Introduction

Abstract

Their name comes from a Greek word that means “know”.They became the first Christian heresy, a Greek word that means “choice.” They were deemed by their opponents to have made the wrong choice, chosen the wrong way, the wrong Christ, even the wrong God. Their “bad” theology was assailed in a scribal battle of pen and parchment, a fierce war of words and books the world may never see again. Their beliefs were scorned and maligned; their faithful excommunicated and run out of town; their books and writings banned and burned.

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

—Helen Keller