406 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM
womb of her soul inward. Thereby she is stronger to protect herself against wan-
ton carnal lovers. And he sends a bridegroom from heaven, her brother, to have
chaste sex with her and produce good, rather than demented, children. Her
chaste lovemaking in the bridal chamber is a form of purification and rebirth,
which is equivalent to deliverance, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.
The story is fantastic and told like an ancient novella. It has been com-
pared to Jewish writings from the Bible and the apocrypha, since the soul,
the heroine, is presented as a woman. So it follows the scheme of redemption
of such sinners as Ruth, Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba. Centering on women's
redemption was also typical of other Jewish literature of the time, including
documents recounting the experience of the soul in the Essene texts found
at Qumran. The diverse influences in the exegesis—Jewish, Christian, Greco-
Roman, gnostic—reveal a syncretistic context for composition. From this so-
phisticated melange came this flagrantly sexual and heavenly erotic gnostic
scripture.
THE EXEGESIS ON THE SOUL
1
VIRGINITY AND DEFILEMENT
Sages gave the soul a feminine name. In nature she is also feminine. She even
has a womb.
While she was alone with her father, she was a virgin and in an androgy-
nous form. When she fell down into a body and entered this life, then she fell
into the hands of thieves. Wanton men passed her from one to the other, used
her, some by force, others by seducing her with a gift. They defiled her and
took her virginity from her.
In her body she became a whore and gave herself to everyone, seeing each
one she hugged as a husband. After she let herself be taken by lecherous, un-
faithful adulterers, she sighed deeply and repented. But even when she turned
her face from the adulterers, she ran to others, and they compelled her to live
with them and make love with them on their beds as if they were her masters.
Then, out of shame, she no longer dared leave them, while they double-i. Exegesis on the Soul: Nag Hammadi library, Codex 11,6, pp. 127,18 to 137,27; translated by
William C. Robinson Jr. (Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library in English, pp. 192-98); revised by
Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer.