7. Mark 12:29–31; see also Deuteronomy 6:4.
8. Stark, Rise of Christianity, 86–87.
9. Matthew 25:35–49.
10. Tertullian, Apology 39.
11. Ibid.
12. Romans 6:3–14.
13. Tertullian, Apology 3.
14. Ibid., 2; for Tacitus’ views, see his own words in Annales 15.44.2–8.
15. Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis 3.1–2.
16. Ibid., 3.3.
17. Ibid., 5.2–4.
18. Ibid., 5:5.
19. Ibid., 6:5.
20. Ibid., 18.2.
21. Justin, I Apology 61.
22. Ibid., 14.
23. If, that is, we can take Justin’s account as indicating common practice. Scholars often have assumed that Justin described the practices of Roman Christians—indeed, of all Roman Christians—but more recent study has modified this assumption; see, for example, George La Piana, “The Roman Church at the End of the Second Century,” Harvard Theological Review 17 (1925), 214–277; then A. Hamman, “Valeur et signification des renseignements liturgiques de Justin,” Studia Patristica 13 (1975), 264–274; also Paul F. Bradshaw’s incisive cautionary remarks in The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (Cambridge, 1992), 111–113.
24. See Bradshaw’s overview of the evidence and the problems in Search for the Origins.
25. Here I am following the dating suggested by Jonathan Draper in, for example, his article “Torah and Troublesome Apostles in the Didache Community,” in J. Draper, ed., The Didache in Modern Research (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996), 340–363.
26. Didache 1.2.
27. Ibid., 1.3–5.
28. Ibid., 2.2; 4.8. The view that Didache assumes Matthew is expressed by Helmut Koester in Synoptische Uberlieferung bei den apostolischen Väter (Berlin, 1957), 159–241; and Bentley Layton, “The Sources, Dating, and Transmission of the Didache 1:3b–2:4,” Harvard Theological Review 61 (1968), 343–383. Christopher Tuckett agrees that parallels with Matthew and Luke are best explained on the assumption that the Didache presupposes “the finished gospels of Matthew and Luke,” 128, in “Synoptic Tradition in Didache,” in Draper, Didache in Modern Research, 92–128. I find interesting, however, the perspective Draper expresses, for example in “Christian Self-Definition Against the ‘Hypocrites’ in Didache VIII,” in the same volume, 223–243, and in “The Jesus Tradition in the Didache,” in D. Wenham, ed., Gospel Perspectives V: The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels (Sheffield, 1985), 269–289.
29. We do not know whether in this case following “the whole divine law” would have required circumcision, but certainly it did require renouncing idolatry—the worship of the gods—and probably also the practice of some version of kosher food laws. In my interpretation here, I follow Draper, “Torah and Troublesome Apostles,” 352–359.
30. See also Draper, “Social Ambiguity and the Production of Text: Prophets, Teacher, Bishops, and Deacons in the Development of the Jesus Tradition in the Community of the Didache,” in C. N. Jefford, ed., The Didache in Context: Essays on Its Text, History, and Transmission (Leiden, 1995), 284–313.
31. Didache 9:4. Scholars have engaged in much discussion of the Didache’s account of baptism and eucharist; for a summary of views, see Bradshaw, Search for the Origins, 80–82, 132–136; see also Willy Rordorf, “The Didache,” in The Eucharist of the Early Christians (New York, 1978), 1–23; John W. Riggs, “From Gracious Table to Sacramental Elements: The Tradition History of Didache 9 and 10,” Second Century 4 (1984), 83–101; and Johannes Betz, “The Eucharist in the Didache,” in Draper, Didache in Modern Research, 233–275.
32. Didache 10.6; see also Enrico Mazza, “Elements of a Eucharistic Interpretation,” in Draper, Didache in Modern Research, 276–299.
33. Mark 14:22–24; compare Matthew 26:26–29; Luke 22:7–13; I Corinthians 11:23–25.
34. Tertullian, Apology 7.
35. Ibid., 8.
36. One contemporary anthropologist has suggested that Paul and his followers adopted this ritual to repel traditionally minded Jews and so to set themselves apart from Jewish communities.
37. Justin, I Apology 66. Closer parallels occur within some of the Dead Sea Scrolls; see, for example, Otto Betz, “Early Christian Cult in the Light of Qumran,” Religious Studies Bulletin 2:2 (April 1982), 73–85.
38. Justin, I Apology 54. Many scholars have considered the parallels between the rituals practiced in mystery religions and the Christian eucharist; see, for example, E. Lohse, The New Testament Environment (London, 1976), and more recently, A.J.M. Wedderburn, “The Soteriology of the Mysteries and Pauline Baptismal Theology,” Novum Testamentum 19:1 (1982) 53–72, and “Hellenistic Christian Traditions in Romans 6?” in New Testament Studies 29 (1983), 337–355.
39. I Corinthians 1:23. The Greek term is skandalon.
40. For the latter phrase, I am indebted to N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, 1992).
41. Luke 24:21.
42. Mark 8:31. Mark uses the Greek term dei, usually translated “it is necessary.”
43. Mark 14:22. See note 50 on references to studies of the “words of institution.”
44. Mark 14:24. On the sacrificial imagery, see Edward J. Kilmartin, S.J., “Sacrificium Laudis: Content and Function of Early Eucharistic Prayers,” Theological Studies 35:2 (June 1974), 268–286.
45. Matthew 26:27–28.
46. Exodus 24:8.
47. On Mark’s allusions to the Mosaic covenant, see the summary in Reginald Fuller, “The Double Origin of the Eucharist,” in Biblical Research: Papers of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research VIII (Chicago, 1963), 60–72; see also Joachim Jeremias, Die Abendsmahlworte Jesu (Göttingen, 1949), translated as The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London and New York, 1966).
48. Jeremiah 31:31–34.
49. On Paul’s interpretation of the words, see, for example, Eduard Schweitzer, The Lord’s Supper According to the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1967); also Paul Neuenzeit, Das Herrenmahl: Studien zur paulinischen Eucharistieauffassung (Munich, 1960).
50. For a summary of discussion and for references, see Bradshaw, Search for the Origins, 48–51. On sacrifice, see, for example, Robert Daly, The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (London and New York, 1986); and Rowan Williams, Eucharistic Sacrifice: The Roots of a Metaphor (Bramcote, Notts, 1982).
51. Justin, I Apology 67. But see, for example, the references in note 23, which question whether—or to what extent—Justin describes actual practices, and if so, which he may have in mind.
52. I Corinthians 5:7.
53. Mark 14:12–16.
54. Luke 22:15.
55. Luke 22:19b; I Corinthians 11:24–25.
56. John 13:1.
57. John 19:14.
58. For discussion of John’s view of the passion narrative in general, and his special chronology in particular, see Raymond E. Brown, S.J., The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Auckland, 1993).
59. John 19:34.
60. Although John does not offer an account of the “Last Supper,” in the John account Jesus does urge his disciples to eat “[his] flesh” and to drink “[his] blood” (6:35–58).
61. Exodus 12:46. The Revised Standard Version offers here a translation that makes the passage sound as if it applied to Jesus, not to a sacrificial animal: “Not a bone of him shall be broken.”
62. John 19:36.
63. John 6:35–60.
64. I Corinthians 11:26.
65. Apocalypse of Peter 81:10–11. The sign that Constantine later adopted, although often seen as a cross, actually consisted instead of the first two letters of the title Christ.
66. See Chapter 4 for discussion and references.
67. Gershom Scholem, the great scholar of Jewish texts, wrote that “myth is the story line to a ritual” (On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism [New Yor
k, 1969], 132–133); and while some might object to applying the term myth to the gospels, since they relate events attested actually to have happened, the story of Jesus, as the gospels tell it is, if not a myth, a story intended to convey meaning.
68. Professor Helmut Koester, my first and invaluable mentor in the history of Christianity, has demonstrated in a wide range of articles how the early accounts of the gospel are connected with liturgical celebration. See, for example, his recent article “The Memory of Jesus’ Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord,” Harvard Theological Review 91:1 (1998), 335–350.
69. The Greek term koinonia can be translated “communion” or “participation,” in passages such as I Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a koinonia in the blood of Christ: The bread which we break, is it not a koinonia in the body of Christ?”
70. I Corinthians 10:17; Galatians 3:28; I Corinthians 10:3–4.
71. Justin, I Apology 61; see also 65–66.
72. For discussion, see my earlier book The Gnostic Gospels (New York, 1979); and I especially recommend to the interested reader several important recent discussions that, to my regret, were not available to me during the time I was writing: Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities (New York, 2003); Marvin Meyer, Secret Gospels (San Francisco, 2003); and Richard Valantasis, The Gospel of Thomas (London, New York, 1997).
73. The work of many scholars today is changing our earlier, more simplistic picture of the origins of Christianity. Among notable books being published currently see, for example, Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Idea of Orthodoxy and the Partitioning of Judeo-Christianity (Pennsylvania, 2004); Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities (New York and London, 2003); Karen King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, 2003); Marvin Myer, Secret Gospels (California, 2003). I am enormously grateful to these colleagues for allowing me to read each of these books in manuscript.
CHAPTER TWO: GOSPELS IN CONFLICT
This chapter condenses and summarizes research that is presented in a fuller and more technical form as Elaine Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John,” Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999), 477–496.
1. John 15:12, 17.
2. John 3:18.
3. John 8:44. For discussion and references on how John’s gospel, as well as the others, portrays “the Jews,” see Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York, 1995), especially 89–111, and the references cited there.
4. For the authoritative account of the story of the discovery, see James M. Robinson, “The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices,” Biblical Archaeologist 42 (1979), 206–224.
5. Irenaeus, AH 1, Praefatio.
6. Gospel of Thomas 70, in Nag Hammadi Library (hereafter NHL) 126, where this difficult passage is translated differently and, in my view, less lucidly. Throughout the present text, I have taken liberties with NHL translations in the interest of clarity or of preserving the poetic quality of the original text; thus, readers who consult the NHL may note variations.
7. See the incisive book by Michael Williams, Rethinking Gnosticism: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, 1996); and most recently, Karen King’s major new book, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, 2003). See also Bentley Layton, “Prolegomena to the Study of Ancient Gnosticism,” in I. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough, eds., The Social World of the Early Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis, 1995), 334–350; as well as the thoughtful essay by Antti Marjanen, “Is Thomas a Gnostic Gospel?” in the outstanding collection edited by Risto Uro, Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas (Edinburgh, 1998), 107–139. James Robinson also edited a one-volume English translation of all the texts discovered as The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco, 1977); Bentley Layton later published another translation as The Gnostic Scriptures (New York, 1987). The most complete edition available in English, however, is The Nag Hammadi Series, over twenty volumes published by Brill Press in the Netherlands, which include the Coptic texts with English introductions, translations, and notes.
8. See, for example, Steven Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Wisdom Tradition (New York, 1963); Stephen J. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma, Calif., 1993); Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis, 1995); April De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the “Gospel of Thomas” (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996); also her fascinating essay “ ‘Blessed are those who have not seen’ (John 20:29): Johannine Dramatization of an Early Christian Discourse,” in J. D. Turner and A. McGuire, eds., The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1997), 381–400.
9. John 20:8; yet see the incisive critique of this kind of usage in Paul-Hubert Poirer, “The Writings Ascribed to Thomas and the Thomas Tradition,” in Turner and McGuire, Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years, 295–397.
10. For discussion, see Chapter 4; also, among the many scholarly works on this issue, Maurice F. Wiles, The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church (Cambridge, 1960); T. E. Pollard, Johannine Christology and the Early Church (Cambridge, 1970); C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953); and E. Pagels, The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (Nashville, 1973).
11. Mark 11:15–16.
12. Mark 11:18.
13. John 2:15.
14. John 12:10.
15. John 11:48.
16. Origen, Commentary on John 10.4–6.
17. John 10:33.
18. John 20:28.
19. Origen, Commentary on John 1.6.
20. For discussion of the titles “son of God” and “messiah,” see the influential work of Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford and New York, 2000), 60–84. For an excellent discussion of various Christologies, see Pheme Perkins, “New Testament Christologies in Gnostic Transformation,” in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester Birger A. Pearson, ed., (Minneapolis, 1991), 422–441.
21. John 20:28.
22. For a masterful discussion of the traditions preserved in Thomas and their relation to the synoptic gospels and to John, see Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London and Philadelphia, 1990), especially 75–127.
23. For an overview of discussion of Thomas tradition, see Poirier, “The Writings Ascribed to Thomas.”
24. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 78–80; see also the incisive assessment of Philip Sellew, “The Gospel of Thomas: Prospects for Future Research,” in Turner and McGuire, Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years, 327–346; also Jean-Marie Sevrin, “L'Interprétation de l’ évangile selon Thomas, entre tradition et rédaction,” in the same volume, 347–360.
25. Gospel of Thomas 1, in NHL 118.
26. Genesis 1:3. For an excellent discussion, see Steven Davies, “Christology and Protology in the Gospel of John,” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992), 663–683.
27. John 1:3.
28. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 86–128; see also Patterson, Gospel of Thomas and Jesus.
29. John 1:9; the Greek phrase phos ton anthropon can be translated “light of human beings.”
30. Genesis 1:26–27; again, for a more detailed and technical version of the discussion presented in this chapter, see Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1.”
31. A term that may have been coined by Irenaeus: AH 3.11.8.
32. Ibid., 1.20.1.
33. Mark 8:27–29.
34. Mark 15:39.
35. Psalm 2:7; for discussion of the way such passages are worked into the birth stories of Matthew and Luke, see Raymond E. Brown, S.J., The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, 2nd ed. (New York, 1993).
36. Mark 1:1.
37. See, for example, Ezekiel 2:1; 2:8; 3:1; 3:4; 3:10; 3:17; 3:25; and throughout the oracles of Ezekiel.
38. Daniel 7:13.
39. Ma
rk 14:61–62.
40. Most scholars agree that the author of Luke also wrote the New Testament Acts of the Apostles; see Acts 2:22–23, 32–36.
41. John 1.1.
42. Philippians 2:7–8.
43. I Corinthians 12:3.
44. Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 6:3.
45. Pliny, Letter 10.96.7; see discussion of the pre-Pauline “Christ hymn” of Philippians 2 in Ralph P. Martin’s fine monograph Carmen Christi (London, 1967).
46. On composition, see Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 80 ff.; and more recently, the incisive comments of Risto Uro, in his introduction to Thomas at the Crossroads, 1–32.
47. Matthew, for example, includes the famous saying that “many are called, but few are chosen” (22:14); Thomas has Jesus say, “I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand” (saying 23, in NHL 121). John’s version, too, has Jesus emphasize divine initiative in the process: “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (15:16; see also 13:18).
48. Matthew 16:17.
49. Gospel of Thomas 13, in NHL 119.
50. Ibid., 50, in NHL 123.
51. Mark 1:1–4.
52. Mark 1:15.
53. Mark 9:1.
54. Mark 13:2.
55. Mark 13:8–19.
56. Mark 13:24–26.
57. Mark 13:30–33.
58. John 5:25.
59. John 11:24.
60. Gospel of Thomas 3, in NHL 118.
61. Mark 13:2–37.
62. Gospel of Thomas 51, in NHL 123.
63. Ibid., 113, in NHL 130.
64. Luke 17:20–21.
65. Thomas Merton, quoted by Marcus Borg, in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith (San Francisco, 1994).
66. Gospel of Mary 8:15–20. See the major new edition and commentary by Karen King, forthcoming (as of this writing) from Harvard University Press.
67. Luke 21:34–36.
68. John 1:1.
69. Genesis 1:2.
70. Genesis 1:3.
71. John 1:9.
72. Gospel of Thomas 16, in NHL 120.
73. Ibid., 77, in NHL 126.
74. Ibid., 2, in NHL 118.
75. Ibid., 3, in NHL 118.
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