“In The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels admits that Jonas’ Book The Gnostic Religion remains ‘the classic introduction,’ but in her own book Pagels depicts gnostics in a different way. She reads the gnostic gospels and draws conclusions about social and political concerns that motivated the gnostics. Thus, for Pagels, the gnostics formulated teachings on the spiritual resurrection of Christ that subverted the emerging orthodox church’s hierarchy of priests and bishops, whose authority was—and still is—linked to the messengers or apostles who were witnesses of the bodily resurrection of Christ. The gnostic teaching on spiritual resurrection and spiritual authority, Pagels observes, ‘claimed to offer to every initiate direct access to God of which the priests and bishops themselves might be ignorant.’ Again, Pagels notes that the gnostics formulated teachings on the multiple manifestations of god, the mother and the father, that subverted the emerging orthodox church’s commitment—which still can be found—to the authority of one bishop, and a male bishop at that. In these and other ways, as Adolf von Harnack once said and Pagels also recalls, the gnostics may have been the “first Christian theologians,” whose ideas and actions stimulated theological thinking in the Christian church. In Pagels’s view, the gnostics lived as freethinking advocates of a mystical spirituality, and they talked a different talk and walked a different walk than the emerging orthodox church.”

-The Gnostic Bible

The Gnostic Gospels

The above quote is from The Gnostic Bible, but it references a number of other books. IT doesn’t cover Pagels’ book, except for this brief mention in the introduction. The Gnostic Bible and The Gnostic Gospels are probably the most referenced books on Gnosticism today.

Spiritual Resurrection

According to Pagels, the Gnostics taught that when Jesus was resurrected, it was a spiritual resurrection, not a physical. That is true for all of us, not just Jesus. Jesus said that flesh could not inherit the kingdom, so it should be obvious from that statement that only the spirit can go to Heaven. As the quote says, this teaching opposed that of the orthodox church who believed that the apostles taught that Jesus was bodily resurrected. While that may have been true for some apostles, others, such as Thomas, new the truth. That is probably why Thomas is considered a heritic by the major churches, and his gospel is not found in the standard versions of the Bible.

Direct Access to God

The Gnostics did believe that all people had the potential to develop direct access to God. Note that the quote says initiates had such access, not everyone. That is true, but nearly all people have the potential to become initiates, meaning students of a reputable spiritual school.

Mother and Father

In the orthodox churches, even today, God is always depicted as male. Among those who believe in the concept of one God in three persons, all three “persons” are depicted as male. It should be obvious that this can’t be true. God creates only from what He is, so he must have a female side. The original teaching of the three persons before male-oriented churches changed it, was that the three person were the Father, Mother, and Child. That makes much more sense.

Mystical Spirituality

The Gnostics did teach of a mystical form of Christianity. It was freethinking only in the sense that it looked beyond the orthodox beliefs for truth. It doesn’t mean that there are no rules in Gnosticism. The rules are different, but they do exist. The most important ones are to follow God’s Law, and to love thy neighbor.