Early Christianity and Its Doctrinal Developments

Christianity was born in a philosophically dance and interconnected world. The scuffles and ideological rifts of the religion's first seven centuries were ultimately a set of calisthenics that forged the church's doctrines. Gnosticism, which we'll have a full episode about, seems to have been a major sticking point. Tertullians, against Marcian and Origen's later against Celsus, took the arguments of their rivals seriously. But as we'll see in the next few episodes, especially on Gnosticism and Manicchaeism, the alternate forms of Christianity might easily have become mainstream had it not been for theological debate.