Examples of heterodox opinions that were circulating in the early 2nd century include Docetism, Marcionism, and Gnosticism.

Marcionism is discussed in recent textbooks on early Christianity, such as Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman.

In the early church there were a number of factions that felt the coming of Jesus had brought about a rejection of the Old Testament, these included the followers of Simon Magus, Marcionism, Gnosticism, Montanism, Manichaeism, and others.

See also Biblical law in Christianity, Antinomianism, Progressive revelation ( Christian ), and Marcionism.

He fought voraciously against Marcionism, and considered Greek philosophy to be incompatible with Christian wisdom.

Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144 ( see also Christianity in the 2nd century ).

Indeed, the word Marcionism has sometimes been used in modern times to refer to anti-Jewish tendencies in Christian churches, especially when such tendencies have been thought to be surviving residues of ancient Marcionism.

* Marcion of Sinope is excommunicated ; a sect, Marcionism, grows out of his beliefs.

Marcionism, similar to Gnosticism, depicted the Hebrew God of the Old Testament as a tyrant or demiurge ( see also God as the Devil ).

The premise of Marcionism is that many of the teachings of Christ are incompatible with the actions of the God of the Old Testament.

Marcionism shows the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on Christianity, and presents a moral critique of the Old Testament from the standpoint of Platonism.

Some emphasized this latter position so strongly that the Anabaptists were at times accused of rejecting the Old Testament ( Marcionism ).

According to this view, Marcion eliminated the first two chapters of Luke concerning the nativity, and began his gospel at Capernaum making modifications to the remainder suitable to Marcionism.

By the reign of emperor Commodus Marcionism was divided into various opinions with various leaders ; among whom was Apelles, whom Rhodo describes as: "... priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledges one principle, but says that the prophecies are from an opposing principle, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene, who was possessed by a demon ".

The tradition they represent holds the Jewish Scriptures to be inspired by God ( against Marcionism ) and holds that the Jewish prophets point to the actual flesh and blood of Jesus through which both Jew and Gentile are saved.

His canon was increasingly rejected by other groups of Christians, notably the proto-orthodox Christians, as was his theology, Marcionism.

* Marcion of Sinope, theologian and founder of Marcionism ( d. 160 )

He also actively opposed the Gnostics and Marcionism.

However, Marcionism conceptualizes God in a way which cannot be reconciled with broader Gnostic thought.

Marcionism, though technically not gnostic, rejected the Hebrew Bible in its entirety.

Marcionism was denounced by its opponents as heresy, and written against, notably by Tertullian, in a five-book treatise Adversus Marcionem, written about 208.

Even so, many scholars ( including Henry Wace ) claim it is possible to reconstruct and deduce a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion.

According to Tertullian and other writers of the mainstream Church ( which scholars refer to as Proto-orthodox Christianity ), the movement known as Marcionism began with the teachings and excommunication of Marcion around 144.

That revolution, along with other Jewish-Roman wars ( the Great Jewish Revolt and the Kitos War ), provides some of the historical context of the founding of Marcionism ; see also Anti-Judaism in the Roman Empire.

Marcionism continued in the West for 300 years, although Marcionistic ideas persisted much longer.

Mead claimed Marcionism makes certain points of contact with Gnosticism in its view that the creator of the material world is not the true deity, rejection of materialism and affirmation of a transcendent, purely good spiritual realm in opposition to the evil physical realm, the belief Jesus was sent by the " True " God to save humanity, the central role of Jesus in revealing the requirements of salvation, the belief Paul had a special place in the transmission of this " wisdom ", and its docetism.

Historic Marcionism, and the church Marcion himself established, appeared to die out around the 5th century, although similarities between Marcionism and Paulicianism, a later heresy in the same geographical area, indicate that Marcionist ideas may have survived and even contributed to heresies in Bulgaria and France.

See also Antinomianism and Marcionism and The Law of Christ.

Kent and Story, the great early American scholars, repeatedly made use of this phrase, or of `` Christian nations '', which is a substantial equivalent.

We are concerned not with the genus communism nor with other species of the genus: Platonic, Stoic, early Christian, monastic, canonist or theological communism ; ;

Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a severe illness, as was common in the early Christian world.

Many Christian denominations have been influenced by Arminian views, notably the Baptists ( See A History of the Baptists Third Edition by Robert G. Torbet ) in the 16th century, the Methodists, the Congregationalists of the early New England colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries and the Universalists and Unitarians in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It has been noted that Ambrose's theology was significantly influenced by that of Origen and Didymus the Blind, two other early Christian universalists.

The Nordendorf fibula ( early 7th century ) clearly records pagan theonyms, logaþorewodanwigiþonar read as " Wodan and Donar are magicians / sorcerers ", but this may be interpreted as either a pagan invocation of the powers of these deities, or a Christian protective charm against them.

The Lesbian or Aeolic school of poetry " reached in the songs of Sappho and Alcaeus that high point of brilliancy to which it never after-wards approached " and it was assumed by later Greek critics and during the early centuries of the Christian era that the two poets were in fact lovers, a theme which became a favourite subject in art ( as in the urn pictured above ).

), Anatho ( Isidore Charax ), Anatha ( Ammianus Marcellinus ) by Greek and Latin writers in the early Christian centuries, Ana ( sometimes, as if plural, Anat ) by Arabic writers.

Most, however, interpret the genre as epic stories of early Christian miracles and conversions.

A number of at least partly neo-Assyrian kingdoms existed in the area between in the late classical and early Christian period also ; Adiabene, Hatra and Osroene.

Other early Christian writers wrote about Atlantis, though they had mixed views on whether it once existed or was an untrustworthy myth of pagan origin.

The early Christian apologist writer Arnobius also believed Atlantis once existed but blamed its destruction on pagans.

This lineage of ordination is traceable, according to " apostolic " churches, to the original Twelve Apostles, thus making the Church the continuation of the early Apostolic Christian community.

Most Protestants deny the need for this type of continuity and the historical claims involved have been severely questioned ; Eric Jay comments that the account given of the emergence of the episcopate in chapter III of Lumen Gentium " is very sketchy, and many ambiguities in the early history of the Christian ministry are passed over " Their reasons are given in detail below.

Titus was an early Christian leader, a companion of Saint Paul, mentioned in several of the Pauline epistles.

They found the baptistry of the 6th century cathedral and large amounts of pottery dated to the 6th and 7th centuries AD ; in other words, the early Christian town.

This is the only evidence so far of a Roman city continuous with the early Christian one.

** Arian controversy, several controversies which divided the early Christian church

"), the concept of the Virgin Birth of Jesus had not been developed or elucidated at the time of the writing of this early Christian text.

It is now accepted by most scholars that the Arian Party was not a monolithic group, holding drastically different theological views that spanned the early Christian theological spectrum.

The Apostles ' Creed ( Latin: Symbolum Apostolorum or Symbolum Apostolicum ), sometimes titled Symbol of the Apostles, is an early statement of Christian belief, a creed or " symbol ".

Because of the early origin of its original form, it does not address some Christological issues defined in the later Nicene and other Christian Creeds.

There is a third view that sees merit in both arguments above and attempts to bridge them, and so cannot be articulated as starkly as they can ; it sees more than one Christianity and more than one attitude towards paganism at work in the poem, separated from each other by hundreds of years ; it sees the poem as originally the product of a literate Christian author with one foot in the pagan world and one in the Christian, himself a convert perhaps or one whose forbears had been pagan, a poet who was conversant in both oral and literary milieus and was capable of a masterful " repurposing " of poetry from the oral tradition ; this early Christian poet saw virtue manifest in a willingness to sacrifice oneself in a devotion to justice and in an attempt to aid and protect those in need of help and greater safety ; good pagan men had trodden that noble path and so this poet presents pagan culture with equanimity and respect ; yet overlaid upon this early Christian poet's composition are verses from a much later reformist " fire-and-brimstone " Christian poet who vilifies pagan practice as dark and sinful and who adds satanic aspects to its monsters.