The Gnostic Gospels

“But those who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard themselves as ‘heretics.’ Most of the writings use Christian terminology, unmistakably related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to offer traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from ‘the many’ who constitute what, in the second century, came to be called the ‘catholic church.’”

Pagels emphasizes The Subjective Distinction Between Orthodoxy and Heresy. The gnostics of course did not consider themselves heretics, and indeed a few gnostic texts accused the orthodox of being the true heretics (xxxv). For some critics, this has raised some questions of how much Pagels is relying on ancient sources’ own biased concepts of heresy and orthodoxy.

“Rather than considering the question of the origins of gnosticism, I intend here to show how gnostic forms of Christianity interact with orthodoxy—and what this tells us about the origins of Christianity itself.”

The central argument in The Gnostic Gospels is a historical one: that the conflict between “orthodox” and gnostic Christianity can illuminate the history and development of early Christianity. This is not just a matter of ideas within Christianity, but also of how early Christianity intersected with broader social, political, and cultural forces in Pagels’s exploration of The Impact of Religious Beliefs on Gender and Power. As Pagels remarks, “It suggests that these religious debates […] simultaneously bear social and political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion” (xxxvi).

“The resurrection, they insisted, was not a unique event in the past: instead, it symbolized how Christ’s presence could be experienced in the present. What mattered was not literal seeing, but spiritual vision.”

A key difference between the gnostics and the orthodox lies in the gnostics belief in The Primacy of Direct Spiritual Knowledge. In fact, one could summarize the differences between the two camps as described by Pagels in this way: The gnostics emphasized the internal, while the orthodox focused on the external.

“Like Baptists, Quakers, and many others, the gnostic is convinced that whoever receives the spirit communicates directly with the divine.”

Pagels does not see gnostic Christianity solely as the product of historical forces that belong to a specific time and place. One argument that Pagels makes about gnostic and orthodox Christianity is that they answered fundamentally different human needs and appealed “to different types of persons” (143). This is why Pagels suggests that gnostic ideas have recurred even after gnostic communities died out, either in the form of other religious movements or even in modern developments like “psychotherapy” (124).

“[Gnostics] argued that only one’s own experience offers the ultimate criterion of truth, taking precedence over all secondhand testimony and all tradition—even gnostic tradition!”

By definition, the core characteristic of gnosticism is the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge. As Pagels suggests throughout The Gnostic Gospels, an important reason why the orthodox succeeded and gnosticism failed was that the gnostics, unlike the orthodox, failed to establish a “system of organization which united all believers into a single institutional structure” (118).

“Achieving gnosis involves coming to recognize the true source of divine power—namely, ‘the depth’ of all being. Whoever has come to know that source simultaneously comes to know himself and discovers his spiritual origin: he has come to know his true Father and Mother.”

Pagels illustrates how the key gnostic concept of the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge relates to the political impact of religious beliefs. If anyone can achieve gnosis through cultivating wisdom and spiritual awareness, then women can attain gnosis as easily as men, challenging the patriarchal power structure of the orthodox church. This opens up the idea that the divine itself may at least contain an element of the feminine.

“Followers of Valentinus shared a religious vision of the nature of God that they found incompatible with the rule of priests and bishops that was emerging in the catholic church—and so they resisted it. Irenaeus’ religious convictions, conversely, coincided with the structure of the church he defended.”

Pagels sees religious belief as intertwined with social, cultural, political, and economic influences. As she notes about Irenaeus, “Irenaeus’ religious convictions and his position—like those of his gnostic opponents—reciprocally influenced one another” (46).

“Yet the actual language they use daily in worship and prayer conveys a different message: who, growing up with Jewish or Christian tradition, has escaped the distinct impression that God is masculine?”

The idea of God as inherently masculine is fundamental to the orthodox Christian tradition, at least until modern times. This is what makes the gnostic concept of feminine divinity or a divinity that encompasses both genders so revolutionary and so threatening to the orthodox view. Pagels argues that this view of the divine contributed to greater equality between genders in gnostic social life, highlighting the political impact of religious beliefs.

“Among such gnostic groups as the Valentinians, women were considered equal to men; some were revered as prophets; others acted as teachers, traveling evangelists, healers, priests, perhaps even bishops.”

This is another example of how belief and social practice are intertwined. Teachings about gender and the divine are not just theoretical exercises. Instead, they can influence ideas about women’s roles and the relationships between men and women, which in turn reinforce ideas about the divine.

“Like the gnostic view, this translates into social practice: by the late second century, the orthodox community came to accept the domination of men over women as the divinely ordained order, not only for social and family life, but also for the Christian churches.”

Likewise, concepts of gender and the divine among the orthodox were used to justify female subordination to men. Again, it is important to note that this is a two-way process, and the subordination of women also serves to reinforce the idea of God as masculine.

“The Nag Hammadi sources, discovered at a time of contemporary social crises concerning sexual roles, challenge us to reinterpret history—and to reevaluate the present situation.”

One of the criticisms levied against The Gnostic Gospels is that Pagels presents gnosticism in a positive light, specifically that it better reflects modern concepts and values than orthodox Christianity. Pagels might argue instead that this is not about favoritism, but about revealing how religious beliefs can carry unintended “political implications” (xxxvi) that can shape both religion and society.

“How are believers to respond to persecution, which raises the imminent threat of their own suffering and death?”

The conflict between the gnostics and the orthodox included radically different understandings of fundamental concepts, including how to understand and react to persecution. Pagels argues that persecution and martyrdom were not just doctrinal matters, but had tangible ramifications. For the orthodox, religious persecution “gave impetus to the formation of the organized church structure that developed by the end of the second century” (98).

“None of these sources denies that Jesus actually suffered and died; all assume it. Yet all are concerned to show how, in his incarnation, Christ transcended human nature so that he could prevail over death by divine power.”

A recurring point throughout The Gnostic Gospels is that different Christian groups shared many of the same beliefs and traditions, even if they had radically different interpretations. An important example of this is how the resurrection of Jesus meant something very different for gnostic Christians, who viewed Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection as a mystic event meant to inspire individual spiritual enlightenment, in contrast to the orthodox Christian interpretation of the crucifixion and resurrection “as a historical and literal event” (75).

“But orthodox Christians, by the late second century, had begun to establish objective criteria for church membership. Whoever confessed the creed, accepted the ritual of baptism, participated in worship, and obeyed the clergy was accepted as a fellow Christian.”

Although she does not address the topic explicitly and at length, Pagels suggests throughout The Gnostic Gospels reasons why orthodox Christianity succeeded where gnosticism failed. Essentially, because the orthodox were organized according to a tight, centralized hierarchy and made it a simple matter for individuals to join, the orthodox church was able to win in the competition for converts.

“Like the orthodox, they sought the ‘one sole truth.’ But gnostics tended to regard all doctrines, speculations, and myths—their own as well as others’—only as approaches to truth.”

Gnostic Christianity was so deeply driven by the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge that it shaped their understanding of knowledge and authority. This is another example of belief and practice reinforcing each other: Gnostic Christians’ belief in direct knowledge of the divine meant that they “refused to submit to the authority of the bishop” (109).

“For orthodox Christians insisted that humanity needs a way beyond its own power—a divinely given way—to approach God.”

Just as Pagels presents gnostics as basing much if not all of their beliefs on the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge, she suggests that orthodox Christianity is based on relationships between individuals and with spiritual authorities. As Pagels writes, “Orthodox Christians were concerned—far more than gnostics—with their relationships with other people” (146).

“The gnostic Valentinus taught that humanity itself manifests the divine life and divine revelation. The church, he says, consists of that portion of humanity that recognizes and celebrates its divine origin.”

While The Gnostic Gospels has been criticized for idealizing the gnostics and associating them with modern values, Pagels nonetheless presents one way that orthodox Christians were more open and accessible than their gnostic counterparts. While being initiated into gnostic Christianity required a new believer “to devote energy and time” (140), initiates into orthodox Christianity needed little more than a statement of belief. Although gnostic Christianity was more egalitarian in how leadership was shared among members, orthodox Christianity offered a popular appeal that gnosticism lacked.

“Many gnostics, on the contrary, insisted that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in suffering.”

The primacy of direct spiritual knowledge also led gnostics to emphasize ignorance as the origin of sin and evil. Like other gnostic and orthodox beliefs, this had implications for religious practices, namely the gnostic emphasis on a genuine conversion being an intensive and personal experience of attempting to achieve individual enlightenment.

“But here, too, the gnostic model stands close to the psychotherapeutic one. Both acknowledge the need for guidance, but only as a provisional measure.”

At several points, Pagels compares gnostic ideas to modern developments, arguing that, in the same way that religion and political and social circumstances influenced each other, present-day ideological trends are also driven by political, social, and economic considerations.

“For this reason, this type of gnosticism shares with psychotherapy a fascination with the nonliteral significance of language, as both attempt to understand the internal quality of experience.”

One way to understand the appeal of gnosticism is to see how the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge feeds into a highly individual understanding of the divine. This is in contrast to the orthodox perspective, which presents understanding the divine as something that requires engaging with a hierarchical spiritual leadership. Instead, the gnostics understand knowledge of the divine as akin to creative and artistic inspiration (19-20).

“We can see, then, that such gnosticism was more than a protest movement against orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism also included a religious perspective that implicitly opposed the development of the kind of institution that became the early catholic church.”

For Pagels, belief and practice are usually, if not always, inseparable. In the case of gnosticism, its very emphasis on the primacy of direct spiritual knowledge made it unlikely to develop a centralized institution like that of orthodox Christianity.

“Although major themes of gnostic teaching, such as the discovery of the divine within, appealed to so many that they constituted a major threat to catholic doctrine, the religious perspectives and methods of gnosticism did not lend themselves to mass religion.”

Because belief and practice are so inextricable, Pagels presents the victory of orthodox Christianity as more or less inevitable. What made gnostic belief unique and gave it an appeal to certain individuals also made it struggle to win over converts and resist opposition. Had this not been the case, Pagels argues that “Christianity might have developed in very different directions—or that Christianity as we know it might not have survived at all” (142).

“It is the winners who write history—their way. No wonder, then, that the viewpoint of the successful majority has dominated all traditional accounts of the origin of Christianity.”

Bias is a constant problem when discussing gnosticism. As Pagels admits, the main sources for understanding the history of gnosticism, such as Irenaeus and Tertullian, are fundamentally hostile to the gnostic perspective. This is one of the reasons the discovery of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts is of such importance to historians.