The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics (Vintage) [Paperback]

The author's primary interest is the history of early Christianity. As usual her text is loaded with information on that subject. You may not agree with her conclusions but you will probably be impressed with the wealth of insights she gives to the reader on her favorite topic.

The greatest strength of this book is Pagels' description of the historical and political atmosphere in which early Christianity developed and its influence on the writing of the Gospels and the movement's growing internalization of concepts of "the adversary." While my personal belief in the infallibility of the Gospels keeps me from reading as much into them as Pagels does and while I do not necessarily accept without question some of her "facts" in terms of the dates and authorship of the primary books in question, I am impressed by the logic and consistency of her presentation and principal arguments; what she says does indeed make sense. I found myself taking copious notes on her chapters dealing with the writing of the Four Gospels and came away with a much greater understanding of the formative first two centuries of the Christian church.

The Origin of Satan basically follows the progression of the internalization of "the enemy" among early Christians; the enemy without has become the enemy within by the time of John's gospel. The Essenes, seeing a cosmic war between the forces of God and those of Satan, were among the first group of Jews to withdraw from the larger Jewish community. Mark, the earliest of the Gospels, likewise envisions a cosmic war between God's people and Satan's. At the time Matthew was written, the Pharisees were seen as the chief rivals of the Christians and so the book of Matthew becomes to a degree a polemic between Jesus and the Pharisees. Matthew reverses traditional roles to turn the outside entities of Israel's antiquity (such as the pharaoh) into intimate enemies existing within the Jewish community itself. God's people have been split into opposing camps, those who accept Jesus and those who deny Him. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark implicitly link Jesus' Jewish enemies with Satan; the Gospels of Luke and John state these charges outright. Luke's Passion narrative casts all the blame for Jesus' arrest and execution on the Jewish community, deflecting guilt from the Romans. Those who oppose Jesus perform the work of Satan on Earth, Luke argues. John truly paints his portrait of Jesus and his execution in terms of a cosmic war between Good and Evil. Unlike the other Gospels, John portrays the Jewish people as performing Satan's work for him. Pagels concentrates on how John, much more aggressively than the other Gospels, associates the work of Satan with specific human opposition, implicating Judas Iscariot, then the Jewish authorities, and finally "the Jews" collectively.

By the time John's Gospel was written, Christianity had become largely a Gentile religious movement, and Pagels goes on to explore the spread of Christianity among Roman pagans in the following era. Pagels argues that it was Christians' strong belief in Satan that made them so dangerous in the eyes of the Roman leadership; their teachings of a rebellion in Heaven between forces of light and forces of darkness was seen by many pagan leaders as a means for justifying rebellion on earth against those they viewed as Jesus' enemies. Pagels goes on to include a chapter describing the church's condemnation and eradication of dissidents within the Church itself – church leaders viewed the Gnostics as the supreme heretics, for through them Satan was seen as infiltrating the very heart of the Christian movement itself.

All in all, The Origin of Satan is a fascinating look at the evolution of Satan from a murky concept to the sustaining force that served to define Christianity as a movement. Her look at the formative years of the Christian church demonstrates how "the enemy without" increasingly became "the enemy within." While some could argue that the early Christians shaped and evolved Satan to fit their own political and social purposes, Pagels never strays from the objective stance of the historian proper. The book's title is something of a misnomer, as the true origin of Satan is not really investigated; instead, what this book provides is a penetrating examination of the way in which early Christianity's viewpoint of the ultimate adversary in an increasingly cosmic war between forces and good and evil shaped the very foundation of the Christian church in the volatile decades following the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.