From the National Book Award-winning and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels comes a dramatic interpretation of Satan and his role on the Christian tradition. 

"Arresting...brilliant...this book illuminates the angels with which we must wrestle to come to the truth of our bedeviling spritual problems." —The Boston Globe

With magisterial learning and the elan of a born storyteller, Pagels turns Satan’s story into an audacious exploration of Christianity’s shadow side, in which the gospel of love gives way to irrational hatreds that continue to haunt Christians and non-Christians alike. "Arresting . . . brilliant . . . this book illuminates the angels with which we must wrestle to come to the truth of our bedeviling spritual problems."  —Boston Globe

"Pagels is a wonderful writer. . . . She has a gift for bringing ancient texts alive. . . . Fascinating."  —San Francisco Chronicle

"Lively reading . . . a book that makes familiar concepts disturbingly fresh and provocative." —The New York Times

"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

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