Both Socrates and Jesus were outstanding teachers; both of them urged and practiced great simplicity of life; both were regarded as traitors to the r…

- Jaroslav Pelikan

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remem…

- Jaroslav Pelikan

The only alternative to tradition is bad tradition

- Jaroslav Pelikan

An agnostic position is one that leaves open the question whether there exists a god or gods, professing to find such a question unanswered or unansw…

- Jaroslav Pelikan

Jesus Christ is too important to be left to the theologians.

- Jaroslav Pelikan

The church is always more than a school. But the church cannot be less than a school.

- Jaroslav Pelikan

To invoke a Kierkegaardesque figure of speech, the beauty of the language of the Bible can be like a set of dentist's instruments nearly laid out on …

- Jaroslav Pelikan

If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen-nothing else matters.

- Jaroslav Pelikan

Unlike most readers in Antiquity who read their books aloud, we have developed the convention of reading silently. This lets us read more widely but …

- Jaroslav Pelikan