7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 36 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the soul is a woman who has forgotten where she belongs?
In The Exegesis on the Soul, an anonymous author turns an inward struggle into a stark religious allegory. According to the text, the soul begins pure, falls into a body, and suffers at the hands of those who seek her. Abandoned by her lovers, she faces a painful question: where can she turn when the world leaves her empty?
This short treatise tells its story as a sermon, drawing on the Hebrew prophets, the Psalms, Paul's letters, and Homer's Odyssey. Usually counted among Gnostic or Gnostic-leaning writings, it survives in Coptic from the Nag Hammadi library. Its images invite you to consider repentance, the soul's cry to the Father, and the meaning of a heavenly bridegroom.
What you’ll discover
- The soul as a woman Meet an ancient image that gives spiritual suffering a vulnerable, human shape.
- A world of false lovers Explore how the sermon pictures worldly attachment through desire, abandonment, and loss.
- The cost of turning back Follow the soul's repentance as she confronts her suffering and cries to the Father.
- Scripture beside Homer Discover how one author draws biblical passages and the Odyssey into a single argument.
- The heavenly bridegroom Consider the spiritual marriage image at the heart of the text's vision of restoration.
Who will love it
For readers who love early Christian and Gnostic writings, myth and metaphor, and ancient readings of the Bible and Homer side by side.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A sermon preserved in Egyptian sand
- The soul begins whole and then falls
- She gives herself to many lovers
- The lovers leave and her children suffer
- Repentance and the cry to the Father
- The bridegroom comes and the soul is restored
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The Exegesis on the Soul in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Exegesis on the Soul
by Attributed to Valentinian Gnostics · 200
A soul pictured as a woman falls into a body and cries to the Father in an allegory of repentance and return.
ChallengingUnder 2 hours to read25 languages
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In short
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.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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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.
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