Establishment as fundamental identity crisis
- Before Christianity became licit/established it sought credability by being a Jewish sect
- After Christianity became licit it drifted quickly away from the earlier identity
- After Christianity became established it sought to preserve the "persecuted minority" identity in a variety of ways
- Desert fathers/mothers
- fleeing from "the world"
- Puritanism / Donatism
- gnosticism / elitism
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