Elaine Pagels and Contemporary Gnostic Studies

One problem with Elaine Pagels is her controlling ideology that's superimposed on the Gnostic Gospels (i.e., feminism); in my estimation, there is a great chasm between the so-called "orthodox views" in antiquity and Gnosticism. While scholarship's picture of the Gnostics has become clearer since the 1940s, some general features of the philosophy/religion seem apparent. The Gnostics denigrated flesh/matter and elevated spirit: some Gnostics were also libertines, but others tended to be ascetics. Read Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, and Ignatius of Antioch to see the big difference between "orthodox" thinking and Gnosticism although we have to allow room for ideology or propaganda in the pre-Nicenes. Something else to consider is that Gnostics would not have accepted/did not accept John 1:14--the Word became flesh. Some writers also assert that 1 Timothy and 1 John were early jousts against Gnostic/proto-Gnostic thinking.

Another objectionable aspect to Gnosticism was the belief in aeons paired in masculine-feminine deities (so-called syzygies). That the world of matter is evil by virtue of being material is an affront to both Judaism and Christianity. From my studies of the Hermetic literature, I do not think it was even prominent in the first century CE. Hans Dieter Betz calls attention to the fact that the date for Poimandres is "still open to discussion" (Antike und Christentum, 206). So we must be careful with lingual comparisons unless we carefully examine the original texts themselves.