Pistis Sophia

...appearing to labor as if in a thicket; and this is all the more so, since I am so far from acknowledging Valentinus as the author, that I believe it to have been written not by any of his followers, but rather by some later Ophite; about which matter, God willing, I shall argue more fully and accurately in a separately published booklet. But I have gladly refrained from conjectures, for which a wide and ample field was open, lest I increase the bulk of the book, and I have only added to the notes those that presented themselves spontaneously. In the text, so-called, I have changed or corrected nothing but the open blunders of the scribe; indeed, I have corrected in the added notes some things—which I now regret—that the friend had written less correctly with a slipping pen, and I have religiously distinguished my own observations from the notes of M. Schwartzius by adding the letter "P." Therefore, those notes that lack this letter originated from Schwartzius himself, among which those marked with the letters "Rev." indicate a repeated reading of the manuscript codex.

In separating the words—for the codex is written in one continuous flow, as is usually the case, which Schwartzius retained in his transcript—I have followed the rules that my friend gave in the Preface to the Coptic Gospels, and which he himself observed in that edition, since they contribute surprisingly much to a good understanding of the text. But, since I have hesitated several times, I hope the readers will forgive me if they sometimes see the same words separated differently elsewhere. Finally, I ask the benevolent readers to indulge me for the fact that many things, which I have noted in part in the "Addenda and Corrigenda," escaped my dimming eyesight. This can be excused most of all because Schwartzius wrote the text and translation in very tiny letters.