Pistis Sophia
Anonymous Gnostic authors; Askew Codex
The longest surviving Gnostic scripture: post-resurrection dialogues in which Jesus recounts the fall and redemption of the aeon Sophia and maps the unseen architecture of the cosmos.
- Composed
- 3rd to 4th century CE
- Original language
- Coptic
What this text is
Pistis Sophia is an extended Gnostic scripture preserved in the Askew Codex, a Coptic manuscript the British Museum acquired in 1785, more than a century and a half before Nag Hammadi. It presents the risen Jesus teaching his disciples for eleven years, answering questions from Mary Magdalene, John, and others about the fall of the aeon Pistis Sophia from the realms of light and her long repentance and rescue.
The text is effectively a guided tour of the Gnostic cosmos: its realms, powers, and the fate of souls moving through them. Mary Magdalene asks the majority of the questions, a prominence that has made the text a key document for studying her role in early Christian communities.
Why researchers read it
Where the shorter Gnostic texts give fragments of a worldview, Pistis Sophia gives the system at full length: how consciousness falls into matter and how it is recovered. For SOL’s comparative work on descent-and-return narratives across traditions, it is the most complete Gnostic witness available.
Research that draws on this text
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