Are the Christians of the first two centuries less likely to have wandered into theological error than we of later times? Commenter Mark G at the Pontificator blog apparently thinks so:
In my youth and even now I figure that (1) the Christians of the first two centuries, being closer in time to the Apostles, were less likely to have erred than those who came later (corollary – question any teaching that seems to have popped up for the first time after 500 A.D.) ….
I dunno — the earliest Christians indisputably got it wrong in expecting Jesus to return in triumph during their lifetimes to overthrow evil and restore Israel to its rightful place. (Then-Professor, now-Bishop N.T. Wright is demonstrably misguided in arguing to the contrary, but that’s a topic requiring a more detailed discussion.) The early Christians also believed the sun orbited the earth and that epileptic symptoms were caused by demons. Finally, we don’t really know all that much about the theology of the earliest Christians; the surviving written records are those written, and preserved from the ravages of time, by the winning faction(s). So all in all, I’m not quite ready to believe that those folks were materially less likely to make theological errors than we are.
Past experience tells me that some scripturalists / catholicists will pounce on the paragraph above, accusing me of arrogantly thinking that we’re smarter than the Fathers. Yes, I do think we’re "smarter," in the sense that we know much, much more than the Fathers did. No rational person could dispute that we have more insight into God’s handiwork than they did. We clearly know more than the ancients about "what has been made"; if Paul was right in Romans 1:19-20, it’s logical to suppose that we therefore also know more about "God’s invisible qualities."
This is no knock against the Fathers. It’s simply an acknowledgement that by God’ grace we have been able to build on what they handed down to us. As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" — but even Newton wasn’t the last word, because Einstein saw even further in part by standing on his shoulders.
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