Early Christianity

Chapter 5

Doctrine and power:

orthodoxy and organization

7 Discovering early Christianity

At various points in this book I have noted that Christians of later

ages have looked back to early Christianity to validate their own

beliefs and practices (see especially chapter 2). One of the major

concerns of such backward glances in our own times has been to

find some form of primeval Christianity that is somehow pure and

free from corruption. The ultimately fruitless quest of Elaine

Pagels for ‘a “golden age” of purer and simpler early Christianity’

has been mentioned already (p. 21). Seventeen centuries ago,

Eusebius of Caesarea also sought to show for very different

reasons how a pure form of Christianity endured from the time of

Christ and the apostles down to his own day, in spite of threats

from persecution and heresy (pp. 36–8). Behind Pagels’ and

Eusebius’ quests lies an assumption that there exists a point to

which we can return when there was a single form of Chris-

tianity undivided by ecclesiastical and theological disputes. Such

aspirations to Christian unity are as old, it seems, as Christianity

itself. The Letter to the Ephesians ascribed (almost certainly

falsely) to the apostle Paul, for instance, asserted against those

who would divide the church that ‘there is one body and one Spirit,

just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call,

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