The Gnostic Gospels

Rating:
Summary: A respectful overview of both sides of the issue
Review: Elaine Pagels has written a scholarly, lucid and unbiased account of early Christianity, Catholicism, how they perceived each other and why orthodox Catholicism ruled the masses for centuries thereafter. What I particularly like about Elaine's books arethat she reports and analyzes; she doesn't editorialize or proseletyze, unlike many other authors on this subject who attempt to force the historical data into a preconceived dogmatic square hole and then imply that you're either an idiot or worse if you don't agree with them.

This book is astonishing to me at least insofar how it revealed just how many preconceived notions I had as to just exactly why Christianity is the way it is today. What surprised me the most however was the degree of double standards and secular/temporal/mundane/blunt-force trauma methods the bishops and Constantine used to consolidate the disparate Christianities into a cohesive Catholic "orthodox" whole. While the orthodox often accused the Gnostics of pure subjectivism, the Gnostics accused the orthodox of having a "faith of fools," i.e. mindless belief, spiritual learned helplessness and knee-jerk intolerance. Yet when factions within the orthodoxy were at odds with each other, it was not uncommon for schisms to appear, and for orthodox factions to accuse each other similarly as they had the Gnostics.

It is also interesting to note that Bishop Irenaeus and the orthodox never seemed to give the Gnostics a fair hearing or attempt to replicate their methods to prove them right or wrong. Rather as one reads the accounts it seems that the orthodoxy condemned Gnosticism, not so much because of its nature, but primarily because it threatened orthodoxy's vested interests in a united Christendom, and later the vast vested interest in the purely pyramid-style authority that required a hierarchy of countless intercessors and ceremonies between God and mankind in order to justify its power and existence.

Mystical Gnosticism undermined all of this this simply because it sidestepped all middlemen (intercessors) and empowered each person to seek and discover God on their own.

The fact that Jesus wasn't considered equal to God until 400 years after the crucifixion by vote, a non unanimous vote for that matter, at the council of Nicea is quite telling. The fact that the majority voted to alter the canon to say as such goes to show just how far they were willing to go to make ends justify the means in order to empower the orthodoxy against Gnosticism and other "heresies." But then again "heresy" is in the eye of the beholder, and the victors write the history books and burn those of their enemies.

If this has aroused your curiosity then check out my reader's guide for more startling info. on alternative Christianity.





Rating:
Summary: Missing the Most Important Thing of All!
Review: Whatever the merits (or lack thereof) to be found in the historical and political messages this book presents, there remains a primary and singular omission from this book, which, it can be assumed, is not the author's fault. Gnosis, which is the ancient secret knowledge that leads to the direct personal knowledge of the mysteries of life and death, is something so profound, so ground-shaking, so deeply penetrating, and yet its truths and its mysteries are one hundred percent PRACTICAL, meaning that they are accessed not through the intellect or through ideas or even through belief: they are discovered only and exculsively through ACTION. This book presents the ideological and intellectual opinion of a modern day scholar, who clearly knows nothing at all about the real, living, scientific methods of Gnosis. This science did not die some centuries ago, it merely went underground. It has survived. And now, for the first time, that ancient knowledge is being revealed in the English language with the first translations made of such works as The Pistis Sophia Unveiled (coming soon), The Perfect Matrimony, The Three Mountains, The Great Rebellion, and more, all by the Gnostic Master Samael Aun Weor, a man who wrote almost seventy books indicating in detail all the practical steps one must live in order to know for oneself, which is the definition of the word Gnosis. Why waste your time reading more opinions and intellectual arguments or dogmatic, belief-driven arguments, when you can instead discover the method to arrive at direct knowledge? Truly, if only Ms. Pagels and her scholarly fellows were to realize the essential nature of the Gnostic Wisdom, how different her books would be!

Rating:
Summary: A good introduction!
Review: The best advertisement for this book is the mass of vituperative polemic directed against it. The sheer number of vehement reviews shows just how afraid people become when the pillars of their temple are nudged a bit. And Pagels attempts to do just that with her groundbreaking, 'The Gnostic Gospels.' By no means an exhaustive, nor particularly academic account of the 'missing Gospels' from the Nag Hammadi find in 1945, 'The Gnostic Gospels' offers a solid and plausible explanation on how and why Orthodox Christianity evolved the way it did.

The strongest part of the work is the historical background it gives to the early years of Christianity. The cryptic gospels of Thomas, James and Philip all point to other possible interpretations of the Christian message, interpretations that differed in style, if not always in content, from those found in the traditional gospels. These intrepretations stressed a more reflective and personal message...'the answer is within.' God is within. Or as the traditional gospels have it, 'The Kingdom is within you.' Same message, yet very different language with very different consequences. Pagels argues that the Gnostic's subjective approach to faith led to their persecution (i.e. Cathars, Bogomils etc..) and eventual disintegration as a possible alternative to Orthodox Christian interpretation. Without recognizing the need for a 'worldly' authority and structure, the Gnostics were doomed to an insignicant and mostly undergound existence. Only a well-oiled hierachical organization like that of the Medieval Church could and did survive the ugly vagaries of life in this world. As a result, the Church became Ecclesiates Triumphant, an institution that tolerated no dissent. A militant structure designed to quell all questionning, especially that directed towards itself. Pagels convincingly shows how two drill sergeants of the early Church, Tertullian and Irenaeus, successfully amputated any dissenting limbs in the creation of 'their' monolithic canon. What would have happened had these 'missing gospels' been allowed a place within this canon? Pagels doesn't really give us much detail. Speculation is left to the reader.

Whether or not you agree with Pagel's central thesis that the Christian Church was the result of a political power struggle, this work at least deserves a serious read. Where it is lacking is in its analysis of the Gnostic texts themselves. Pagels throws in a lot of quotes from a variety of Gnostic sources without any obvious method to her madness. Moreover, I would have a liked a more in-depth exegesis of each quote. Yet, history, not theology, was her goal and 'The Gnostic Gospels' offers a solid introduction to a world many a resurrected Tertullian wished were still buried amongst the sands of Sinai.