RLG100Y1 Lecture : April 2.docx

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14 Apr 2012
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Conflict and consolidation: the development of the christian canon. Christians of the first centuries of the common era were very diverse in belief and practice; there was no one orthodoxy from which heresies deviated. Movement not well-organized at this time; loosely connected across the roman empire. Picture of diversity in early christianity a contemporary scholarly opinion about how to look at the history of early christianity comes from walter bauer, book orthodoxy and heresy in earliest. 1971) argues against the traditional understanding of the place of diversity in christianity. Traditional historiographical understanding of the place of diversity in earliest christianity goes all the way back to writers in the second and fourth centuries (hegesippus and eusebius) Eusebius bishop in caesarea wrote on church history. Eusebius" theory about the development of early christianity: orthodoxy and heresy first, diversity and heresy later, but orthodoxy and until eventually triumph. Bauer: region-by-region study of christianity turns traditional model of eusebius on its head.