Note 470 — Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

Τhis παρθένος τοῦ φωτός or Virgin of Light appears here, I think, for the first time in any Gnostic document, although she may have been known to the Valentinians. See Irenaeus, Bk II. c. 47, § 2, p. 368, Harvey. She is, perhaps, a lower analogue of Sophia Without, and is represented as seated in or near the material sun which is said to give its light in its “true form” only in her τόπος or place, which is 10,000 times more luminous than that of the Great Propator or Forefather mentioned later (Pistis Sophia, p. 194, Copt.). Her function seems to be the “judging” of the souls of the dead, which does not apparently involve any weighing of evidence, but merely the examination of them to see what “mysteries” they have received in previous incarnations, which will determine the bodies in which they are reincarnated or their translation to higher spheres (ibid. pp. 239, 292). She also places in the soul a power which returns to her, according to the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος, on the death of its possessor (ibid. p. 284, Copt.), thereby discharging the functions assigned in the last book of Plato’s Republic to Lachesis. She is also on the same authority (i.e. the Μ. τ. Σ.) one of the rulers of the disk of the sun and of that of the moon (ibid. pp. 340-341, Copt.), and her place is one of the “places of the Middle” and is opposite to the kingdom of Adamas, which is called the “head of the aeons” (ibid. p. 236, Copt.). She reappears in Manichaeism and it is said in the Acta Archelai that at the destruction of the world she will pass into “the ship” of the moon along with Jesus and other powers where she will remain until the whole earth is burnt up (c. XIII. p. 21 of Hegemonius, Acta Archelai, Beeson’s ed., Leipzig, 1906, p. 21). In the Turfan texts (F. W. K. Müller, Handschriften-Reste in Estrangelo Schrift aus Turfan, III. Teil, Berlin, 1904, p. 77) appears a fragment of a prayer in which is invoked yîšô kanîgrôšanâ which Dr Müller translates Ἰησοῦς παρθένος τοῦ φωτός, “Jesus, Virgin of Light”; but it is possible that there is some mistake in the reading.