# PISTIS SOPHIA ## CHAPTER IV ### The Descent of the Threefold Glory The disciples sat together in fear. Their hearts were shaken. Their thoughts were troubled beyond measure. For the great earthquake had not only moved the earth beneath them, but had also unsettled the secret foundations of their understanding. And they wept together. In sorrow they said one to another: > “What shall now come to pass? > > Peradventure the Saviour will dissolve all regions. > > Peradventure the worlds themselves shall be undone.” Thus they spoke. And while they spoke, they wept. For the trembling of the earth had entered also into their souls. They feared that all creation might be broken open, and that the ordered heavens might give way to abysses too vast for flesh or mind to bear. For there are moments when the soul perceiveth that the universe is greater, stranger, and more ancient than it had dared imagine, and in such moments even the righteous tremble. --- ### Jesus Descendeth Again While the disciples yet wept and spoke these things among themselves, it came to pass, at the **ninth hour of the morrow**, that the heavens were opened. And they beheld Jesus descending. He shone with an immeasurable splendor. No tongue of men could tell it. No thought of men could contain it. No earthly light could be likened unto it. For the radiance in which he descended exceeded even that glory with which he had ascended into the heavens. And though all the world should gather to describe it, still would its nature remain unspoken. For it was not a simple brightness, nor one flame, nor one color, nor one pure stream of light. It was a living immensity. It was as though the unseen worlds had poured their hidden fires upon him. And from him there went forth rays in vast abundance. They streamed out without number. They extended without measure. And not all the rays were alike. Some differed from others in kind. Some differed in strength. Some differed in beauty. Some were more excellent than those beneath them. Yet all belonged to one Glory. And all that manifold radiance was joined together in one ineffable Light. --- ### The Nature of His Glory And the glory wherein he descended was of a **threefold kind**. Yet each kind surpassed the one below it. The first glory was great. The second, which was in the midst, was greater than the first. And the third, which was above them all, surpassed both those beneath it. Thus was his light ordered in ascending excellence. Glory within glory. Mystery within mystery. Depth within depth. And the lowest of the three glories was like unto that light which had before descended upon Jesus prior to his ascent into the heavens. It resembled that earlier radiance, and was akin only unto itself. Yet even this first glory was terrible in its splendor. For it was no borrowed brightness, but a light proper unto the higher regions. And above it stood another more inward. And above that another still more ineffable. Thus the three modes of light were distinct from one another. They were of differing kinds. They were of differing forms. Each possessed its own order. Each possessed its own excellence. Each was more sublime than the one before it. And the disciples beheld this with fear and wonder. For they began dimly to understand that what descended before them was not merely brilliance, but hierarchy. Not merely radiance, but order. Not merely heaven, but the hidden architecture of heaven. And the thought of it pressed upon them like the weight of a sea without shore. For the worlds above the worlds are not simple. They are layered. They are veiled. They are set one within another like chambers in some boundless and ancient House whose furthest rooms no mortal mind was made to map. And yet the Saviour descended through them all. Clothed in glory. Crowned in unutterable light. Bearing within himself those degrees of splendor before which the powers themselves stand in awe.
