SOURCE: "The Prince of Darkness," in New York Times Book Review, June 18, 1995, pp. 9-10.

In the following review of The Origin of Satan, Houlden states that while Pagels's arguments are single-minded and do not always have documentary support, she has written a compelling book that connects the concerns of the early church with contemporary issues.

Satan, Elaine Pagels says, has a much more tenacious grip on the world than many people suppose; his power over the human imagination has grown for 22 centuries, and in the West even people who deny his existence, or who have no religion at all, live in a culture in which he is a large presence This demon will not go away

If that sounds like a promotion for fright films, Ms. Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University and the author of several volumes on the Gnostics among the early Christians, did...