[PDF] The Hymn of The Pearl

The Hymn of the Pearl (also Hymn of the Soul, Hymn of the Robe of Glory or Hymn of Judas Thomas the Apostle) is a passage from the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. In this work, originally written in Syriac, the Apostle Thomas sings the anthem while praying for him and other prisoners. Some researchers think the national anthem before the laws, it appears only in a Syriac manuscript and a Greek manuscript of the Acts of Thomas. The author of the hymn is unknown, but it is believed that it was composed by the Syriac gnosticBardaisan because of some parallels between his life and the anthem.

The song tells the story of a boy, "the son of the king of kings", which was sent to Egypt to retrieve a pearl of a snake. During the quest, he is seduced by the Egyptians and forgets his origin and his family. However, a letter is sent from the king of kings to remind him of his past. When the boy receives the letter, he remembers his mission to retrieve the pearl and performance. That boy is implicit rather than Thomas Jesus is indicated by the assertion that it is possible in line next to his older brother, the brother anonymous not otherwise mentioned in the text.

The hymn is commonly interpreted as a Gnostic view of the human condition, that we are spirits lost in a world of matter and the memory of our true origin. This state of things May be mitigated by a revelation message issued by a messenger, a role is generally attributed to Jesus . The letter is a symbolic representation of gnosis.

The anthem has been preserved and retained particularly in Manicheism - a version of it appears in the context of a North African Manichaean Psalm book written in Coptic, called the Psalms of Thomas. The Hymn of the Pearl has been admired by orthodox Christian thinkers.

The Hymn of the pearl is one of the most fascinating gnostic works you could find in Nag Hammadi library. The poem was long and straightforward, it tells the foundation of gnostics: that men, us, are like Thomas, stranded in unknown world (this world, earth) and tyrannized by the serpent (Yahweh, or Satan, whatever you want to interpret).

The hymn of the pearl could be read as a fairy tale or as gnostic text. When read literally, the text seems look like a myth. Story of prince who had amnesia and forgetting his identity, and only by the reminder of his father who was king of king, he could remember his true identity, that he was prince and not a slave.

So how do we relate this text with our condition?

Gnostic emphasizes that material world (our world) is a bad-bad world. It's full of sickness, war, unjust, and many perils. If the creator of this world is an everloving God like Jesus mentioned, then why he created such world?

Perhaps because the god who created this world is separate entity. He is not the true God that was mentioned by Jesus, but another jealous god who was more inferior than spirit that resides on us.

The prince is us, the serpent is the creator/ruler of the world, the Egyptians means that us, who forget the origin of our fullness. Only by the arrival of Jesus, we could once again remember knowledge of true self (Gnosis) and returned to the kingdom of glory (Pleroma).

It's interesting how powerful this poem is, and how I could really relate our condition to it.

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