Looking for key people in early Christianity, 100 CE to 300 CE

[TechBear_Seattle]

I'm working on a project which involves writing about people who had a profound influence on the development of Christianity very early on. I start with Jesus and Paul, of course, but the next names I have are Constantine and Augustine of Hippo, about 300 years latter.

If I were to pick three or four people during that 300 year period who helped shape Christianity from a revolutionary Jewish movement to the widespread, powerful and very diverse movement which caught Constantine's attention, who would you suggest?

[ananda]

1. Go into the struggles over doctrine and heresy.

Key figures are Augustine, Pelagius, and Arius.

Sue

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. They all lived about the same time as Constantine

Yes they had a profound influence: the often violent confrontations between followers of Arius and Alexander is what prompted Constantine to call the Nicene Council to decide what is and is not Christianity, and Arianism would be the target of several subsequent Councils over the centuries.

I'm more interested in teachers, writers and theologians who lived between 100 CE and 300 CE, after Paul but before Constantine.

[Redbear]

3. I would go with Clement and Origen

Both wrote during that time period.

Two other good choices would be Ignatius and Cyprian.

[trotsky]

5. Origen, that's who I was trying to think of. I second him. n/t

[trotsky]

4. Eusebius? (263-339 CE) n/t

[Bob Dobbs]

7. This is a good translation of Eusebius' "Early History of the Church"

http://www.amazon.com/History-Church-Constantine-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140445358/ref=cm_lmf_tit_13

[LibertyLover]

6. These are some of the ones that I can think of without looking at a history book -

Tertullian, John Chrystostrum, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria. For some of the leaders of groups that didn't make it or were stamped out, check out Marcion of Sinope and Montanus. I may be Wiccan, but I am fascinated with early Church history. Have fun.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. Montanus looks very interesting

I read about the movement he started some years ago, but forgot the people who started it. Basically, Montanus preached in Asia Minor starting around 160 CE. His doctrine was essentially Pentecostalism, ie where God would literally posess believers and speak through them. The movement lasted for centuries before it was finally stamped out.

Here is the Wikipedia article for Montanus.

[LibertyLover]

11. What I found fascinating about Montanus and Montanism

is that women had such a major part, like Prisca and Maximilla. And that Tertullian, who had been such a stalwart defender of orthodoxy, converted to Montanism. Early Christianity is fascinating. Have you read "When Women Were Priests"? If not, you might want to check it out as well. Although there are a few more scholarly books on women, Early Christianity and home churches, "When Women Were Priests" does a reasonably good job of synthesizing the information.

[On the Road]

9. For Second Century Figures,

you might consider Justin Martyr and Tertullian, both apologists for what became the othodox side.

Among heterodox figures, Marcion and Valeninius (who was a pope) are often referred to as gnostics, however that term is defined.

Arius (late 3rd and early 4th C) was an extremely influential figure, othodox in most ways except for his belief that Jesus was neither fully God nor fully human. The disputes with his orthodox opponent, Athanasius, strongly shaped the wording of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. The Aryan-Athanasian dispute was THE hot issue of Constantine's era, and might fit in well if you're ending with Constantine.

Your desire to describe figures who "shaped" Christianity can be seen as being at odds with its being a "diverse" movement. Attempts to shape Christianity generally came by suppressing diversity. It may sound picky, but it might be worthwhile to point out.

[knitter4democracy]

10. Look to the early saints.

St. James, for one, the first bishop of Jerusalem. St. Photini, the woman at the well who became a missionary and was martyred along with her three children. St. Thomas, who took the Gospel to India and was martyred there.

Look up the first councils, too. Those who were martyred under Diocletian. Read Acts and get names from there and follow them.

A good resource on saints:
http://oca.org/FSlives.asp?SID=4

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. A bit more about this project

I'm working with a friend to write a historical novel about Jesus; not the Jesus of the Gospels but the man. If it sells, he'd like to write other historical novels about key people in the early Christian movement who turned Joshua's charismatic but otherwise indistinguished movement into the force it would become five centuries latter. I'm going to suggest focusing on these people, as I think they can be worked up into two trilogies.The names are also the working titles.

Joshua ben Josef - Following the basic outline of the Luke's gospel. This sets the stage of the man who was latter considered to be God.

Saul of Tarsus - Starting with his marriage through his conversion, mission and martyrdom. Covers the transition of Joshua's movement from one of many Jewish religious-political associations to one dominated by Gentiles.

Montanus of Phrygia - Montanus started a movement very similar to the Pentecostal movement of the 19th and 20th century, based firmly on the belief that the Holy Spirit still spoke to believers as He did to the Apostles. This book looks at how Christianity ceased to be a tradition of inspiration and became one of dogma.


Origen the Egyptian - Origen was one of the first major Christian theologians and was originally praised as a saint but latter, due largely to extremist views of his followers, came to be viewed as a heretic and apostate. This story would be about the development of Christian Gnosticism, the explosion of different doctrines of Christianity and how Joshua ben Josef became Jesus Christ.

Arius of Alexandria - Arius was one of the leading bishops of his day and the chief opponent to the doctrine of the Trinity. This book would focus on the rivalry between Arius and Athanasius, who expounded two doctrines that would be at odds with one another for the next thousand years.

Constantine, Imperator - The rise of Constantine, his interest in Christianity, the events which led to his calling the Council of Nicea and the aftermath of efforts to create and enforce orthodoxy. The story starts with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge through his death, the civil war of Constantine II and the rise and fall of Julian the Apostate, Constantine's half-brother and the last pagan emperor.


Thanks for the input. :hi:

[knitter4democracy]

15. What about the women?

St. Lydia, St. Thecla, St. Helen (St. Constantine's mom and the real force for Christianizing the Roman empire--she also found the Cross), St. Photini. There are so many more. Why not them, too?

[TechBear_Seattle]

16. Oh, they'll be in there

We've been discussing about there being three rival groups, at least through the first trilogy: the group established by John the Baptist, the group led first by the Apostles and which becomes "mainstream" Christianity, and the group led by Mary Magdalene. While the first two are male dominated, Mary's group (as one might expect) will have a more egalitarian leadership philosophy and will have a number of prominent women, both legendary and made-up for the purposes of telling the story. Lydia and Thecla play minor roles in Paul's story, but Helena will figure prominently in Constantine's story.

[knitter4democracy]

17. So, again, the women are relegated to the sidelines.

*sigh* Same thing as everywhere else, really, even though they were church leaders. Lydia headed up a church, for crying out loud, and Thecla has an amazing story, but the men, the ones who wrote the stories down in the first place, will again get all the glory.

Mary Magdalene and the Gnostics weren't the only powerful women in the early church, btw.

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. We have to pick and chose which stories we tell

I do not mean to diminish the importance of Lydia, Priscilla or any of the other women involved in the early church. However, one of the first rules of writing novels is to narrow the plot to just what is necessary to tell your story. Many of these women will be present -- Lydia was one of Paul's early converts, a wealthy merchant who headed her own household, while Priscilla and her husband Aquila were prominent among Paul's supporters, so it would be impossible to tell his story without telling theirs as well. Thecla, like many early martyrs, is almost certainly legend rather than history, but we will probably create a "real" version of her upon whom the latter legends will rest.

As for Helena, it may very well be that the last book of the second trilogy will focus on her rather than Constantine, as she was alive for most of the story while Constantine dies about two thirds of the way through our planned story arc. Whether or not that trilogy even gets written, though, will depend a lot on how the first book is received; it may well piss off so many Talibangelicals that subsequent books will find no publisher.

You seem to feel very strongly about the women of the early Christian movement. Have you considered being the one to tell their stories?

[knitter4democracy]

19. I have thought about it.

I didn't even know St. Photini's name growing up in an evangelical church. She was just "the woman at the well." I didn't know the church not only knew her name but her kids' names and what she did as a missionary and how she died. I guess it figures--if you're in a sola scriptura church, you don't know of all the extra-Biblical stories and traditions that the Church has remembered.

St. Helen is quite the formidable woman. She travelled by herself to the Holy Land when it really wasn't okay to do so. Very interesting woman.

[dtotire]

13. You might consider this book

Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett Clement of Rome, Igntiua of Lyons, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius of Antioch. covers first two centuries.

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Witnesses-Early-Church-Words/dp/0898708478/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Thanks to an informal Lenten course that I took this past winter, I have some names

for you: Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp.

You can find their writings in a book Early Christian Fathers by Cyril C. Richardson, available as a free PDF download from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, sponsored by Calvin College, an evangelical college, but you don't have to be an evangelical (I'm not) to use it, although you do have to register your name and e-mail address. Nobody's sent me any tracts by e-mail, so there seems to be no danger in registering. :-)