English
Jesus said, ‘Miserable is the body which hangs on a body. Miserable is the soul which hangs on these two.’
Interpretation
The meaning of Saying 87 is difficult. The Coptic verb ‘hangs’ may be interpreted as ‘depend’, but it was also loosely to mean ‘crucify’ (as in, to be hanged on a crucifix). If the latter, the earthly body is ‘miserable’ like a crucified body, while the soul suffers all the more being trapped in the misery of an earthly body, but this seems an insufficient explanation for why there are are ‘two’ bodies, one crucified on another. However, if the former, a plausible explanation is that of one body ‘depending’ on another for sustenance or pleasure, a circumstance which makes the soulf miserable. This would fit well within the general ascetic paradigm of the book’s later additions.
No comments:
Post a Comment