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The Gnostic Gospels

Book by Elaine Pagels · 2 quotes · Christianity, Religion, Christian

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The Gnostic Gospels Quotes

“...the discoveries at Nag Hammadi reopen fundamental questions. They suggest that Christianity as we know it might not have survived at all. Had Christianity remained multiform, it might well have disappeared from history, along with dozens of rival religious cults of antiquity. I believe that we owe the survival of Christian tradition to the organizational and theological structure that the emerging church developed.”

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“We can see, then, how conflicts arose in the formation of Christianity between those restless, inquiring people who marked out a solitary path to self-discovery and the institutional framework that gave to the great majority of people religious sanction and ethical direction for their daily lives. Adapting for its own purposes the model of Roman political and military organization, and gaining, in the fourth century, imperial support, orthodox Christianity grew increasingly stable and enduring. Gnostic Christianity proved no match for the orthodox faith, either in terms of orthodoxy's wide popular appeal...or in terms of its effective organization. To the impoverishment of Christian tradition, gnosticism, which offered alternatives to what became the main thrust of Christian orthodoxy, was forced outside.”

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