Gnostic Gospels and Church Authority - Book Report/Review Example

The Gnostic Gospels and Church ity In many way Elaine Pagels' book Gnostic Gospels was one of the opening salvos in the reopening of conflicts that, far from being new, are in fact thousands of years old. In a way, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls has sent the calendar rolling back to the earliest struggles of Christianity, the struggles between the various sects to unify into one vision and one voice. Since the victory of what would become the orthodox Catholic Church over the so-called heretics and the successful eradication of most of the so-called heretical texts, Christianity has been for the most part unified in its vision. That claim may seem groundless in view of the multitudes of denominational differences and the enormous upheaval that took place after the Reformation, but in fact denominations as varied as Lutherans, Baptists and Mormons all agree on the basic tenets of the original Catholic canonical texts. This unification of belief stands in sharp contrast to the early struggles to define that consistency and as well to contemporary arguments and debates taking place since the discovery of texts that have raised serious questions about the authority of the New Testament. Pagels refuses to advocate either Gnostic or traditional Christian viewpoints; instead her thesis stems from the concept that history can never be unraveled to fulfill a pure truth, because it is always written by the winners. In the case of Christianity, Pagels suggests that it may never have developed into the unified, universal religion it became had the struggle among its multiple sects not eventually been won; had the Gnostics been capable of organizing as well as the Catholic sect, Christianity could well have become just another ancient religious cult falling by the wayside. Pagels' methodology in writing this book is to establish connections between what is contained within the Gnostic gospels and what is contained with the Biblical canon in order to more fully realize and understand the authority of the traditional Church. For Pagels, Christianity is not merely a system of spiritual or religious beliefs. She urges the reader to become more fully aware of the hierarchical structure of the Church in order that the unitiated can become more cognizant of just how political and bureaucratic an entity is. This is important for her overall point because authority can only be established coincident with order. Pagels is quite clear in her belief that the early Catholic church was able to win the struggle for the role of Christianity's mouthpiece because of its ability to impose order and structure. She writes in the introduction that "Christianity had become an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only 'true faith'" (xxiii). Since Pagels' argument is that Christianity may not have survived to become a major religion had a single vision not emerged, the importance of this order cannot be underestimated. Any organization wishing to build membership must imbue itself with authority, with orthodoxy, and further it must be able to convince potential members of its authority. Early on the Church saw the advantages of ritual and organization as a methodology of convincing. The Gnostics attempted an elitist and complex qualitative method for inclusion, whereas the Catholic Church "created a clear and simple framework, consisting of doctrine, ritual and political structure, that has proven to be an amazingly effective system of organization" (104-105). She asks why Gnostic authors described the church in "fantastic and imaginative terms" (107). Pagels point is that the doctrine and ritual inherent in the Catholic Church served the purpose of turning the idea and structure of the religion into something more concrete. Indeed, in her book and in this essay when I have been referring to Christianity as we know, I have been calling it "the Church." The Gnostics saw a "heavenly church" (106) whereas the Christians were much wiser in bringing the church down to earth. The Gnostics perceived the church as an invisible entity that only those who were able to see it could join. Pagels' thesis that the religion might never have formed into a powerful force is certainly strengthened by this point. As wonderful an idea as a religion without a church might be to entertain, it is clearly unlikely that any religion could ever achieve anything beyond cult status by maintaining such a point of view. In essence, the Gnostics undid themselves by clinging to their beliefs. Pagels views the establishment of this authoritative, concrete church as the end result of a struggle between opposing viewpoints springing from the early Christian movements. As she states, had these multiple movements survived and continued battling amongst each other, Christianity as we know it today would be significantly different, if present at all. Establishment of a concrete church as a political entity was the most crucial development in establishing what we today call the Christian Church. Of significant importance in establishing authority and orthodoxy was creating the aura of heresy in any writings or beliefs that did not coincide with the dominant beliefs. In her introduction, Pagels questions the exclusion of certain Gnostic beliefs while other, more questionable beliefs were accepted as doctrine. She wonders why, for instance, Christians are expected to accept that a perfectly good God created a world that includes such misery, that Jesus was born to a virgin, and that He was resurrected after being dead for three days (xxxv). Gnostic texts were not excluded and defined as heretical because of their often bizarre and unbelievable contents, but rather because they contained ideas that threatened the developing view of Christianity (xxxvi). The bulk of Pagels' book is an examination of the differences between Gnostic and Christian versions of the Christ story, but she doesn't focus on these differences in themselves, but rather in how they relate to the political and philosophical organization of the religion itself. The fundamental difference between the Gnostics and the early Christians lay in the manner of salvation. For the Christians, humans must have a divine guide to salvation; for the Gnostics this wasn't so. While this certainly creates a spiritual divide, it more importantly for Pagels creates a political divide. From this bifurcation of belief systems can be extrapolated a series of deep differences on every topic imaginable and Pagels takes the opportunity to apply these differences to her thesis. Central to this divide between the Gnostics and the Church is the central belief of Christianity, the one aspect that separates it from nearly all religions: the resurrection of Jesus. Interestingly, the accepted version is the more wildly imaginative and unbelievable. The Gnostics held several different views of the resurrection, but none included earthly appearances. For Gnostics the resurrected Jesus was essentially a spiritual vision, yet the literal fleshly resurrection became doctrine. According to Pagels, the acceptance of this as doctrine is filled with political implications having to do with apostolic succession within the church based on the scriptural witnessing of Jesus by Peter who then became the leader of the church. Part and parcel with this, Pagels also examines how women were systematically excluded from leadership positions within the Church at an early stage and how the justification for this is at odds with Gnostic teachings. The Catholic Church in all its doctrines and ritual gives the perception that God is wholly masculine, despite the obvious spiritual, fleshless nature of His being. Even in this essay, it seems almost a sacrilege to describe God in any but masculine terms. God the Father, Holy Father, Our Father who art in Heaven; all of these point toward a singularly masculine perception of God. The Gnostic texts, on the other hand, consistently give God both masculine and feminine qualities. Even more dangerous, of course, is the Gnostic text The Gospel of Mary. In this text, Mary Magdalene is not only elevated to the position of apostle, she is shown to be Jesus' favorite. Within this gospel is a story that goes to heart of the political divide between Gnostics and the early Christians. Pagels relates the story and the concludes by explaining that "Mary admits to Jesus that she hardly dares speak to him freely because, in her words, 'Peter makes me hesitate; I am afraid of him, because he hates the female race'" (64-65). Pagels uses this story to strengthen a point she makes earlier in the book about how the bishop of the church was supposed to "preside 'in the place of God'" (35). The bishop is, in other words, the father figure of the congregation. By declaiming The Gospel of Mary and all other Gnostic texts that elevates the female to positions of authority, the early church was able to concretize the idea of a father figure and only a father figure, with no room-indeed, no need-for a mother figure, who stood in place of God Himself. Again, Pagels' arguments that it was the establishment of authority that allowed Christianity to flourish are shown to have validity. At the end of her introduction Pagels suggests that the Gnostic texts and their differences from the Biblical canonical texts contain "political implications that are crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion" (xxxvi), and I believe she then goes on to prove her case by showing how those differences affected the growth of a religion based upon the teaching of Jesus Christ. Having read her book and having read some of the texts, I feel that what we accept as Christianity is only half the story at best. I have watched television shows and read books that have given a great account of exactly how the New Testament was formed. Contrary to the established belief that the Bible is the word of God handed down to man and divinely chosen, the canon was actually voted upon. And the vote didn't even have to be unanimous! Even if only a small minority of those voting desired for a text to make it into the Bible, therefore, it would make it in. More than that, according to some sources money actually changed hands during the voting process. Therefore, it would seem as though Christianity as we know it, though it may very well be based upon the teaching of Jesus, may not be based upon his entire teachings. The distinct impression is that Christianity is a religion that needs to have enough faith in itself to allow for the possibility that some of the Gnostic writings as well as other gospels that failed to make it into the canon contain the actual words of Jesus and should be re-evaluated for consideration of being introduced into the Bible. It is time to put aside tradition merely because it is tradition and welcome the opportunity to include as much of Jesus' teaching into Christianity as is possible. Until that happens, the legitimacy of Christianity is going to be open to debate by an ever-increasing number of believers and non-believers alike. Read More