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Was “The Early Church” Really “The Early Church” or Like Your Church?

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]

Eusebius and later historians wrote about the “heresies,” whose proponents were portrayed as the enemies of the “true orthodox” Christianity.  Read the complete article at -- http://fromonejesus.blogspot.com/2013/11/was-early-church-really-early-church-or.html

[i] A History of Christianity; By Paul Johnson © 1976; Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, NY; p. 43

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