AtomicQuote

Elaine Pagels Quotes

When John accuses evildoers of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether—or how much—to accommodate pagan culture. And when we see Jesus' earliest follo...

Elaine Pagels

When John accuses evildoers of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether—or how much—to accommodate pagan culture. And when we see Jesus' earliest follo...

Tags: apocalypse, apostles, gentiles, pauline epistles, revelations, sectarianism

The gnostic understands Christ’s message not as offering a set of answers, but as encouragement to engage in a process of searching: seek and inquire about the ways you should go, since there is nothi...

Elaine Pagels

The gnostic understands Christ’s message not as offering a set of answers, but as encouragement to engage in a process of searching: seek and inquire about the ways you should go, since there is nothi...

About Author
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism.
Her best-selling book The Gnostic Gospels (1979) examines the divisions in the early Christian church, and the way that women have been viewed throughout Jewish history and Christian history. Modern Library named it as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century.

Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists o...

Elaine Pagels

Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists o...

Tags: bible, death, grief, guilt, illness, loss, mourning, punishment, suffering

What Christians see, or claim to see, in Genesis 1-3 changed as the church itself changed from a dissident Jewish sect to a popular movement persecuted by the Roman government, and changed further as...

Elaine Pagels

What Christians see, or claim to see, in Genesis 1-3 changed as the church itself changed from a dissident Jewish sect to a popular movement persecuted by the Roman government, and changed further as...

Tags: religion

What clear is that meaning may not be something we . We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to meaning.

Elaine Pagels

What clear is that meaning may not be something we . We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to meaning.

Tags: grief, loss, meaning, mourning

The controversy over resurrection, then, proved critical in shaping the Christian movement into an institutional religion. All Christians agreed in principle that only Christ himself—or God—can be the...

Elaine Pagels

The controversy over resurrection, then, proved critical in shaping the Christian movement into an institutional religion. All Christians agreed in principle that only Christ himself—or God—can be the...

The Gospel of Philip takes up the same theme: Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not reveal himself in the manner [in which] he was, but in the manner in which [they would] be able to see him....

Elaine Pagels

The Gospel of Philip takes up the same theme: Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not reveal himself in the manner [in which] he was, but in the manner in which [they would] be able to see him....

So long as Christians remained members of a suspect society, subject to death, the boldest among them maintained that, since demons controlled the government and inspired its agents, the believer coul...

Elaine Pagels

So long as Christians remained members of a suspect society, subject to death, the boldest among them maintained that, since demons controlled the government and inspired its agents, the believer coul...

What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the historical Jesus was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the co...

Elaine Pagels

What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the historical Jesus was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the co...

This debate over Genesis revealed a major disagreement among second-century Christians, a disagreement whose outcome would shape church doctrine ever after.

Elaine Pagels

This debate over Genesis revealed a major disagreement among second-century Christians, a disagreement whose outcome would shape church doctrine ever after.

People who study the way religions develop have shown that if you have a charismatic teacher, and you don't have an institution develop around that teacher within about a generation to transmit succes...

Elaine Pagels

People who study the way religions develop have shown that if you have a charismatic teacher, and you don't have an institution develop around that teacher within about a generation to transmit succes...

Tags: generation, people, group

Shaken by emotional storms, I realized that choosing to feel guilt, however painful, somehow seemed to offer reassurance that such events did not happen at random.... If guilt is the price we pay for...

Elaine Pagels

Shaken by emotional storms, I realized that choosing to feel guilt, however painful, somehow seemed to offer reassurance that such events did not happen at random.... If guilt is the price we pay for...

Tags: death, grief, guilt, loss, mourning, nature, pain, suffering

Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christi...

Elaine Pagels

Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christi...

No longer married, suddenly I was . From Latin, the name means emptied. Far worse; it felt like being torn in half, ripped apart from the single functioning organism that had been our family, our live...

Elaine Pagels

No longer married, suddenly I was . From Latin, the name means emptied. Far worse; it felt like being torn in half, ripped apart from the single functioning organism that had been our family, our live...

Tags: families, grief, loss, mourning, relationships, widows

I did not want to die, but desperately wanted to be anywhere but there; the pain was unbearable. Yet in that vision, or whatever it was, I felt that the intertwined knots were the connections with the...

Elaine Pagels

I did not want to die, but desperately wanted to be anywhere but there; the pain was unbearable. Yet in that vision, or whatever it was, I felt that the intertwined knots were the connections with the...

Tags: death, grief, loss, mourning, religion

By the beginning of the fifth century Catholic Christians lived as subjects of an empire they could no longer consider alien, much less wholly evil.[...] By the beginning of the fifth century few who...

Elaine Pagels

By the beginning of the fifth century Catholic Christians lived as subjects of an empire they could no longer consider alien, much less wholly evil.[...] By the beginning of the fifth century few who...

Are we to believe that Adam and Eve actually heard God’s footsteps rustling in the garden of Eden, as the text suggests, when it says that Adam and Eve hid themselves,

Elaine Pagels

Are we to believe that Adam and Eve actually heard God’s footsteps rustling in the garden of Eden, as the text suggests, when it says that Adam and Eve hid themselves,

I have sympathy for anyone who finds consolation anywhere we can. And many people do find it in religious tradition as it has been. I mean, I love much of that tradition. But somehow, that just didn't...

Elaine Pagels

I have sympathy for anyone who finds consolation anywhere we can. And many people do find it in religious tradition as it has been. I mean, I love much of that tradition. But somehow, that just didn't...

Tags: love, speak, me

The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false...

Elaine Pagels

The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false...

Tags: fear, walking, crisis

I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Chris...

Elaine Pagels

I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Chris...

Tags: struggle, religion, people