Texts in Conversation
Authentic Logos, a Nag Hammadi text, describes a bridegroom helping the soul recognize where she came from. Exegesis on the Soul, also from Nag Hammadi, connects marriage with the soul’s return to her original state.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Authentic Logos 2:2
Authoritative Teaching
Nag Hammadi
Her bridegroom secretly brought it, putting it to her mouth, causing her to eat it like food. He put it on her eyes like a medicine, causing her to see with her mind, and to comprehend her kin, and to learn about her root, so that she could hold fast to the branch from which she originally had come, so that she could receive what belongs to her, and to renounce matter [...].
Exegesis on the Soul 4:19
Nag Hammadi
In this way, after the soul [had beautified] herself once more in her splendor, [she desired] to adore her beloved, and [he, too], loved her. And when she united with him, she obtained from him the seed of the life-giving spirit. By it she bears upright children and raises them, because this is the great, perfect miracle of birth. And so this marriage is completed by the will of the Father. It is appropriate that the soul regenerates herself and again becomes what she earlier was. The soul then moves by her own will, and from the Father she obtains the divine nature for her renewal, to restore her to the place where she was at first: This is the resurrection from the dead.
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Notes and References
“... It has points of similarity with Hippolytus‘ discussion of the Naasene gnostics (Elenchos V, 6–7), with what may be a pre-Valentinian form of the Sophia myth (Jonas 1958) found in The Apocryphon of John (NHC II,1 and elsewhere), and with other Nag Hammadi codices, such as Authentic Teaching (NHC VI,3: the spiritual soul, thrown into a body, becomes involved in this life, forgets her origins, then turns against this world, and at her marriage receives from the bridegroom the word which provides her with the true and saving knowledge of her origins) and The Gospel of Philip (NHC II,3: connects salvation and the bridal chamber). ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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