Historian
Paul Johnson made an important observation about “Early Christianity”:
Yet what was Christian heresy? And, for
that matter, what was the Church? Most of our knowledge of early Christian
history comes from the writings of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth
century, Eusebius was in many ways a conscientious historian, and he had access
to multitudes of sources, which have since disappeared. But he believed, and
was therefore concerned to demonstrate by his presentation of the evidence,
that a Christian Church, vested with the plenitude of Christ’s teaching, and
with divine authority to uphold it, had been ordained by Jesus right at the
beginning, and had then been solidly established by the first generation of
apostles. Moreover, it had triumphantly survived the attempts of various
heretics to tamper with the truth it passed on intact from generation to
generation. This view is a
reconstruction for ideological purposes . . . He wanted to show that the Church
he represented had always constituted the mainstream of Christianity, both in
organization and faith. The truth is very different. [i]
[i] A
History of Christianity;
By Paul Johnson © 1976; Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, NY; p. 43
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