Christianity in the 2nd century

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Helpful Definitions:

• Acts: The activities of the disciples after Jesus's death.
• Epistles: Letters written by Christian leaders to other Christians.
• Apocalypse: A revelation concerning the end of the world in a cataclysmic act of God.
• Apocryphon: Greek term for a genre of Jewish and Early Christian writings that were meant to impart "secret teachings" or gnosis (knowledge) that could not be publicly taught.

Christianity in the 2nd Century

• Early Church: 2nd-3rd Centuries (Internet Ancient History Sourcebook)
• CH101 - The Second Century
• What Was a Church Service Like in the Second Century
• The Diversity of Early Christianity
  From the beginning, early Christians struggled to define for themselves the identity of Jesus and the meaning of his message.
• Gentile Christianity of the Second Century
• Christianity in the Second and Third Century A.D.
• Christianity in the 2nd Century (Wikipedia)
  Christianity in the 2nd century was largely the time of the Apostolic Fathers who were the students of the apostles of Jesus, though there is some overlap as John the Apostle may have survived into the 2nd century and Clement of Rome is said to have died at the end of the 1st century. While the Christian church was centered in Jerusalem in the 1st century, it became decentralized in the 2nd century....
• Key Players in the 2nd Century Christianity (Wikipedia)
• Apologetists
  In the face of criticism from Greek philosophers and facing persecution, Apologetists wrote to justify and defend Christian doctrine.
• Justin Martyr (c. 100 – 165 AD)
• Tatian the Assyrian (c. 120–180 AD)
• Athenagoras of Athens ca. (133 – 190)
• Apostolic Fathers
  The Apostolic Fathers are a small number of Early Christian authors who lived and wrote in the second half of the 1st century and the first half of the 2nd century.... They are acknowledged as leaders in the early church, although their writings were not included in the New Testament.
• Clement of Rome
• Ignatius of Antioch
• Polycarp of Smyrna
• author of the Didache
• author of the Shepherd of Hermas
• Greek Fathers
  Those who wrote in Greek are called the Greek Church Fathers. Famous Greek Fathers of 2nd century (other than the Apostolic Fathers) include: Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria.
• Irenaeus (early 2nd century–c.202)
• Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215)
• Latin Fathers
  Church Fathers who wrote in Latin are called the Latin Church Fathers. Tertullian was the first Latin Father and only well known such father of the 2nd century.
• Tertullian (c.160–c.225 AD)
• Early Christian heresies (Wikipedia)
  In the middle of the 2nd century, three unorthodox groups of Christians adhered to a range of doctrines that divided the Christian communities of Rome: the teacher Marcion; the pentecostal outpourings of ecstatic Christian prophets of a continuing revelation, in a movement that was called "Montanism" because it had been initiated by Montanus and his female disciples; and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus. Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of Tertullian's Prescription Against Heretics (in 44 chapters, written from Rome), and of Irenaeus' Against Heresies (ca 180, in five volumes), written in Lyon after his return from a visit to Rome. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to various churches warned against false teachers, and the Epistle of Barnabas accepted by many Christians as part of Scripture in the 2nd century, warned about mixing Judaism with Christianity, as did other writers, leading to decisions reached in the first ecumenical council, which was convoked by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325, in response to further disruptive polemical controversy within the Christian community, in that case Arianist disputes over the nature of the Trinity.
• Early suppression of heresies (Wikipedia)
  Before 313 AD, the "heretical" nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches, and there was no true mechanism in place to resolve the various differences of beliefs.
• Christology (Wikipedia)
  The earliest controversies were generally Christological in nature; that is, they were related to Jesus' (eternal) divinity or humanity. The orthodox teaching, as it developed, is that Christ was fully divine and at the same time fully human, and that the three persons of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal.
• Ecumenical councils (Wikipedia)
  Several ecumenical councils were convened. These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes.
• Gnosticism (Wikipedia)
  Gnosticism refers to a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge, who is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God. Gnosticism is a rejection (sometimes from an ascetic perspective) and vilification of the human body and of the material world or cosmos. Gnosticism teaches duality in Material (Matter) versus Spiritual or Body (evil) versus Soul (good). Gnosticism teaches that the natural or material world will and should be destroyed (total annihilation) by the true spiritual God in order to free mankind from the reign of the false God or Demiurge.
• Gnosticism
  In the early second century a strange movement began to emerge, more strongly concentrated in Egypt, but with pockets of activity throughout the Roman world. Gnosticism was a curious synthesis of Jewish apocalypticism, Platonism, strains of pagan religions, and early Christianity. There are some indications of an early form of first century gnosticism in the NT, but nothing like what developed in the second century. Some scholars want to date various NT documents into the second century based on the apparent references to gnosticism.
• Gnostic Gospels (Wikipedia)
  The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about fifty-two ancient texts based upon the teachings of several spiritual leaders, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD.
• [annotated] List of Gnostic Heresies

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