Greco-Christian stream·Pistis Sophia·Fourth Book — Books of the Saviour·Chapter 145
Of the chastisement of the murderer
Virgin of Light, who judgeth the righteous and the sinners, that she may judge it
Source context
- Theme
- archonic judgment and post-mortem soul-passage through the spaces of the Amente
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Egyptian funerary tradition (Book of the Dead)The weighing and passage of the soul through underworld stations guarded by archonic powers shows cross-tradition congruence with the Egyptian concept of the Duat and its series of gates presided over by neteru-judges.
- Neoplatonic descent-and-ascent cosmologyThe soul's traversal of hierarchically ordered cosmic spaces under archonic supervision shows cross-tradition congruence with Neoplatonic accounts of the soul's descent through planetary spheres and its return through the same stations upon death.
Chapter 145
CHAPTER 145
Mary said: "Woe, woe, unto sinners!"
Salome answered and said: "My Lord Jesus, a murderer who hath never committed any sin but murdering, if he cometh out of the body, what is his chastisement?
Of the chastisement of the murderer.Jesus answered and said: "A murderer who |382. hath never committed any sin but murdering, if his time is completed through the sphere, that he cometh out of the body, the receivers of Yaldabaōth come and lead his soul out of the body and bind it by its feet to a great demon with a horse's face, and he spendeth three days circling round with it in the world.
"Thereafter they lead it into the regions of the cold and of the snow, and they take vengeance on it there three years and six months.
"Thereafter they lead it down into the chaos before Yaldabaōth and his forty-and-nine demons, and every one of his demons scourgeth it another three years and six months.
"Thereafter they lead it down into the chaos before Persephonē and take vengeance on it with her chastisements another three years and six months.
"Thereafter they carry it on to the way of
the midst, and every one of the rulers of the way of the midst taketh vengeance on it with the chastisements of its regions another three years and six months.
"Thereafter they lead it unto the Virgin of Light, who judgeth the righteous and the sinners, that she may judge it. And when the sphere turneth itself, she commandeth that it shall be cast into the outer darkness until the time when the darkness of the midst shall be upraised; it [the soul] will be destroyed and dissolved.
"This is the chastisement of the murderer."