Episode Details

Ante orthodoxiam, chaos erat.
In the centuries after Jesus, Christian thinkers, mystics, and radicals offered wildly different visions of who Jesus was, what salvation meant, and whether the material world was a divine creation—or a cosmic mistake.

• Competing early Christian views on Jesus’ divinity and humanity, including Adoptionism, Docetism, and Arianism
• How dualistic worldviews and secret knowledge shaped Gnostic and Manichaean heresies
• The political pressures behind the Church’s drive to define orthodoxy—especially under Constantine
• The evolving doctrine of the afterlife, from Sheol and resurrection to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory
• Augustine’s role in responding to heresies like Donatism and Pelagianism
• Why “heretics” were often more numerous—and sometimes more philosophically interesting—than their orthodox opponents

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