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Elaine Pagels earned a B.A. in history and an M.A. in classical studies at Stanford, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the author of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent; The Origin of Satan; and The Gnostic Gospels, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. She is currently the Harrington Spear Paine Professor Religion at Princeton University, and she lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her husband and children.
CHAPTER ONE
FROM THE FEAST OF AGAPE TO THE NICENE CREED
On a bright Sunday morning in February, shivering in a T-shirt and running shorts, I stepped into the vaulted stone vestibule of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York to catch my breath and warm up. Since I had not been in church for a long time, I was startled by my response to the worship in progress——the soaring harmonies of the choir singing with the congregation; and the priest, a woman in bright gold and white vestments, proclaiming the prayers in a clear, resonant voice. As I stood watching, a thought came to me: Here is a family that knows how to face death.
That morning I had gone for an early morning run while my husband and two-and-a-half-year-old son were still sleeping. The previous night I had been sleepless with fear and worry. Two days before, a team of doctors at Babies Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, had performed a routine checkup on our son, Mark, a year and six months after his successful open-heart surgery. The physicians were shocked to find evidence of a rare lung disease. Disbelieving the results, they tested further for six hours before they finally called us in to say that Mark had pulmonary hypertension, an invariably fatal disease, they told us. How much time? I asked. “We don’t know; a few months, a few years.”
The following day, a team of doctors urged us to authorize a lung biopsy, a painful and invasive procedure. How could this help? It couldn’t, they explained; but the procedure would let them see how far the disease had progressed. Mark was already exhausted by the previous day’s ordeal. Holding him, I felt that if moremasked strangers poked needles into him in an operating room, he might lose heart——literally——and die. We refused the biopsy, gathered Mark’s blanket, clothes, and Peter Rabbit, and carried him home.
Standing in the back of that church, I recognized, uncomfortably, that I needed to be there. Here was a place to weep without imposing tears upon a child; and here was a heterogeneous community that had gathered to sing, to celebrate, to acknowledge common needs, and to deal with what we cannot control or imagine. Yet the celebration in progress spoke of hope; perhaps that is what made the presence of death bearable. Before that time, I could only ward off what I had heard and felt the day before.
I returned often to that church, not looking for faith but because, in the presence of that worship and the people gathered there——and in a smaller group that met on weekdays in the church basement for mutual encouragement——my defenses fell away, exposing storms of grief and hope. In that church I gathered new energy, and resolved, over and over, to face whatever awaited us as constructively as possible for Mark, and for the rest of us.
When people would say to me, “Your faith must be of great help to you,” I would wonder, What do they mean? What is faith? Certainly not simple assent to the set of beliefs that worshipers in that church recited every week (“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth . . .”)——traditional statements that sounded strange to me, like barely intelligible signals from the surface, heard at the bottom of the sea. Such statements seemed to me then to have little to do with whatever transactions we were making with one another, with ourselves, and——so it was said——with invisible beings. I was acutely aware that we met there driven by need and desire; yet sometimes I dared hope that such communion has the potential to transform us.
I am a historian of religion, and so, as I visited that church, I wondered when and how being a Christian became virtually synonymous with accepting a certain set of beliefs. From historical reading, I knew that Christianity had survived brutal persecution and flourished for generations——even centuries—— before Christians formulated what they believed into creeds. The origins of this transition from scattered groups to a unified community have left few traces. Although the apostle Paul, about twenty years after Jesus death, stated “the gospel,” which, he says, “I too received” (“that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day”),it may have been more than a hundred years later that some Christians, perhaps in Rome, attempted to consolidate their group against the demands of a fellow Christian named Marcion, whom they regarded as a false teacher, by introducing formal statements of belief into worship. But only in the fourth century, after the Roman emperor Constantine himself converted to the new faith——or at least decriminalized it——did Christian bishops, at the emperor’s command, convene in the city of Nicaea, on the Turkish coast, to agree upon a common statement of beliefs——the so-called Nicene Creed, which defines the faith for many Christians to this day.
Yet I know from my own encounters with people in that church, both upstairs and down, believers, agnostics, and seekers——as well as people who don’t belong to any church——that what matters in religious experience involves much more than what we believe (or what we do not believe). What is Christianity, and what is religion, I wondered, and why do so many of us still find it compelling, whether or not we belong to a church, and despite difficulties we may have with particular beliefs or practices? What is it about Christian tradition that we love——and what is it that we cannot love?
From the beginning, what attracted outsiders who walked into a gathering of Christians, as I did on that February morning, was the presence of a group joined by spiritual power into an extended family. Many must have come as I had, in distress; and some came without money. In Rome, the sick who frequented the temples of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, expected to pay when they consulted his priests about herbs, exercise, baths, and medicine. These priests also arranged for visitors to spend nights sleeping in the temple precincts, where the god was said to visit his suppliants in dreams. Similarly, those who sought to enter into the mysteries of the Egyptian goddess Isis, seeking her protection and blessings in this life, and eternal life beyond the grave, were charged considerable initiation fees and spent more to buy the ritual clothing, offerings, and equipment.
Irenaeus, the leader of an important Christian group in provincial Gaul in the second century, wrote that many newcomers came to Christian meeting places hoping for miracles, and some found them: “We heal the sick by laying hands on them, and drive out demons,” the destructive energies that cause mental instability and emotional anguish. Christians took no money, yet Irenaeus acknowledged no limits to what the spirit could do: “We even raise the dead, many of whom are still alive among us, and completely healthy.”
Even without a miracle, those in need could find immediate practical help almost anywhere in the empire, whose great cities——Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch, Carthage, and Rome itself——were then, as now, crowded with people from throughout the known world. Inhabitants of the vast shantytowns that surrounded these cities often tried to survive by begging, prostitution, and stealing. Yet Tertullian, a Christian spokesman of the second century, writes that, unlike members of other clubs and societies that collected dues and fees to pay for feasts, members of the Christian “family” contributed money voluntarily to a common fund to support orphans abandoned in the streets and garbage dumps. Christian groups also brought food, medicines, and companionship to prisoners forced to work in mines, banished to prison islands, or held in jail. Some Christians even bought coffins and dug graves to bury the poor and criminals, whose corpses otherwise would lie unburied beyond the city walls. Like Irenaeus, the African convert Tertullian emphasizes that among Christians
there is no buying and selling of any kind in what belongs to God. On a certain day, each one, if he likes, puts in a small gift, but only if he wants to do so, and only if he be able, for there is no compulsion; everything is voluntary.
Such generosity, which ordinarily could be expected only from one’s own family, attracted crowds of newcomers to Christian groups, despite the risks. The sociologist Rodney Stark notes that, shortly before Irenaeus wrote, a plague had ravaged cities and towns throughout the Roman empire, from Asia Minor though Italy and Gaul. The usual response to someone suffering from inflamed skin and pustules, whether a family member or not, was to run, since nearly everyone infected died in agony. Some epidemiologists estimate that the plague killed a third to a half of the imperial population. Doctors could not, of course, treat the disease, and they too fled the deadly virus. Galen, the most famous physician of his age, who attended the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, survived what people later called Galen’s plague by escaping to a country estate until it was over.
But some Christians were convinced that God’s power was with them to heal or alleviate suffering. They shocked their pagan neighbors by staying to care for the sick and dying, believing that, if they themselves should die, they had the power to overcome death. Even Galen was impressed:
[For] the people called Christians . . . contempt of death is obvious to us every day, and also their self-control in sexual matters. . . . They also include people who, in self-discipline . . . in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a level not inferior to that of genuine philosophers.
| Ch. 1 | From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed | 3 |
| Ch. 2 | Gospels in Conflict: John and Thomas | 30 |
| Ch. 3 | God's Word or Human Words? | 74 |
| Ch. 4 | The Canon of Truth and the Triumph of John | 114 |
| Ch. 5 | Constantine and the Catholic Church | 143 |
| Acknowledgments | 187 | |
| Notes | 191 | |
| Index | 227 |
1. Why has Elaine Pagels chosen Beyond Belief as her title? How can the title be interpreted?
2. Pagels begins each chapter with a personal reflection. What do these passages add to the book? What do they reveal about Pagels’s own struggles with some aspects of traditional Christian beliefs? For what is she searching, as both a scholar and a Christian?
3. Pagels argues that those who “enshrined the Gospel of John within the New Testament and denounced Thomas’s Gospel as ‘heresy’ decisively shaped—and inevitably limited—what would become Western Christianity” [p. 29]. In what ways has the triumph of John over Thomas shaped and limited Western Christianity? How might Christianity be different today if Thomas had been included in the New Testament?
4. Pagels says, “Thomas’s Gospel encourages the hearer not so much to believe in Jesus, as John requires, as to seek to know God through one’s own, divinely given capacity, since all are created in the image of God” [p. 34]. Why is this distinction so important? Why were Thomas’s ideas considered heretical?
5. Why did Irenaeus and other early Christian theologians feel it was essential to unify Christian beliefs into a canon of orthodox teachings that all Christians must accept? What political pressures influenced their decisions?
6. What are the dangers of spiritual intuitions, visions, divine revelations, and other intensely subjective religious experiences? What are some of their destructive consequences? What positive value is there in such experiences? Should the Church encourage or discourage Christians from seeking or relying on these methods of access to a direct knowledge of God?
7. How do the Nag Hammadi texts alter our view of early Christianity? Do they, as Pagels suggests, offer a more open, diverse, and less doctrinal version of Christianity? Can they coexist with canonical texts? Should they be embraced by Christians? Why were they suppressed?
8. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus tells his disciples, when they ask about the resurrection, “What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it,” and says that “the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it” [p. 50]. What are the implications of these statements? How do they differ from more traditional ideas of the resurrection and the kingdom of God?
9. Pagels discusses several highly symbolic or metaphorical readings of the Bible, such as The Secret Book of John, in which Eve is interpreted as an embodiment of “epinoia—a ‘creative’ or ‘inventive’ consciousness,” and the apple as a symbol of higher spiritual knowledge [pp. 164–67]. How convincing is this reading? What does it offer that more conventional readings do not? Why did Irenaeus want to prohibit such interpretations?
10. At the beginning of Chapter 5, Pagels asks herself “Why not just leave Christianity—and religion—behind, as so many others have done?” [p. 143] Why is she tempted to abandon the church? What is it about Christianity that she still finds compelling? Does her situation seem representative of the ambivalence that many Christians feel today?
11. Based on your reading of Beyond Belief, how should religious tradition and innovation be balanced? How can the Church maintain its traditions without suppressing the imaginative involvement of creative individuals?
12. Pagels ends by saying that “the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions” encourages “those who endeavor, in Jesus’ words, to ‘seek, and you shall find’” [p. 185]. Why does she end her book in this way? What aspect of Christianity is she underscoring?
Anonymous
Posted December 15, 2005
Pagels presents a history of the evolution of orthodox Christianity from the first century through the fourth century. She portrays The Secret Gospel of Thomas and other gnostic texts as scriptures championed by certain Christians who were opposed by Iraneus in the second century and later by other Church Fathers. The main difference between the Gnostic Gospels and those of the New Testament canon lies in the former's emphasis on searching for the Divine within ourselves instead of within an exterior God. Although that idea was reinvented in many defferent forms, not only throughout the history of Christianity but also in other religions such as Buddhism, the proponents of orthodoxy ultimately prevailed at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. Pagels applauds in particular the evidence she uncovers of an incredible diversity of beliefs within Christianity during its first three centuries of existence.To me the appreciation of diverse Christian beliefs during that early period is the most important benefit I received from reading BEYOND BELIEF.
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 18, 2004
A true Christian who believes in the word of God, who believes that the word of God is wholly inspired and wholly sufficient, who believes that God¿s word is infallible and inerrant, and who has based his or her faith mainly on the teachings in the Gospel of John and in the writings of Saint Paul, such Christian should not read this book. It will be dangerous to his/her belief and spiritual health. But to a Christian who is a true seeker, who really wants to know as to what Jesus taught to his disciples, who values the teaching of Jesus as described in the Synoptic Gospels, that is, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and who is open minded to accept the teachings contained in the Gnostic Gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas, this book is an eye opener. To such a Christian, this book will help to dig deep into the spiritual knowledge that is `beyond belief¿. The spiritual experience of such seeker would be more on knowledge (gnosis) based than on faith and belief based. This book has potential of dividing the fundamental Christians from other Christians in a big way. This book could create a new class of Christians who would be open minded, who would put their faith in the `new-age type¿ philosophical knowledge that Jesus imparted to his disciples. Such Christians would have less faith in salvation that will come in believing in the person of Jesus , but in knowing and doing the things that Jesus knew and taught. Fundamental Christians would consider this book, Beyond Belief, as a work of Satan, and it would be a proscribed book in the Bible belt in the USA. Do not expect fundamental preachers ever talk about this book on their TV programs.
6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 1, 2003
There is no definitive proof that the Gospel of Thomas predates the canonical gospels. The text, which most scholars only date to around 200 A.D. (much later than our earliest versions of the canonical Gospel and other sources like the Gospel of Peter)and was utilized by the gnostic sect in Egypt and Syria. The gnostics, who drew on other traditions besides Christianity, were not a peace loving, accepting group. They tended to be elitist, believed that only men could attain the 'true light' and were anti Jewish. Everything that was discovered when the Gospel of Thomas was found was not as earth shaking as it is portrayed. Fragments of Thomas, about a third, had been available since the late 1800's and all of these arguments were made than as well. The author should have done more historiographical research before writing. This is all old news and much of it is incorrect or misrepresented. Buy Phillip Jenkins book 'The Hidden Gospels' instead.
5 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 12, 2011
Although a history book, I was pulled into it much like a mystery novel. I couldn't put it down. To avoid spoilers, stop here. Pagel tells the story of how and why the early church staked out its claim on what are now known as the canonical texts of the Bible versus the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi, i.e., The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary Magdelene, etc. Those communities that favored The Gospel of Thomas were prone to liberal interpretations of Jewish scripture and the gospels. The communities that favored the canonical texts wanted a more controlled and conservative interpretation. Seeing the Gnostic camp as a threat, it was Irenaeus in the 2nd century who carved out the reasons for limiting the texts to what we know as the Bible today. He also drew guidelines for how scripture should be interpreted. He then proclaimed that those who didn't agree with him would be declared heretics, excommunicated, and thereby consigned to live eternity in hell. Likewise, he declared that Jews should also serve the same fate as the heretics. Irenaeus' teachings were put into practice 150 years later when Athanasius of Alexandria canonized the texts of the NT and then ordered all other non-canonical texts to be destroyed. The Gnostics, not bearing to see their beloved texts destroyed, hid their scrolls in earthen-ware jars in Nag Hammadi. These texts were discovered in 1945. Elaine Pagels is one of the first people to write popular accounts of these texts.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I actually did not like this book at all. It is heavily skewed in the direction of support for the "orthodox" point of view and seems a deliberate obfuscation of the facts. For example Western Emporer Constantine and Eastern Emporer Licinius met in Milan, Italy in 313 AD and signed together the "Edict of Milan" which was nothing more than a statement of religious toleration. Constantine did convene the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD trying to gain a unified, universal church. Christianity was not recognized as the "State religion" until Emporer Theodosius I issued an edict on 27 February, 387 AD. We hear a lot about Paul's sayings (typical of a Western christian) and a lot about The Gospel of John) with a very definite positive slant (which I suppose is natural for one that passed priestly muster at the council) and very little about the Gospel of Thomas (most of which seems negative). I find it odd that no one ever mentions Theodosius I at all and Constantine continues to get credit for something he did not do. The feeling I got from this book (I read it twice so am doubly disappointed) was that one needs to stick with the "approved biblical text" and just accept whatever you are spoon fed. If it excludes, Mary Magdalene, the Mother Mary, James and others, no sweat, we apparently do not want the real story anyway. Just feed us a good line. We will bite. I don't know about others, nor can I speak for them, but I would like the truth and, if current doctrine isn't supported by the truth, then so be it. What I am sick of is lies and coverup.
3 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 3, 2004
This is interesting reading for those of us who are not well acquainted with early Christian history. The main focus of the book is historical reasons that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John became the four gospels of today's New Testament and why other first century writings were not included. There is an excellent historical review of second and third century events that affected the early church and caused church leaders to accept or reject competing 'gospels'. Curiously, the gospel of Thomas really is not examined very extensively. Only a few short fragments of Thomas are discussed and mainly in comparison to the gospel of John. Dr. Pagels does us the favor, though, of pointing out that 'denominationalism' existed even in the early church and shows that Christians searching for the early, untaintedand original teachings of Christ really will find what Paul found; that is, that believers followed early human personalities as much as they did Jesus (much as they do today). The author also shows the same rigid skepticism that I've noted in other religious academics when they evaluate Biblical historical accuracy. She notes that most academics agree that we know little about the birth of Jesus which seems a very odd conclusion. Historically, we know that Mary and the brothers of Jesus outlived Jesus and were active in the early church. We know that Paul (and his doctor, Luke) met with leaders of the early church. Mary, the mother of Jesus, by tradition lived and died in Ephesus (there's even a site there that they show the tourists)and Paul traveled to Ephesus. Luke records the geneology of Joseph, the family ties of Mary to John the Baptist, the leaders of Rome and local politicians at the time of his birth and the reason that Jesus was born where he was i.e. Bethlehem. OK, we do not have a birth certificate to show an academic but who better to get birth information from than the mother. Dr. Pagels recites personal anecdotes about her own family in the book and I suspect they are pretty accurate-she and the other academics should give Luke and Mary the credence they deserve.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 21, 2003
it is beautifully and scholarly written but i found it more argumentative than informative or belief sustaining. what i was looking for was what the holy apostle thomas said or believed from info that was found in the dead sea scrolls and other ancient sources. what i found was more a dissertation on what and why certain things were left in in the bible and others taken out.
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 17, 2012
Clear and concise research written extremely well.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 20, 2007
The author really did her homework. The historical background and novel are very good and she also included the Gospel of Thomas in the back. All possible questions about meanings of words etc are referenced in the various sections.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 6, 2005
If you want a more general introduction see Pagel´s book on the Gnostics where she tells about the finding of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts in 1945. But she is a scholar and not a mystic and Jesus talked in parables(at least thats what we have)so if you want to understand what Jesus means go to the clearest and best of the modern mystics and read Osho´s The Mustard Seed. If cant buy it then you can find it online.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 23, 2003
Not a bad reed, but as an argument for Thomas' view of Jesus as opposed to John's, it was ultimately unconvincing. Were I setting the NT canon today, I'd probably have to side with the Church Fathers. I tend to doubt if Christianity would be more than a historical footnote today if the opposite decision had been made.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 21, 2003
that this was as good as her other books, but it is not. She is wonderful in sharing with the reader some of her own experiences with the consoling, helping, aspects of religion, and seeing in religious gatherings certain qualities that she needs after the death of her son. This part of the book is sweet and moving. The problem is that she has a couple of points to make, and determines to make them no matter what. This is what makes a large part of her book more a polemic than a considered history. One example: she says that only John, of the gospel writers, asserts that Jesus is the Son of God. The others, she says, like Thomas, treat him as a rabbi, teacher, and Messiah, but not the Son of God. She finds John's assertion radical. In context, she argues that early Christianity, only a few decades after the death of Christ, was full of gnostic impulses, sanctioned, she suggests, by the synoptic gospel treatments. But to pursue this line of argument, she has to ignore all of St. Paul, who repeatedly references the 'Son of God.' One senses that her need to find other ways to believe Christianity than the officially-sanctioned 2,000-year doctrine is related to her personal loss. In the end, this reader sympathized with her loss, but could not assent to her readings of the texts, which seem, frankly, eccentric. The book should have been terrific, given the subject matter and the writer. Unfortunately, it is not.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 14, 2011
The premise of this book is perhaps deceiving as it offers the reader a lot more than just an investigation or explanation of the Gospel of Thomas. Pagels offers a very personal reflection on said Gospel, how it relates to the canonical gospels and what it means to Christians and non-Christians alike. However to be fair the title ¿Beyond Belief¿ is accurate as Pagels provides insight into how her own belief evolved throughout her life from her experience with evangelicals as a teenager to a professor as an adult. Pagels expounds on the thought of Irenaeus of Lyons, one of the most prominent of the early Church Fathers who was instrumental in the formulation of orthodox belief, the Gospel of Thomas not forming part of this system. A complete translation of the Gospel of Thomas is also provided as an appendix and is worth reading again and again. Unlike many of the other Gnostic Gospels it relates to mainstream Christianity and can easily be understood.
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Posted April 27, 2004
This book hardly needs another review, but I feel it got an undeserved bad rap in some earlier reviews. Quite apart from being argumentative, I found it to be quite scholarly. Ms. Pagels does a very good job of presenting her information on the critical first 200 years of Christianity in it's historical perspective. New it may not be, but it was new to me, and filled in what I have been looking for, a good jumping off place to the study of the roots of Christianity. The combination of the complete Gospel of Thomas, along with some interpretation and a lot of historical perspective make this a must read for anyone who believes that faith and knowledge not only can, but must co-exist.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 10, 2003
You will want to read the actual Gospel of Thomas along side this book. The gnostic gospels delve into a certain silliness that even the most convincing author can't hide. Nonetheless, this author steps outside conventional scholarship to present a picture of gnostic gospels as mainstream.
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