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Exegesis on the Soul

About this book

The Restoration of the Soul

Chapter 3

When, however, she realizes the trouble she is in and cries before the Father and repents, the Father then will show mercy to her. And he will cause her womb to turn away from the outward kingdom, and will cause it to return inward, making the soul reclaim her good character. Because such is not the way of a woman, for the bodily womb is inward, like the other internal organs of the body. The womb of the soul, however, surrounds outwardly like the male’s outward genitals. When, therefore, the womb of the soul turns inward by the will of the Father, it is baptized and immediately purified from the outward pollution which was forced on it, like filthy [garments] soaked [in water and] moved around until the dirt is gone and they are clean. Thus the purification of the soul is a reclaiming of the renovation of her former nature, and a return to herself. That is her baptism. Then she will become mad at herself, acting like a woman during labor, writhing and raging in the hour of birth. However, because she is a female, on her own she is unable to conceive a child. From heaven the Father sent her a man — her brother, the firstborn. The bridegroom then went down to the bride. She stopped her earlier prostitution and purified herself from the pollutions of the adulterers. She was even renewed to become a bride.⁠ She purified herself in the bridal chamber, filling it with perfume, sitting there awaiting her true bridegroom. She no longer ran around the marketplace, having sex with everyone she wanted. Instead, she kept waiting for him: “When will he arrive?” And she continued to fear him, because she knew not what he looked like. She no more remembered the time she fell from her Father’s house. By the will of the father, however, [...] And she dreamed of him like a woman who loves a man. Then, however, the bridegroom, agreeing with the Father’s will, went down to her, into the bridal chamber, which had been prepared, and he adorned the bridal chamber.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ephesians 5:27 and Exegesis on the Soul 3:13

New Testament · Nag Hammadi

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Summary

Ephesians 5 describes Jesus cleansing the church and presenting her as a pure bride. Exegesis on the Soul, a Nag Hammadi text, applies the bridal image to the soul, who leaves her lovers and purifies herself for her bridegroom.

Passages

Ephesians 5:27

New Testament
25 Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, 27 so that he may present the church to himself as glorious—not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
90–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ephesians

Exegesis on the Soul 3:13

Nag Hammadi
From heaven the Father sent her a man — her brother, the firstborn. The bridegroom then went down to the bride. She stopped her earlier prostitution and purified herself from the pollutions of the adulterers. She was even renewed to become a bride. She purified herself in the bridal chamber, filling it with perfume, sitting there awaiting her true bridegroom. She no longer ran around the marketplace, having sex with everyone she wanted. Instead, she kept waiting for him: “When will he arrive?”
200–230 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Exegesis on the Soul

References

“... In Ephesians, the imagery is used of the exalted Christ, now a heavenly being, and his relationship with the Church, to which believers on earth belong, although because of its relationship to Christ this Church has heavenly connections (cf. esp. 2:6). In Ephesians this union between Christ, the bridegroom, and the Church, his bride, is also seen as the archetype for human marriage, the “one flesh” relationship between husband and wife. Some scholars have correctly observed that because of this latter element, Ephesians’ use of the sacred marriage imagery goes beyond that of its OT antecedents. They have gone on to claim that in this regard its writer has been influenced by ideas from a Gnostic thought world. (Cf. Schlier’s lengthy excursus, 264–76, which concludes that the ideas that form the background to Ephesians “come mostly from the environment of a Gnosis connected with hellenistic Judaism” [275]. Batey, NTS 10 [1963] 121–27, claims more specifically that Ephesians was written in a milieu influenced by Jewish Gnosticism like that found in Justin the Gnostic’s Baruch, where the marriage between Elohim and Eden serves as a pattern for human marriage relationships; Fischer, Tendenz, 181– 200, adds to the material cited by Schlier Nag Hammadi texts such as Exeg. Soul 132–34; Gos. Phil. 64–72, 76, and concludes that while in Gnosticism the union between the Savior and Sophia serves ascetic tendencies, Eph 5 can be understood as a correction of the Gnostic mystery [195]. However, both these texts are dependent on Ephesians.) ...”
Andrew T. Lincoln, Word Biblical Commentary: Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), PDF 1066–1067.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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