Classic Christian creedal statements such as "We believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth" "sound strange" and "barely intelligible" to Princeton's Professor of Religion, Elaine Pagels (5).
During a difficult time in her life, this historian of religion visited a church after decades of absence, and experienced the power of ritual: "I had grown up nominally Protestant, and thought of ritual as empty form, but now I saw how it could join people of diverse cultures and viewpoints into a single community, and focus and renew their energies" (14). A bad experience of narrow religion in her youth turned her off to religion, but learning Greek and reading the New Testament in its original language renewed her interest. However, her frustration with Christian doctrine compelled her to look for "real Christianity" (31).
She believes she has found this in the Gnostic tradition. Thus, the villains of her interpretation of history are Irenaeus, Athanasius, the organized church and its creeds. She prizes the "secret writings" that, in her opinion, the Christian church "suppressed." An alternative perspective is that the church did not suppress as much as reject these writings insofar as they undermined the uniqueness and reality of the incarnation of God in Christ.
Unlike classic Christianity which finds salvation outside of oneself in the grace and redemption of God in Christ, Gnosticism's salvation is oriented in the self. Pagels admits this is the reason for her embrace of Gnosticism: "The strength of this saying [from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas] is that it does not tell us what to believe but challenges us to discover what lies hidden within ourselves; and, with a shock of recognition, I realized that this perspective seemed to me self-evidently true" (32).
Pagels has no interest in doctrinal religion or revelation of an event. She does not want to have to believe anything, but is content to believe whatever supports her own "self-evident" biases. This is the reason gnosticism holds such great appeal, even to this day. It demands nothing and is focused on self-discovery. There is no "incarnate" God, or physical church (with all its obvious weaknesses) to deal with.
To Pagels, the only reason the Gospel of John is in the Christian canon and the gnostic Gospel of Thomas is not is because John's Gospel provides a foundation for a unified church and Thomas' does not.
Pagels rejects the Christian mystics like Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross who retain an incarnational theology but emphasize personal experience. She does not like that they "are careful to speak of relationship with God but not of identification. They can say "I and Thou" but not "I am Thou." In other words, union with God is not enough - we must be God! The uniqueness of Jesus is lost and the monotheism of Judaism is abandoned.
Is it any wonder the early church rejected the gnostic gospels? Yet, Pagels maligns all Christians who reject the gnostic gospels: "To this day, many traditionally minded Christians continue to believe that whatever trespasses canonical guidelines must be 'lies and wickedness' that come either from the evil of the human heart or from the devil" (113). Not necessarily. The gnostic gospels reject monotheism and incarnation. Though the language could get heated, it is simply for this reason that they were rejected. And it must be noted that the gnostics were also heated in their language against orthodox Christianity. In the Gospel of Philip, Philip denounces "the apostles and the apostolic ones" as ignorant and "in error" (132).
Pagels villifies Irenaeus for calling people to remember their baptismal vows, the apostolic witness, and incarnational faith. Yet, some foundation for unity was necessary.
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