Drift and Dissent
False teachers rose among the churches, one bishop over each city's churches became the pattern, and infant baptism appeared and was contested. Separatist churches like the Montanists and Novatianists refused the drift, though not without errors of their own.
Read in Order
Oldest first. Each entry opens its page on the church-history timeline.
c. AD 130–200 · Heresy & error · Teachers such as Basilides in Alexandria and Valentinus in Rome offered a secret knowledge that promised salvation through escape from the material world. Early Christian writers, above all Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, answered them from the Scriptures of both Testaments and the faith openly taught in congregations across the empire, insisting that the Creator is the Father of Jesus Christ.
c. AD 144 · Heresy & error · The Christians at Rome returned Marcion's large gift and separated from him. He organized rival churches with their own bishops and their own Bible: an edited Gospel of Luke and ten letters of Paul. His challenge helped prompt Christian writers to state more clearly which writings the churches had received as Scripture from the beginning.
c. AD 157 or 172 · Free churches · In rural Phrygia, a new convert named Montanus began prophesying in ecstasy, joined by the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla. They claimed that the promised Paraclete was speaking through them with new authority, called for stricter discipline, and expected the New Jerusalem to descend at Pepuza. Believers in Asia met repeatedly to test the oracles and rejected them, and catholic bishops and other writers answered the movement. The Montanist churches stood apart from the bishops' party and its growing laxity, and were later suppressed by Roman law. They were separatist churches, though not accurate in every doctrine: their claim of new authoritative prophecy was a real error.
c. AD 180 · Catholic Church · Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in Gaul, whose writings Catholic tradition counts among the church fathers, wrote five books exposing and refuting the Gnostic systems, especially the school of Valentinus. He answered them from the Scriptures of both Testaments and the rule of faith, insisting that the one God who made the world is the Father of Jesus Christ. He also appealed to the succession of bishops in churches founded by apostles, especially Rome, an argument later used to support the claims of the Roman see.
c. AD 200–253 · Catholic Church · The New Testament baptizes those who believe. The first clear evidence of baptizing young children appears around 200, when Tertullian argued against hurrying them to baptism. By about 253 a North African council under Cyprian approved baptizing newborns, as baptism came to be seen as washing away sin.
c. AD 200–220 · Heresy & error · Teachers such as Noetus, Praxeas, and Sabellius, zealous to guard God's oneness, taught that Father, Son, and Spirit are one person appearing in different modes. The writers Tertullian of Carthage and Hippolytus of Rome answered that Scripture presents three distinct persons who are one God, and Callistus, the bishop at Rome, excommunicated Sabellius around 220.
AD 251 · Free churches · After the Decian persecution, Novatian of Rome and those with him refused to restore lapsed members on easy terms and formed separate congregations. They called themselves Katharoi, the pure; older Baptist charts render the name Cathari or Puritans (not the medieval Cathars or the English Puritans). They held orthodox doctrine on the Trinity, rebaptized those who came to them from the catholic party, and lasted for centuries.
Lessons
Interactive lessons on the controversies of this era.
People and Errors of This Era
Biographies of those who shaped it, and the false teachings Christ's churches withstood.