The article was written by N. In 1934, for the collective work on the history of religions under the chief editing by V.G. Bogoraz. The author was under the obvious influence of West European rationalistic historiography, including the mythological school, which was in the search for parallels and connections between Christianity and soteriologic cults of the Hellenistic world, as well as Gnosticism. The author classifies stages of the development of myth about Helen of Troy, connecting them with the stages of the social development. So, he found religious and mythological reflection of wedding rituals of the late clan society in the motif of the abduction of Helen and her liberation. In the traditions of the mythological school, N. notes that later Helen got the meaning of the Sun goddess — and for him there is a confirmation for the idea in the tale by Stesichorus that Helen and Achilles got married on the island of Skyros after their death. For the author, that version was especially significant, because it stressed the meaning of Helen and Achilles as Sun gods, and it kept the motif of the resurrection of the Sun god who died for his love to the Sun goddess. At that, he notes that Euripides finally shaped and established the tale by Stesichorus in his tragedy ‘Helen’. According N., in the period of crisis of the slavery society, i.e. in the period of shaping new religious movements, myth about Helen of Troy became an adequate form for expressing mystical aspirations of early Gnostics. In her further history, Heken was transformed in late Gnostical systems into Sophia Prunikos; in the Gnostic system of Valentine she personified the fallen spiritual essence of the world creating material substance.

The article was found in the Collection of V.G. Bogoraz in the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Ac. of Sc., and published in 2018.