Abstract

One of the most beautiful and enigmatic texts in the corpus of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles is beyond doubt the so-called Hymn of the Pearl, whose meaning, however, is far from getting an academic consensus in the current bibliography. As A.F.J. Klijn in his «The So-Called Hymn of the Pearl », Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 14, n. 3 156, stated a coherent analysis of the poem should bring an answer to two main questions: «What is meant with the pearl? and Who is the principal person in this hymn?». The following pages will try to propose a tenable meaning to this passage by allocating it in its due conceptual context and will offer a consequent hypothesis to those questions that remain still opened.