Introduction

The Gospel of Corda is a micro-play at once celebratory and melancholy. In what amounts to less than five minutes of performance, it layers Corda’s unrequited love with the happy yet hurting blessings that Antinous wished upon his newlywed friend, Anaxamenos.

Clues in the text tell us that it was written many years after the wedding night, yet the details of the event are well corroborated by Epistle 037– Married Pleasures. Although the setting of the play is unspecified, the presence of a single line attributed to a nameless Priest of Antinous suggests that it takes place at or near a temple in the earliest decades of the burgeoning cult.