Riassunto
Riassunto di Pistis Sophia
A chi è rivolto
For readers curious about early Christian movements outside the New Testament, and for anyone who loves mystical cosmology, symbolic language and songs of repentance.
Che cos’è questo libro
Pistis Sophia is an early Christian text of the Gnostic kind. Its author is unknown. It survives in a single Coptic manuscript, now in the British Library, and scholars think a Greek original lies behind it. Most place its writing in the third or fourth century, probably in Egypt. The title means Faith Wisdom, and it names both a book and a divine being whose story stands at its centre.
The book is set after the resurrection. Jesus stays with his disciples for years and teaches them the deep secrets of the universe. You meet layers of heavens, ruling powers, a lost being of light who cries out for rescue, and a hard road for the soul to climb. Women disciples, above all Mary Magdalene, ask many of the questions. This summary follows the text in six steps, from its setting to the way readers handle it today. First, the scene where the teaching begins.
In questo riassunto
- 1The risen Jesus teaches for eleven yearsFree
- 2Jesus rises through the spheres in light
- 3Pistis Sophia falls and is left in darkness
- 4Her thirteen repentances echo the psalms
- 5Mysteries, baptisms and the soul's judgment
- 6How the book has been read and how to approach it
Punto chiave 1 di 6
The risen Jesus teaches for eleven years
The text opens after the resurrection. The surviving manuscript says that Jesus stayed with his disciples for eleven years, and in that time he taught them only up to the first rank of the mysteries. That is a bold claim. It suggests that the Gospels give just the outer teaching, and that a deeper circle of knowledge was kept for a few.
The disciples gather around him. Jesus speaks, a disciple asks what a saying means, and Jesus explains at length. The twelve are present, and so are the women who followed him. Mary Magdalene speaks most often, and Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome also appear among the questioners. At one point Peter complains that Mary talks too much, and Jesus defends her.
This format matters for understanding the book. Knowledge here is not a set of rules for behavior. It is a kind of insight into how the world is built and how a soul can leave it. The speaker is not a teacher of parables as in the Gospels. He is a revealer of names, ranks and secret words that a soul will need after death.
The manuscript itself is a codex of the fourth century or so, known as the Codex Askewianus after a London collector who owned it. It reached the British Museum in the late eighteenth century. For a long time it was the main source for Gnostic ideas, until the Nag Hammadi finds of 1945 added many more texts.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Jesus
- The risen teacher instructs his disciples about heavenly realms, sacred mysteries, and the struggles of Pistis Sophia.
- Pistis Sophia
- A divine being of light, she longs for the highest Light and faces the hostility of Authades.
- Mary Magdalene
- One of Jesus's disciples, she asks many questions during his teachings about the universe and salvation.
- Authades
- A proud rival power, he opposes Pistis Sophia within the heavenly realms described to Jesus's disciples.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 123,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 8 h 10 min
- Listening time13 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about Pistis Sophia
What is Pistis Sophia about?
It is a Gnostic dialogue in which the risen Jesus teaches his disciples about the heavens, the fall and rescue of the light-being Pistis Sophia, and the rites a soul needs to rise past the powers that rule the world.
What does Pistis Sophia mean?
The title is Greek for Faith Wisdom. It names a divine being of light who falls into darkness and is rescued. Faith stands for trust in the Light, and wisdom for the knowledge that frees the soul.
Is Pistis Sophia in the Bible?
No. It is not in any standard Bible. It belongs to the Gnostic writings of early Christianity, which church leaders mostly rejected, and it survived in one Coptic manuscript now in the British Library.
When was Pistis Sophia written and by whom?
The author is unknown. Scholars usually date the text to the third or fourth century, probably in Egypt. The one surviving manuscript is in Coptic and is thought to come from a Greek original.
Is Pistis Sophia hard to read?
Following the story of Sophia's fall and rescue, and her songs, makes the book much easier to follow.