IN RECENT YEARS, historians of early Christianity have been engaging a running debate on whether we can speak of a standard Christianity in the first centuries of our era or whether there was initially a variety of Christianities on a par, of which one 'Catholic' Christianity prevailed. In this case what were the factors that led to its emergence and the gradual disappearance of its rivals? Is it right to speak of orthodoxy and heresy in the early Church or was orthodoxy merely an imposition by some prevalent faction? How did the Church in the first centuries of its existence resolve her...
IN RECENT YEARS, historians of early Christianity have been engaging a running debate on whether we can speak of a standard Christianity in the fir...
