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The only way to avoid the difficulty, then, is to define the source of authority and the authority it authorizes correlatively, in relation to one another – -- as follows: If Christians are all those who belong to the community constituted by and/or conformed to the earliest Christian witness, this witness is eo ipso uniquely normative for Christians. It is so, however, de iure as well as de facto, because, or insofar as, it is authorized by the Jesus Christ to whom it bears witness. Conversely, the Jesus Christ who authorizes the earliest Christian witness de iure is none other than the one to whom it bears more or less adequate witness.

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