The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books)

by Elaine Pagels

Pressed by their common danger, members of scattered Christian groups throughout the world increasingly exchanged letters and traveled from one church to another. Accounts of the martyrs, often taken from records of their trials and from eyewitnesses, circulated among the churches in Asia, Africa, Rome, Greece, Gaul, and Egypt. By such communication, members of the diversified earlier churches became aware of regional differences as obstacles to their claim to participate in one catholic church. As noted earlier, Irenaeus insisted that all churches throughout the world must agree on all vital points of doctrine, but even he was shocked when Victor, Bishop of Rome, attempted to move the regional churches toward greater uniformity. In 190, Victor demanded that Christians in Asia Minor abandon their traditional practice of celebrating Easter on Passover, and conform instead to Roman custom—or else give up their claim to be “catholic Christians.” At the same time, the Roman church was compiling the definitive list of books eventually accepted by all Christian churches. Increasingly stratified orders of institutional hierarchy consolidated the communities internally and regularized communication with what Irenaeus called “the catholic church dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth”—a network of groups becoming increasingly uniform in doctrine, ritual, canon, and political structure.