Pistis Sophia

Pistis Sophia — G. R. S. Mead — Section 27

Some twenty leaves at least are missing, and even when Bruce fonnd it it was in a very dilapidated condition. It was further injured by neglect and damp in the Bodleian, when Woide found it and carefully copied it. Woide considered that it was the Egyptian form of the Pistis Sophia written by Valentinus in Coptic. It is, how- ever, evidently a translation like the Pistis Sophia from the Greek, and like the Pistis Sophia is crammed full of the Greek original technical terms. Schwartze also copied it. In 1891 Amelineau published a text and a French translation at Paris, and in 1892 Schmidt published a text and a German translation at Leipzig. Schmidt has sorted out this puzzling chaos of leaves with the following results : The Codex consists of tw^o treatises quite distinct in matter and character. The first is divided into two parts, the two Books of leou, under the general title, The Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery [? of leou]. The second treatise has no title, and is followed by a long Hymn to the Gnosis, also without title. The First Book of leou opens with the title, " This is the Book of the Know- ledge of the Invisible God." One thing is abundantly clear on every page, namely, that we are dealing with a MS. which contains the ideas of the same school as that to which the Pistis Sophia and the Books of the Saviour belong. In fact, the longer Extract from the Books of the Saviour practically gives the same account of the three baptisms as that found in far greater fulness in the Codex Brucianus. Whether or not the Extracts from the Books of the Saviour appended to the MS. of the Pistis Sophia belong to the missing portions of the Codex Brucianus, or whether the translator from the Greek abridged some portion of the Books of leou to give his readers an idea of these books to w^hich the text of the Pistis Sophia had just made reference, it is impossible to say ; this much is certain, that the Books of the Saviour and the treatises of INTRODUCTION. XXXlll