The Scholar's Challenge

In the third century, the Roman Empire threatened Christians with torture and death if they did not sacrifice before the Roman gods. The Church thrived under such pressure, for as Tertullian said, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity." Instead, the greatest threat to Christianity was Christianity itself. Divergent theories of God's nature, apostolic tradition, and dissimilar copies of Holy Scriptures caused the early Church to question itself.

Without telephones, printing pres...