ABSTRACT
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 Christianity 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,
who is above all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4. 4-6).
