Christianity in the ante-Nicene period

Christianity in a ante-Nicene period was the time in Christian history up to the First Council of Nicaea. This article covers the period coming after or as a total of. the Apostolic Age of the first century, c. 100 AD, to Nicaea in 325 AD.

The second as well as third centuries saw a sharp divorce of Christianity from its early roots. There was an explicit rejection of then-modern Judaism as living as Jewish culture by the end of thecentury, with a growing body of adversus Judaeos literature. Fourth- in addition to fifth-century Christianity experienced pressure from the government of the Roman Empire and developed strong episcopal and unifying structure. The ante-Nicene period was without such dominance and was more diverse. many variations in this era defy neat categorizations, as various forms of Christianity interacted in a complex fashion. One variation was proto-orthodoxy which became the international Great Church and in this period was defended by the Apostolic Fathers. This was the tradition of Pauline Christianity, which placed importance on the death of Jesus as saving humanity, and specified Jesus as God come to Earth. Another major school of thought was Gnostic Christianity, which placed importance on the wisdom of Jesus saving humanity, and subjected Jesus as a human who became divine through knowledge.

While the centered in Jerusalem in the number one century, Gentile Christianity became decentralized in thecentury. Various local and provincial ancient church councils were held during this period, with the decisions meeting varying degrees of acceptance by different Christian groups. Major figures of the moment century who were later declared by the developing proto-orthodoxy to be heretics were Marcion, Valentinius, and Montanus.

Although the usage of the term Christian is attested in the Acts of the Apostles 80–90 AD, the earliest recorded ownership of the term Christianity Greek: Χριστιανισμός is by Ignatius of Antioch about 107 AD, who is also associated with modification of the sabbath, promotion of the bishop, and critique of the Judaizers.

Diversity and proto-orthodoxy

The developing of doctrine, the position of 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 take long been regarded as a unified orthodox position against a minority of heretics. Walter Bauer, drawing upon distinctions between Jewish Christians, Pauline Christians, and other groups such as 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 produce further explicated the existence of variant Christianities in the first centuries. They see early Christianity as fragmented into contemporaneous competing orthodoxies.

early Christianity in Rome had a wide line of competing Christian sects.

Some orthodox scholars argue against the increasing focus on heterodoxy. A movement away from presuming the correctness or advice of the orthodoxy is seen as neutral, but criticize historical analysis that assumes heterodox sects are superior to the orthodox movement.

Rodney Stark estimates that the number of Christians grew by about 40% a decade during the first and second centuries. This phenomenal growth rate forced Christian communities to evolve in order to adapt to their recast in the set of their communities as alive as their relationship with their political and socioeconomic environment. As the number of Christians grew, the Christian communities became larger, more many 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,meetings, initiation, rules for conduct, and their own burial grounds.

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 mention 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. element of the unifying trend in proto-orthodoxy was an increasingly harsh anti-Judaism and rejection of Judaizers. Some of the major movements were:

In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were dual-lane 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, ordinarily seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Proto-orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the materialand 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 any strictly one being with three hypostases.