Christianity in the ante-Nicene period

See also: Christianity in the 4th century
Main article: History of Christianity
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Funerary stele of Licinia Amias on marble, in the National Roman Museum. One of the earliest Christian inscriptions found, it comes from the early third-century Vatican necropolis area in Rome. Upper tier: dedication to the Dis Manibus and Christian motto in Greek letters ΙΧΘΥϹ ΖΩΝΤΩΝ (Ikhthus zōntōn, "fish of the living", a predecessor of the Ichthys symbol); middle tier: depiction of fish and an anchor; lower tier: Latin inscription of the identity of the deceased LICINIAE FAMIATI BE / NE MERENTI VIXIT.

Christianity in the ante-Nicene period was the time in Christian history up to the First Council of Nicaea. This article covers the period following the Apostolic Age of the first century, c. 100 AD, to Nicaea in 325 AD.

The second and third centuries saw a sharp divorce of Christianity from its early roots. There was an explicit rejection of then-modern Judaism and Jewish culture by the end of the second century, with a growing body of adversus Judaeos literature. Fourth- and fifth-century Christianity experienced pressure from the government of the Roman Empire and developed strong episcopal and unifying structure. Many variations in this era defy neat categorizations, as various forms of Christianity interacted in a complex fashion.[1] One variation was proto-orthodoxy which became the international Great Church and in this period was defended by the Apostolic Fathers. This was the tradition of Pauline Christianity, which placed importance on the death of Jesus as saving humanity, and described Jesus as God come to Earth. Another major school of thought was Gnostic Christianity, which placed importance on the wisdom of Jesus saving humanity, and described Jesus as a human who became divine through knowledge.[2]

While the Jewish Christian church was centered in Jerusalem in the first century, Gentile Christianity became decentralized in the second century.[3] Various local and provincial ancient church councils were held during this period, with the decisions meeting varying degrees of acceptance by different Christian groups. Major figures of the second century who were later declared by the developing proto-orthodoxy to be heretics were Marcion, Valentinus, and Montanus.

Although the use of the term Christian is attested in the Acts of the Apostles (80–90 AD), the earliest recorded use of the term Christianity (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) is by Ignatius of Antioch about 107 AD.[4][5]

  1. ^ Siker (2000). pp. 232–234.
  2. ^ The Diversity of Early Christianity
  3. ^ Langan, The Catholic Tradition (1998), pp.55, 115
  4. ^ Walter Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon
  5. ^ Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Magnesians 10, Letter to the Romans (Roberts-Donaldson tr., Lightfoot tr., Greek text)