Of the chastisement of the murderer
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?”
Jesus answered and said: “A murderer who 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 Yaldabaoth 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 Yaldabaoth 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 Persephone and take vengeance on it with her chastisements another three years and six months.
“Thereafter they carry it on to the way of the Middle, and every one of the rulers of the way of the Middle 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 Middle shall be up-raised; it [the soul] will be destroyed and dissolved.
“This is the chastisement of the murderer.”
