This is Communio Sanctorum, the history of the Christian Church, season two.

This episode is titled Heretics, Part 2, The First Heretics.

For second generation Christians, and let's say that's those that came to faith after

80-70, Jesus became less a person they'd personally known, or the friend of a friend,

but more of a mysterious agent in a cosmic drama.

Because so many of today's pseudo-Christian cults deny Jesus'

deity, it comes as a surprise that the earliest of the heresies to trouble the church had no

problem accepting Jesus' divine status. What they struggled with was accepting his humanity.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up a bit.

The first couple generations of Christians assumed that Jesus was returning soon.

That expectation may have fueled that amazing sense of community we find in the early chapters of the Book of Acts,

where we read that they sold off property

and distributed to one another so that all their needs were met. Many scholars now believe

that early church leaders didn't bother composing a systematic theology, well, because they assumed

that Jesus' return in glory was imminent. But when it was delayed, they saw the need to establish a better system for leading the church

and for setting down guidelines for future believers.

The teaching of the 12 apostles, better known as the Didiki, written about a century after Christ,

was just such a work.

After a while, church leaders found that they were answering the same questions and deep. written about a century after Christ was just such a work.

After a while, church leaders found that they were answering the same questions and dealing with similar objections over and over again.

So, individuals began penning replies as stock answers that others could refer to.

Sometime around the mid-second century, Justin Martyr wrote his first apology

...