If we grant that humans can be tools of the devil, let's remember he's our tool as well. As the majestic adversary in Paradise Lost or the heavy-metal party animal, Satan may be a capable tempter. But not until he falls into human hands is the Old Enemy put to his most sinister uses.
Ask Elaine Pagels. Her much honored 1979 work, The Gnostic Gospels, was one of the rare volumes of religious scholarship to find a general readership. In her new book, The Origin of Satan (Random House; $23), Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University, examines how the...
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