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Scholarly Quotes

Funk and Hoover point out that speculation about the relation of body and soul is presented in Gal 5:16-18, Rom 8:3-11, and John 3:6.

Marvin Meyer quotes Macarius of Syria, Homily 1.11: “Damn (or, Shame on) the body whenever it remains fixed in its own nature, because it becomes corrupt and dies. And damn (or, shame on) the soul if it remains fixed only in its own nature and relies only upon its own works, not having communion with the divine spirit, because it dies, not having been considered worthy of the eternal life of divinity.” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 101)

Jean Doresse writes: “No doubt this is to be explained by Luke IX, 57-60 and Matt. VIII, 21-2: ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’ In this case, ‘the body which depends on a body’ is a living person who, through care for earthly obligations, wishes to bury his dead person. ‘The soul which depends on these two’ is the soul of such a person, a living body depending on a dead body.” (The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, p. 377)

Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “Since Saying 86 is a quotation from Matthew and Luke, we may expect that the present saying is related to something in the context those gospels provide (cf., Sayings 69-70). Indeed, it may well be a Gnosticizing interpretation of the mysterious words reported in Matthew 8:22 (Luke 9:60): ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead.’ All earthly ties must be broken, as in Sayings 80 and 110. So Doresse, page 194. To know the world is to find a corpse (Saying 57).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 183)

F. F. Bruce writes: “This cryptic saying (cf. Saying 112) disparages the mortal body, which is given birth from another body. It is best for the soul to be as independent as possible of bodily life.” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 145)