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Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy & Heresy has established itself as a classic refutation of the myth that "in the beginning" orthodoxy was there first & heresy was a deviation from the norm. Whatever one thinks of the thesis, one cannot bypass Bauer on early heresy any more that one can bypass Bultmann on Form Criticism or Harnack on the development of dogma. Today, it remains a good introduction to Christianity at the end of the 1st century & the beginning of the 2nd century.--Gerald Christianson
Professor of Church History
Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary
This brilliant & pioneering monograph inaugurated a new era of scholarship in the study of the New Testament & Christian origins, especially in America. It argued that early Christianity did not begin with a unified orthodox belief, from which heresies broke off at a later time. Rather, Bauer demonstrated that diversity stood at the beginning, while an orthodox church emerged only after long controversies during the early centuries. During recent decades, the investigation of newly discovered texts, such as the Gnostic Library of Nag Hammadi in Egypt, have fully confirmed Bauer's insights.
There may be numerous details, which scholars today would see differently than Walter Bauer, whose word was first published in Germany sixty years ago. Nevertheless, Bauer's book has remained the foundation for all modern scholarship in this field, & it is must-reading for all who want to explore early Christian Communities. It is still challenging, fresh, fascinating, and thought-provoking--without any question of the truly great masterpieces of New Testament scholarship.--Helmut Koester
Professor of New Testament Studies
& Ancient Church History at
Harvard Divinity School
Professor of Church History
Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary
This brilliant & pioneering monograph inaugurated a new era of scholarship in the study of the New Testament & Christian origins, especially in America. It argued that early Christianity did not begin with a unified orthodox belief, from which heresies broke off at a later time. Rather, Bauer demonstrated that diversity stood at the beginning, while an orthodox church emerged only after long controversies during the early centuries. During recent decades, the investigation of newly discovered texts, such as the Gnostic Library of Nag Hammadi in Egypt, have fully confirmed Bauer's insights.
There may be numerous details, which scholars today would see differently than Walter Bauer, whose word was first published in Germany sixty years ago. Nevertheless, Bauer's book has remained the foundation for all modern scholarship in this field, & it is must-reading for all who want to explore early Christian Communities. It is still challenging, fresh, fascinating, and thought-provoking--without any question of the truly great masterpieces of New Testament scholarship.--Helmut Koester
Professor of New Testament Studies
& Ancient Church History at
Harvard Divinity School
1 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1934
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 16, 2010
Seminal review and discussion of the origins of the distinctions between orthodoxies and heresies in the early church. A realistic portrayal of the history of dogma and doctrine which places their formulations within their socio-political contexts while establishing that what became orthodox and heterodox arose slowly out of a common matrix
April 25, 2023
Helpful for insights into various sources, but flawed in its overall outlook of history. Bauer's work is significant for largely shaping much of critical scholarship and its view of orthodoxy as merely a competing group among a sea of "heretics." Bauer makes many logical leaps and arguments from silence to make his overall case that heresy was more powerful than orthodoxy, and he makes his sources say far more than they actually can. That should be a lesson to orthodox Christians as well: don't make claims your sources can't adequately support.
February 18, 2015
This was used as a textbook during my first year in the M.Div. program and Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. Its thesis is based more on presuppositions than historical reality. See The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Andreas Kostenberger.
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March 6, 2012Unimpressed, for one of the most important books in the field, the arguments sure seem shaky, reliant largely on silence.
February 12, 2017
I mean, it's a classic. Started an important new era in early Christianity research. Not the most gripping read ever but it matters.
August 31, 2021
His argumentation simply leaves a lot to be desired. 'If' does a great deal of heavy lifting.
April 17, 2018
It's not a terribly long book, especially by the standards of its subject, but it is fairly dense when it comes to the literature it references and with which it assumes a general familiarity on the part of the reader. Clearly, I need to read more apostolic and patristic literature, and then maybe I'll be able to follow Bauer's argument a little better. Beyond that, it was a well-written, well-thought-out book that I will probably return to at some point.
October 26, 2018
This book us a classic work about the Historical development of what would become the Proto-Orthodox Church. The author takes us through the stages if Christianity from the Apolistic age, Jewish Christianity age and explores all the different sects or Lost Christianities of the period. He also takes us through each country and tells us why some sects became more popular than others. Truly a must read for and religious Historian
November 22, 2020
An intriguing thesis. Definitely a must read for anyone interested in early church history. It offers a good overview of the history. However, he makes leaps in regards to the silence in the history about certain events. His claims, though a bit extreme, are important to consider in regards to the development of history.
March 18, 2024
My issues with this book are not unique, and there are serious flaws and issues with Bauer’s argument - but it’s a classic that is worthy of study and thought.
November 14, 2024
I only read about a third of this before abandoning it for being full of speculation and incredibly boring.
November 15, 2012
REVIEW AND CRITIQUE Bauer, Walter. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Edited by Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel. Various translators. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.
Bauer the German historian in his work Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity reassessed the historical distinction between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” and argued for a new reconstructed historical picture: instead of viewing the heresies as deviation from the orthodoxy, what came to become the orthodoxy of Christianity was nothing but one of the many forms of Christianity in the early centuries.
According to Bauer’s central thesis, it was largely due to the expansion of the ecclesiastic influence of the Church of Rome and the conversion of Constantine I that the more powerful group eliminated the writings of competing groups and rewrote the history to make themselves appear the only legitimate representative of Christianity.
Bauer’s arguments were supported primarily from the diverse theological strands characterized by each geographical concentration within the early Christianity shown in the sources of polemic writings.
For significant examples, Bauer pointed out that the Gnostic Christianity had been dominant in Egypt before A.D. 200; and the so-called “orthodox” leaders Ignatius and Polycarp from Rome waged only moderately battles against Gnosticism and Judaizing Christianity in Asia Minor.
Critiques:
Bauer's arguments may be easily put to questions in light of his somewhat subtle manipulation of the historical data as well as nuanced overstatement and understatement, but his central thesis cannot be easily rejected without adequate qualifications.
Bauer is probably correct in noticing the geographical concentration of diverse theological strands in the early churches. Even the biblical data shows some geographical features of the theological disputes among the Gentile churches and the church at Jerusalem. Not every Gentile church was directly under Paul's influences until the later time of church history. And the Christian communities had been notably diverse in their geographical, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
In James Dunn's further assessment of Bauer's thesis in his UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT: AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHARACTER OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANITY (1977), Dunn carefully observed the diverse expressions of the unifying center of distinctive Christianity concerning the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ. The significance of this study is that the development of orthodoxy may not be as unified as the traditional view of the early church history has understood.
However we shall be fascinated by the integrating power of the unifying strand of the early Christianity, as much as we may be astonished by the diverse expressions of the Christian identity. Bauer is faulty when he reduces the historical growth of orthodoxy to an ecclesiastic-political movement, discounting the providential care of God and the conscience of the early Christians in receiving the authority of another source of apostolic teaching.
Bauer's argument based on the majority's procedures of eliminating the minority is also flawed because he could not have taken into full account of the diversity within the orthodoxy itself. His argument seems to be circular and too convenient to account for the complexity of the early church history, if he cannot demonstrate satisfactorily from the historical data how the Church of Rome integrates the diverse theological strands into one unified orthodox that eventually caused the exclusion of the heresies.
Bauer the German historian in his work Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity reassessed the historical distinction between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” and argued for a new reconstructed historical picture: instead of viewing the heresies as deviation from the orthodoxy, what came to become the orthodoxy of Christianity was nothing but one of the many forms of Christianity in the early centuries.
According to Bauer’s central thesis, it was largely due to the expansion of the ecclesiastic influence of the Church of Rome and the conversion of Constantine I that the more powerful group eliminated the writings of competing groups and rewrote the history to make themselves appear the only legitimate representative of Christianity.
Bauer’s arguments were supported primarily from the diverse theological strands characterized by each geographical concentration within the early Christianity shown in the sources of polemic writings.
For significant examples, Bauer pointed out that the Gnostic Christianity had been dominant in Egypt before A.D. 200; and the so-called “orthodox” leaders Ignatius and Polycarp from Rome waged only moderately battles against Gnosticism and Judaizing Christianity in Asia Minor.
Critiques:
Bauer's arguments may be easily put to questions in light of his somewhat subtle manipulation of the historical data as well as nuanced overstatement and understatement, but his central thesis cannot be easily rejected without adequate qualifications.
Bauer is probably correct in noticing the geographical concentration of diverse theological strands in the early churches. Even the biblical data shows some geographical features of the theological disputes among the Gentile churches and the church at Jerusalem. Not every Gentile church was directly under Paul's influences until the later time of church history. And the Christian communities had been notably diverse in their geographical, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.
In James Dunn's further assessment of Bauer's thesis in his UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT: AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHARACTER OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANITY (1977), Dunn carefully observed the diverse expressions of the unifying center of distinctive Christianity concerning the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ. The significance of this study is that the development of orthodoxy may not be as unified as the traditional view of the early church history has understood.
However we shall be fascinated by the integrating power of the unifying strand of the early Christianity, as much as we may be astonished by the diverse expressions of the Christian identity. Bauer is faulty when he reduces the historical growth of orthodoxy to an ecclesiastic-political movement, discounting the providential care of God and the conscience of the early Christians in receiving the authority of another source of apostolic teaching.
Bauer's argument based on the majority's procedures of eliminating the minority is also flawed because he could not have taken into full account of the diversity within the orthodoxy itself. His argument seems to be circular and too convenient to account for the complexity of the early church history, if he cannot demonstrate satisfactorily from the historical data how the Church of Rome integrates the diverse theological strands into one unified orthodox that eventually caused the exclusion of the heresies.
May 29, 2009
Wow, needless to say, this book took a lot out of me while reading it. It made me realize how little I have read in the early Christian literature, and I will DEFINITELY need to re-read this book in a year, and than hopefully I will understand more. Bauer rocks my Church history/Greek loving world.
December 19, 2013
An important book for students of the New Testament. While Bauer's arguments are often flawed, the refined and developed points made by Bultmann are, perhaps, more significant. Bauer's impact was important, but without the popularizer Bultmann we may never have felt it's wide influence to this day.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews