A thin book that summarizes the myriad schisms that developed within the Christian community, concentrating on the first six centuries since the birth of Christ.


“Eusebius ... wrote the official Christian panegyrics of Constantine,” (Page 76) This was a meaningful statement because I had regarded Eusebius as one of the earlier works on the church, this reminds me that Eusebius was about 300 years after Christ.

“Augustine stated the Catholic Church’s position. If the receiver had faith, he would receive a valid Sacrament, even if the priest were unworthy. ... The distinction ... was, perhaps, one of the factors that enabled the Catholic Church to survive the periods of corruption and political intrigue that have darkened its history.” (Page 81)

“Constantine’s Edict of Toleration of 311 AD brought physical peace to the Christians in the Empire. But this very security and absence of danger allowed room for internal controversy. The fourth century was a time of fierce theological debate.” (Page 85, the first paragraph of Chapter 9)

“The essence of Athanasius’s Christianity was... ‘God became man in order that man might become God.” (Page 94)

“The Unitarian churches (the word was first used in 1600) are an example of anti-Trinitarianism. For them Christ is a divinely inspired man, and not to be worshiped as God.” (Page 96)

“Mohammed, who originally had had sincere leanings towards Christianity, was horrified at the disunity among Christians and felt that he was called to lead not only the pagan Arabs, but also these betrayers of their faith, back to the religion of unity. (Page 107)

“But there has always been a collective need to find a focus for crowd emotions. In this context, there is not very much difference between nationalism and football, political ideology and religious doctrine. The crowds in the Eastern Roman Empire marched for their bishop and his party. They liked marching then as people like marching now.” (Page 109-110)

“Is there not a danger that lucid expositions may lead those who accept them into believing that they understand and so need venture no further.” (Page 111)

“When he arrived in Rome Pelagius was horrified at the laxity and low level of morality that he found there. ... Pelagius was a moralist, not a theologian, and his emphasis was on exhortation, not on doctrine.” (Page 114)

“His [Pelagius] ideas were spreading — human beings, by their own volition, and and should make the first step towards belief and faith in God and in CHIRST, they can, by their own will, choose to obey.” (Page 118)

“By the end of the second century it was universal practice fo a bishop to the the head of the local church, and at first, each small church had its own bishop. By the fourth century, congregations of local churches were grouped into dioceses under the supreme rule of one bishop, who gradually gained enormous power.” (Page 127-129, chapter 12)

In “the fifth century that the supremacy of Rome and of the Papacy was finally established.” (Page 130)

Chapter 15: The use of force (in the fifth century.)

“They were also fearful of pseudo-mysticism, which was sometimes difficult to disentangle from the true; and it seemed that the passage of time alone made it possible to distinguish one from the other.” (Page 138)

“Anti-élitism, it must be repeated, is a modern concept. It is a very powerful one today. The notion of ‘justice’ is now held to imply ‘fairness’ — and the notion of ‘fairness’ is held to imply ‘equality’.” (Page 143-144)

“That there are degrees of excellence in any skill or profession is obvious, and therefore acceptable. But that there are degrees of excellence in behavior or understanding is not so obvious, and therefore not so acceptable.” (Page 144)

“Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor [in The Brothers Karamazov] attacks Christ as the greatest Heretic of all, because he offered a choice,” (Page 145)

“A belief in the existence of an original teaching, hidden from those unprepared for it, ... was maintained by many schools, during the first three Christian centuries.” (Page 145)

“We cannot find the answers to religious mysteries through mere intellectual puzzling. It is impossible to make a real study of a religion without trying to practice it.” (Page 151)

“It is still necessary for each person to discover what they [the doctrines] mean for him or herself and to enter into their meaning.” (Page 154)

“... only he who has ears to hear will hear. It is also true that only those ‘who hunger and thirst’ will find answers.” (Page 154, the last sentence in the book.)

A bibliography and Index are included, but notes are not. Since this is aimed at a lay audience, that is acceptable. Those who wish to delve further into a topic that catches their interest can chose from the bibliography or find their own sources (such as [b:Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew|107273|Lost Christianities The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew|Bart D. Ehrman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477449180l/107273._SY75_.jpg|103407]) for deeper research. ( )

The poorest book on Christian history I've ever read (glowing review on Amazon notwithstanding). The reasons are hard to pin down; most sentences *seem* to say something, but actually say very little. Entire paragraphs seem devoid of any memorable meaning. Donating it to the library, since it's of little resale value. ( )

Gnosticism gets the lion's share of attention in this survey of Christian unorthodoxy in antiquity, and O'Grady carefully distinguishes its qualitative difference from later heresies. Where Arians, Nestorians, and Pelagians might divide from Rome on points of doctrine, Gnostics differed with the "Great Church" (as she terms proto-Catholicism) on the very nature of the social institution of Christianity. She also appropriately identifies Gnosticism with the Neoplatonic culture of late antiquity, although further speculation on the non-Christian origins of Gnosticism (not to mention the non-Judaic origins of Christianity) is decidedly muted.

O'Grady's book is not a piece of imposing scholarship; it's more of a reflective journalistic approach. She's almost painfully even-handed in her evaluations of heterodoxy and orthodoxy. To her credit, she does treat orthodoxy as a phenomenon demanding an explanation, rather than a mere given.

As an accessible, wide-angle treatment of its topic, it is better than passable. The author fails to disclose her own religious identity, but it's probably safe to infer that she is a believing Christian, based on the extent to which she valorizes the survival and development of the Christian tradition.