plight, she sings several Metanoiae or hymns of penitence to the light, and after seven of these, Jesus, as He says, “from pity and without commandment,” raises her to the uppermost parts of Chaos where she is slightly more at ease[535]. She continues here to sing hymns of penitence, but is tormented afresh until, after her ninth repentance, Jesus receives command from the First Mystery to succour her. This he does in a battle with fresh emanations from the Authades, including one in the shape of “a flying arrow[536].” Adamas, the king of the wicked Eons, also sends a power to the assistance of Jaldabaoth, and the other emanations of the Proud God turn into serpents, a basilisk with seven heads, and a dragon[537]. The powers of light sent by Jesus, however, defeat all her enemies, and the archangels Gabriel and Michael bear her aloft and establish her in the place below the Thirteenth Aeon, where Jesus finds her on His ascension as here recorded. But this is not the end. Jesus tells her that when “three times” are fulfilled[538], she will be tormented again. This happens as predicted immediately before the descent of the “vesture” on Him on the Mount of Olives. Thereupon, He delivers her for the last time and restores her to her place in the 13th Aeon, where she sings to him a final hymn of thanksgiving. This completes the episode of Pistis Sophia, and the rest of the book is filled with the questionings upon it of Mary Magdalene and the other disciples, among whom are prominent Mary the Mother of Jesus, Salome, Martha, St John the Divine, St Philip, St Thomas, and St Matthew, to which last-named three is said to be entrusted the recording of the words of Jesus, together with St Peter, St James and St Andrew. This has led some commentators to think that the work may possibly be the _Interrogations of Mary_ (Ἐρωτήσεις Μαρίας), concerning which Epiphanius says that two versions, a greater and a lesser, were used by several Gnostic sects[539]. These questionings and the answers of Jesus are extremely tedious, and include the comparison of the hymns of Pistis Sophia, fourteen in all, with certain named Psalms and Odes of David and Solomon of which they are said to be the “interpretation[540].” In the course of this, however, the purpose of the book is disclosed, and appears as the revelation of the glories awaiting the believer in the world to come, the coming of the Millennium, and the announcement that Jesus has brought the “mysteries” to the earth for the salvation of men. But before describing these, it may be as well to draw attention to the manifest likeness between the theology and cosmology of the _Pistis Sophia_ proper and what has been said above of the tenets of the Ophites and of Valentinus.