Pistis Sophia

G. R. S. Mead · 232 pages · Gnosticism & Hermetica · 1921 · read the volume

3 marked gaps. Both readers refuse on 3, both offer something on 0, and they disagree on 0.

Nothing on this page is the text. These books are served exactly as their editors left them, holes and all. Every restoration below sits beside the passage and never inside it, because an invented line of a lost book, once loose, is quoted forever.

3 readers, asked separately. Each was given the same passages and the same instructions, and none saw another’s answers. All were told that refusing was a complete answer and that a confident wrong restoration was the worst possible outcome.

Reader C came later, and blind. It was put only the 20 gaps on which the first two readers disagreed, mixed with 6 gaps both had refused, and was told nothing of either. On the disputed gaps it sided with the reader who refused 17 times and with the reader who restored 3; of the 6 controls it refused 6. Its willingness to answer is therefore not the explanation of its answers.

Where they disagree, both are shown. There is no ground truth for a line that burned in 612 BC. This library is not in a position to settle these, and pretending otherwise would be the same mistake as filling the hole.

385-001 · page 196

…ad said this, Mary started forward again and said: "My Lord, not only hath my light-man ears, but my soul hath heard and understood all the words which thou sayest. Now, therefore, my Lord, concerning the words which thou hast spoken: 'Herald unto the men of the world and say unto them: Strive thereafter, to receive the mysteries of the Light, in this time of affliction, that ye may inherit the Light-kingdom. . . .[A CONSIDERABLE LACUNA HERE OCCURS IN THE TEXT.]Unknown A FOURTH BOOK Unknown Chapter 126 AND Mary continued again and said unto Jesus: "In what type is the outer darkness; or rather how many regions of chastisement are there in it?" Of the dragon of the outer darkness. And Jesus answered and said unto Mary: "The outer darkness is a great dragon, whose tail is in his mouth, outside the whole world and surrounding t…
Every reader refuses

Reader A none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

In the Askew Codex (BL Add MS 5114) a lacuna occurs between Book 3 and Book 4 (chapters 125 and 126); Carl Schmidt confirms no duplicate manuscript exists.

Reader B none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

Mead: "A CONSIDERABLE LACUNA." The Askew Codex simply resumes at a new book (ch. 126). No second Coptic witness fills the lost pages.

Reader C none, n/a confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

This is a real and total loss, and it cannot be conjectured. The break is the well-known lacuna in Codex Askewianus, the single Coptic manuscript in which Pistis Sophia survives (British Library, Additional MS 5114); it falls between the end of the third book and the opening of the fourth, and the translator's note in the text marks it as considerable. There is no second manuscript of this work, no Greek original, and no ancient citation of the lost passage. The material on either side belongs to different books and different subjects — an exhortation to receive the mysteries before, Mary's question about the outer darkness after — so not even the topic of the missing pages is fixed. Any text supplied here would be pure invention, and this is precisely the case the exercise warns about.

385-002 · page 224the editor’s estimate: EIGHT LEAVES

…o to Barbēlō and the invisible god and the three triple-powered gods, straightway if one will say this name in those regions, they will all fall one on another, will be undone and destroyed and cry out: 'O Light of all lights, which is in the boundless lights, remember us and purify us.'" And when Jesus had finished saying these words, all his disciples cried out, wept with loud sobbing, saying: . . . . . . . . .[LACUNA OF EIGHT LEAVES.]Unknown A SIXTH BOOK Unknown Chapter 144 . . . . . . Of the chastisement of the curser. . . . [and lead them forth to the fire-rivers and fire-seas] and take vengeance on it therein for another six months and eight days. Thereafter they lead it up on the way of the midst, and every one of the rulers of the way of the midst chastizeth it in his chastisements another si…
Every reader refuses

Reader A none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

A complete gathering of eight leaves (sixteen pages) was lost from the Askew Codex between chapters 143 and 144; the Askew Codex is the unique witness.

Reader B none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

Mead / Schmidt: lacuna of eight leaves (sixteen pages) between ch. 143 and ch. 144. Nothing of that quaternion survives.

Reader C none, n/a confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

A loss of eight leaves, that is sixteen pages, in the same unique manuscript, falling between the disciples' lamentation at the end of one book and chapter 144 of the next, which itself resumes in mid-sentence ("... and take vengeance on it therein for another six months and eight days"). Nothing bridges it: there is no other witness to Pistis Sophia, and the other Coptic Gnostic codices do not overlap this material. The scale alone settles the question — sixteen pages of unparalleled discourse cannot be recovered from the two sentences that survive on either side of them. The one thing the flanking text does establish is the subject at the point of resumption, the chastisements of souls and their periods; that is a description of where the text picks up, not a restoration of what was lost.

385-003 · page 230the editor’s estimate: TWO LINES

…e to the four zones of heaven and they proclaimed the goodness of the kingdom in the whole world, the Christ inworking with them through the words of confirmation and the signs and the wonders which followed them. And thus was known the kingdom of God on the whole earth and in the whole world of Israel as a witness for all the nations which are from the rising unto the setting [of the sun]. . . . . . . . . . . . .[TWO LINES ERASED.]THE END. Unknown Notes [←1] I have printed this without a capital in the text to distinguish it from the higher Midst above. Unknown [←2] These two sentences are placed at the end of the preceding paragraph, but clearly belong here.…
Every reader refuses

Reader A none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

At the end of fol. 148v two lines surrounded by ornamental cartouches were scraped down to the vellum in antiquity; only traces remain, likely a scribal colophon.

Reader B none, high confidence

Nothing can honestly be restored here.

"TWO LINES ERASED" on the last page before THE END. Erasure, not a parallel text.

Reader C

Not put to this reader.

← all the gaps