Period Iii The Critical Period


The interval between the close of the post-apostolic age and the end of

the second century, or from about 140 to 200, may be called the Critical

Period of Ancient Christianity. In this period there grew up conceptions

of Christianity which were felt by the Church, as a whole, to be

fundamentally opposed to its essential spirit and to constitute a serious

menace to the Christian faith as it had been commonly received. These
/> conceptions, which grew up both alongside of, and within the Church, have

been grouped under the term Gnosticism, a generic term including many

widely divergent types of teaching and various interpretations of

Christian doctrine in the light of Oriental speculation. There were also

reactionary and reformatory movements which were generally felt to be out

of harmony with the development upon which Christian thought and life had

already entered; such were Montanism and Marcionism. To overcome these

tendencies and movements the Christian churches in the various parts of

the Roman Empire were forced, on the one hand, to develop more completely

such ecclesiastical institutions as would defend what was commonly

regarded as the received faith, and, on the other hand, to pass from a

condition in which the various Christian communities existed in isolated

autonomy to some form of organization whereby the spiritual unity of the

Church might become visible and better able to strengthen the several

members of that Church in dealing with theological and administrative

problems. The Church, accordingly, acquired in the Critical Period the

fundamental form of its creed, as an authoritative expression of belief;

the episcopate, as a universally recognized essential of Church

organization and a defence of tradition; and its canon of Holy Scripture,

at least in fundamentals, as the authoritative primitive witness to the

essential teachings of the Church. It also laid the foundations of the

conciliar system, and the bonds of corporate unity between the scattered

communities of the Church were defined and recognized. At the same time,

the Church developed in its conflict with heathenism an apologetic

literature, and in its conflict with heresy a polemical literature, in

which are to be found the beginnings of its theology or scientific

statement of Christian truth. Of this theology two lines of development

are to be traced: one a utilization of Greek philosophy which arose from

the Logos doctrine of the Apologists, and the other a realistic doctrine

of redemption which grew out of the Asia Minor type of Christian teaching,

traces of which are to be found in Ignatius of Antioch.



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