The Gnostic Gospels

Irenaeus was a second-century Christian bishop and is considered one of the “church fathers,” the pivotal writers and leaders who shaped orthodox Christianity in the first few centuries of its history. He was a native of the Greek city of Smyrna in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), born sometime around 125 CE. From a Christian family, Irenaeus joined the Christian Church and rose to the rank of priest and then bishop. He became the bishop of Lugdunum, today the city of Lyon in France. Nothing is known about Irenaeus’ death, although legend holds that he was martyred. Today, he is considered a saint by various churches.

He is best-known for writing the book The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge, also referred to by the much shorter title Against Heresies, which was written in Greek sometime around 180 CE. As the title suggests, the book was designed to argue against the views of various “heretical” Christian groups from the time, including the gnostic Christian teacher Valentinus and his followers. For historians of early Christianity like Elaine Pagels, Against Heresies is a major source for understanding the history of gnostic ideas in Christianity. However, Irenaeus is clearly biased against the ideas he is describing, which is one reason that the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts is so valuable for historians of early Christianity.

One of the most significant intellectuals in the development of Christianity, Paul was an early convert to Christianity who lived during Jesus’s lifetime but never met him. As the Jewish official Saul, he participated in the persecution of Christians. After his conversion, he became known by his Latin name, “Paulus,” or Paul. He claimed to have had a vision of Jesus Christ after his resurrection and converted to Christianity. Paul became an early leader of the Christian movement, arguing among many other things that Jesus’s crucifixion freed believers from most of Jewish religious law.

The letters Paul wrote to Christian congregations comprise a large part of the New Testament. However, several of these letters are thought by at least some modern scholars, and even a few ancient authorities, to have been written not by Paul, but by his followers or subordinates. Pagels argues that Paul expressed several ideas that would provide a basis for gnostic Christianity, such as a spiritual understanding of Jesus’s resurrection (6).

According to Christian tradition, Peter was one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ and believed to have been Jesus’s first follower. He was also claimed by some sources to have been the first of the Apostles to see Jesus after his resurrection. He was a Jewish fisherman who originally went by the name Simon, but Jesus himself renamed him Cephas, meaning rock in Jesus’s language of Aramaic. Translated into Latin, this name became Peter. While considered a major saint in all Christian traditions, Peter is an especially significant figure to the modern Roman Catholic Church, which believes he is the first bishop of Rome and hence the first Pope.

As a result, Peter would become a major figure in Christianity, arguably more so than any of the other Apostles. Writings and traditions were often attributed to him throughout early Christian history. As Elaine Pagels points out, this was true not only for what would become orthodox Christianity. Gnostic Christians in writings like The Apocalypse of Peter also often cited Peter as an authority.

Tertullian was a late second/early third-century Christian writer from North Africa, one of the first to write in Latin rather than Greek. His many writings were so influential that they shaped the theology of mainline Christianity, especially in western and central Europe. He is also known for his rigid attitudes toward women’s roles and moral behavior.

Tertullian wrote several works denouncing gnostic ideas, including Against Valentinus and Against the Sting of the Gnostics. For this reason, he is one of the main orthodox sources on gnosticism for modern scholars like Elaine Pagels. However, like the other major orthodox source on gnosticism, Irenaeus, Tertullian is deeply biased against the gnostic viewpoint.