As a quick comment, I see your point, but I think what worries me about it is that there is an implicit assumption that everyone within an intellectual tradition needs to agree with each other in order to consider it a tradition. I don’t think that is true at any time, but it is particularly untrue in the earliest stages of the formation of the tradition (for that matter, in the later stages of its disintegration). The question in any disagreement is not that all adherents of orthodoxy believed all the same things, but rather whether a disagreement is so severe that the parties don’t even have a common point of authority to work towards settling the controversy. Unfortunately, the line between disagrement within a tradition and an identified heresy is thin, so this makes any scholarly assessment of where a controversy falls extremly difficult.

I hope that makes sense as I’m rather tired tonight.

Phil

My caution in using terms such as “orthodox” or “proto-orthodox” to describe an entire group or several groups of early Christians is that it brings together under one heading persons who would likely disagree with one another on this or that important issue or who would have disagreements on this or that writing being excluded or included in some authoritative collection or list. Often, the group is imagined to exist across time, even generations or centuries, which imagines a higher degree of continuity than I am able to find in the sources. (Some of the ancient participants, of course, posited that their views, but not their opponents’, derived from the apostles through some continuing succession; but both sides in the battles claimed similar things or claimed that the others’ views derived from Simon Magus or some such ancestor of heresy, of poorly chosen belief).

“Orthodox” or even “proto-orthodox” is a very relative term, I would suggest, and difficult to pin on this or that person or group. While one person (or group) may view themselves as orthodox, as holding to true belief, another would think the same person (or group) was a heretic in regard to some point. As well, someone considered “orthodox” at one point may no longer be considered so later by a particular person or group, and the basis for this evaluation would be something other than something “measurable” for the historian.

So it becomes difficult for us as historians 2000 years later to decide who to group under the rubric of the scholarly term “(proto-)orthodox” Christianity, I think, even though we certainly mean something other than what participants in those battles meant. I also question the usefulness in grouping this way since, in some ways, it feels like another way of saying that some opinion won in the end and, since we like to have relatively clear explanations, we claim we can trace the ancestors of that opinion (regarding canon or whatever).

There’s much more to it than that, but at least my spontaneous comments here indicate the sorts of things that make me hesitant. Nonetheless, I still use such terms sometimes with extensive caveats, qualifications, and warnings; perhaps I shouldn’t at all, but I do understand why people do use them to attempt an explanation of one group (or group of groups) winning in the end. Such terms can be misleading in other ways though.

You may find my earlier series on the early Christian Apocrypha and diversity in early Christianity of some interest on precisely these issues (look under the category Christian origins in the right column).

Thanks again for engaging on this issue.

Phil Harland

Further, it goes without saying that any historian of early Christianity should examine the writings of non-orthodox groups. They are important sources in understanding the theological and practical debates in the Christian communities in thsi period. Ignoring them has always struck me as the historical equivilent of sticking one’s head in the sand.

Yet, what interests me in your response is your comments on orthodox or proto-orthodox groups. I’m going to refrain from commenting too much because I suspect that we might trip up on definitions here and, as a result, argue past each other. So, I’m going to restrict myself to asking you what you mean by ‘orthodox’ Christianity? I recognize your caveat about whether this is applicable term for the period we’re talking about, but I’m trying to understand your caution in accepting the existence of orthodox or proto-orthodox groups in the early centuries of Christianity.

Phil S.

I would not totally disagree with some aspects of what you are saying. In particular, there were probably a good number of Christians or Christian groups making use of, say, the gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of Luke. And Paul’s letters were among those that circulated to various groups and were used within (primarily) Gentile forms of Christianity. However, we tend to see things from the end of the process and wrongly assume that the writings in the New Testament were the only ones that were widely used. That is clearly not the case. Some that were widely used, say 1 Clement, did not make it in. And I would not assume that what later became “orthodoxy” had some clear coherence as a united group in the majority at an early point. What some scholars call the “orthodox” or the “proto-orthodox” was in fact a mixed bag itself with likely disagreements on which writings should be used most.

On the other hand, many writings that made it in would be totally rejected by certain followers of Jesus. A Jewish-Christian of the so called “Ebionite” persuasion would certainly not accept any of Paul’s letters, which now make up a large portion of our New Testament, for instance.

That being said, perhaps I should clarify that my concern is historical and not with evaluating who was right or wrong among the early Christians or among modern Christians (in terms of what should or should not be used as authoritative for faith). And so I would tend to include as important those groups (and their writings) who were later excluded from what developed into orthodox or “universal” (catholic) Christianity in my historical investigations.

Phil Harland

I would fully grant the diversity of early Christianity, but I have a few quibbles. There is no doubt that the explicit imposition of a canon dates to the 4th century, but, as far as I’ve seen, the evidence points to a growing agreement, at least among groups which we would recognize as catholic or orthodox (or proto-orthodox, if you prefer), about what books should be read as inspired. The Gospels and many of the Letters of Paul being the earliest which were widely accepted in this category, if we are to judge from both the Muratorian Canon and the early Fathers. That means that there was a strand (or stands) of early Christianity which gradually worked out what is our canon which, the evidence suggests, was not merely local, but grew increasingly accepted throughout the Christian world. Undoubtedly, this points to a more gradual process than many literalist Christians might suggest, but I’m not sure this is as much of a coincidence as some scholars have suggested either (Bauer, if I recall him properly, seems to imply this).

Peace,
Phil