Christian Communities in Western Asia Minor into the Early Second Century: Ignatius and Others as Witnesses Against Bauer (original) (raw)

2006, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Evangelical Theological Society

's book Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum was published in 1934. The English translation, entitled Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity and published in 1971, 1 gave the book a new lease on life. This book has had a significant impact on scholarship on the NT and the early Church. It is to this work and its legacy that I will devote this paper. Bauer summarized his argument in this way: "Perhaps-I repeat, perhaps-certain manifestations of Christian life that the authors of the church renounce as 'heresies' originally had not been such at all, but, at least here and there, were the only form of the new religion-that is, for those regions they were simply 'Christianity.' The possibility also exists that their adherents constituted the majority, and that they looked down with hatred and scorn on the orthodox, who for them were the false believers." 2 Both chronological and numerical dimensions were important in Bauer's argument. He thought that what would later be called heresy was often "primary" and hence the original form of Christianity, and that in some places and at some times, heresy had a numerical advantage and outnumbered what came to be called orthodoxy. 3