In 1765, the British Museum purchased from the celebrated antiquarian, Dr Askew, a parchment MS. written in Coptic[460]. On palaeographic grounds it is said to be not earlier than the VIth century A.D., which agrees fairly with its state of preservation and the fact that it is written on both sides of the skins so as to present the appearance of a modern book[461]. Woide, then librarian of the Museum and pastor of the King’s German Chapel at St James’, published some extracts from it in his _Appendix to the Codex Alexandrinus_ in 1799, and Dulaurier gave others in the _Journal Asiatique_ in 1847[462]. It remained, however, untranslated until 1850, when Maurice Schwartze, a young German scholar who was sent over here to study our MSS. at the expense of the king of Prussia, turned it into Latin; and he having died soon after, his translation was published the following year by the learned Petermann. The British Museum text is written throughout in the Sahidic dialect; and is the work of more than one scribe; but it seems to be agreed by those who have studied it with knowledge that the documents it contains are neither continuous nor necessarily related; and that it is in fact a series of extracts from earlier MSS.[463] Of these documents, the second commences with a heading, in a handwriting other than that of the scribe of this part, reading “the Second Book of Pistis Sophia”; but as such a heading implies that the foregoing document was the First Book of Pistis Sophia, the whole MS. is generally known by that name[464].