My LORD’s BiblePistis Sophia: The First Book 1
The Pistis Sophia ("Faith-Wisdom"), a Coptic Gnostic work in which the risen Jesus, on the Mount of Olives, teaches his disciples the structure of the heavens and the mysteries that lead souls through it. It survives in one manuscript, the Askew Codex (British Library Add. MS. 5114, bought by the British Museum in 1785), in Sahidic Coptic translated from a lost Greek original; the author is unknown, and scholars date the work to the second or (more often) the third century AD. The codex is not one book: its own headings divide it into sections that Mead's edition calls the First Book to A Sixth Book, and its scribe's title for the whole is a portion of "the Books of the Saviour". The First Book (chapters 1-62) opens eleven years after the resurrection: Jesus is taken up in a great light, the powers of the heavens are shaken, and on his return he tells the disciples how he passed through the spheres of the rulers, took a third of their power and altered their courses. From chapter 30 he begins the story of Pistis Sophia, the being who fell out of the thirteenth æon and was tormented in the chaos; her songs of repentance are given in the words of the Psalms and the Odes of Solomon, and the disciples interpret them in turn. This is G.R.S. Mead's English of 1921 (second edition); his Preface, Introduction, marginal captions and footnote are not reproduced, and his square brackets (supplied words) and "sc." glosses are kept. Mead's chapter numbers run on through all six books, and each paragraph is a verse. The book ends with a note added by a later hand ("the note of a scribe"), which is kept as its own verse. Not part of any church's canon.
1It came to pass, when Jesus had risen from the dead, that he passed eleven years discoursing with his disciples, and instructing them only up to the regions of the First Commandment and up to the regions of the First Mystery, that within the Veil, within the First Commandment, which is the four-and-twentieth mystery without and below--those [four-and-twenty] which are in the second space of the First Mystery which is before all mysteries,--the Father in the form of a dove.
2And Jesus said to his disciples: "I am come forth out of that First Mystery, which is the last mystery, that is the four-and-twentieth mystery." And his disciples have not known nor understood that anything existeth within that mystery; but they thought of that mystery, that it is the head of the universe and the head of all existence; and they thought it is the completion of all completions, because Jesus had said to them concerning that mystery, that it surroundeth the First Commandment and the five Impressions and the great Light and the five Helpers and the whole Treasury of the Light.
3And moreover Jesus had not told his disciples the total expansion of all the regions of the great Invisible and of the three triple-powers and of the four-and-twenty invisibles, and all their regions and their æons and their orders, how they are extended--those which are the emanations of the great Invisible--and their ungenerated and their self-generated and their generated and their light-givers and their unpaired and their rulers and their authorities and their lords and their archangels and their angels and their decans and their servitors and all the houses of their spheres and all the orders of every one of them.
4And Jesus had not told his disciples the total expansion of the emanations of the Treasury, nor their orders, how they are extended; nor had he told them their saviours, according to the order of every one, how they are; nor had he told them what guard is at every [gate] of the Treasury of the Light; nor had he told them the region of the Twin-saviour, who is the Child of the Child; nor had he told them the regions of the three Amēns, in what regions they are expanded; nor had he told them into what region the five Trees are expanded; nor as to the seven Amēns, that is the seven Voices, what is their region, how they are expanded.
5And Jesus had not told his disciples of what type are the five Helpers, nor into what region they are brought; nor had he told them how the great Light hath expanded itself, nor into what region it hath been brought; nor had he told them of the five Impressions, nor as to the First Commandment, into what region they have been brought. But he had discoursed with them generally, teaching that they exist, but he had not told them their expansion and the order of their regions, how they are. For this cause they have not known that there were also other regions within that mystery.
6And he had not told his disciples: "I have gone forth out of such and such regions until I entered into that mystery, and until I went forth out of it"; but, in teaching them, he said to them: "I am come forth from that mystery." For this cause then they thought of that mystery, that it is the completion of completions, and that it is the head of the universe and that it is the total Fulness. For Jesus had said to his disciples: "That mystery surroundeth that universe of which I have spoken unto you from the day when I met with you even unto this day." For this cause then the disciples thought there is nothing within that mystery.