The name Thomas, in Aramaic, means ''twin.'' Thomas may have proselytized in India, where Thomas Christians still worship today. 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical, ''an abyss of madness and of blasphemy.''Ībout 50 years after Constantine's conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity's official text. The texts' true authors are unknown.Įarly Christians were subject to unimaginable persecutions, and church fathers believed that for Christianity to survive, there had to be a unified belief system, Ms. The 52 that survived include poems, prayers and gospels (meaning ''good news''), translated from Greek into Coptic, an African language. The gospel of Thomas is one of over 50 texts discovered by an Egyptian peasant in 1945 buried in a jar near the village of Nad Hammadi. If you think the story of the virgin birth is mistranslated, for instance, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole thing.'' The Gnostic gospels open out the complexity and multiplicity of approaches to this. She spoke softly, precisely: ''There are some kinds of Christianity that insist you have to believe literally in doctrine. She is 59, with a small face and blond hair, and was dressed in tailored black pants and blue jacket. ''I am interested in how the Gnostic gospels change our view of what we know as Christianity,'' she said, ''in how Christianity became what it became.''
Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University, was interviewed last week in her large stucco house surrounded by lush gardens. Out just a month, it is moving up the best-seller list, and Random House has had to reprint it three times, with 108,000 copies now in print. Pagels's book, clearly written, lyrical but deeply scholarly, is a surprise hit. Pagels says, she has found the answer to her quest by writing a book, ''Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.'' It is a study of one of the Gnostic gospels, early Christian texts written around the time of the New Testament and regarded as heretical. Pagels's husband, Heinz, a physicist, was killed in a climbing accident, leaving her with their two other children, Sarah, 2, and David, 3 months, both of whom the couple had adopted. What was it, she wondered, that made Christianity so compelling, despite the obstacles of doctrine? The question grew more urgent. But now she found herself intensely drawn in by the prayers and the choir's soaring voices. She had never been able to embrace the certainties of Christianity, the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Jesus, as literal events. Pagels, a renowned biblical scholar whose 1979 book ''The Gnostic Gospels'' won the National Book and the National Book Critics Circle Awards, had been to church. Two days before, she had learned that her son Mark, 18 months, had pulmonary hypertension and was dying. On a bright Sunday in February 1982, a grief-stricken Elaine Pagels, jogging in running shorts, found herself stopping at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan.