Resumen
Resumen de The Exegesis on the Soul
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For readers who love early Christian and Gnostic writings, myth and metaphor, and ancient readings of the Bible and Homer side by side.
De qué trata este libro
The Exegesis on the Soul is a short religious treatise. It survives in Coptic, the language of late Roman Egypt, in a book found near Nag Hammadi in 1945. Scholars think it was first written in Greek, sometime between the second and fourth centuries, and many suggest Alexandria as its home. No author is named. It is usually counted among the Gnostic or Gnostic-leaning writings, though scholars debate how well that label fits it.
The text tells one story in the form of an allegory. The soul is pictured as a woman who begins pure, falls into a body, is used and abused by those who seek her, suffers, repents, and cries out to the Father. He answers by sending her bridegroom, and she is cleansed and restored. Along the way the author backs up each stage with passages from the Hebrew prophets, the Psalms, Paul's letters, and even Homer's Odyssey. You will hear how the story runs, how its images work, and why early readers valued it. First, let us look at the book in which it was found.
En este resumen
- 1A sermon preserved in Egyptian sandFree
- 2The soul begins whole and then falls
- 3She gives herself to many lovers
- 4The lovers leave and her children suffer
- 5Repentance and the cry to the Father
- 6The bridegroom comes and the soul is restored
Idea clave 1 de 6
A sermon preserved in Egyptian sand
In December 1945 a farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt found a sealed jar. Inside were thirteen leather-bound books of papyrus, written in Coptic. The Exegesis on the Soul stands in the sixth of these books, alongside other writings.
The word exegesis means an explanation or interpretation. The title tells you the genre. This is not a gospel or a letter. It is a piece of teaching that sets out to explain what the soul is and what happens to it, using a story and a chain of supporting texts.
The Coptic is almost certainly a translation from Greek. The author is unknown. The learned use of Homer and the Bible suggests someone trained in the Greek schools of a city like Alexandria, where Jewish, Christian, and Greek traditions met and mixed.
The text can be read as a connected whole. That is rare and useful. Scholars still argue over how Gnostic it is. Some see strong marks of that movement, while others point out that it quotes scripture much as mainstream Christian teachers did. You will hear both views as we go.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about The Exegesis on the Soul
What is the Exegesis on the Soul about?
It is an allegory in which the soul appears as a woman. She falls into the body, is used by many lovers, repents, and cries to the Father, who sends her bridegroom to cleanse and restore her.
Where was the Exegesis on the Soul found?
It was found in 1945 near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, in a jar of thirteen papyrus books.
Is the Exegesis on the Soul a Gnostic text?
It is usually grouped with the Gnostic writings from Nag Hammadi, but scholars disagree. Its heavy use of the Old Testament, Psalms, and Paul looks like mainstream Christian teaching, so many describe it as Gnostic-leaning.
When was the Exegesis on the Soul written, and by whom?
The author is unknown. Scholars think it was written in Greek, probably in the second or third century, maybe in Alexandria. The Coptic copy that survives dates to the fourth century.
Why does the Exegesis on the Soul quote Homer?
The author uses Odysseus weeping on his island and Helen longing for her husband as pictures of the soul far from home. This shows a teacher trained in Greek learning who read many traditions together.