Extreme Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries

Lecture 9

S

ome Christians in the age of persecution willingly accepted
martyrdom as a witness to Christ and their hope in the resurrection
from the dead. Others composed apologetic literature, seeking a place
in the intellectual world of the empire. But there were other manifestations
of the Christian religion in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, even those that can
be considered extreme. The deeply experiential character of this religion
manifested itself especially in phenomena that, at the same time, resembled
aspects of Greco-Roman religion and appeared to threaten good order within
Christianity. None of these manifestations truly represented Christianity’s
future, but none of them was ever totally suppressed, and each recurred in
different forms through the centuries.

The Visible Working of Divine Power
• One manifestation of Christianity
is this period was a distinctive
religious sensibility that extended
and amplified an element found
in the New Testament Gospels
and Acts: an emphasis on
wonder-working and the working
of divine power in visible ways.
This was expressed in a variety
of new gospel narratives and acts
of apostles.

•    The infancy gospels of James

and Thomas focus exclusively

on the birth and childhood of

Jesus. They place an emphasis on

wonder-working and the physical

purity of the body.

The infancy gospel of James

depicts the birth of Jesus as

miraculous, almost as if the less

human Jesus is, the more divine

we can assume him to be.

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