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Because of this claim to decisive authority, any religion as such has a distinctive structure that may be analyzed both diachronically and synchronically. Analyzed diachronically, it has (1) an explicit primal source of authority; (2) the primary authority authorized by this source, which is formally normative for everything else in the religion; and (3) everything else in the religion, including everything in it having secondary authority, because, or insofar as, being authorized by the primary authority, it is itself substantially normative. Analyzed synchronically, a religion has (1) its constitutive principle, which is identical with its explicit primal source of authority; and (2) the various re-presentations of this constitutive principle -- oralprinciple—oral, enacted, and written -- which written—which function as the means of actualizing itself as the religion it is.

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