century.4 We must be careful not to study second-century Christianity as if its future were already predetermined. That said, we must also be careful of the opposite mistake. The diversity and complexity of this time period does not necessitate a view where the Christian movement is merely stuck in a morass of conflict and does not change or develop at all. It is not illegitimate to ask how (and why) early Christianity might have looked different at the end of the second century from how it did at
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