The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics

240 Pages·1996·1.5 MB·English

by  Elaine Pagels

Acclaim for

ELAINE PAGELS’S

The Origin of Satan

“Pagels has achieved something important. . . . Thoughtful
scholarly works that are also original and adventurous are not
common. The Origin of Satan is such a work, and we should be
correspondingly grateful.”
—New York Review of Books

“Illuminating and rewarding ... a very readable scholarly work ...
a model of erudition and conciseness.”
—Newsday

“Fascinating and valuable.”
—The Nation

“Lucid and closely reasoned. . . . Pagels remains always a lively
writer who discerns the human implications of esoteric texts and
scholarly disputes.”
—Chicago Tribune

“One of today’s leading interpreters of the world of early
Christianity. . . . She brilliantly shows how otherwise arcane
theology is related to the social context in which it was
conceived.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Succeeds wonderfully”
—San Francisco Chronicle
ELAINE PAGELS’S

The Origin of Satan

Elaine Pagels is Harrington Spear Paine Professor of
Religion at Princeton University. Professor Pagels
received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1970
and has taught at Barnard College, where she chaired
the Department of Religion, and at Columbia
University. She was responsible for editing several of
the texts from Nag Hammadi and has written four other
books: The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis; The
Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters; The
Gnostic Gospels; and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. The
Gnostic Gospels won the National Book Critics Circle
Award and the National Book Award. Professor Pagels
was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981. She lives
and teaches in Princeton, New Jersey.
ALSO BY ELAINE PAGELS

Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
The Gnostic Gospels
The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis
The Gnostic Paul:
Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters
THE ORIGIN OF SATAN
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THE
ORIGIN OF SATAN

E P
LAINE AGELS

Vintage Books

A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
NEW YORK
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, MAY 1996

Copyright • 1995 by Elaine Pagels

Al1 rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House,
Inc., New York, in 1995.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the
Random House edition as follows:
Pagels, Elaine.
The origin of Satan / Elaine Pagels. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-679-40140-7
1. Devil—Biblical teaching. 2. Bible. N. T. Gospels—Criticism,
interpretation, etc. 3. Christianity and antisemitism. I. Title.
BS2555.6.D5P34 1995
235'.47—dc20 95-7983
Vintage ISBN: 0-679-73118-0

Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5
To SARAH AND DAVID
with love