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Constantine and the Council of Nicaea (8 of 8)
Two accounts of the vision that do not match, one contested Greek word, and a council that settled less than people think. What Nicaea decided and left open.
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What Was Diocletian’s Great Persecution? (7 of 8)
Forty years of open growth, then the worst persecution the church faced. It ended with an exhausted emperor conceding the policy failed, and a lasting schism.
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The Decian Persecution and the Lapsed (6 of 8)
The edict was a loyalty oath, not an anti-Christian measure, and it lasted eighteen months. The fight over what to do with those who broke lasted far longer.
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Tertullian, Perpetua, and Origen Explained (5 of 8)
The man who gave the West its trinitarian vocabulary and then left the church, a prison diary by a young mother, and the most brilliant scholar of the age.
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Who Was Irenaeus and Against Heresies? (4 of 8)
A bishop wrote five books because a friend asked how to answer the Valentinians. The three public answers he gave, and the one argument he got badly wrong.
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Who Were the Gnostics and What Did They Teach? (3 of 8)
Not a rival religion but a reinterpretation from inside, claiming to be the real Christianity. Marcion, Valentinus, Montanus, and what each one actually taught.
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Who Were the Early Church Apologists? (2 of 8)
Justin Martyr wrote to the emperor asking to be judged on conduct rather than on a name. What the apologists argued, and the trial transcript that survives.
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The Church After the Apostles: AD 100-130 (1 of 8)
The generation that had known the apostles and then buried them. Ignatius on the way to his execution, Polycarp at the stake, and the first use of catholic.