until the soul arrives at its appointed place. As, therefore, these seals and announcements and defences will be of no use to the disciples, the Jesus of the _Pistis Sophia_ declares that He will not describe them in detail, they having been already set out in “the two great Books of Jeû[563].” What now are these “mysteries” which have so tremendous an effect on their recipient as actually to unite him with the Deity after death? The Greek word μυστήριον, which is that used in the Coptic MS., does not seem to mean etymologically more than _a secret_, in which sense it was applied to the ceremonies or secret dramas exhibited, as has been said, at Eleusis and elsewhere, and later, to the Christian Eucharist[564]. In the early part of the _Pistis Sophia_ it is the word used to denote the First Mystery or first and greatest emanation of God, who is withdrawn from human contemplation and, as it were, concealed behind a veil impenetrable by the senses of man. But in the part of the book with which we are now dealing it seems to refer not to hidden persons, but to secret things. These things seem to fall into two categories, one of which is spoken of as the Mystery of the Ineffable One, and the other as the Mysteries of the First Mystery. The Mystery of the Ineffable One is said to be one, but, with the provoking arithmetic peculiar to the book, it is immediately added that it “makes” three mysteries and also another five, while it is still one[565]. The Mysteries of the First Mystery on the other hand are said to be twelve in number, and these figures may possibly cover some allusion to the Ogdoad and the Dodecad of Valentinus[566]. It is also fairly clear that each of these Twelve Mysteries of the First Mystery must be some kind of ceremony, and a ceremony which can be performed without much preparation or many participants. This we may deduce from the following description of the merits of one of them: “For the second mystery of the First Mystery, if it is duly accomplished in all its forms, and the man who accomplishes it shall speak the mystery over the head of a man on the point of going forth from the body, so that he throws it into his two ears:—even when the man who is going forth from the body shall have received it aforetime, and is a partaker of the word of Truth[567],—verily, I say unto you that when that man shall go forth from the body of matter, his soul will make a great flash of light, and will pass through every Place until it come into the kingdom of that mystery.