rejected it outright (Rousseau 1999: xvii–xxxiii, 19–28). A recent
examination of the evidence remarks circumspectly: ‘While it
may be less satisfying not to argue for a specific provenance, it
may be, in the end, all we know’ (Goehring 2001: 241). In spite
of this it is clear that somebody in Egypt in the middle of the
fourth century thought it was worth assembling these texts into
codices. But who were they, and why did they do so? One sugges-
tion is that the Nag Hammadi codices were not the property of
heretics but were part of a library compiled for heresiological
purposes, a collection of reference material consulted by those
who sought to refute their teachings. Another, based on the
different styles of handwriting and binding techniques found in
the codices, is that the Nag Hammadi collection, even if it was
found together, was assembled from disparate libraries. All such
suggestions are conjectural: the codices themselves yield little
information about who used them.
Even if it is impossible to identify categorically the owners
and readers of the Nag Hammadi libraries, the very existence
of the manuscripts points to something significant. They imply
that there was in fourth-century Egypt some group (perhaps
groups) that was reproducing and reading texts that traditional
church history associates with the second and third centuries. This
traditional form of church history owes its origins to Eusebius of
Caesarea: for him, ecclesiastical history was in large measure
a narrative of the triumph of orthodox, united, and universal
Christianity over heretical and schismatic enemies who fell by the
wayside. In large measure, modern histories of the church, and
of Christianity more generally, have adopted this narrative frame-
work. But the reality seems to have been considerably messier.
For example, during the reign of the emperor Decius (249–50),
when Christians were being forced to offer sacrifice to the pagan
gods (see chapter 6), there arose at Rome a schism between
those who had given in to the imperial demands and a group of
hardliners led by the priest Novatianus. His cause was taken up
by a Carthaginian cleric called (confusingly) Novatus, and their
followers were known as the Novatians. The Novatian schism
ORTHODOXY AND ORGANIZATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY1
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