect. For this purpose the division of mankind into pneumatic, psychic, and hylic is ignored^[633], and this is especially 185plain in certain passages where the torments after death of those who follow “the doctrines of error” are set forth. Magic, which has been spoken of with horror in the Pistis Sophia, is here made use of in the celebration of the rites described, and the miraculous power of healing the sick and raising the dead, though said to be of archontic, i.e. diabolic, origin is here recommended as a means to be employed under certain safeguards for the purpose of converting “the whole world^[634].” Even the duration of the punishments and the different bodies into which the souls of the men are to be cast are made to depend upon the relative positions of the stars and planets which seem to be interpreted according to the rules of the astrology of the time,—a so-called science, which is spoken of scornfully in the Pistis Sophia itself^[635]. Yet it is evident that the author or authors of the Texts of the Saviour are acquainted with the 186book which precedes it; for in a description of the powers which Jeû, who appears in both as the angelic arranger of the Kerasmos, “binds” in the five planets set to rule over it, we learn that he draws a power from “Pistis Sophia, the daughter of Barbelo” and binds it in the planet Venus or Aphrodite^[636]. As this is the only reference to her, and receives no further explanation, it is plain that the writer assumed his readers to be well acquainted with Pistis Sophia’s history, and Jeû, Melchisidek, Adamas, and Jaldabaoth, now one of the torturers in Chaos, appear, as we have seen, in both works. The author of the Texts of the Saviour also shows himself the avowed opponent of the Pagan deities still worshipped in the early Christian centuries, as is evidenced by his making not only the Egyptian Typhon, but Adonis, Persephone, and Hecate, fiends in hell. Oddly enough, however, he gives an explanation of the myth of the two springs of memory and oblivion that we have seen in the Orphic gold plates in the following passage, which may serve as an example of the style of the book:

“Jesus said: When the time set by the Sphere of Destiny^[637] for a man that is a persistent slanderer to go forth from the body is fulfilled, there come unto him Abiuth and Charmon, the receivers of Ariel^[638], and lead forth his soul from the body, that they may take it about with them for three days, showing it the creatures of the world. Thereafter they drag it into Amenti unto Ariel that he may torment it in his torments for eleven months and twenty-one days. Thereafter they lead it into Chaos unto Jaldabaoth and his forty-nine demons, that each of his demons may set upon it for eleven months and twenty-one days with whips of smoke. 187Thereafter they lead it into rivers of smoke and seas of fire that they may torment it therein eleven months and twenty-one days. Thereafter they lead it on high into the Middle Way that each of the Archons of the Middle Way may torment it with his own torments another eleven months and twenty-one days. And thereafter they lead it unto the Virgin of Light who judges the righteous and the sinners, and she shall judge it. And when the Sphere is turned round, she delivers it to her receivers that they may cast it forth among the Aeons of the Sphere. And the servants of the Sphere lead it into the water which is below the Sphere, that the boiling steam may eat into it, until it cleanse it thoroughly. Then Jaluha the receiver of Sabaoth Adamas, bearing the cup of oblivion delivers it to the soul, that it may drink therein and forget all the places and the things therein through which it has passed^[639]. And it is placed in an afflicted body wherein it shall spend its appointed time^[640].”

The object of the cup of oblivion is obviously that the wicked man may learn nothing from the torments he has endured. In the case of the righteous but uninitiated dead, the baleful effect of this cup will be annulled by “the Little Sabaoth the Good” who will administer to him another cup “of perception and understanding and wisdom” which will make the soul seek after the mysteries of light, on finding which it will inherit light eternal.

It would be easy to see in these features of the Texts of the Saviour the work of Marcus the magician who, as was said in a former chapter, taught, according to the Fathers, a corrupted form of the doctrine of Valentinus for his own interested purposes^[641]. The distinguishing feature about his celebration of the Eucharist is the same as that given in the Texts of the 188Saviour, and as Clement of Alexandria was acquainted with a sect in his day which substituted water for wine therein^[642], it is probable that Marcosians were to be found during the latter part of the IInd century in Egypt. It is also to be noted that the annotator has written upon the blank leaf which separates the first and second books of the Pistis Sophia a cryptogram concealing, apparently, the names of the Ineffable One and the other higher powers worshipped by Valentinus, and this seems to be constructed in much the same way as the isopsephisms and other word-puzzles attributed by Irenaeus to Marcus^[643]. The mixture of Hebrew names and words with Egyptian ones in the prayer of Jesus given in the Texts of 189the Saviour would agree well with what the last-named Father says about Marcus being a Jew, and a prayer which he represents Marcus as making over the head of a convert baptized into his sect is couched in a jargon of the same character^[644]. On the other hand, the opening sentence of the book calls Jesus “our Lord,” which Irenaeus tells us the Valentinians carefully abstained from doing^[645], and the long and detailed description of the different hells and their tortures is much more Egyptian than Jewish^[646]. The remark attributed to Basilides as to one in a thousand and two in ten thousand being worthy to take the higher mysteries is here put into the mouth of Jesus, and perhaps it would be safer to attribute for the present the Texts of the Saviour not to Marcus himself, but to some later Gnostic who fused together his teaching with that of the earlier and more disinterested professors of Egyptian Gnosticism.

The same remarks apply with but little modification to some other fragments of Gnostic writings which have come down to us. In the Bodleian Library at Oxford is to be seen a MS. written on papyrus, which was brought to this country by the Abyssinian traveller, Bruce. This also is in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic, and although it has been badly damaged and the ink is rapidly disappearing in the damp climate of Oxford, yet a copy taken nearly a century ago by Woide makes its decipherment possible in most places. The Bruce Papyrus, like the British Museum parchment MS., contains more than one document. Unfortunately the arrangement of the leaves is by no means certain, and the two scholars who have studied it most thoroughly differ almost as widely as possible as to the order of its contents. M. Amélineau, a celebrated Egyptologist and Coptic scholar, who published in 1882 a copy of 190the text with a French translation in the Notices et Extraits of the Académie des Inscriptions, considers that the treatises contained in it are only two in number, the first being called by the author in what seems to be its heading The Book of the Knowledge of the Invisible God and the second The Book of the Great Word in Every Mystery. Dr Carl Schmidt, of the University of Berlin, on the other hand, who, like M. Amélineau, has studied the Papyrus at Oxford, thinks that he can distinguish in the Bruce Papyrus no less than six documents, of which the first two are according to him the two books of Jeû referred to in the Pistis Sophia, two others, fragments of Gnostic prayers, the fifth a fragment on the passage of the soul through the Archons of the Middle Way, and the sixth, an extract from an otherwise unknown Gnostic work which he does not venture to identify further^[647]. To enter into the controversy raised by this diversity of opinion would take one outside the limits of the present work; but it may be said that at least one, and that the most important, of the documents in question must be later than the Pistis Sophia. Not only does this—which M. Amélineau calls the Book of the Knowledge of the Invisible God and Dr Schmidt “Unbekanntes Altgnostisches Werk”—quote the opening words of St John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God without whom nothing was made^[648],” 191which, as has been said, the author of the Pistis Sophia was unable to do; but it mentions in briefer form than this last the heavenly origin of the souls of the Twelve Apostles^[649]. There is also in the same document a description of what appears to be the “emanation of the universe,” in which the following passage occurs:

“And He [i.e. the Ineffable One] heard them [a prayer by the lesser powers is referred to]. He sent them powers capable of discernment, and knowing the arrangement of the hidden Eons. He sent them according to the arrangement of those who are hidden^[650]. He established their Orders according to the orders of the Height, and according to the hidden arrangement they began from below upward in order that the building might unite them. He created the aëry earth as a place of habitation for those who had gone forth, in order that they might dwell thereon until those which were below them should be made strong. Then he created the true habitation within it^[651], the Place of Repentance (Metanoia) within it, the Place of Repentance within it, the antitype of Aerodios^[652]. Then [he created] the Place of Repentance within 192it, the antitype of Autogenes (Self-begotten or, perhaps, ‘of his own kind’). In this Place is purification in the name of Autogenes who is god over them and powers were set there over the source of the waters which they make to go forth (?). Here are the names of the powers who are set over the Water of Life: Michar and Micheu, and they are purified in the name of Barpharanges^[653]. Within these are the Aeons of Sophia. Within these is the true Truth. And in this Place is found Pistis Sophia, as also the pre-existent Jesus the Living, Aerodios, and his Twelve Aeons^[654].”

What is intended to be conveyed by this it is difficult to say in the absence of the context; but the Pistis Sophia mentioned is evidently the heroine of the book of that name, and the abrupt mention of her name without explanation shows, as in the Texts of the Saviour, that the author supposed his readers to be acquainted with her story. While this part of the Papyrus may possibly be an attempt by some later writer to fulfil the promise to tell His disciples at some future time the “emanation of the universe” frequently made by Jesus in the Pistis Sophia, it cannot be earlier in date than this last-named document.

Another large fragment in the Bruce Papyrus is also connected with that which has been called above the Texts of the Saviour, and helps to link up this with the system of the Pistis Sophia proper. In the first part of the Texts of the Saviour (i.e. the fourth document in the British Museum book), Jesus, as has been mentioned, celebrates with prodigies a sacrament which He calls the “Baptism of the first Oblation”; and He tells them at the same time that there is also a baptism of perfumes, another baptism of the Holy Spirit of Light, and a Spiritual Chrism, besides which He promises them “the great mystery 193of the Treasure-house of Light and the way to call upon it so as to arrive thither,” a “baptism of those who belong to the Right Hand,” and of “those who belong to the Middle” and other matters. These promises are in some sort fulfilled in that part of the Bruce Papyrus which Dr Schmidt will have it is “the Second Book of Jeû^[655],” where Jesus celebrates with accompanying prodigies three sacraments which He calls the Baptism of Fire of the Virgin of the Treasure-house of Light, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and a “mystery” which is said to take away from His disciples “the wickedness of the archons^[656].” The details of these vary but very slightly from the “Baptism of the First Oblation” celebrated by Jesus in the Texts of the Saviour, and seem to have been written in continuation and as an amplification of it. But the Texts of the Saviour, as we have seen, also mention Pistis Sophia in such a way as to presuppose an acquaintance with her history; and the presumption that the author of the Bruce Papyrus had read the book bearing her name is confirmed by the repetition in it of the names of Jeû, here called “the Great Man, King of the great aeon of light,” the Great Sabaoth the Good, the Great Iao the Good, Barbelo^[657], the Great Light, and all the “Amens,” “Twin Saviours,” “Guardians of Veils” and the rest who are classed together in the Pistis Sophia as the great emanations of light, and mentioned in a connection which shows them to have the same functions in all these documents^[658]. When we add to these the repetition of the tradition, formally stated for the first time in the Pistis Sophia, that Jesus spent twelve years with His disciples between His Resurrection and His 194Ascension^[659], there can be little doubt that this part of the Papyrus Bruce also is subsequent to the Pistis Sophia. Similar arguments, which are only omitted here for the sake of greater clearness, apply to all the rest of Dr Schmidt’s documents, and it follows that none of the contents of the Papyrus can be considered as any part of the “Books of Jeû” mentioned in the Pistis Sophia^[660], which, therefore, remains the parent document on which all the others are based. As to their absolute date, it seems impossible to arrive at any useful conclusion. Both M. Amélineau and Dr Schmidt are agreed that the Coptic Papyrus is a translation from Greek originals; and M. Amélineau does not put this too far forward when he suggests that it was made in the IInd and IIIrd century of our era^[661]. Dr Schmidt is probably nearer the mark when he puts the actual transcription of the Papyrus as dating in the earliest instance from the Vth century. His earliest date for any of the Greek originals is the first half of the IIIrd century^[662].

If now we put these later documents—the Texts of the Saviour and those contained in the Bruce Papyrus—side by side, we notice a marked, if gradual, change of tendency from the comparatively orthodox Christianity of the Pistis Sophia proper. In the Texts of the Saviour notably, the fear of hell and its punishments is, as we have seen, present throughout, and seems to be the sanction on which the author relies to compel his readers to accept his teaching. In the documents of the Bruce Papyrus this is also to be found in more sporadic fashion, nearly the whole of the book being occupied by the means by which men are to escape the punishment of their 195sins. These methods of salvation are all of them what we have earlier called gnostical or magical, and consist simply in the utterance of “names” given us in some sort of crypto-grammatic form, and the exhibition of “seals” or rather impressions (χαρακτῆρες) here portrayed with great attention to detail, which, however, remain utterly meaningless for us. Thus to quote again from what Dr Schmidt calls the Second Book of Jeû, Jesus imparts to His disciples the “mystery” of the Twelve Aeons in these words:

“When you have gone forth from the body and come into the First Aeon, the Archons of that Aeon will come before you. Then stamp upon yourselves this seal AA, the name of which is zôzesê. Utter this once only. Take in your two hands this number, 1119. When you have stamped upon yourselves this seal and have uttered its name once only, speak these defences; ‘Back! Protei Persomphôn Chous, O Archons of the First Aeon, for I invoke Êazazêôzazzôzeôz.’ And when the Archons of the First Aeon shall hear that name, they will be filled with great fear, they will flee away to the West, to the Left Hand, and you will enter in^[663]”:

and the same process with different names and seals is to be repeated with the other eleven aeons. This is, of course, not religion, such as we have seen in the writings of Valentinus, nor even the transcendental mysticism of the Pistis Sophia, but magic, and magic of a peculiarly Egyptian form. The ancient Egyptian had always an intense fear of the world after death, and from the first conceived a most gloomy view of it. The worshippers of Seker or Socharis, a god so ancient that we know him only as a component part of the triune or syncretic divinity of late dynastic times called Ptah-Seker-Osiris, depicted it as a subterranean place deprived of the light of the sun, hot and thirsty, and more dreary than even the Greek Hades or the Hebrew Sheol.

“The West is a land of sleep and darkness heavy, a place where those who settle in it, slumbering in their forms, never wake to see their brethren; they never look any more on their father and their mother, their heart leaves hold of their wives and children. 196The living water which earth has for every one there, is foul here where I am; though it runs for every one who is on earth, foul is for me the water which is with me. I do not know any spot where I would like to be, since I reached this valley! Give me water which runs towards me, saying to me, ‘Let thy jug never be without water’; bring to me the north wind, on the brink of water, that it may fan me, that my heart may cool from its pain. The god whose name is Let Complete Death Come, when he has summoned anybody to him, they come to him, their hearts disturbed by the fear of him; for there is nobody dares look up to him from amongst gods and men, the great are to him as the small and he spares not [those] who love him, but he tears the nursling from the mother as he does the old man, and everyone who meets him is filled with affright^[664].”

The priests took care that such a picture did not fade from want of reproduction and, true to the genius of their nation, elaborated it until its main features are almost lost to us under the mass of details^[665]. Especially was this the case with the religion of the Sun-God Ra, who after his fusion with Amon of Thebes at the establishment of the New Empire came to overshadow all the Egyptian cults save that of Osiris. The tombs of the kings at Thebes are full of pictures of the land of this Amenti or the West, in which horror is piled upon horror, and book after book was written that there should be no mistake about the fate lying in wait for the souls of men^[666]. In these we see the dead wandering from one chamber to another, breathing a heavy and smoke-laden air^[667], and confronted at every step by frightful fiends compounded from the human and bestial forms, whose office is to mutilate, to burn, and to torture the soul. The means of escape open to the dead was, under the XXth dynasty, neither the consciousness of a well-spent life nor the fatherly love of the gods, but the knowledge of passwords and mysterious names^[668]. Every chamber had a guardian who demanded of the dead his own 197name, without repeating which the soul was not allowed to enter^[669]. Every fiend had to be repelled by a special exorcism and talisman^[670], and every “circle” through which the dead passed had its own song and “mystery,” which it behoved the dead to know^[671]. Only thus could he hope to win through to the Land of Osiris, where he might enjoy a relative beatitude and be free to go about and visit the other heavenly places^[672]. For this purpose, the map, so to speak, of the route was engraved on the walls of the tombs of those who could afford it, and the necessary words to be said written down. Those who were not so rich or so lucky were thought to be parcelled out, like the fellahin of that day, or the villeins of feudal times, in colonies among the different districts of the lower world, where they flourished or perished according to the number of talismans or “protections” that they possessed^[673]. “If ever,” says M. Maspero, “there were in Pharaonic Egypt mysteries and initiates, as there were in Greece and in Egypt under the Greeks, these books later than the Book of the Other World and the Book of the Gates are books of mystery and of initiates^[674].” Thereafter, he goes on to say, the ancient popular religion disappeared more and more from Egypt, to give place to the overmastering sense of the terrors of death^[675] and the magical means by which it was sought to lighten them.

It is to the survival of these ideas that books like the Texts of the Saviour and those in the Papyrus Bruce must be attributed. The Gnostic Christianity of Valentinus, direct descendant as it was of the amalgam of Christianity with pre-Christian faiths which the Ophites had compounded, no sooner reached the great mass of the Egyptian people than it found itself under their influence. In this later Gnostic literature we hear no more of the Supreme Father of Valentinus, “who alone” 198in his words, “is good”; no more weight is laid upon the Faith, Hope, and Love who were the first three members of his Heavenly Man; and the Jesus in whom were summed up all the perfections of the Godhead becomes transformed into a mere mystagogue or revealer of secret words and things. All expectation of the immediate arrival of the Parusia or Second Coming, when the world is to be caught up and all wickedness to be destroyed, has passed into the background, as has also the millennium in which the faithful were, in accordance with a very early belief in Egypt, to share the felicity of those who had been kings on earth^[676]. Instead we have only appeals to the lowest motives of fear and the selfish desire to obtain higher privileges than ordinary men. Even the avoidance of crime has no other sanction, and complete withdrawal from the world is advocated on merely prudential grounds; while rejection of the mysteries is the unpardonable sin:

“When I have gone unto the light” (says the Jesus of the Texts of the Saviour to His disciples) “preach unto the whole world, saying: Renounce the whole world and the matter that is therein, all its cares, its sins, and in a word all its conversation, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the light, that ye may be saved from all the torments which are in the judgments. Renounce murmuring, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the light, that ye may escape the judgment of that dog-faced one.... Renounce wrath, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the light, that ye may be saved from the fire of the seas of the dragon-faced one.... Renounce adultery, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the kingdom of light, that ye may be saved from the seas of sulphur and pitch of the lion-faced one.... Say unto them that abandon the doctrines of truth of the First Mystery ‘Woe unto you, for your torment shall be worse than that of all 199men, for ye shall dwell in the great ice and frost and hail in the midst of the Dragon of the Outer Darkness, and ye shall escape no more from the world from that hour unto evermore, but ye shall be as stones therein, and in the dissolution of the universe ye shall be annihilated, so that ye exist no more for ever^[677]’.”

The priests who engraved the horrors of the next world on the walls of the royal tombs at Thebes would probably have written no differently.

Gnosticism then, in Egypt soon relapsed into the magic from which it was originally derived; and we can no longer wonder that the Fathers of the Church strove as fiercely against it as they did. In the age when books like the Texts of the Saviour and the fragments in the Papyrus Bruce could be written, the methods of Clement of Alexandria, who treated Valentinus and his school as Christians bent on the truth though led into error by a misunderstanding of the purport of heathen philosophy, were clearly out of place. “Ravening wolves,” “wild beasts,” “serpents,” and “lying rogues” are some of the terms the Fathers now bestow upon them^[678], and as soon as the conversion of Constantine put the sword of the civil power into their hands, they used it to such effect that Gnosticism perished entirely in some places and in others dragged on a lingering existence under other forms. The compromise that had served for some time to reconcile the great mass of the unthinking people to the religion of Christ thus broke down^[679]; and Egypt again showed her power of 200resisting and transforming all ideas other than those which thousands of years had made sacred to her people.