Introduction

Traditional views of the history of christianity often trace it to basic structures of creed, canon and clerical authority. i suggest that this is problematic since neither nicene view of jesus as god made man nor fixed collection of writings achieved anything like general consensus until 405 years after jesuss death. Leaders later called fathers of the church devoted enormous energy for decades of their lives contending against christians they called heretics. The early centuries were by no means a golden age free from controversy. That is why we particularly appreciate the work of professor mc cullock.