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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 5247958, member: 110504&quot;]Thanks, [USER=87200]@ancient coin hunter[/USER], for stepping into this puddle.</p><p>First, in refence to what [USER=100136]@thejewk[/USER] said, the Vandals were adherents of Arianism, like Constantius II had been.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Nag Hammadi Codex is no earlier than the extant manuscripts of the canonical New Testament.&nbsp; In which, Saints Paul and John are already denouncing heresy.&nbsp; (Humor me, for one minute, regarding the &#039;titles.&#039;&nbsp; --Look: Christianity was born in a profoundly pluralistic society ...thanks to, Yep, the Roman and Hellenistic cultural infrastructure which was already well established.&nbsp; ...Which is only to say that pluralism, in order to make a grain of sense by its own terms, should be applicable in both directions.)</p><p>The main point here being that key distinctions between theological orthodoxy and heterodoxy were being made <i>while</i> the Christians were <i>still</i> suffering various levels of persecution, sometimes overtly state-sponsored.&nbsp; Throwing a serious monkey wrench into the notion that, especially as early as this, Christian orthodoxy was <i>reducible</i> to its subsequent, often appalling enforcement by the subsequent, 4th-century Roman state.&nbsp; (--As perceived by the aforementioned Roman state, the militant Arian Constantius II emphatically included.)&nbsp; ...With the inexorable corollary that this was all about political expediency.&nbsp; Just, Doubting it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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