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_ (and in only one Greek MS of this [see James, below] is "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 his translation is reliable.

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