A Question of Religious Authority

The book, The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels presents an easy-reading historical document that reveals the fundamental and theoretical similarities and differences of gnostic and orthodox Christians of the early Christian movement. According to Pagels, the finding of the 52 Coptic texts at Nad Hammadi in 1945, has seemingly shifted our very thoughts about Christianity as a traditional religious movement. Interpretation of the gospels reveals that historically, various diverse forms of Christianity flourished during Christianity's early formative years. Probably the single most threatening movement of the time was a group known as the Gnostics who formed from a variety of sources and traditions and who were often referred to as a heretical movement by the Christian church forefathers. The strength of Pagels work shows that although Gnostic and orthodox Christians believed in God and the value of sharing a relationship with God, they differed greatly in their approach to knowing and understanding God. Gnostics believed that one could know God by gaining insight into oneself, and that by knowing oneself, one might understand human nature and destiny. In general, Gnostics maintained an equality amongst individuals and established no fixed orders of clergy. They allowed all individuals to seek to know God through their own experience and to achieve personal enlightenment through rigorous spiritual discipline and self-discovery. Unlike the Gnostics, the Christian church developed as a religious structure to encourage social interaction amongst individuals and required only that individuals accept the simplest essentials of faith and a variety of celebrated church rituals. Pagels work also succinctly shows the interaction between the two forms of Christianity and challenges the reader to explore the very meanings of the movements on the Christian tradition of today. The essence of the book reveals that the survival of the Christian tradition was dependent on the organizational and theological structure of the emerging church and that the emergence of the religious hierarchical structure of the church seemed to mirror the difficult times of the growing social and political forces of the governing body of that time. Furthermore, the movement to institutionalize Christianity, created a leadership structure that consisted of a small band of persons (bishop and priests) who stood in a position of incontestable authority to define how individuals could know God. Pagels postulates that mounting alienation from the world in which the individuals lived combined with a longing for a miraculous salvation as an escape from the constraints of political and social existence of the time, gave the necessary strength and power to create the burgeoning orthodox Christian church. A shortcoming of the book concerns Pagels personal indifference in the final chapter of the very core truths of Gnosticism that she so vividly and explicitly sought to describe in her book. Certainly, Pagels gave a strong voice of support for the movement in terms of it's early beginnings with orthodox Christians and it's impact on Christianity today. Surprisingly, however, she chose to leave the reader hanging by failing to embrace the concepts of Gnosticism that she asked the reader to re-visit regarding some of the major debates surrounding issues of religious authority and God. Despite this shortcoming, the author highly recommends Pagels engaging, richly evocative, well-written, historical text that introduces the amazingly paradoxical development of the early Christian movement.

Good History of Early Christianity

This is not exactly a fun page-turner but it is a good resource for anyone interested in early Christianity. Elaine Pagels, although admittedly an orthodox Christian, writes from a historical perspective without any evangelical bias. The book reads like a master's thesis in some sections, but it is well written and well researched nevertheless. Much information is gleaned from extant documents written by contemporary critics of the gnostics. These ancient letters also provide non-Biblical evidence, for those skeptics who feel that the entire Easter story is myth, that Jesus was in fact crucified by Pontius Pilate.

The book begins with a brief history of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts in 1945, the so-called Gnostic Gospels. Without this discovery we would know almost nothing about the mysterious sect of early Christianity known as "gnosticism." The gnostics were one of two competing sects, the other being the orthodox (translated "straight-thinking") evangelicals who would become the Catholic Church. Gnostics focused on the self rather than the community. They were utterly non-judgmental, to the point that they would not confer superior status to any one individual, as the Catholics did with their bishops, but rather they would share the duties of worship leader, hymn leader, deacon etc., and take turns alternating different people through the positions. Women participated in the worship service on an equal basis with men, rather more like modern Protestants than the seemingly misogynist Catholics of that era. The gnostics believed that those who received gnosis, or "hidden knowledge," transcended the authority of the church.

Gnostics did not take a literal interpretation of the Bible and they were critical of orthodox Christians who did. They did not believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus. To them it was all spiritual and metaphysical. God is in us, they believed, and that in itself is miraculous. The orthodox, on the other hand, regarded the gnostics as heretics at best and agents of Satan at worst. By the fourth century the gnostics had faded away. The para-military organization of the Catholic Church and the church's focus on community ultimately triumphed over the introspective mysticism of the gnostics. In deed, if gnosticism had prevailed over orthodox Christianity, the religion would probably have withered on the vine before the Emperor Constantine ever had his dream.

A Village Reader Review

Well, after reading The Da Vinci Code and watching the special on TV, I naturally went out and bought more books - at least, that is natural for me, anyway. The result is not quite a review, more like thinking out loud.

It has been said that history is written by the winners. One of the books recently finished, and used by Brown (and possibly also Perdue in Daughter of God) is Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels. What a thought provoking work. In this case, the 'winner' was a unified church. How to summarize what happened? The book itself is only 151 pages - but the intro prior to the main thesis of the book is over 35 pages. The intro lays out the basis for the 151 pages that follow.

As the church was forming, there was an organized group that became the orthodoxy of the 'only holy apostolic and catholic church' (I think that is the wording, I'm not a Catholic). The church was organized along strict hierachical lines. But the 'losers' in the early development were a group that felt that each individual had the knowledge (gnosis) to determine what the right spiritual search/meaning/path was for them - therefore very loosely organized at best.

Much of the work used for this philosophy was writtne down and saved by monks near Cairo and hidden when the church determines that history should be written by the winners, er, wait, when they decided that anything outside the agreement enforced by Constantine was heretical and must be destroyed. The dating on these texts is concurrent or prior to the texts used in the New Testament - ranging from about 60 to 120 AD. These monks hid the scrolls & parchments in large pottery, which was discovered about 60 years ago after 1000 years in hiding.

One of the things Pagels does well is to point to existing books of the Bible that largely support some of the non-orthodox books. She also indicates that the one book which almost didn't make it and has a large 'gnostic' flavor to it is John - and its focus on self awareness and an individual approach to God.

The missing books give a different perspective on the development of the church, and I'm sure I'll be exploring more in this area.

Also interesting, though largely unstated in the book, that Luther et al, prodded (in part) by the technology or the printing press, actually pointed back to the time of the gnostics - where rather than the Bible being 'dispensed' by the local parish priest, should be read by all for a more personal meaning. There was a relatively minor reference in this regard, due, I'm sure, to space considerations.

Very, very interesting stuff, folks.