Dr Paul Allen

By the end of the first century or early in the second century, all of the texts that now make up the New Testament had been written. As early as AD 95 or 96, Clement of Rome alludes to multiple passages in the New Testament, though he does not name them as scripture yet (that is a title still reserved for the Old Testament at this point).  In the mid-second century, St. Justin Martyr refers to the gospels as the “memoirs of the apostles” in his First Apology , and in the famous text Against Heresies of St. Irenaeus (c. 180), the saint firmly proclaims the authority of the four gospels. At the same time, a number of other texts were circulated amongst the nascent Christian community. There are really two categories of texts outside of the canon of Scripture . First, texts whose teachings were accepted in whole or in part as edifying for the Christian community but ultimately deemed outside of the core texts which became the New Testament, and second, texts that were cons...

Even in heresy there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV) The false teachings that spring up in and around the church remain much the same. Instead of turning to Christ ’s atoning works, many have sought to save themselves by discovering some secret knowledge. In the early church, it appeared in a group of heresies called Gnosticism (gnosis is a Greek word meaning “knowledge”). Before the founding of the church, some form of Gnosticism apparently existed. When John wrote his first epistle, he struck a blow at this false teaching. Yet it still had a following in the second century. We know little about Irenaeus , the man who opposed Gnosticism in the latter part of the second century. He was probably born in Asia Minor in about 125. Active trading between Asia Minor and Gaul had allowed Christians to bring their faith to Gaul, where they had established a vigorous church in the chief city, Lyons. While he served as an elder in Lyons, Irenaeus lived up to ...

Church Fathers, a miniature from Svyatoslav's Miscellany (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The word “eucharist” means “thanksgiving” and was an early Christian way of referring to the celebration of the Lord’s Table . Believers in the early centuries of church history regularly celebrated the Lord’s Table as a way to commemorate the death of Christ. The Lord Himself commanded this observance on the night before His death. As the apostle Paul recorded in 1 Corinthians 11:23–26: For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. ...

The believers from the City of Rome were solemn. Under persecution, many Christians had been killed at various times. "Witnesses," they called these martyrs. The bodies of two witnesses who died in exile had c Image via Wikipedia ome home  on this day, August 13, 236. When Maximinus Thrax was Roman emperor, he exiled Pontianus and Hippolytus to the island of Sardinia where they probably slaved in the mines.  There they died, but now their remains had been brought back for a decent burial. Pontianus, who had been Bishop of Rome until his exile, was laid in the tomb of Callistus, an earlier Bishop of Rome (they would come to be known as popes, from the Italian for "father").  Hippolytus, who had also been a bishop in or near Rome, was buried somewhere along the Tiburtine Road. Of the two, Hippolytus' story is more interesting because we know next to nothing about Pontianus.  Hippolytus was the most important theologian of the Roman Church up to...