Issue 51

Remarkable or little-known facts about heresy in the early church

What exactly happened at the famous Council of Nicea, when the Roman emperor convened some 250 quarreling Christian bishops?

The champion of orthodoxy on why the Word became flesh.

A quick summary of the competing schools of thought.

A lot of mistakes were made before the church figured out how best to describe Jesus Christ.

Key portions of the church’s most important theological statement

How the earliest church decided Marcion and the Gnostics, among others, were wrong.

When some early Christians said they had secret apostolic teaching, one church father said, “Not likely.”

The mixed motives and odd teachings of four notorious heretics

He created controversy when he tried to explain the gospel in terms his culture could grasp.

In the Montanist controversy, did the church reject heresy or the Holy Spirit?

It wasn’t just what Christians believed but also how they lived that concerned early church teachers.

The hard, technical, theological work on Christ was essentially a 400-year Bible study.