Quotes About Early Christianity

#1. Historically and geographically speaking, Gnosticism developed at the same time and in the same places as early Christianity, with which it was, and remained, entwined - Palestine, Syria, Samaria, and Anatolia, and later, Ptolemaic Egypt.

Stephan A. Hoeller

#2. Luther's return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#3. I study religion because I find it fascinating and problematic. But I struggle with the idea of what religion is, what being religious means. A lot of people assume that if you write about early Christianity, you must be some kind of Sunday-school teacher.

Elaine Pagels

#4. Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

Margaret Atwood

#5. The efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical 'blasphemy' proved so successful that, until the discoveries at Nag Hammadi, nearly all our information concerning alternative forms of early Christianity came from the massive orthodox attacks upon them.

Elaine Pagels

#6. After that I went home and Sally put what was left of me to bed; next day, being a Christian family, we saluted the happy morn with the Hell and Hades of a row because I wouldn't get up and go to early service, my sister being quite determined that even if I didn't get up. I shouldn't sleep.

Dion Fortune

#7. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans - of their subsequent degenerating - of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.

Mary Shelley

#8. My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to different parts of Igboland, spreading the gospel.

Chinua Achebe

#9. I have barely time to give you a brief statement of facts as I find them.

John White Geary

#10. The Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists.

William L. Shirer

#11. Don't wish, Miss Tick had said. Do things.

Terry Pratchett

#12. In the early days of Christianity the exercise of chastity was frequently combined with a close and romantic intimacy of affection between the sexes which shocked austere moralists.

Havelock Ellis

#13. Every Christian should become an ambassador of Christ ... every Christian should be so intoxicated with Christ and so filled with holy fervor that nothing could ever quench his [passion] ... Let us capture some of the magnificent obsession that [the] early Christians had!

Billy Graham

#14. It was a real surprise to me to come across the evidence that Christianity might once have been a danced religion. Certainly, some of the early church leaders thought this was great and spoke of what seems to have been circle dancing, perhaps around an altar.

Barbara Ehrenreich

#15. It's too early for a Polish pope.

Pope John Paul II

#16. I was always on set, I was always working, so my study was down to the bare minimum required. So I am one of the few who didn't study 'Lord of the Flies.'

Eliza Taylor

#17. Paul may be an excellent source for those interested in the early formation of Christianity, but he is a poor guide for uncovering the historical Jesus.

Reza Aslan

#18. I look for things that are very different from my life, and that are curious and idiosyncratic to me. And then, I like to find if I'm able, just a little bit, to step into a world that I know very little about. That's great fun.

James Spader

#19. According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised.

Edward Gibbon

#20. What is clear is that the Gospel of Judas has joined the other spectacular discoveries that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was.

Elaine Pagels

#21. In those early centuries of Christianity,
Christianity did not go into the world apologizing. It went to slay the powers
of darkness and undo the works of the devil, and it lived in holy triumph.

John G. Lake

#22. Today, they separately demonstrate what a luxury it is to be a stable, prosperous, democratic nation with a dependable constitution.

Clive James

#23. No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.

Ammianus Marcellinus

#24. I feel that I, and the people under my command, tried to use all the traditional methods of recruiting agents which were also used by other intelligence services; adopting also means like pressure, money, sex - but that did not characterize my service.

Markus Wolf

#25. God is an early bird; satan is a night owl. Everyone knows that.

Jon Acuff

#26. Christians know that Christianity is simply extended training in dying early. That is what we have always been about.

Stanley Hauerwas

#27. Forgetting the things that lie behind, I will strive towards my higher spiritual possibilities. I dedicate myself anew to the service of the Coming One and will do all I can to prepare men's minds and hearts for that event. I have no other life intention.

Alice Bailey