Beyond Belief

Shortly after Elaine Pagels' two-and-half-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare lung disease, the religion professor found herself drawn to a Christian church again for the first time in many years. In Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas Pagels, best know for her National Book Award winner The Gnostic Gospels, wrestles with her own faith as she struggles to understand when--and why--Christianity became associated almost exclusively with the ideas codified in the fourth-century Nicene Creed and in the canonical texts of the New Testament. In her exploration, she uncovers the richness and diversity of Christian philosophy that has only become available since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts.

At the centre of Beyond Belief is what Pagels identifies as a textual battle between the Gospel of Thomas (rediscovered in Egypt in 1945) and the Gospel of John. While these gospels have many superficial similarities, Pagels demonstrates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is equivalent to "God the Father" as identified in the Old Testament. Thomas, in contrast, shares with other supposed secret teachings a belief that Jesus is not God but, rather, is a teacher who seeks to uncover the divine light in all human beings. Pagels then shows how the Gospel of John was used by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and others to define orthodoxy during the second and third centuries. The secret teachings were literally driven underground, disappearing until the 20th century. As Pagels argues this process "not only impoverished the churches that remained but also impoverished those [Irenaeus] expelled".

Beyond Belief offers a profound framework with which to examine Christian history and contemporary Christian faith, and Pagels renders her scholarship in a highly readable narrative. The one deficiency in Pagels' examination of Thomas, if there is one, is that she never fully returns in the end to her own struggles with religion that so poignantly open the book. How has the mysticism of the Gnostic Gospels affected her? While she hints that she and others have found new pathways to faith through Thomas, the impact of Pagels' work on contemporary Christianity may not be understood for years to come. --Patrick O'Kelley, Amazon.com

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A fine discernment of spirits - Rated
With patient scholarship Pagels compares two versions of early Christianity - that found in the Gospel of Thomas, with that seen in the Gospel of John. She explores the differences in focus, meaning, and implications for Christians through the ages. Combining the skills of a linguist, a theologian and a fine critic of literature, she brings out the major contrasts in understanding between different groups of early Christians. Her work exposes ancient issues of spiritual discernment, where different speakers claimed to represent Jesus in remarkably different ways. She shows the dilemmas and choices made by early Christians, to help us in making similar choices today:

"Anyone who has seen foolishness, sentimentality, delusion, and murderous rage disguised as God's truth knows that there is no easy answer to the problem that the ancients called the discernment of spirits. Orthodoxy tends to distrust our capacity to make such discriminations and insists on making them for us. ... [But] Most of us sooner or later find that, at critical points in our lives, we must strike out on our own ..." (p. 185-186)

I'm glad to see Pagels also has a book contrasting Gnostic texts with the letters of Paul.

Not about what it claims to be about - Rated
I would reinforce much of what 'calmly' says in her/his review: despite its subtitle, "The secret gospel of Thomas", the bulk of this book is about how the orthodoxy of Irenaeus gained control of the early church.

There are some occasions where the author focuses on Thomas, and in particular the rivalry between the Gospels of John and of Thomas is well portrayed. But a reader who is expecting to find an exhaustive treatment of Thomas - despite the inclusion of the complete text of Thomas as an appendix - will be disappointed.

That same reader will certainly enjoy a well-written encounter with Irenaeus, Valentinus and the many diverse arguments which followed the bursting forth of Christianity into the gentile world; and, in those terms it is a good piece of expository writing which unravels the various influences and movements with great clarity.

I enjoyed reading it. I will probably return to it when I need to refresh my thoughts about the emergence of orthodoxy, the formation of the biblical canon, and the development of the creeds. But that's not what you think you're getting from the title in its present form.

Appeasing orthodoxy - Rated
In "The Gnostic Gospels", although Pagels stated early Christianity had needed orthodoxy in order to survive, she lent an energetic voice to the Gnostics. But here, in "Beyond Belief", that voice is much weaker.

Indeed, for a book subtitled "The Secret Gospel of Thomas", there is surprisingly not all that much about the Gospel of Thomas. When it is discussed, it is often in a comparison with the Gospel of John, such that the John receives a fair share of attention. Irenaeus seems to get more attention that either, so "Beyond Belief" could just as well have been titled "The Impact of Irenaeus". In this book, Pagels doesn't venture much "beyond belief."

Pagels' writing in "Beyond Belief" often tends to be tedious or muddled. "The Gnostic Gospels" had been sharp and compelling. Its ~200 pages seemed to carry 500 pages worth of information. To the contrary, "Beyond Belief"'s ~200 pages feels like it could have been done in 100 pages. It definitely reads like a draft that is missing one or more rewrites. Perhaps to produce another work of the caliber of "The Gnostic Gospels" is too much to expect.

"The Gnostic Gospels" benefitted in that Pagels came across primarily as a historian. The powerful impact of that work derives from the history and historical texts she presented. But in "Beyond Belief", Pagels opens at the Church of Heavenly Rest in New York, presenting herself primarily as a (rather orthodox) Christian. She presents Iranaeus with such care as to seem to champion him, then in the final couple pages of the book makes a mild plea to let people strike out some on their own.

As she demonstratated with "The Gnostic Gospels", Pagels is capable of substantially better. She had gone through a very difficult time. The level of scholarship of "Beyond Belief" seems high, but Pagels doesn't seem focused in this book. Or she may have been struggling with how (or whether) to integrate the Gnostic perspective into her own Christian identity. In an interview after "Beyond Belief", with regard to the The Gospel of Thomas, Pagels said: "What I now see is that it's not necessarily contrary; it's complementary". By weakening the tension between the Orthodox and Gnostic, Pagels has undercut the power of the Gnostic messages, dragging them into conventional respectability. Perhaps she believes that they can be accepted in that way by mainstream Christians.

Challenging comparison between gnostic and orthodox gospels - Rated
The traditional orthodox response to the Gnostic gospels, or indeed those gospels that failed to be included in the Bible, is that there is a clear qualitative difference between the two groups of writings.

Gnostic gospels for example typically:
- introduce a special disciple who Jesus favoured above the others and to whom he imparted secret teachings
- promotes teachings different to the orthodox gospels
- has stories and sayings not found in the orthodox gospels
- changes stories and sayings found in the orthodox gospels
- portrays a different Jesus to that found in the orthodox gospels

What Elaine Pagels points out is that all these points characterise the gospel of John.

- there is the "disciple who Jesus loved" who clearly is favoured by Jesus
- prompts the idea of Jesus being God, which is not found in the other gospels
- stories such as Lazarus and the turning of water in wine are not found in the synoptic gospels
- there is no last supper in the gospel of John, the attack on the money changers in the temple happens at the start of Jesus' ministry etc
- the character of Jesus in the gospel of John is very different to that in the synoptic gospels - his manner of speech, his attitude to the Jews, the very idea of who he is.

Pagels therefore shows that in terms of style the Gnostic gospels are not so far from the Bible after all, if we draw our comparisons with the gospel of John rather than Matthew, Mark and Luke. She argues that the gospels of Thomas and John show remarkable similarities, and that John may well have been written as an "answer" to Thomas. The primary difference between the two is that in Thomas the truth is found in the world, Jesus is just a teacher of truth, a bringer of enlightenment, but he himself is not the truth. He has found the truth within himself and we too can find the truth within ourselves.

In the gospel of John Jesus is God, he is the Truth, "no one comes to the Father but my me". John therefore represents an exclusivist and hierarchical model of spiritual truth, one which the church developed into the concepts of orthodoxy and heresy. Pagels argues that in the first few centuries Christians held a variety of beliefs about God and Jesus, but when Constantine established the Christian church as the official church of Rome it became necessary to create a hierarchy of ecclesiastical power, and this was achieved through the creation of a single "truth" and therefore the exclusion of those who failed to obey the dogma decided by the orthodox church. This artificial division of believers is most clearly seen in the debates around the creation of the Nicene creed and the books included in the New Testament canon.

The early part of this book is excellent in its comparison between Thomas and John and what this says about the early traditions within Christianity. The book loses focus in the second half where Pagels finds it difficult to keep the complexity of church history in a single narrative, and eventually seems to say "well, you will just have to read some other books to understand what happened".

Nevertheless the overall message of the book is that early Christianity had many powerful and complex traditions that were tragically destroyed when orthodox Christianity attained political power. This is essentially a retelling of the central theme of Pagels' earlier book "The Gnostic Gospels" but from a different perspective; it is an important message and one which creates a powerful and compelling framework in which to read the Gnostic gospels.

Christianity in chaos? - Rated
The crisis of a sick child led Elaine Pagels to re-examine her religious adherence. The fixed, repetitive dogmas she'd long lived with failed to meet her needs. In responding to that challenge, which she'd experienced before, led her to examine the roots of her faith. Her first expression of that quest was "The Gnostic Gospels" [1979]. Under the stress of her child's condition and with deeper examination of the texts she'd relied on, Pagels examines how Christianity separated into orthodoxy and "heresy". How was "orthodox" Christianity achieved? What constituted "heresy" and why were dissenting ideas suppressed?

In her analysis, Pagels focuses on two individuals and two "books". The "founder" of orthodox, "catholic" Christianity was Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul. His target of condemnation was the Roman theologian Valentinus. Each followed a different role in defining the nature of the deity and the mission of Jesus. The references used in the debate hinged on two purported authors and the validity of their account of Jesus' teachings. The Gospel of John, now known to be the last of the "synoptic gospels", provided a divine role for Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas, on the other hand, portrayed a different individual as a teacher of men - and women. To the Gnostics, revelation couldn't come from biblical texts, but from an individual's capacity to discover it. Over a century before Nicaea, Irenaeus placed John as "first" among the four synoptic gospels, rejecting other writings such as that of "Thomas" and "The Gospel of Mary Magdalene" as false and misleading.

The Gospel of Thomas wasn't the only version of the teachings challenging the four synoptics. Irenaeus himself repeated many of the writings of the authors who became known as the Gnostics in his effort to discredit them. "Watch out for these false truths" he commanded his flock. Although Pagels provides a vivid description of Irenaeus' life and work, she is unable to provide a rationale for his rigid stance. Part of the reason may be that Irenaeus’ group was assaulted by the local population for their "atheism" and he may have thought keeping on common ground might provide protection. In any event, as Pagels recounts, the foundation laid down by this transplanted Anatolian became the foundation of the "Constantine Revolution" legalising the church throughout the Roman Empire. Pagels contends this turned about half of the existing Christian population of the Empire into heretics. Many fled, founding various forms of the faith around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Pagel's scholarly approach relieves this book of being little more than a personal epiphany. Her tragedy brought challenge and she met it by examining her own beliefs. The investigation led her to a fresh, informed self-assessment, bolstered by the Gnostic texts. As a result, her book is less an examination of the Gospel of Thomas than an historical assessment of the nature of how people considered the founder of Christianity. She condemns neither the orthodox nor the politics involved in its fabrication. Pagels exonerates Constantine from self-seeking or superficial politics, extolling his expenditures in supporting the newly established faith. That examination, however, remains superficial itself, as we are given no background into why Constantine supported but one faction, although paying lip service to the idea of unpassionate debate. She omits the social chaos endemic in Constantine's time, while opening the door to a new chaos inherent in a faith where all may choose their individual path to enlightenment. She thinks that the Gospel of Thomas and other views contending orthodoxy will establish a new version of Christianity, but doesn't speculate on what form that might take. Will it be a chaotic "priesthood of all believers" envisioned by one biblical text finally brought to realisation? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]