[Apologies if this has already appeared on the list -- I sent it yesterday,
but it doesn't appear to have arrived, so I'm re-sending.
I've also added a bit at the end which I probably should have said earlier,
to give a little background to the whole issue of Gnosticism. R.]
Martin:
> Synchronistically, I had just been reading the middle English poem _Pearl_
> & thinking about the possible connexion with the Pearl story you direct us
> to, Robin ,
Yes, _Pearl_ popped into my head too, though it's been years (I woefully
confess) since I read it. But I wonder whether either the Middle Ages or
the Renaissance would have had any +direct+ access to either _The Acts of
Thomas_ in which "The Song of the Pearl" embedded, or any other Gnostic
texts? What the Renaissance (I'm less sure about the Middle Ages) +would+
have had access to would have been the Church Fathers who attack
Gnosticism --
"Shock!! Horror!! Filthy Gnostics. Read all about it!!"
There are two links to the texts of the Fathers Against Gnostics at the
following URL (lots of other Gnostic links as well):
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/mcguire/Gnosisnet.html
> so fascinatingly associated by Ted Hughes with the Gnostic
> Sophia myth in Shakespeare's later plays, especially _Pericles_, where the
> lower split off Sophia, like the Pearl, falls into a dark prison of
> ignorance, a brothel in the Simon Magus story & _Pericles_.
Sophia-of-the-vanities, poking her head out of the brothel door, expressed
some irritation that the text of "The Song of the Pearl" I gave earlier
might be less than -- hm -- reliable, so here's a more authoritative one:
http://www.gnosis.org/library/actthom.htm
From "The Apocryphal New Testament"
Translation and notes by M. R. James
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924
James' introduction is excellent, and the translation is reliable. Also,
this link takes you to the complete _Acts of Thomas_ rather than simply the
text of the Song itself.
Can't say fairer than that.
(Am I forgiven, O Seventh Daughter of God?)
Robin
PS -- another cool link site, with an excellent introduction for anyone new
to Gnosticism, and even those (like me) who know all too little, is:
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/gnosticism.html
This would be a good place to start.
R2
ADDENDUM:
It was pointed out to me backchannel that my linking of "The Song of the
Pearl" to Martin's "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" might not be absolutely clear
to everyone. So (with apologies to anyone who already knows this, and to
the rest, to whom I should have said it sooner):
In 1945 in Nag Hammadi in Egypt, a set of scrolls were discovered in a cave.
This was +the+ major discovery of Gnostic material, and now forms the basis
of any study of Gnosticism.
Before this, Gnosticism was mostly known via the attacks made on it by the
Fathers of the Church (Irenaeus, Tertullian, et alia). One of the few
exceptions (a +primary+ Gnostic text), embedded in a longer, not
particularly Gnostic work ***, was "The song of the Pearl".
Both "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" (one of the texts which first emerges among
the Nag Hammadi codices) which Martin raised, and "The Song of the Pearl"
deal with (among other things) the typical Gnostic themes of alienation and
exile, which was why the Song occurred to me when Martin mentioned Thunder.
*** "The Acts of Thomas" (not to be confused with the Nag Hammadi "Gospel
of Thomas"/"Secret Sayings of Jesus"!) in which "The Song of the Pearl" (in
one MS) is embedded is itself closer to the Canonical Gospels/Acts than it
is to Gnosticism. Interesting in its own right, but that's a separate
issue.
My apologies (and especially to those among us who know more about this than
me) for the didacticism of the above, but I thought it might be useful to
make explicit some of what's been only implicit in the various gnostic
posts.
Robin
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