Reviewed Book: Pagels, Elaine H. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. New York: Random House, 1990

Remus, Harold

English

Scholars Commons

Adam, Eve, and the Serpent

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 16Issue 2 Lutheran Pietism Article 1311-1-1990Adam, Eve, and the SerpentHarold RemusFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationRemus, Harold (1990) "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent," Consensus: Vol. 16 : Iss. 2 , Article 13.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol16/iss2/13Book Reviews 137There is an index of ancient sources and of authors but, unfortunately,no subject index.Harold RemusWilfrid Laurier UniversityAdam, Eve, and the SerpentElaine PagelsNew York: Random House, 1988xxviii + 189 pp.Elaine Pagels, known to students of early Christianity as the author oftechnical monographs and articles and to a wider audience as the authorof The Gnostic Gospels (Random House, 1979), which won the (Ameri-can) National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, inAdam, Eve, and the Serpent draws on much current scholarship, includingher own, to write, once again, for that elusive person publishers perenniallypostulate is out there somewhere—the “general educated reader” . She suc-ceeds magnificently. Such readers will be both entertained and instructed.Students of the period, who will know many of the sources she explicatesand the secondary literature she cites, will admire the skill with which sheweaves together many seemingly disparate strands into a compelling re-telling of the story of Christians of the first four centuries. The openingchapters of Genesis are the loom on which she weaves their interpretationsof those intriguing narratives.Chapter one looks at Jesus and the Jesus movement, against the back-ground of Judaism. Both Jesus and his Jewish compatriots appeal to Gen-esis in support of their attitudes to divorce, procreation, and family, butthose of Jesus (so the New Testament gospels report) diverge so from com-mon Jewish ones that a new religious movement comes into being. By theend of the second century, however, the attitudes and practices within themovement span a spectrum from endorsement of marriage and reproductionto ascetic renunciation.The Christian martyrs die opposing the Roman order, but Pagels bringsthem to life (ch. 2)—i.e., at her hands they emerge as flesh-and-bloodhuman beings whose behaviour both before and at the final test, howeverirrational it appeared to the Roman authorities and to pagans generally,“made sense” to Christians: theirs was the true liberty that opposed anoppressive social and political order. Interpretation of Genesis is moreimplicit than explicit in this chapter, but in chapter three, on Christiangnostics, it is central.The gnostics disagreed with mainstream Christians on how to read theearly chapters of Genesis. The latter took them as literal history and drew138 Consensusmoral instruction from them. Gnostics read them as spiritual allegory withmyriad meanings, including the message that humans are of divine originbut, falling into the human condition of suffering and limited free will,need gnosis— special knowledge—to deliver them. Christians like Justin,Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origenstood unanimously against the gnostics in proclaiming the Chris-tian gospel as a message of freedom—moral freedom, freedom ofthe will, expressed in Adam’s original freedom to choose a life freeof pain and suffering. . ..So long as Christianity remained a perse-cuted movement, the majority of Christian preachers proclaimed theplain and powerful message of freedom that appealed to so manypeople within the Roman world—perhaps especially to those whohad never experienced freedom in their everyday lives (76).When persecution ended, ascetic renunciation replaced martyrdom asthe consummate way of discipleship (ch. 4). Virginity was paradise re-gained, and the new way to freedom. For men, it was “freedom from theoppressive weight of imperial rule, of custom, tradition ‘destiny,’ or fate,and from the internal tyranny of the passions”; for women, “the opportu-nity to travel, to devote themselves to intellectual and spiritual pursuits,to found institutions, and to direct them” (96); for both, the freedom fromthe burdens and anxieties of marriage and parenthood. In the new climateof political favour that Christians now enjoyed, however, a new climate ofChristian opinion also developed, repudiating the notions of freedom thatthe first three centuries had stressed. Pagels devotes chapters five and sixto the man most singly responsible for the change, Augustine of Hippo.Why would Christians choose a doctrine of human bondage over oneof human freedom? she asks. One answer is that it gave a more adequateinterpretation of the new social and political situation of Christians, whowere now the emperor’s brothers and sisters in Christ. Pondering the Gen-esis account of the fall, Augustine read there his own story of bondage topassion. He acted “against my own will,... I was not, therefore, the causeof it, but the ‘sin that dwells in me’: from the punishment of that morevoluntary sin, because I was a son of Adam” (Confessions 8.10; cited, p.107). Adam once ruled over his body, but his disobedience to God broughtdisobedience of the body to the will (110). The empirical proof: (male)sexual arousal occurs willy nilly: “At times, the urge intrudes uninvited;at other times, it deserts the panting lover, and, although desire blazes inthe mind, the body is frigid” (Ci^y of God 14.16; cited, p. 111). Suchis the condition of humans (Christ excepted), for the semen that propa-gates them is Adam’s semen (109). Human government is thus necessaryto control humanity; the bishop, too, rules “in God’s place” (llSff.), andobedience becomes a prime Christian virtue (110, 124).In Augustine’s debate with Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum, the lat-ter two represent the pre-Augustinian view of suffering and death notphysically transmitted from Adam (that would unjustly punish his progenyfor his sin) but rather a.s simply “the nature of nature” (ch. 6). One canBook Reviews 139rage against nature—and be miserable—or accept it, and grow spiritually.Indeed, argues Julian, God’s pronouncement on the first couple—“you areearth, and to earth you shall return”—shows divine mercy, for death putsa limit to suffering. Pagels’ answer to the question why the majority ofChristians chose Augustine’s interpretation of the fall goes beyond theoriesof social control (humans are evil and need to be governed) to the humandesire to understand and explain suffering and death as not simply randomor quid-pro- quo punishment for wrong doing but as impersonal pattern:the fault lies in the primal parents.At the annual meetings of the Canadian learned societies in religion atUniversite Laval in May 1989 a two-hour session was devoted to Pagels’book, with Pagels present to respond to the respondents to her book.Among the corrections and amplifications they suggested, one might in-terest readers of this journal who stand in the Augustinian tradition (e.g.,Lutherans): in the chaos of the late Roman Empire, Christians in theirhelplessness might well have found the doctrine of divine grace more com-pelling than the guilt that Pagels suggests.A fascinating book. In the words Augustine says led to his conversion,“Tolle, lege” (“Take, read!”). Then one can look forward to reading JeremyCohen’s forthcoming work on Genesis 1:28, “Re Fertile and Increase, Fillthe Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a BiblicalText (Cornell University Press, December 1989).Harold RemusWilfrid Laurier UniversityChristian Socialism: An Informal HistoryJohn C. CortMaryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988xiii-f- 401 pp.No one would contest seriously that John Cort has the credentials to un-dertake “the battle” for Christian socialism against the ideas and practicesthat emerged from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. He is a militantof many years, serving as a garment-worker organizer, as a member of theCatholic Worker movement and as a socialist journalist. Further, there haslong been a need for an easy-to-read book about Christian socialism thatprovides an overview rather than specialization.On the positive side, the book guides the reader with care and clarity,and there is a dignified sense of dialogue throughout. Unlike so many otherauthors Cort does not attempt to manipulate his audience. He is verydirect about his own biases. “So this is an opinionated history,” he tellsus, “but all writing of history is by definition opinionated.” Also, Cort

https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1942&amp;context=consensus

Adam, Eve, and the Serpent

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Scholars Commons

Wilfrid Laurier University