The Manuscript known as the _Pistis Sophia_ and now in the British Museum was bought by the authorities in 1785 for the sum of ten guineas at the sale of the library of the antiquary, Dr. Anthony Askew. How it came into Dr. Askew’s possession is not accurately known. It is written throughout in Coptic of the dialect of the Sahid or Upper Egypt, and is on vellum in an excellent state of preservation. In appearance it singularly resembles a modern book, being written on small quarto leaves measuring 8⅜ inches by 6½, in double columns on both sides of the skins. It contains 174 leaves in all, and the pages are numbered consecutively in Coptic[2] letters, at first on one side of the page only, but later on both sides. We are therefore able to establish that there are no leaves missing from the body of the MS. since its pagination, until we come to the 337th page (p. 379 of Schwartze’s printed text),[3] after which four leaves are wanting, the next page in the volume being numbered 344. On the 114th page (p. 125 of Schwartze), the scribe had left the last two-thirds of the page blank, and this was filled at some later time by the cryptogram given on p. 62, _infra_, in a different hand and in blacker ink than the foregoing part of the MS. The original writing is resumed on p. 115, but above the point at which the other pages begin is written: [Illustration: Coptic Script.] “The Second Tome of the Pistis Sophia,” from which the whole MS. has taken the title by which it is known. At the foot of the first column of the front or _recto_ of p. 233 (p. 252 of Schwartze), there is also written after a line of ornament, [Illustration: Coptic Script.] “A part of the Books of the Saviour,” and the same words (omitting one word) occur at the foot of the first column of the back or _verso_ of p. 317 (p. 357 of Schwartze). On the last leaf in the book has been left a blank, which some later writer has used for a sentence about the Apostles going to the four quarters of the world to preach the Gospel, which has no apparent connection with our text.[4] Two lines at the foot, now become so faint as to be illegible, may have contained the names of the scribes or owners of the MS.