Early Christianity

I ran across this online book while searching for information on Unity and The One while studying Ephesians 4. Although I've only read chapter 27 so far, I thought it might be of interest to others here at FC.

Especially consider the last paragraph in the following write up taken from the book's About page: "intended for those who are open to thinking about a very early strain of the religion…who explore the interactions of East and West, who search for possible bases of ecumenism, or who are open to a new, but very old, form of questing." In other words, a form of questioning before questioning was disallowed by the Roman church. That doesn't mean Roman Catholicism, but Constantine's unified church that eventually put down all variants and competitors.

continue reading "The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: "Twin" of Jesus?"

Discussions on Progressive Christianity, Unitarianism and Panentheism. Also includes literature reviews.

As many readers will know, our New Testament canon did not come together in a single official unit until 360 years after the time of Jesus. Although there were many writings produced during these centuries—some favored in a few communities while other collections were favored elsewhere—the collection congealed over centuries and ecumenical councils and was ratified at the 3^rd Synod of Carthage in 397 CE.

continue reading "The Development of the Canon of the New Testament"

From the Introduction Page:

The purpose of this web site is to set out all of the Christian writings that are believed to have been written in the first and second centuries, as well as a few selected from the early third. I have also included non-Christian documents that may have special bearing on the study of early Christianity in order to make this web site a comprehensive sourcebook.

continue reading "Early Christian Writings"