SOURCE: "Our Old Enemy," in Washington Post Book World, July 9, 1995, p. 2.

In the following review, Meier argues that while some of Pagels's assertions are questionable, The Origin of Satan reveals Pagels's skill at clearly and concisely developing new theories out of pre-existing facts.

Although she has written scholarly works, Elaine Pagels, a professor at Princeton, is perhaps best known as a gifted popularizer. In this example [The Origin of Satan], she traces how the idea of Satan as a cosmic power opposed to God developed in early Judaism and Christianity. Pagels is interested in the "social" implications of Satan, i.e., how he was exploited to symbolize human conflict and stigmatize religious enemies as Jews and Christians struggled over their respective identities. Satan served to demonize "the other"—be they Jews of a different persuasion, pagan persecutors or Christian "heretics."

Pagels connects the development of the idea of...