Book Review - The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

 The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

London: Penguin, 1990 (first published 1979)       ISBN 0140134689

The discovery in 1945 of a series of religious texts that had been buried for over a thousand years caused a sensation in the world of religious scholarship. The so-called Nag Hammadi library contained all sorts of texts and fragments of Gnostic teaching including Gospels and other treatises. They were translated from the original Greek into Coptic, and the best speculation is that they were buried in the sand by monks afraid of punishment for holding condemned texts in their library.

Elaine Pagels is probably the greatest known English speaking scholar of these texts, and in this book she explains the differences between the Gnostic and Orthodox view of Christianity. It is a fascinating peek into the early days of the Christian Church and Bible as we know them today. In a series of chapters dealing with subjects ranging from views of the Resurrection, Persecution, what makes a true Church, to whether God is male and what Gnosis (knowledge) actually means in Christian life and belief.

Before 1945, all we knew of any Gnostic texts were what had come down to us from those Orthodox who had written condemnations of them, and Pagels compares those denunciations with what we now know through access to the Nag Hammadi texts.

As Pagels points out in the book, the modern concept of separation between religion and politics would have been unknown in the time of the creation of these texts. What we see in them is a way of searching for truth, but not a way to be organized into an institution which could grow and face the vicissitudes that the Christian faith were suffering at that time.

For to be a Gnostic was to reject the hierarchies and strictures of the Orthodox Church. Gnosis was much more a personal issue - the texts consistently reinforce a believer's duty to engage in a personal relationship with Christ to find the secret of faith. In fact the idea that Gnostics (those that know) had access to secret knowledge was key to their movement. As Pagels writes it, it seems that many Gnostics felt themselves to be superior to others who were not 'spiritual' in their religious outlook and activities. Through quotation from the Nag Hammadi texts, Pagels shows that there was contention within the Gnostic world about whether those that merely observed the rituals of Christianity were indeed true Christians at all. Some said no while others thought yes, but they had yet to reach the fullness of faith.

Gnostics were essentially exclusive, while the Orthodox were essentially inclusive. The Gnostics, believing that only the truly spiritual or initiated were true believers, were forever questioning each other. Schisms and splits are a given if there is no agreed way to determine who is in and who is out. The Orthodox, on the other hand, simply required from an adherent a profession of faith (the Creed), participation in the rituals of the Church, and obedience to Church hierarchy. There is no need, if one is Orthodox, to reach within oneself to find the truth - the Bishop gives it to you.

As well as discussing the political implications of the Gnostic movement, there is also in the book much discussion of the theological differences between Gnosticism and Orthodoxy, and these differences are fascinating.

Gnostics held - for the modern Christian - quite unorthodox views about the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, and indeed the figure of God. Gnostics, with their spiritual view, actually denied that Christ physically died and came back - they explained it was all part of a spiritual manifestation. The Gnostics also dance dangerously close to ditching monotheism, with the idea that the creator (or demiurge) was beholden to another ultimate deity. This theory led to a school of thought where the physical world was to be ignored and deprecated, as it was only the world of the spirit which has validity. So while these Gnostic texts were suppressed early in the Churches history, these ideas continued, driving heresies such as Bogomilism, Catharism and other sects.

The great fighters against Gnosticism, Irenaeus and Tertullian are well represented in this book, with many of their most telling criticism still carrying weight today. They went hard particularly at the Gnostic idea of an individual searching for Christ by themselves. The Orthodox countered with questions such as how does a searcher know when they have found what they are looking for? On what basis or authority do they base their findings? Why would God keep the gift of salvation secret, only to be revealed to a few?

The other thing to keep in mind when reading this book is that the Bible as we know it was being compiled at the time of the creation of these texts, so potentially any of the Gnostic texts could have found their way into it. Pagels forwards the view that the Bible was collated by those that were Orthodox in part to 'win' the political and religious battle against the Gnostics. The books chosen for the New Testament certainly favour the Orthodox interpretation of the life and teachings of Christ, and Paul's Letters specifically re-affirm the kind of Church we know now, as well as putting women in their place (Pagel's chapter on the masculinity of God is fascinating and shows that the Gnostics were more enlightened on that front, not only being happy for women to be fully involved in worship, but also emphasising the role of Mary Magdalene in Jesus' story, as well as explicitly pointing out the feminine side to the Godhead).

Pagels has packed a lot into what is quite a short book, so while it's not long, it is dense. It's a great introduction to Gnostic thought and writing, and a good primer on the Orthodox reaction to what became a heresy. I'm going through my shelves of books on religion with a view to thin the herd - this one is a keeper.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey

 The Ministry of Truth: a Biography of George Orwell's 1984 by Dorian Lynskey

London: Picador, 2019                                ISBN 9781509890743 

I purchased this book on a whim - it tempted me sitting on the shelves of the second-hand book dealer by being filled with newspaper cuttings to do with Orwell. I confess I didn't have a huge desire to read the book, as I feel that I have drunk enough from the well of Orwell, having read most of his work, and several biographies and critical pieces over the years.

However, I'm glad I did decide to go beyond the cuttings, as Ministry of Truth is a fascinating insight into both the journey Orwell took in life that led him to 1984, and the strange and wonderful "life" of the book itself, mostly "lived" without its "father" (Orwell died 227 days after publication - as Lynskey describes, the act of writing 1984 considerably hastened Orwell's death).

In many ways, the short focussed life or Orwell depicted by Lynskey in these pages is more than enough for most Orwell fans. The book shows how many of the events of Orwell's life led up to the moment when he finished 1984. It seems to me that Lynskey sees Orwell's time in Spain during the Civil War as a turning point for not only for how he viewed Communism, but a solidification for him of what he did believe in - individual freedom and a democratic socialism. His experiences in Spain certainly opened his eyes to totalitarianism, and steeled him for the fight against it - he fought in the best way he could - with words.

Orwell was, as we all are, full of contradictions and blind spots: despite himself, his education and upbringing coloured his view of society, and he was a man of his time in his view of women (thankfully Lynskey doesn't belabour these points too much - one can't blame someone for not having the same outlook on things as we do, seventy five years on).

Orwell saw 1984 as more a satire rather than a prediction: it was a book of possibilities to be avoided rather than a foretelling of future history. It's clear from Lynskey that Orwell was thinking about the book long before he put pen to paper. He drew inspiration from everything around him as well as from his own lived experience: from friends such as Koestler, and from his time working for the BBC, as well as through closely dissecting societal and governmental changes brought by the Second World War.

For me, it was the second part of Ministry of Truth that brought something new to the map of my Orwell world. Despite the subtitle, it's not really a "biography" of the book itself (there is no detailed analysis of its publishing history for example), but more a discussion of the many ways 1984 has gone on to influence political, social and artistic activity down to the present day. Lynskey references a gamut of voices who have felt that influence, from Terry Gilliam, Margaret Attwood and David Bowie, to Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump. There are also fascinating snippets of information, such as the fact that so many actors that have played the character of Winston Smith in television, radio and film have gone on to play one of the Doctors in Doctor Who. Lynskey references much utopian and dystopian literature in the first half of the book as well as in the second half - Orwell's complex relationship with the work of H.G. Wells is discussed, as is the effect 1984 had on modern literature.

The reception of 1984 down the decades of politics is also well covered. It has over the years been adopted by both the Left and the Right as a talisman, often with a huge distortion of Orwell's thinking and message. At first the Left reacted against the book, treating Orwell as a traitor to the cause, of writing a polemic against Stalinist Communism. He certainly did that in Animal Farm, but 1984 is an altogether more subtle book, with a message that bites both sides of the political spectrum. Orwell was a committed Socialist, but also a committed believer in personal freedom.

At the end of the Cold War, there were some who felt that the changing political scene would lead to a diminution of the power of Orwell's book. However, Lynskey explains that 1984 has continued to be relevant - while the ideas about totalitarianism may have faded somewhat, Orwell's description of a surveillance State and of the destruction of language are more relevant than ever. Lynskey also makes some neat points about current political movements, from Trump to Putin, and how Orwell foresaw much of today's politics in the book as well.

While 1984 may not be the height of literary style, its ongoing influence more than seventy years after it was first published means that it qualifies as a great book. I think Ministry of Truth goes some way to explaining why it still has such influence. It is well-written and engaging, and even an Orwell expert may learn something new.

My only gripe with the book is that while it contains good notes there is no bibliography, the lack of which was painfully felt by me.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell