The Hymn of the Pearl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hymn of the Pearl (also The Hymn of the Soul or The Hymn of Judas Thomas the Apostle) is a passage of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. In that work, originally written in Syriac, the Apostle Thomas sings the hymn while praying for himself and fellow prisoners. Some scholars believe the hymn antedates the Acts, as it only appears in one Syriac manuscript and one Greek manuscript of the Acts of Thomas.

The hymn tells the story of a boy, "the son of the king of kings", who is sent to Egypt to retrieve a pearl from a serpent. During the quest, he is seduced by 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, snatches the pearl, and returns.

The hymn is commonly interpreted as a Gnostic view of the human condition, that we are lost in a world of matter and do not remember our true origin, but then a divine being sends a message, by way of a revealer, a task sometimes ascribed to Jesus, to make us remember through gnosis.

Although the hymn has been preserved and especially treasured in the Manichean tradition, a branch of Gnosticism, the Hymn of the Pearl has also been admired by Orthodox Christian thinkers.