The Christology and Soteriology of the Pistis Sophia Texts. Connections with Mainstream Christianity and “Eastern” Valentinianism

This essay analyzes the Christology and the soteriology of the books which constitute the composite Gnostic work commonly known as Pistis Sophia. The author(s) and the first users of this work represent a case study of the resilient and metamorphic nature of a Gnostic group that, in a late stage of ancient Gnosticism, proposed an encyclopedic religious “synthesis” of several sources and traditions, reinterpreted in a creative way. The present contribution hypothesizes that the author(s) of Pistis Sophia not only adopted some Sethian motives, but also engaged both with issues debated within Valentinianism and with doctrines of “mainstream Christianity”. This essay pays specific attention to representations of the body and death of Jesus, and to the understanding of the remission of sins in the Pistis Sophia texts, compared with other Gnostic writings.