The development of doctrine, the position of
proto-Orthodoxy, and the relationship between the various opinions is a matter of continuing academic debate. Since the
Nicene Creed came to define the Church, the early debates have long been regarded as a unified orthodox position against a minority of heretics.
Walter Bauer, drawing upon distinctions between
Jewish Christians,
Pauline Christians,
Christian Gnostics, and
Marcionites, argued that
early Christianity was fragmented, with various competing interpretations, only one of them eventually coming to dominate. While Bauer's original thesis has been criticised,
Elaine Pagels and
Bart Ehrman have further explicated the existence of variant Christianities in the first centuries. They see early Christianity as fragmented into contemporaneous competing orthodoxies.
Eamon Duffy notes that Christianity throughout the
Roman Empire was "in a state of violent creative ferment" during the second century.
Orthodoxy, or
proto-orthodoxy, existed alongside forms of Christianity that they would soon consider deviant "
heresy". Duffy considers the orthodox and unorthodox were sometimes difficult to distinguish during this period, and simply says that
early Christianity in Rome had a wide variety of competing Christian sects. Some orthodox scholars argue against the increasing focus on heterodoxy. A movement away from presuming the correctness or dominance of the orthodoxy is seen as neutral, but criticize historical analysis that assumes heterodox sects are superior to the orthodox movement.
Growth of Christianity Rodney Stark estimates that the number of Christians grew by approximately 40% a decade during the first and second centuries. This phenomenal growth rate forced Christian communities to evolve in order to adapt to their changes in the nature of their communities as well as their relationship with their political and socioeconomic environment. As the number of Christians grew, the Christian communities became larger, more numerous and farther apart geographically. The passage of time also moved some Christians farther from the original teachings of the apostles giving rise to teachings that were considered heterodox and sowing controversy and divisiveness within churches and between churches. Classical writers mistook early congregations for burial or fraternal societies which had similar characteristics like divine worship, common meals, regular meetings, initiation, rules for conduct, and their own burial grounds.
Variations in theology The Ante-Nicene period saw the rise of a great number of Christian
sects,
cults and
movements with strong unifying characteristics lacking in the apostolic period. They had different interpretations of
Scripture, particularly different
Christology—questions about the divinity of Jesus and salvation from the consequences of sin—and the nature of the
Trinity. Many variations in this time defy neat categorizations, as various forms of Christianity interacted in a complex fashion to form the dynamic character of Christianity in this era. The Post-Apostolic period was extremely diverse both in terms of beliefs and practices. In addition to the broad spectrum of general branches of Christianity, there was constant change and diversity that variably resulted in both internecine conflicts and syncretic adoption. These various interpretations were called
heresies by the leaders of the
proto-orthodox church, but many were very popular and had large followings. Part of the unifying trend in proto-orthodoxy was an increasingly harsh
anti-Judaism and rejection of
Judaizers. Some of the major movements were: •
Gnosticism – second to fourth centuries – reliance on revealed knowledge from an unknowable God, a distinct divinity from the
Demiurge who created and oversees the material world. The Gnostics claimed to have received secret teachings (
gnosis) from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known, or in the case of
Valentinius from
Paul the Apostle.
Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of such hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic scripture () as did warning by the Christ that there would be
false prophets or false teachers. Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, which is the doctrine of
continuing revelation. •
Marcionism – second century – the
God of
Jesus was a different God from the
God of the
Old Testament. •
Montanism – second century – a
pentecostal movement initiated by Montanus and his female disciples, featuring
prophetic continuing revelations from the
Holy Spirit. •
Adoptionism – second century – Jesus was not born the
Son of God, but was adopted at his
baptism,
resurrection or
ascension. •
Docetism – second to third century – Jesus was pure spirit and his physical form an illusion. •
Sabellianism – third century – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of the one God and not the three separate persons of the
Trinity. •
Arianism – third to fourth century – Jesus, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was of some lesser status than
God the Father. In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were divided between followers of Marcion, Montanism, and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus. Many groups were
dualistic, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts:
matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Proto-orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the
unified divine and human natures of Christ.
Trinitarianism held that God the Father,
God the Son, and the
Holy Spirit were all strictly one being with three
hypostases.
Proto-orthodoxy , one of the
Apostolic Fathers and the third
Bishop of Antioch, was considered a student of
John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in
Rome (c. 108), Ignatius wrote a series of preserved letters which are examples of late-1st to early-second-century
Christian theology. Christianity differed from
Roman religions in that it set out its beliefs in a clearly defined way,. The process of determining
orthodoxy (right belief) began with the writings of the
New Testament and continued through the period of the
first seven ecumenical councils. Orthodox teachings were those that claimed to have the authentic lineage of
Holy Tradition. All other teachings were viewed as deviant streams of thought that were sometimes viewed as
heretical. Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of
Tertullian's
Prescription Against Heretics (in 44 chapters, written from Rome), and of Irenaeus'
Against Heresies (c. 180, in five volumes), written in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) after his return from a visit to Rome. The letters of
Ignatius of Antioch and
Polycarp of Smyrna to various churches warned against false teachers, and the
Epistle of Barnabas warned about
mixing Judaism with Christianity, as did other writers. The
First Council of Nicaea was convoked by Emperor
Constantine at Nicaea in 325 in response to disruptive polemical controversies within the Christian community over the nature of the
Trinity caused by
Arius, who denied the eternal nature of Christ as put forth in the
Gospel of John.
Developing Church hierarchy . In the post-Apostolic church, bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations, and a hierarchy clergy gradually took on the form of
episkopos (overseers, bishops),
presbyters (
elders), and then
deacons (servants). A hierarchy within Pauline Christianity seems to have developed by the late 1st century and early second century. (see
Pastoral Epistles, c. 90–140 While Clement and
New Testament writers use the terms
overseer and
elder interchangeably, an episcopal structure becomes more visible in the second century.
Roger Haight posits the development of ecclesiology in the form of "Early Catholicism" as one response to the problem of church unity. Thus, the solution to division arising from heterodox teaching was the development of "tighter and more standardized structures of ministry. One of these structures is the tri-partite form of church leadership consisting of
episkopoi (overseers);
presbyteroi (elders), as was the case with Jewish communities; and
diakonoi (ministerial servants). Presbyters were ordained and assisted the bishop; as Christianity spread, especially in rural areas, the presbyters exercised more responsibilities and took distinctive shape as priests. Deacons also performed certain duties, such as tending to the poor and sick. Much of the official organizing of the
ecclesiastical structure was done by the bishops of the church. This tradition of clarification can be seen as established by the Apostolic Fathers, who were bishops themselves. The
Catholic Encyclopedia argues that although evidence is scarce in the second century, the
primacy of the Church of Rome is asserted by Irenaeus of Lyon's document
Against Heresies (AD 189). In response to second century
Gnostic teaching, Irenaeus created the first known document considered to be describing
apostolic succession, including the immediate successors of Peter and Paul:
Linus,
Anacleutus,
Clement,
Evaristus,
Alexander, and
Sixtus. The
Catholic Church considers these men to be the first
popes, through whom later popes would claim authority. In apostolic succession, a bishop becomes the spiritual successor of the previous bishop in a line tracing back to the apostles themselves. Over the course of the second century, this organizational structure became universal and continues to be used in the
Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican (Anglican churches are Protestant) churches as well as in some Protestant denominations.
Important Church centers Jerusalem was an important church center up to 135. It had the prestige of being the city of
Jesus's death and reported resurrection, and was the center of the
Apostolic Age, but it experienced decline during the years of the
Jewish–Roman wars (66-135). The First Council of Nicaea recognized and confirmed the tradition by which Jerusalem continued to be given "special honour", but did not assign to it even metropolitan authority within its own province, still less the extraprovincial jurisdiction exercised by Rome and the other sees mentioned above.
Constantinople came into prominence only after the early Christian period, being founded officially in 330, five years after the First Council of Nicaea, though the much smaller original city of
Byzantium was an early center of Christianity largely due to its proximity to
Anatolia. The community and seat of the
patriarchate according to Orthodox tradition was founded by
St Peter and then given to St.
Ignatius, in what is now Turkey.
Rome and the Papacy from a
Roman mosaic in the church of
Santa Pudenziana in Rome, c. 410 AD
Irenaeus of Lyon believed in the
second century that
Peter and
Paul had been the founders of the Church in Rome and had appointed
Linus as succeeding
bishop. The four
Eastern patriarchs affirmed
Saint Peter's ministry and death in Rome and the
apostolic succession of Roman bishops. However, they perceived this as a mark of honor rather than an overarching authority over belief and practices, as they still considered themselves to be the final authorities in their own regions, see for example
Metropolitan bishops and
Pentarchy, yet still under the overall guidance of the bishop of Rome. Other patriarchs did turn to Rome for support in settling disputes, but they also wrote to other influential patriarchs for support in the same fashion. Outside of a few notable exceptions, the body of literature left from this period, and even as late as the 5th and 6th centuries, is said by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig to illustrate the generally limited scope of the Roman bishops' authority but acknowledged the authority nonetheless. William Kling states that by the end of second century that Rome was a significant, if not unique,
early center of Christianity, but held no convincing
claim to primacy. The
Petrine proof text first occurs historically in a dispute between
Cyprian of Carthage and
Pope Stephen. A bishop from
Caesarea named
Firmilian sided with Cyprian in his dispute, seething against Stephen's "insulting arrogance" and claims of authority based on the
See of Peter. Cyprian's argument won out the day, with Pope Stephen's claims meeting rejection. Cyprian's claim was that bishops held the
keys to the forgiveness of sins, with all bishops being the successors of Saint Peter.
Jerome later took up the argument for the
primacy of the Roman bishop in the
5th century, a position adopted by
Pope Leo I. By the end of the early Christian period, the church within the Roman Empire had hundreds of bishops, some of them (Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, "other provinces") holding some form of jurisdiction over others. ==Development of the Christian Canon==