» The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters

The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters Reviews

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Summary: A major influence upon my thought
Comment: Like more than a few folks, I found the writings of the Apostle Paul somewhat hard to follow. Even the Book of Acts says Paul once lectured so long into the night that a young man fell asleep and from a second story window and had to be resurrected by Paul. I always found the first part of that story more believable than the second.

As Pagels explains, her self-assigned task in this book is not to prove that Paul was a gnostic. Rather, she explains how Paul has usually been portrayed as "the Anti-gnostic Paul" quoted by the orthodox bishops in their refutations of the ones they labelled heretics, most of whose books were inaccessable to us until the find near Nag Hammadi. She explained that rather than responding that Paul was a dumb jerk, the gnostics called him "The Great Apostle" and gave a different interpretation of his words, saying that they were privy to a hidden oral tradition not received by their detractors. So, she took it upon herself to examine the way that the Gnostics (primarily the Valentinians) used Paul's words in their depiction of him as one of their own - not as a second or third century gnostic, but as an inspiration to them, a father to them, in the word. She gives us a look at Paul as they saw him, the Gnostic Paul.

In an era in which most people find repugnant the teaching attributed to Paul that women must be silent in the church, that they may not teach or hold clergy positions, the facts that the Valentinians not only permitted women to perform in all of these roles but also tended to reject the notion of a hierarchy of clergy over laity (they took turns playing deacon, bishop, reader, etc.), and that they championed interpretations of Paul's words that supported their positions, arouses renewed interest in the banished gnostics.

While some fret that modern Christians may be led astray by those cunning gnostics, the fact is that so many sheep are simply leaving the fold altogether. Perhaps a rediscovery of what's best in Valentinian Christianity is the church's best hope for renewed vitality.

In her book, Pagels devotes considerable attention to matters pertaining to the interpretation of Paul's words regarding relations between the sexes, as well as between masters and slaves. She shows that the gnostics had a very symbolic way of looking at his words on these matters, and that they didn't buy the "worldly" interpretation championed by the church fathers.

It's easy for modern people to find the Valentinians views on gender equality more appealing than those of the church fathers. However, most of us have already arrived at our views and would hold them regardless of what Paul said or meant. Thus, there is not much need to read such a book simply so that we can feel good about Paul or the latent potential of the church to drop some heavy old baggage. Many of us don't spend much time in churches anyway. We don't need Paul's permission to hold our views.

And I suppose that might have been true for the Valentinians, too. Christianity was a small, persecuted minority religion, which had not yet unified under a hierarchical clergy in their day. The fact that they professed reverence for Paul indicates that perhaps they found him relevant.

What makes this book valuable to me is that Pagels, in showing me how the Gnostics read Paul, showed me how I might come to understand him better. Once I began to learn to read "the code," I also came to understand other Christian writings better.

Gender and sexual issues are such a stumbling block for people who might wish they could embrace Christianity today. To gain deeper insight into the symbolic way in which the ancients discussed these such things casts new light upon many puzzling matters.

The gnostics were not alone in reading symbolically and stating that the writings were originally written to be interpreted this way. This was a feature of the ancient world. I think maybe they had more time for cultivating arts and awareness than we do.

The gnostic symbolic interpretation seems strange at first, but Pagels shows that the gnostics sometimes seemed more attuned to the nuances of Paul's thought than did their detractors.

As one learns to work with this method, one begins to see for oneself whether it is useful and productive. It takes some time, but progress comes. When you begin to understand for yourself, you no longer need to decide who you believe. I guess that's what it means to be gnostic, knowing, intimately familiar.

I'm in Pagels' debt for what she gave me in this book. It's not just the specifics you get from the book, some of which may be right, wrong or somewhere in between. It's not just a warm fuzzy feeling you might get about Valentinus, Heracleon or even old Saint Paul. It's the education she gives, the learning how to read, to see, to listen, to think, in new ways.

I've read three books by Ms. Pagels. This was my first, and it remains my favorite. It's scholarly. She isn't selling candy.

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Summary: Even in early Christianity, symbolic interpretations were asserted
Comment: Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, scholars knew little about Valentinian Christian theology: fragments by Valentinians and anti-Valentinian writings.

Pagels has now also begun applying what she has learned from the Valentinian Nag Hammadi texts in order to carefully present how the Valentinians interpreted the letters of Paul. For passage after passage from Paul's letters, she demonstrates the Valentinian claim that Paul was writing with two audiences in mind: one literal-minded in their understanding of Christianity, the other symbolically-minded. Moreover, we learn that rather than break away from the literal-minded Christians, Valentinians mingled with them, careful not to offend them but privately finding literal beliefs wanting but with the hope that those who held them could be led to a superior, symbolic understanding of Christianity which Valentinus claimed Paul himself had transmitted privately to initiates. This was, of course, not a teaching that literal minded Christians welcomed and the Valentinians, like other Gnostics, were labelled as heretics. Neither group appreciated the other but the Valentinians displayed an acceptance that the other group did not.

Some people may see in the rise of science a threat to Christianity. What seems remarkable (as this book clearly shows) is that as early as the 2nd century of Christianity, far before the rise of modern science, people had rejected a literal belief in Christianity while at the same time recognizing that many people would not be able to benefit from a symbolic understanding without special efforts, if at all.

This division among people into those who understand literally and those who understand symbolically was also noted by Pagels in her earlier book "The Gnostic Gospels". Of course, it extends beyond Christianity and religion in general and into our own time. In the introduction to his book "Misquoting Jesus", Bart Ehrman traces openly his own change from someone who had believed the Bible literally: it doesn't lead him to Gnosticism but it does lead him to question about the Bible "what if God didn't see it that way?".

That the Valentinians were acutely aware of conflicts within Christianity in the 2nd century and had developed the rich theology that Pagels presents so as to be able to teach Paul in a symbolic manner while not offending or confusing those who take him literally seems well worth being aware of. Initiation may have served as a way to point out what had been mistakenly been taken as literal was intended as mythic.

Whether Paul intended his letters to be understood in the way that the Valentinians believe is not answered by Pagels but she doesn't discount it, leaving it to other scholars and her own future research to consider that more. As she noted in the introduction, not all of the Valentinian Nag Hammadi texts have been studied with respect to their exegesis of the Pauline letters. And, of course, we do not know what other hidden texts may be found in the future, if any, that may enhance our understanding of early Christianity.

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Summary: Interpreting the writings of Paul to find spirtual understanding
Comment: Paul is the author of various epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Hebrews, Ephesians, Romans. Most who studied Paul taught that Paul had much to say about law versus faith. In the Gnostic Paul, Elaine Pagels examines the relationship between various letters written by Paul and the deeper implicition of his writing regarding Jesus Christ. The main question and premise is whether Paul actually supported Gnostic views and wrote in a kind of code that could only be understood by an initiated few.

Pagels uses non-canonical sources including the writings of Valintinus, Basilides, Simon, and Carpocrates together with the orthodox writings of early church leaders like Irenaeus, who preached against 'Gnosicism' to support her theories.

The Gnostic position, according to Pagels, includes the belief that God did not become man in the form of Jesus Christ. Further, that Jesus did not take on a material form which was crucified, died, and buried and then arose from the dead. The Gnostics regard bodily or material things with indifference. As a result they interpret Paul's discussion of the 'resurrection' not as a material event but as a spiritual event.

The Gnostics suggest that when Paul spoke of the death of the body and resurrection, he meant the death of the psychic body and it's replacement with spiritual understanding transmitted through grace.

Pagels states Gnostic writers translated I Corinthians 13:13 as being about "Faith (Earth), Hope (Water), Love (Wind), and Gnosis (Light)". She suggests Gnostics believed that only through light does one mature spiritually.

Paul says Jesus was spiritually born though the grace of God. As such Jesus is raised from the deadness of this life to spiritual life. Ultimately meaning the resurrection of the dead is the recognition of the truth spoken by those who have light.

In conclusion, Pagels suggests the historical theologian cannot discern Paul's intent. Whether it was orthodox or gnostic is open to debate, but there is a good deal of evidence to support the notion that Paul understood the Gnostic point of view.

In the search for understanding, Pagels book offers insight, not all of which I agree with, but insight nevertheless. The book, though complex, is informative.

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Summary: Gnostic Hermeneutics in Action, on Paul's Letters...
Comment: Much like Pagel's work on Valentinian interpretations of John, this text explores Gnostic hermeneutics in action. She starts with plausible hermeneutic principles derived from a good understanding of the writings of the heresy hunters and the actual Gnostic texts and teachings, and then applies such principles when reading the New Testament letters of Paul.

This sort of work helps to demonstrate the sort of approach certain Gnostics may have used, and helps those of us who are interested in a Gnostic Path today, to work out our own hermeneutics, to flesh out the path in depth, developing our own insights and tweaking the principles accordingly.

It's fascinating and at times shocking. It is easy to see how some ancient Gnostic Christians may have approached Paul in a way similar to this, and the experimental re-construction of such hermeneutics in action, is very informative. Most interestingly, it gives food for thought as to other alternative interpretations and hermeneutics that yet other kinds of Gnostics might use when reading Paul. Where the results of such interpretation are at times very inspiring, but at other times not so satisfying, there was such a variety of interpretation and teaching among Gnostics to consider how different Gnostics would approach Paul in different ways.

This sort of speculative reconstruction is not just an arbitrary thought experiment, it is rooted in the principles of certain Gnostic teachers and teachings. With proper honing and fine tuning, the results of other competing Valentinian interpretations can be explored.

This sort of work is essential, in my view, to the growth of insightful Gnostic hermeneutics among people who are sympathetic to Gnosticism today.

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Summary: The Apostle Paul Code
Comment: In this book Professor Pagels enters into a detailed study to show that the Apostle Paul was a Gnostic instead of the historical view of a predecessor of Orthodox Christianity. The point of this book is that we misinterpret Paul's epistles incorectly, he was a Gnostic teacher imparting knowledge of the Christ mystery school. Pagels presents a case that he was speaking in a kind of code where the spiritual (pneumatic) followers were inducted into the mysteries and were guided by the spirit, and the those under the law,foolish,(Psychic)were the ones that took the Christ myth literally and had not come to the full metaphorical teaching. I have read the New Testament 10 times and this book has made several passages that I could not make sense of suddenly understandable from a Gnostic perspective. I do not agree with all of her speculations but this is a great book to get the Gnostic perspective of what Paul might have meant versus the Orthodox tradition. It is a very enlightening book.

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