Talk:Pistis Sophia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religious texts, a joint subproject of WikiProject Religion and WikiProject Books, and a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religious texts-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details. | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. | |
Look, this article thus far is really light on facts and heavy on "supposeds."
The subject material seems didactic, not historic, and suspiciously of the flavor of modern pseudo factual/historic philosophy.
So what are the facts? Is this document actually dated? Was it part of the Nag Hammadi? What is the context of the teaching? Was the concept of an 11 year post decease teaching only "high-concept?"
I might get back to do an edit. The above comment was unsigned.
- According to Gnosticweb,
- The Pistis Sophia was purchased by the British Museum in 1795 from a doctor and it wasn't until 1851 that work began on its translation. --Percevalles 01:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
That's right. The discovery of the Pistis Sophia predates the Nag Hammadi discoveries but the PS remains the longest and most complete Christian Gnostic text we have. Many of the NH texts are fragmentary and/or short. The PS runs to several hundred pages. Its very obscure and will be unrecogniscable to the orthodox Christian used to the vision of Christ in the Bible. Its cosmology is utterly Gnostic and Kabbalistic with Archons, Deccans and Aeons, several heavens etc and the central drama is the Gnostic/Kabbalistic drama of the fallen Sophia seeking to return to God from the dark world of matter. Its a head banger of a read and I take my hat off to anyone who's been able to get through it without his head spinning! But then its authors are thought to have seen it as a secret text for the initiated and not for the general reader or worshipper. It is in print: ISBN 1585092398 ThePeg August 2006 (UTC)
I've now read more of it. If you can get through the first chunk in which Christ talks about the Archons - very hard to understand - things get a bit clearer. Imagery of Light suffuses the book in a way similar to the beginning of John's Gospel. Christ comes from the Light-realms (the heavens) and his mission is to help us return to the Light. In addition, the Pistis Sophia has references to the Odes of Solomon which make up part of the Lost Books of the Bible. There are whole passages where Christ, Mary and the Disciples discuss the Odes and their meaning. This means that the Odes are Gnostic in nature and somehow related in terms of their version of the Christian message to the people who wrote the Pistis Sophia. Interesting. If I have one criticism of this article it would be that there is not enough description of the text. ThePeg 21:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
- Note that there's scholarly debate over whether the Odes are Gnostic. Just being quoted in a Gnostic text doesn't mean they're Gnostic, or we'd have to say that the Psalms and Isaiah are Gnostic too. Nyttend 01:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
While that's true not only are they heavily featured in the Pistis Sophia and nowhere else in Christian literature but they contain clearly Gnostic imagery, to whit:
ODE 34
No way is hard where there is a simple heart. Nor is there any wound where the thoughts are upright: Nor is there any storm in the depth of the illuminated thought: Where one is surrounded by beauty There is nothing that is divided. The likeness of that which is below Is that which is above: For everything is above: What is below is nothing But the imagination of those that are without knowledge. Grace has been given for your salvation. Believe and live and be saved. Hallelujah!
Note the use of the word KNOWLEDGE (ie Gnosis - the Odes are originally in Greek) in ten as well as Hermetic/Gnostic/Kabbalistic/Alchemical/Hellenic imagery such as 'The likeness of that which is below/Is that which is above' ThePeg (talk) 02:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
