Pistis Sophia
Home > Gnostics > Pistis Sophia Pistis Sophia At a Glance Treatise Genre: (1/5) * Reliability of Dating: (5/5) ***** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: Estimated Range of Dating: 200-255 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Petermann's Coptic TextPistis Sophia: The Books of the Savior Offsite Links The Pistis Sophia: An Introduction by Raul BrancoPistis Sophia by Oscar Uzcategui Q. Chartres and the Pistis Sophia by Dan Craig-Morse Pistis Sophia (reflections on Hurtak's commentary) Books G. R. S. Mead, Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Miscellany (Kessinger 1997 reprint) Violet MacDermot, The Fall of Sophia (Lindisfarne 2002) J.
J. Hurtak, The Pistis Sophia: Text and Commentary (Academy for Future Science 1999) Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Pistis Sophia The Pistis Sophia is preserved in the Codex Askewianus and has been known to scholars for nearly two centuries. Jack Finegan writes (Hidden Records of the Life of Jesus, p. 298), "The text of Codex Askewianus is divided into four sections." H.-C. Puech, revised by Beate Blatz, writes (New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 1, p. 362): "following the analysis of K.R. Kstlin, the results of which were adopted and more precisely stated by C. Schmidt, it is today almost unanimously agreed that the four sections of the manuscript must be divided into two distinct groups.
The first three sections correspond to the three books of one and the same work, probably composed between 250 and 300: the first book (pp. 1-81 of the Schmidt-Till translation) has neither superscription nor colophon; the second (pp. 82-162) has at the beginning the title (added later) 'The second book (tomos) of the Pistis Sophia', but is designated at the end as 'A part (meros) of the books (or rolls: teuche) of the Saviour (soter)'; the third (pp. 164.20-231.9), separated from the second by an independent fragment, the end of a lost book, is likewise entitled in the colophon 'A part (meros) of the books (or rolls: teuche) of the Saviour (soter)'. On the other hand the fourth section (232.1-254.8), which has no title, is in reality a distinct work, composed in the first half of the 3rd century and thus older than those which precede it.
Accordingly only the work contained in the first three books merits the name 'Pistis Sophia'." G. R. S. Mead writes (Pistis Sophia, pp. xxxvii-xxxix): The earlier view ascribed the P.S. to Valentinus, who died probably about the middle of the 2nd century, or a decade later, or alternatively to an adherent of the Valentinian school. We may call it the 2nd-century theory. A succession of scholars were of tihs opinion, among whom may be mentioned Woide, Jablonski, La Croze, Dulaurier, Schwartze, Renan, Rvillout, Usener and Amlineau. This earlier view can hardly be said to have been supported by any great show of detailed argument, except by the French Egyptologist and Coptic scholar Amlineau, who was its most stalwart supporter.
Seven years prior to his translation of P.S. in 1895, Amlineau devoted 156 pp. of a voluminous essay (Bib. 19), in which he sought to prove the Egyptian origins of Gnosticisma general thesis which can hardly be maintained in the light of more recent research,to a comparison of the system of Valentinus with that of the P.S. Meantime in Germany, shortly after the appearance of Schwartze's Latin version in 1851, the careful analysis of the system of the P.S. by Kstlin in 1854 gave rise to or confirmed another view. It abandoned the Valentinian origin, and pronounced generally in favour of what may be called an 'Ophitic' derivation. Kstlin plaecd the date of the P.S. in the 1st half of the 3rd century, and Lipsius (Bib.