1. The new century begins without those who lived with Jesus, the apostles and many others.

2. In this century, two emperors ruled Rome: Domitian, who began to persecute the Christians and the second Trajan, with Domitian being the one who took John, the only apostle of Jesus who was not martyred, into exile on the island of Patmos, in Greece. Being there, John was inspired to write the book of Revelation.

3. Then appeared those who learned from the apostles, very important characters for the birth of Christianity such as Ignatius of Antioch. A hypothesis of historians and researchers is that Ignatius may have been the child that Jesus carried in His arms and said: “Let the little children come to me”. He was a direct disciple of John the Evangelist and bishop of Antioch.

4. In this century there were already deacons and bishops, but not as they are today, they were positions of reference at the time to highlight people. Ignatius of Antioch also wrote letters like Paul of Tarsus. He wrote seven letters that are structural documents of Christianity.

5. Ignatius was one of the first martyrs killed in the circus eaten by lions. When he enters the arena, he says: “I am the wheat of God and I want to be eaten by the lions to transform myself into pure bread for those who will come after me”. This information is contained in the book “Wheat of God”, by Amélia Rodrigues.

6. He was an apologete (defender of the faith), like so many others who did not fear death or martyrdom, leaving thus, the Romans, without understanding what made them be so fearless. There were about one million Christians sacrificed, as is known. The belief of the apologetes: faith in Jesus, who resurrected, and the grace of God, is what will save us.

7. Also appears Polycarp of Smyrna, the fearless, another apologete, also disciple of John the Evangelist. And Papias of Hierapolis. Polycarp was also bishop of the city of Smyrna, located in Turkey (Asia Minor).

8. Polycarp was captured by the Romans and forced to renounce the heresy that Christians defended of following Jesus. He reverses the words saying that the heresy was theirs and not of the Christians. Then, traditions say, that they tried to burn Polycarp, but the flames made a kind of vacuum and Polycarp did not burn. Finally, mercilessly, a soldier thrust a spear into Polycarp and killed him. He dies for giving testimony to Jesus. Polycarp was 86 years old.

9. Another important character to highlight, Irenaeus of Lyon, disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna. He thought it necessary to combat the heresies that were growing, so that Christianity could move forward. This was his work and he wrote a book about it.

10. Irenaeus of Lyon also fought Gnosticism. At that time there were more than sixty Gnostic sects. The belief of Gnosticism: what frees me is the knowledge of spiritual things and self-knowledge. They believed that it was necessary to detach from matter to reach spirituality. The salvation of man through himself. Gnosticism is a secret doctrine, supported in the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians. Gnosticism means: gnose = knowledge; ism = one who affiliates to something. At the time it was a mystical belief, almost esoteric. Eventually it was fought by the Church, as being a heresy.

11. Irenaeus of Lyon, also an apologete, defended consubstantiation which was: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three persons in one, at the same time. For a Protestant and a Catholic, Jesus and God are one, from this century until the present. This begins to change with the Gnostics and later with Spiritism and some other sects.

12. The Christian Community when it began to be created, was based on the apologetes, those who defended the faith. And there was a lot of divergence of opinions, so it was necessary to create a line of conduct, a set of rules to be practiced and defended by all. They created, then, an orthodoxy, with the following principles: Canon (rule to be followed), creed (set of beliefs to follow), and Apostolicity (to be in accordance with the apostles). The primitive Church worked in these three directions. Those who were not in agreement were considered heretics. Over time heresies began to be persecuted, not tolerated.

13. Other important apologetes, Papias of Hierapolis, Tertullian of Carthage and Justin Martyr. The latter was also martyred and beheaded, because he placed Jesus as the Divine Logos, Jesus, the Word that became flesh. He said that the true philosophy was Christianity.

14. Two great Gnostic characters, who were also Christians, were Marcion of Sinope and Valentinus of Egypt. The latter defended that the world had not been created by God, but by Demiurges, that is, extremely evolved spirits who would have promoted the creation of the planet, at the command of God. But as they are not perfect, the Earth would be an imperfect place. And this is exactly what Jewish Kabbalah (set of Jewish knowledge) says.

15. Marcion of Sinope said that the God of the Old Testament of the Jews was a God who created the Earth and the Heavens, but He was bad, severe. The God of Jesus was a good God and His coming was to inaugurate a new phase, the phase of feeling, of direct connection with a God who was an essence. But by excluding the Old Testament, he excluded the Jesus who was Jewish. He ends up getting lost, because for him only the Gospel of Luke and the letters of Paul were valid, and he disregarded the other three.

16. There are four Gospels accepted by the Church that are part of the Canon, that narrate the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But there are more than one hundred texts from that time that also speak of the life of Christ. They are the apocryphal texts (which do not have authenticity for the Church). Then, several movements were arising, at that time, with different opinions.

17. All the structuring of the emerging Church, Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and, in the 16th century, the Protestant Churches, converge regarding that salvation is given through the person of Jesus Christ, who died for all of us on a cross, resurrected and it is through faith in Him that we obtain the grace of God. This for them is an article of faith, being the same article of faith of these apologetes of this century. What was distant from this needed to be fought.

18. Two other heresies of the time, Docetism, which arose without a leader and was gaining strength, gaining space. They did not form churches or nuclei, but mixed with people within the churches of the emerging Christianity, giving much work to be removed from the Christian nucleus. According to this heresy, Jesus did not have a body of flesh, He was an apparition or a ghost, because they did not have knowledge to say fluid body or spirit. According to this heresy, it would explain the virginity of Mary and the absence of the body of Jesus in the tomb.

19. The other heresy that arose in this century, Adoptionism. This heresy preached that Jesus and God were not the same person. That Jesus became the most perfect type because He was adopted (adoptionism) by God, at the baptism of John the Baptist, becoming the Messiah. With this, the need for baptism was created, very important for the emerging Christianity, with the Catholic Church baptizing when a child, by sprinkling. In the Protestant church, by immersion, only when adult and as Jesus was baptized, when one makes the conscious choice of faith.

20. Within this heresy arises a branch, another heresy, the Mandaean, which said that Jesus was not the Messiah, John the Baptist was, because he is the one who baptized Jesus. The Messiah, then, for them was John the Baptist. These groups still exist today, in Iraq, in France. To become an adoptionist or a mandaean, it is enough to be baptized to become a son of God.

21. Heresy, in ancient Greece, meant a school, a line, a current of thought. Over time it changed meaning. Today, heresy means to have thinking contrary to what should be correct.

22. Christianity owes much to these brave apologetes and to the Christians at the beginning of its history, for they having endured so many martyrdoms and horrible deaths for love of the message of the Master and having made it cross the centuries and become the light placed on the candlestick, to illuminate all those who wish to take knowledge of it.

23. The second century was marked by martyrdoms and heresies.