f all
being. It is easy to understand how a variety of meanings may be read
into a simple statement like the above. It is also easy to understand
that the possibilities of confusion arising in the first three centuries
of Christian history were matters of the utmost concern to contemporary
Christian writers and dogmatists. The period abounded in heresies and
misunderstandings, to the discussion of which the ablest minds of the
Church were devoted. Quotations from these authors furnish many of the
extant hymns composed by Gnostics, either within or without the Christian
fold. The range of literary excellence, of spiritual connotation and of
intelligibility of subject matter in the so-called Gnostic hymns is so
wide that it is difficult to evaluate them. To the modern reader they
vary from the mere rigmarole to the genuinely inspiring hymn.

Perhaps the best known and certainly one of the loftiest expressions of
Gnostic ideas is the _Hymn of the Soul_, which is found in the Apocryphal
_Acts of Thomas_. Dating from the first half of the third century, the
_Acts of Thomas_ recounts the missionary preaching of the Apostle Thomas
in India. While in prison, he chants this hymn, beginning,

When I was an infant child in the palace of my father.[55]

It has no connection with the narrative but relates in allegorical
fashion the return of the soul, which has been awakened from its
preoccupation with earthly matters, to the higher state of heavenly
existence. Here is a theme congenial to Christian thought and orthodox in
its theology when extricated from the popular concepts of the times.[56]
The actual authorship of the _Hymn of the Soul_, which is found in the
Syriac version of the _Acts_ alone, is unknown, but it has been
attributed to some disciple of the Syrian Bardesanes, a Christian Gnostic
who lived in the second half of the second century.[57] There seems to be
no doubt that Bardesanes was himself influential as a hymn writer and
that he was representative of a group of poets who were beginning to
employ contemporary rhythms set to melodies familiar in daily secular
life.[58]

The _Acts of Thomas_ contains a second hymn,

The damsel is the daughter of light,

a poem of oriental imagery, personifying the divine wisdom as a
bride.[59]

The apocryphal _Acts of John_, dating from the middle of the second
century, yields a third hymn, the _Hymn of Jesus_. In the Gospel
narrative of the last supper, Jesus and hi