A Companion to Second-Century Christian 'Heretics'

This volume does a decent job providing an overview of second century Christian heresies. Sadly the quality of the essays varies. F. Stanley Jones' essay on the Pseudo-Clementines is fascinating. In contrast, the essays on the Ebionites, Montanists, and Tatian are more questionable. For instance, the Ebionite entry made an outrageous claim about the earliest form of Christology while providing absolutely no evidence in support. So egregious was this evidence-free declaration it nearly made me stop reading. Thankfully nothing else rose to that level of shameless assumption.Perhaps it goes with the subject matter, but several essays exhibit a distinct bias against the Orthodox Christianity that triumphed over the heresies, this is particularly evident in the entry on Montanism. Personally I prefer evidence over editorializing.For the Jewish-Christian fringe groups, I far prefer the tone an analysis of The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature and Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries , both of which featured a much fairer survey of the evidence.

Good overview of the subject. Gives the basic knowledge clearly. Very readable text.