Madame Blavatsky Unravels the Gnostic Drama of Pistis-Sophia

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Buddhas and Initiates Series · 98 pages

At ninety-eight pages the longest document in this batch, and the most sustained piece of Gnostic interpretation in the library. Its subject is the Pistis-Sophia, the Coptic Gnostic text of the third or fourth century, and the reading offered is psychological rather than historical: Sophia is the mortal personality, repentant but rooted in the soil of selfish motives, and the drama is the account of what becomes of her.

The resolution is stated at the head of the commentary. By the lamp of faith and self-sacrifice the mortal personality is redeemed by Christos — the immortal Individuality — who delivers her from ignorance and from the sufferings of the flesh, so that she is at last bathing in the cosmic stream of light. Blavatsky's commentary then proceeds through the numbered sections of the original in order, so that a reader can follow the text and the interpretation together. Dara Eklund's introductory notes open the volume and set out its publishing history. It is the natural companion to the studies of Chrestos and Christos elsewhere in this section, since it treats the same passage of the soul in a different vocabulary.

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