Giday, I'm Gary Stevens.

And welcome to the third season of the History in the Bible podcast.

In this final season, I explore how the Jews and the Christians constructed new religions when they were

sent spinning into the void after the destruction of the temple. All of the history, about all of the

books beyond the Bible. Episode 3.26, Christianity in the Year 200.

In episodes 3.21 to 3.23, I discussed the three towering personalities of second-century Christianity.

Marcian, the heretic, Justin the Apologist, and Ironaeus the Heresy Hunter.

Of the three, Ironaeus lived longest, perhaps to about the year 200.

He was also the brightest intellect and the most influential.

Let's survey the state of Christianity at Here's Death.

Back in episode 3.18, Christians under the Roman gaze, I noted that around the year 100,

the Roman state woke up to the fact that the Christians

were more than just odd-balled Jews. Over the next few decades, their reputation grew in both

fame and infamy. As I will explore in later episodes, Christianity proved attractive to many pagans.

But the general populace looked on it with deep suspicion.

Much as many today regard sceptology.

Christians were riling up the government and irking the public for many years,

before pagan intellectuals held the

movement worthy of addressing. The first person we know to do that was the Greek philosopher

Celsius or Kelsos. He penned a critique of Christianity during the heyday of Ironaeus, around 170.

Kelsos may well have been reacting to the many works of Justin Marta, who had died only a few years before.

We know nothing of Kelsos, save that he wrote a book called The True Doctrine,

...