I am glad the apostolic faith survived. But calling it “apostolic” cannot be my argument. That is something I need to demonstrate.

After all, the Christians whose teachings were rejected often claimed the apostles too. They appealed to Peter, Paul, and other early followers of Jesus. Some established influential communities. Some reached places before the Christians who would later call them heretics. If we want to understand what happened, we have to give those Christians a hearing.

In his October 27 podcast, Bart Ehrman draws attention to Walter Bauer’s Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. First published in German in 1934 and in English in 1971, the book challenged a familiar picture: the apostles established churches with the right beliefs, and heretics arrived later to corrupt them. Bauer asked whether the evidence actually supports that sequence everywhere.

Ehrman describes Bauer’s findings in sweeping terms. Speaking of virtually every place outside Rome, he says:

“the majority view is some kind of view that later got declared a heresy.”

Bart Ehrman, October 27 podcast, 12:20–12:23, 2026.

Think about what that would mean. People we now call heretics might have understood themselves as the established Christians in their city. The people we call orthodox might have been the newcomers. What later Christians described as a departure from the faith might, in that particular place, have been the first form of Christianity anyone encountered. That changes how we imagine the early Christian world.

The term proto-orthodox refers to Christians whose beliefs anticipated important features of later orthodoxy. It does not mean that every theological question had already been settled or that all these Christians agreed about everything. But there is another distinction we need to keep in view: being first in a city is different from preserving the faith that existed before Christianity reached that city.

A missionary could arrive in Alexandria or Edessa carrying a teaching developed decades after Paul. Being the first person to preach it there would not make it earlier than Paul’s proclamation. The same principle applies to a majority. Numbers tell us something about a teaching’s success. They do not establish its origin or its truth.

So I want to take Bauer’s strongest examples seriously. What do the sources actually say? What does Bauer infer from them? Where does his reconstruction remain uncertain? Then I want to compare those findings with our earliest surviving Christian writings.

My claim is this: the Christianity that became orthodox preserved a recognizable core of the earliest apostolic proclamation, and we can trace that continuity before it gained imperial power. That does not vindicate everything later Christians believed or did. It gives us a specific historical claim we can test.

We will visit Edessa, Alexandria, Asia Minor, and Rome. We will encounter competing teachers, disputed books, claims of apostolic authority, and churches trying to influence one another. But before we ask which Christianity reached those places first, we need to establish what Christians were proclaiming earlier. For that, we begin with Paul.

Before We Travel the Map, Establish the Starting Point

The seven undisputed letters of Paul give us our earliest surviving collection of Christian writings: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. These letters do not answer every question about Christian origins. They do, however, put actual Christian beliefs on the page during the first generation of the movement.

Consider what Paul tells the Corinthians:

“For us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist.”

Paul, 1 Corinthians 8:6, c. AD 55.

The Father is the source of all things. Jesus Christ is the one Lord through whom all things come. Paul also places Jesus within the history of Israel:

“Christ became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truthfulness, to confirm the promises made to the fathers.”

Paul, Romans 15:8, c. AD 57.

And he identifies a proclamation he had received and passed on:

“I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.”

Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:3–5, c. AD 55.

Paul does not present this as his own private discovery. He connects it with the preaching of other apostles:

“Whether it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.”

Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:11, c. AD 55.

Already we have something against which later claims can be tested: one God, the Father; one Lord, Jesus Christ; continuity with Israel’s Scriptures; Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection; and a proclamation Paul identifies with other apostolic witnesses. We also have disagreement:

“If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:12, c. AD 55.

Christian diversity did not begin in the second century. It is visible inside our earliest documents. But notice what Paul does: he appeals to an earlier proclamation to challenge a position within the community. The existence of disagreement does not leave us without historical bearings.

Edessa: A King Writes to Jesus

Our first stop is Edessa, in what is now southeastern Turkey. Eusebius, writing in the early fourth century, tells a remarkable story about its king, Abgar. The king is ill, hears about Jesus’ healings, and sends a letter asking Jesus to come to him.

Eusebius presents the correspondence as material preserved in Edessa’s records and translated from Syriac. Here is the king’s entire letter:

“Abgar Uchama, ruler, to Jesus, the good Savior who has appeared in the region of Jerusalem: greetings.

“I have heard about you and the healings you perform without medicines or herbs. The report is that you make blind people see and lame people walk, cleanse lepers, drive out unclean spirits and demons, heal those suffering from long illnesses, and raise the dead.

“After hearing all these things about you, I concluded that one of two things must be true: either you are God and have come down from heaven to do these things, or you are the Son of God who does these things.

“For this reason I have written to ask you to take the trouble to come to me and heal the illness I have. I have also heard that the Jews are speaking against you and want to harm you. My city is very small but honorable, and it is large enough for both of us.”

Letter attributed to Abgar, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 1.13.6–8, c. AD 325.

The final invitation is memorable. A sick king offers Jesus refuge. His city may be small, but there is room for both of them. Then comes the reply attributed to Jesus:

“Blessed are you for believing in me without having seen me. For it is written about me that those who have seen me will not believe in me, while those who have not seen me will believe and live.

“As for your request that I come to you, I must complete here everything I was sent to do. After completing it, I must be taken up to the one who sent me.

“After I have been taken up, I will send you one of my disciples to heal your illness and bring life to you and those with you.”

Letter attributed to Jesus, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 1.13.9, c. AD 325.

The date in these citations identifies Eusebius’s account. It does not establish when the correspondence was composed. The story continues with the promised mission after Jesus’ ascension, giving Edessa an origin story reaching back to Jesus himself.

That is precisely why Bauer examines it. If authentic, the correspondence would provide extraordinary support for an apostolic foundation. If it is a later story, it tells us something different: later Christians wanted to connect their community directly to Jesus.

Did Eusebius Believe It?

Yes. He presents it as genuine correspondence, not as a fictional exercise written under Jesus’ name. Introducing the reply, he writes:

“Although he did not at that time respond to the king’s invitation, he honored him with a letter of his own, promising to send one of his disciples to heal his illness and bring salvation to him and all his household.”

Eusebius, Church History 1.13.3, c. AD 325.

Eusebius’s confidence is historically interesting, but it is not sufficient authentication. He is reporting centuries after the events the story describes, and we do not have the correspondence independently established in the first century. Bauer is right to challenge the use of this story as straightforward proof of Edessa’s apostolic beginnings.

But rejecting that proof does not establish the opposite history. An unreliable account of an orthodox foundation does not, by itself, prove that a different Christianity founded the city’s first church. It removes a piece of supposed evidence. The alternative reconstruction still needs evidence of its own.

What Did the King Mean by His Two Options?

The letter’s alternatives are striking: either Jesus is God who has descended from heaven, or he is the Son of God. Within the story, the king is reasoning from the reported miracles. He sees extraordinary acts and concludes that their performer must have an extraordinary relationship to heaven.

But the letter does not explain a developed distinction between its two possibilities. It does not tell us exactly how its author understood divine sonship, incarnation, or the relationship between Father and Son. Nor can we confidently turn this passage into the historical Abgar’s personal theology. That would require establishing that the letter actually came from him.

The passage gives us the reasoning of the king as the story presents him. That is already worth examining. It should not be made to prove more than that.

Edessa: Three Names, Three Dates

Bauer’s argument does not rest entirely on questioning the Abgar story. He also examines the Chronicle of Edessa, compiled centuries after Christianity began in the city. Among its early entries are three names associated with movements later rejected by the dominant church.

Read them carefully:

“In the year 449, Marcion departed from the catholic church.”

Anonymous, Chronicle of Edessa, entry for Seleucid year 449 (AD 137/138), compiled c. AD 540.

“In the year 465, on the eleventh day of the month Tammuz, Bardaisan was born.”

Anonymous, Chronicle of Edessa, entry for Seleucid year 465 (AD 154), compiled c. AD 540.

“In the year 551, Mani was born.”

Anonymous, Chronicle of Edessa, entry for Seleucid year 551 (AD 239/240), compiled c. AD 540. Mani’s generally accepted birth year is AD 216.

The dates beside the quotations are important. These entries use the Seleucid calendar. They are not reporting events in AD 449, 465, and 551. They also record different kinds of events: Marcion’s entry concerns separation from the church, while the other two concern births.

Marcion, active in the second century, distinguished the God proclaimed by Jesus from the Creator associated with the Jewish Scriptures. Bardaisan, who lived from AD 154 to 222, was an influential Syriac thinker associated with Edessa whose cosmological teaching became a target of later Christian criticism. Mani, who lived from AD 216 to 276, founded a movement organized around a profound opposition between light and darkness. His religion incorporated Christian elements but should not simply be treated as interchangeable with the other movements.

Later, the chronicle records a church-building project:

“In the year 624, Bishop Qune laid the foundations of the church of Edessa. Bishop Shaʿad, who succeeded him, built and completed the structure.”

Anonymous, Chronicle of Edessa, entry for Seleucid year 624 (AD 312/313), compiled c. AD 540.

Bauer sees significance in the contrast. Figures associated with rejected movements appear in the early record, while comparable information about early orthodox leaders is lacking. That deserves attention.

But this is not a succession list identifying Edessa’s first bishops as Marcion, Bardaisan, and Mani. It is a chronicle containing different kinds of events, including events beyond the city. These entries do not establish that Marcion or Mani personally visited Edessa, and they do not count followers. A report about a church building does not establish the date of the first congregation. The discrepancy in Mani’s birth date also reminds us that the chronicle’s information still needs to be checked.

Bauer has identified a real problem for an easy, uninterrupted orthodox-first account. The evidence leaves room for a more complicated beginning. It does not give us a census or a complete history of the first missionaries.

“They Called Us Palutians”

Another Edessene example takes us closer to the communities themselves. Palut was a Christian leader usually placed around AD 200. More than a century later, Ephrem complains that opponents call his own community “Palutians”:

“They have turned things around and called us ‘Palutians.’ … Those who accept the name ‘Palutian’ instead of the name of Christ are at fault.”

Ephrem, Hymns Against Heresies 22.5, c. AD 370.

This is revealing. Ephrem wants his community identified by Christ; his opponents identify it by a particular leader. We can understand why Bauer finds that important. Perhaps the name preserves a memory of a recognizable party associated with Palut, competing with other established Christian groups. That possibility should not be dismissed merely because Ephrem dislikes the label.

But Ephrem is a later witness to the name. He does not give us a dated account of Palut founding the first community of its kind. A hostile nickname can preserve historical information, but it can also be used to make an opponent appear recent or sectarian.

The evidence supports the existence of competing Christian identities in Edessa and may preserve something important about how Palut’s community was perceived. It cannot, by itself, settle which group arrived first or how many people belonged to each.

Still, there is a valuable lesson here: Christians who eventually became orthodox could themselves be treated as one party among several. That corrects the assumption that everyone always recognized the same group as the obvious, original church.

Alexandria: Who Really Spoke for the Apostles?

Egypt presents another challenge. If we expect the surviving evidence to begin with a neatly documented line of orthodox teachers, the early record is frustrating. Among the prominent second-century names associated with Egyptian Christianity are Basilides, active around AD 130, and Valentinus, active around AD 140.

These were not merely Christians with different preferences about worship. The teachings attributed to them could differ sharply from what later became orthodox. Irenaeus reports a version of Basilides’ teaching in which Jesus himself was not crucified:

“He himself did not suffer. Instead, a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross for him. This man was crucified through ignorance and error, having been transformed by him so that he was thought to be Jesus.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24.4, c. AD 180.

We are reading an opponent’s account, and ancient reports about Basilides do not agree in every detail. Nevertheless, this is a concrete example of the kind of disagreement involved: who actually suffered on the cross?

Valentinian teaching, as Irenaeus describes it, distinguished the Creator from a higher divine reality. The Creator did not fully understand the source or pattern of his own work:

“They say that the Creator thought he had made all these things entirely by himself, although Achamoth had made them.… In everything, they say, he was ignorant of the patterns of the things he was making, and of his mother herself.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.5.3, c. AD 180.

Achamoth belongs to the elaborate account of divine wisdom and origins described in this Valentinian system. We should not automatically assign every detail reported about Valentinus’s followers to Valentinus personally. But the broad issue is clear: the relationship between the Creator and the highest God was contested.

Bauer asks us to take these Egyptian Christians seriously as part of the early history, rather than treating them as insignificant intruders into a fully documented orthodox community. That is a reasonable demand. Then the evidence becomes even more interesting.

Basilides Claimed a Connection to Peter

Clement of Alexandria reports that these teachers appealed to apostolic connections:

“Those who devised the heresies arose later, around the time of Emperor Hadrian, and continued into the time of Antoninus the Elder, such as Basilides, even though he claims Glaucias as his teacher, the interpreter of Peter, as they themselves boast. Likewise, they say that Valentinus had heard Theudas, who had been an associate of Paul.”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7.17.106.4, c. AD 200.

Basilides’ claimed connection runs through Glaucias to Peter. Valentinus’s runs through Theudas to Paul. These teachers were not simply announcing that they had invented something different. Their followers claimed access to the apostles.

And if Glaucias’s description sounds familiar, it should.

Mark Was Also Called Peter’s Interpreter

Papias preserves a tradition about Mark:

“Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, accurately wrote down whatever he remembered, though not in order, of the things the Lord had said or done.”

Papias, Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 3.39.15, c. AD 125.

Peter’s interpreter. That is the role associated with Mark in this tradition and with Glaucias in the claim Clement reports. Later, Eusebius connects Mark with Alexandria:

“They say that this Mark was the first to be sent to Egypt, that he proclaimed the gospel he had written, and that he first established churches in Alexandria.”

Eusebius, Church History 2.16.1, c. AD 325.

Now we can see why this material matters. A tradition supporting the church’s Egyptian beginnings connects Mark with Peter. A tradition supporting Basilides connects Glaucias with Peter. Both appeal to apostolic authority.

But we need to keep the pieces in their proper places. Papias’s statement about Mark and Peter is earlier than Eusebius’s surviving account of Mark founding churches in Alexandria. Those are related claims, but they are not the same claim. Clement does not locate Glaucias in Alexandria in the passage we just read.

And “interpreter” was not necessarily an exclusive office that only one person could hold. The existence of two such descriptions does not establish that one tradition copied the other, or that one must be false simply because the other exists. What it establishes is that an apostolic pedigree was something competing Christians could claim.

Bauer Puts His Finger on the Problem

Bauer asks:

“And were not the opponents likewise able to come up with apostolic traditions?”

Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, chapter 6, p. 119, English edition 1971.

Yes, they were, and this is one of the most useful lessons in the book. We cannot accept a chain of names merely because it belongs to the side we favor. Nor should we dismiss another chain merely because its claimants eventually lost. We need to ask when each claim appears, who reports it, whether it has independent support, and how the teaching associated with it compares with earlier evidence.

That last question is essential. Even if a teacher knew someone who knew Peter, that connection would not prove that everything the teacher later taught came from Peter. A chain of acquaintances is not a guarantee of unchanged teaching. The same standard must apply to Mark, Glaucias, Theudas, and everyone else.

A Gospel That Opposed Procreation?

Clement also gives us evidence of Christians using a gospel to support a radically ascetic interpretation of Jesus:

“Those who oppose God’s creation under the respectable name of self-control also quote the words spoken to Salome.… They occur, I think, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that the Savior himself said, ‘I came to destroy the works of the female.’”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 3.9.63, c. AD 200.

Here we have more than a later historian assigning a label. We have Clement discussing people who appeal to words attributed to Jesus, preserved in a gospel, to support their teaching. Clement disputes their interpretation, so the passage gives us evidence of both a text and an argument about how to read it.

It does not establish that every Egyptian Christian used this gospel. Its title is not a map of its entire readership. But it does demonstrate something substantial: the Egyptian Christian world contained competing texts and competing interpretations of what Jesus wanted.

Origen Shared the House, but Not the Prayer

The story of the young Origen makes this diversity feel less abstract. Eusebius describes circumstances in which Origen lived in a household that also supported a teacher named Paul. This Paul was not the apostle, and people from different Christian circles came to hear him:

“A great crowd gathered around Paul because of his apparent ability in speaking, including not only heretics but also people from our own community. Origen, however, was never persuaded to join him in prayer.”

Eusebius, Church History 6.2.14, c. AD 325.

The events belong to the beginning of the third century, although Eusebius records them later. Notice both sides of the picture. Christians crossed boundaries to listen, including people Eusebius identifies with his own community. Origen nevertheless maintained a boundary in prayer.

He did not refuse to be in the same room. He shared the household. The distinction concerned religious participation. That is a much more interesting picture than two sealed communities with no contact. It is also more informative than imagining a Christian world without meaningful boundaries. The boundaries existed, but people encountered one another across them.

What Egypt Teaches Us

Egypt’s early Christian history is diverse, contested, and incompletely preserved. Bauer helps us see why a simple succession story cannot do all the historical work. But the visibility of Basilides and Valentinus in our surviving evidence does not establish that their followers were Egypt’s first Christians, that they formed a majority throughout Egypt, or that their teachings were earlier than Paul’s. Those are additional claims requiring additional evidence.

The most productive question is therefore not whether these Christians deserve to be included in the history. They do. It is what their claims can establish, and how their teachings compare with earlier Christian testimony.

Asia Minor: Read Bauer’s Qualification Too

Now we reach a passage that should be part of any discussion of Bauer’s conclusions. Ignatius’s letters reveal conflict. His repeated appeals for unity and loyalty to the bishop would be unnecessary if everyone already agreed. He tells the Philadelphians:

“Do nothing apart from the bishop. Keep your bodies as God’s temple. Love unity. Avoid divisions. Become imitators of Jesus Christ, just as he is of his Father.”

Ignatius, Letter to the Philadelphians 7.2, c. AD 110.

That is evidence of an effort to maintain or strengthen boundaries. But it does not automatically tell us that Ignatius’s allies were a small minority. Bauer himself makes this distinction.

At the beginning of chapter 4, on page 77, he considers it probable that “the majority of the faithful” in Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, and Philadelphia held a form of Christianity that allowed Ignatius to regard them as “his special allies.” Bauer immediately warns against extending that conclusion to all Asia Minor, or even its entire western region.

Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, chapter 4, p. 77, English edition 1971.

That qualification works in both directions. We should not turn four churches into proof of an orthodox majority across the region. We should also not summarize Bauer as though his evidence establishes a heretical majority in virtually every community outside Rome.

His own discussion is more particular. A careful account has to leave room for churches where Christians aligned with Ignatius probably were the majority, alongside communities whose circumstances were different or uncertain. The map was uneven. Our language should preserve that unevenness.

The Bishop Who Initially Allowed the Gospel of Peter

The dispute over the Gospel of Peter gives us a particularly useful example of how a text could be assessed. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, initially allowed Christians at Rhossus to read it. He explains:

“When I was with you, I supposed that you all held the right faith. Without reading through the gospel they presented under Peter’s name, I said, ‘If this is the only thing causing resentment among you, let it be read.’”

Serapion, On the Gospel of Peter, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 6.12.4, c. AD 200.

That admission deserves attention. A bishop permitted a gospel bearing Peter’s name before reading it carefully. The community’s apparent faithfulness reassured him. Later, after further investigation, he changed his judgment:

“We were able to borrow it from them and read it through. We found that most of it agreed with the right teaching of the Savior, but that some things had been added.”

Serapion, On the Gospel of Peter, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 6.12.6, c. AD 200.

His stated principle was:

“We receive Peter and the other apostles as we receive Christ. But writings falsely attributed to them we reject, knowing that we did not receive such writings.”

Serapion, On the Gospel of Peter, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 6.12.3, c. AD 200.

Here is a real process, with an initial assumption, further reading, and a revised judgment. The title alone did not finally settle the matter. Serapion considered both the book’s reception and its teaching.

His account does not prove that every decision about Christian books was correct. It does show that claims about apostolic authorship could be examined and rejected before Christianity possessed imperial power. I discuss this episode further in The Gospel of Peter: A Late Text, A Local Church, and an Early Test of the Christian Message.

Rome: What Bauer Actually Argues

Rome matters to Bauer’s explanation because he sees its influence as a major force in the success of the Christianity that became orthodox. His argument involves more than Rome becoming famous. It involves intervention in other churches, the authority of its letters, its financial resources, and its support for particular Christian leaders.

The dispute addressed in 1 Clement gives us an early example. Writing to Corinth, the Roman church complains:

“We see that you have removed some who lived honorably from the ministry they had fulfilled blamelessly.”

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 44.6, c. AD 96.

The letter does not treat the matter as a harmless local disagreement. Its language becomes forceful:

“If some disobey what he has said through us, they should understand that they will involve themselves in wrongdoing and serious danger.”

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 59.1, c. AD 96.

Rome is taking sides in a dispute elsewhere and speaking with considerable authority. We should acknowledge that plainly.

Bauer reconstructs the Corinthian conflict as more than a disagreement over office. He proposes a struggle involving a younger, gnosticizing movement and an older leadership associated with traditions connected to Paul and Peter. On this reading, Rome helps preserve the position of the older group.

But the distinction between the letter and the reconstruction matters. 1 Clement explicitly tells us that leaders have been removed and that Rome objects. It does not explicitly identify their opponents as Gnostics or provide a description of a rival gnostic theology. Bauer’s theological reconstruction draws on a wider interpretation of Corinth’s history. That may be argued, but it should not be presented as something the letter simply states.

Did Later Readers Reveal the Original Dispute?

One reason Bauer gives the letter a larger role is its importance to later Christians opposing heresy. Irenaeus uses 1 Clement to support continuity between the Creator and the Father proclaimed by the church:

“Anyone who wishes can learn from this letter that the churches proclaim him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and can understand the church’s apostolic tradition, since the letter is older than those who now teach falsely and invent another God above the Creator and Maker of everything that exists.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.3, c. AD 180.

This is significant evidence. By Irenaeus’s time, the Roman letter served as an older witness against Christians who distinguished the Creator from a higher God. But we need to avoid reversing the direction of the evidence. A document useful against a controversy in AD 180 was not necessarily written to address that same controversy around AD 96.

Later use can reveal what later readers valued in a text. It does not automatically identify the original opponents. At the same time, Irenaeus’s argument raises a question we can investigate ourselves: what does the earlier letter actually say? We do not have to accept his judgment merely because he gives it. We can compare the texts.

Did Rome’s Money Help Its Christianity Win?

Bauer also emphasizes Roman generosity. Dionysius of Corinth describes the Roman church’s assistance to other communities:

“From the beginning, this has been your custom: to benefit all the brothers and sisters in various ways and to send provisions to many churches in every city. In this way you relieve the poverty of those in need and provide for brothers working in the mines.”

Dionysius of Corinth, Letter to the Romans, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 4.23.10, c. AD 170.

He also describes the continuing importance of Roman correspondence:

“Today we celebrated the Lord’s holy day, on which we read your letter. We shall continue reading it for instruction, just as we read the earlier letter written to us through Clement.”

Dionysius of Corinth, Letter to the Romans, preserved in Eusebius, Church History 4.23.11, c. AD 170.

Now Bauer’s argument has concrete evidence beneath it. Rome sends assistance, its letters are read publicly, and an earlier Roman intervention remains part of Corinth’s communal life generations afterward. Financial support and literary authority can reinforce relationships. Those relationships can help particular leaders and teachings survive.

Bauer goes further. He proposes that “even monetary gifts” may have helped the party Rome supported prevail in the earlier Corinthian dispute.

Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, chapter 6, p. 122, English edition 1971.

That is a specific historical hypothesis. The proper response is to distinguish what the evidence establishes from what Bauer reconstructs. Dionysius establishes a Roman practice of assistance and enduring respect for the Clementine letter. He does not directly report Rome financing one faction during the earlier dispute. The financial explanation is therefore an inference, not an event independently documented by the passage.

Still, Bauer’s broader point has value. Ideas travel through relationships, institutions, resources, and trusted teachers. Christian beliefs did not spread in a world without social influence. But explaining how a teaching gained support does not establish when that teaching originated or whether it accurately preserved an earlier message. Those questions remain open to investigation.

What About the Books That Disappeared?

Ehrman also makes an important point about the survival of Christian literature:

“People just stopped copying them because they were heretical.”

Bart Ehrman, October 27 podcast, 31:55–31:58, 2026.

His explanation does not depend primarily on dramatic scenes of Christians burning every competing book. A manuscript could disappear because successive generations chose not to reproduce it. That makes sense: a book’s continued existence required material, labor, readers, and communities willing to preserve it.

Ehrman also distinguishes the people who originally wrote these works from later Christians who selected and copied them. We should preserve that distinction. The Christians who transmitted Paul’s letters did not thereby become their original authors. Nor does a book’s survival prove that every claim within it is true.

But its survival can give us access to earlier evidence. That is why the answer to selective preservation cannot be to treat the surviving early texts as historically useless. It is to read them critically while recognizing that the surviving collection is incomplete.

Follow the Message Across the Map

So far, we have examined diversity, rival traditions, institutional influence, and the limits of our evidence. Now we should ask what positive continuity can actually be demonstrated.

Start in Rome. Near the end of the first century, 1 Clement describes the apostles’ mission:

“Having received their instructions, having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having been confirmed in God’s word, they went out with the full assurance of the Holy Spirit, proclaiming that God’s kingdom was coming.”

Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 42.3, c. AD 96.

Move to Ignatius, associated with Antioch and writing to churches in Asia Minor:

“He truly suffered all these things for our sake, so that we might be saved. And he truly raised himself, just as he truly suffered. It is not as some unbelievers say, that he suffered only in appearance.”

Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 2, c. AD 110.

Move to Polycarp in Smyrna, writing to Philippi:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ … endured death for our sins. God raised him, releasing him from the pains of Hades.”

Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 1.2, c. AD 120.

Polycarp connects Christ’s resurrection with the hope of believers:

“The one who raised him from the dead will also raise us, if we do his will, walk in his commandments, and love what he loved.”

Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 2.2, c. AD 120.

Move to Justin, writing in the middle of the second century:

“We are not atheists, since we worship the Maker of this universe.… We have learned that Jesus Christ, who became our teacher in these things and was born for this purpose, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate … is the Son of the true God.”

Justin Martyr, First Apology 13, c. AD 155.

Move to Irenaeus, a writer with roots in Asia Minor serving in Gaul:

“The church, though scattered throughout the whole inhabited world to the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples faith in one God, the Father almighty, who made heaven and earth and the seas and everything in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit.”

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.10.1, c. AD 180.

Move to Tertullian in North Africa:

“The rule of faith … is that there is one God alone, none other than the Creator of the world, who brought everything into being from nothing through his Word.… He was crucified, rose on the third day, was taken into heaven, and sat at the Father’s right hand.”

Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics 13, c. AD 200.

And return to Egypt, where Origen describes what he understands the church to have received:

“First, there is one God, who created and ordered everything, and who brought all things into existence when nothing existed.… This God, in the last days, as he had previously promised through his prophets, sent our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Origen, On First Principles, preface 4, c. AD 225.

Origen’s work reaches us here through its ancient Latin transmission, an additional feature of the evidence we need to remember.

These witnesses do not give us identical theological systems. They do give us a recognizable pattern across generations and regions: the Creator is the God proclaimed by the church; Jesus Christ belongs within that God’s saving purpose; his suffering and resurrection stand at the center of the message. This pattern is visible well before imperial enforcement of Christian doctrine.

Compare the Teachings, Not Just the Labels

The existence of this early pattern does not, by itself, refute Ehrman. He knows that proto-orthodox Christians existed before they became politically dominant. The more important test concerns particular teachings.

Consider Marcion. Justin, writing while Marcion was still active, says:

“A certain Marcion from Pontus, who is still teaching even now, instructs those who follow him to believe in another God greater than the Creator.”

Justin Martyr, First Apology 26, c. AD 155.

Justin is an opponent, and we should recognize that perspective. But the teaching he describes can still be compared with earlier evidence. Paul identifies the one God, the Father, as the source of all things. He describes Christ as confirming God’s promises to Israel’s ancestors. The later witnesses we have read continue to identify the Father with the Creator. On that particular question, the continuity is substantial.

Or consider the account attributed to Basilides in which Simon suffers in Jesus’ place. Paul’s earlier proclamation explicitly identifies Christ as the one who died, was buried, and was raised. Ignatius later insists that Jesus truly suffered. If Irenaeus accurately reports this Basilidian teaching, it differs from the earlier proclamation at a central point.

We do not have to settle every question about Christian origins to recognize that difference. Competing Christians deserve equal seriousness as subjects of historical study. Their competing claims do not therefore have equal evidential support.

That conclusion is available to a skeptic as well as a Christian. A historian can conclude that one teaching is earlier without concluding that the resurrection actually occurred. A Christian can take the further step of believing the proclamation. The historical comparison and the act of faith are related, but they are not identical.

What This Evidence Cannot Count

We should also be clear about what our collection of quotations does not establish. These writers belonged to connected networks. They exchanged letters, read earlier texts, traveled, and appealed to shared teachers. Their geographical distribution is therefore not a collection of wholly independent discoveries.

But those connections are also part of what we are investigating. A tradition is transmitted through people who communicate. The surviving literature is selective, and Irenaeus’s statement about the church throughout the world is his claim about its reach and unity, not an empire-wide population survey.

Shared beliefs also did not eliminate major disagreements. Origen says so directly:

“Many who profess to believe in Christ disagree not only about small and insignificant matters, but also about great and most important matters: about God, about the Lord Jesus Christ, and about the Holy Spirit.”

Origen, On First Principles, preface 2, c. AD 225.

We should let that statement stand beside his account of received teaching. There was a recognizable inheritance, and there were serious disputes about how to understand it. The evidence supports continuity without requiring us to invent unanimity.

The Goths Help Us Keep the Questions Straight

A later example makes the distinction between missionary success and apostolic continuity easier to see. Ulfilas, the fourth-century bishop associated with the Gothic mission, belonged to a theological tradition commonly grouped under the broad label “Arian,” more precisely described in his case as Homoian. These labels cover disagreements that should not be flattened into a single, uniform movement.

His admirer Auxentius summarizes his teaching:

“He taught that the Father is the Creator of the creator, while the Son is the creator of the whole creation.”

Auxentius, Letter on Ulfilas, c. AD 383.

Here was a serious missionary tradition with a developed understanding of Christian faithfulness. Its missionary importance does not settle whether its theology best preserved the earliest teaching.

Nor should we simplify Gothic Christian beginnings into a story in which every early believer followed Ulfilas. Philostorgius describes an earlier role for Christian captives:

“The devout captives, living among the barbarians, brought many of them to Christian belief in place of their pagan beliefs.”

Philostorgius, Church History 2.5, c. AD 430, preserved in Photius’s epitome.

This later example cannot prove what happened in second-century Edessa or Egypt. It helps us keep our questions distinct. Reaching a people early, establishing durable communities, and achieving missionary success are historically significant accomplishments. They do not automatically settle the truth or antiquity of every teaching carried by those missionaries. That principle applies equally to Christians who eventually became orthodox.

What I Take From Bauer

Bauer makes the history more demanding. He asks us to question foundation stories that conveniently place later communities directly beside the apostles, and he directs attention to Christians whose own writings largely disappeared. He also shows why regional histories should be examined individually. Apostolic connections were claimed by competing teachers, while institutional influence could shape which communities prospered. Those are contributions worth taking seriously.

But his reconstructions need to remain distinguishable from the evidence beneath them. The Chronicle of Edessa is not a list of the city’s first Christian bishops, and the name “Palutians” is not a dated account of the foundation of Ephrem’s community. Clement’s report of Glaucias gives us an apostolic claim, not independent verification of the entire chain. The prominence of particular Egyptian teachers does not supply a population count.

The same care is needed elsewhere. Rome’s later generosity does not directly document financial support for a particular faction in the earlier Corinthian dispute. Bauer’s own discussion of Asia Minor allows probable majorities aligned with Ignatius in several churches. His regional arguments differ in their evidence and strength, and our conclusions should reflect those differences.

These distinctions do not make the book unimportant. They make it possible to learn from it without asking its evidence to bear more weight than it can.

Why I Am Glad This Faith Survived

I do not need the first Christian to enter every city to have held precisely the beliefs I hold. I do not need every bishop to have been right, every foundation story to have been genuine, or every successful community to have deserved its success. And being glad that a faith survived does not require defending coercion used in its name.

My confidence rests on a more specific connection. When I begin with our earliest surviving Christian writings, I encounter the God of Israel, the Father from whom all things come; Jesus Christ, the one Lord; his death for sins; his burial and resurrection; and a message Paul identifies with other apostolic witnesses. When I move forward through different regions and generations, I can still recognize that proclamation.

The language develops. Disputes multiply. Institutions grow. Some claims deserve rejection, even when respected Christian writers accepted them. But the central message does not first appear after its supporters gain political power. It is already there in the earliest evidence we possess.

That does not settle every later doctrinal dispute. It does give us a historical reason to distinguish continuity with the earliest proclamation from the mere achievement of victory. Bauer helps us ask who arrived, who competed, and who gained influence. We should ask all of those questions, then open the earlier texts and ask what they actually taught.

I am glad the apostolic faith survived because it preserved a recognizable core of Christianity’s earliest proclamation. Its victory is part of the history. Its connection to the beginning is the reason for my confidence.