Pistis Sophia

Pistis Sophia — G. R. S. Mead — Section 25

At the end of the MS., and after the conclusion of the narrative, there is an extra leaf which has only the left-hand column partialh' filled with writing. The subject is here again completely changed, and leads us to suppose that some leaves are missing before it. Finally, at page 379 eight pages or four leaves of the MS. have disappeared. A general view of the nature of the subjects treated of may be seen from the contents table, which consists of the indented summaries I have added to the text. The question that next arises is what was the original The date ^'''^^^ work from which the Coptic translation of and the Pistis Sophia was made. I am convinced that shir) of ^^^ original was no other than the famous Apoca- the Greek lypse of Sophia, composed by Valentinus, the most origma . |g.^j,j;jg(j doctor of the Gnosis, who lived for thirty years in Egypt in the latter half of the second century, and was also a master of the Greek language, in which he wrote his treatises. But the farther consideration of this point must be postponed for the Commentary I propose to write, and in which a compai'ison between the Pistis Sophia and the rest of the fragments of the writings of Valentinus which have come down to us, will be attempted. It is sufficient to state here that this view is supported by AVoide, Jablonski, La Croze, Scholtze, Dulaurier, Schwartze, Renan, Bevaillant, Usener, and Amelineau, the last of whom, in his Essay on Egyptian Gnosticism and in the introduction to his translation of the Pistis Sophia, has dealt at length with the matter. The guarded opinion of Harnack also allows for the date of Valentinus. In his essay on the subject in 1891 (op. inf. cit,, pp. 9.5 sq.), the famous Biblical critic gives the terminus a quo as 140, and the terminus ad quern as 302. He bases the earliest limit on the fact INTRODUCTIOX. XXXI that the Gospels and Pauline Epistles are regarded in the text as Holy Scripture, and even a passage from the Ejnstle to the Uomans is quoted ])y the author as a saying of Jesus by the mouth of Paul. Now, the Pauline writings were never spoken of as Holy Scripture before the time of