Judith Herrin quotes:

The central dynamism of Christianity, which rests precisely on a unity through variety.

The episcopal church was destined, inevitably, to grow further and further from the Christian teaching of poverty and denial of worldly goods. It became more like an additional arm of secular administration.

A whole range of activities remained largely unregulated, spontaneously generating separate forms of organisation, and existing independently of any consecrated 'official' To overlook the extent of private initiative would be to ignore a major impulse to early Christian expansion. In homes, whole families adopted a style of life modelled on the Apostles...