The Pistis Sophia is a text apocryphal book emanating from gnostic circles of Egypt, which recognized forever like canonical by the Églises.

Discovered and diffusion

The Pistis Sophia (“Faithful Wisdom” or “Faith of Wisdom”) is an allegorical report of the design of the world of the gnostic ones, which one wrongly allotted (in reference to a text of Tertullien) to Valentine itself. The manuscript of 348 pages, of format in-4°, written on two columns and copied with was in the collection of Doctor Anthony Askew. Bought in the years 1760, the manuscript practically remained in the shade with the British Museum until in 1851, it is translated into Latin and Greek.

A French translation was published in the first volume of the Dictionnaire of the Apocryphal books (volume 23 of the Theological Encyclopédie ) of Migne, in 1856.

In 1896, the British readers had access to a translation of G.R.S. Mead, author prolific who became the large contemporary popularizer of the Hérésie S forgotten. The publications of Mead include/understand eleven volumes Échos of the Gnosis (1906-1908), an exhaustive edition of all the gnostic writings then known, while The Gnostic John the Baptiser (“Jean-Baptiste the gnostic one”), was the translation of the psalms of the sect mandéenne. Mead consciously made know these texts like hidden Gospels: it described the Pistis Sophia like a gnostic Gospel, and the text was usually recognized like “a kind of Gospel resulting from some gnostic sect from the origins”.

Characteristics

The Pistis Sophia was the beginning of the modern redécouverte gnostic Gospels. Because of its so precise development, work presents a complete introduction to the gnosticism, including many aspects which constituted the largest poles of interests in the texts of Nag Hammadi.

The Pistis Sophia claims to make a report of the exchanges that Jesus had with his disciples during the twelve years which followed the Résurrection.

The disciples and the holy women appear in turn in scene, and propose questions with Jesus who answers it according to the gnostic data. These questions touch with the Cosmogonie, the theory of the emanations, the nature and the hierarchy of the spirits, the origin of the evil.

The answers radically differ from those of the canonical texts, that it is by the description of the spiritual powers which direct the universe, the belief in the reincarnation, or the frequent use of magic formulas and invocations. Many sections treat stages with it during which Jesus releases the figure supernatural (and female) of Sophia, celestial Wisdom, of his bonds with the error and the material world; it is gradually reinstated in the sky in its divine statute of antan.

The described events proceed on a symbolic system level, mythical and psychological, which is typical gnostic texts, in clear opposition with the attachment of Christian orthodoxy to historical reality.

In a way very similar to the texts of Nag Hammadi one century later, the Pistis Sophia started a large wave of interest, in particular in the esoteric mediums.

Texts in external bonds

• Two pages of the French translation of Pistis Sophia in the translation of Emile Amélineau, 1895;
• volume 1 of the '' Dictionnaire of the Apocryphal books '' of Migne to be downloaded on Google Books Attention! file of 52 Mo, poor digitalization of quality.

Sources

• Dictionary of the Apocryphal books , Flight 1,1856, published by the abbot Migne, columns 1181 to 1286;
• the Jesus of the sects: How esoteric Christ became the Christ of the academics . Conference by Philip Jenkins (Conference CESNUR 2000 - Riga, Latvia).