After writing the post “The Early Christ Movement Was a Feminist Movement,” I realized something important was missing. I hadn’t fully traced how we got from a movement led largely by women and slaves to a council where only male bishops of the proto-orthodox were seated. How did this faction persuade Constantine to recognize them as mainstream and hand them the keys to the earthly kingdom? That story — of how a noisy minority turned themselves into the empire’s official church — is what follows.
Grassroots Beginnings: A Movement of Women and Slaves
When Christianity first took root in the first and second centuries, it was not bishop-led, wealthy, or male-dominated. It was a scrappy, decentralized network of house churches, often hosted by women patrons like Phoebe, Prisca, or Lydia. Archaeological and sociological evidence suggests that women and enslaved people were overrepresented in these early communities.
Why? Two reasons stand out. First, Christian prohibitions against infanticide and abortion meant more women survived to adulthood in Christian households compared to their pagan counterparts. Second, the movement offered women and the enslaved spiritual authority that Roman society denied them. A female prophet or enslaved visionary could speak in the assembly with real weight.
It’s important to stress: Christianity was never monolithic in these first centuries. There were Jewish-Christian groups, Gnostics, Marcionites, Montanists, and countless local variations. There was no single “orthodoxy.” That comes later — and only after a lot of politicking.
The Rise of the Proto-Orthodox: The Loud Minority Organizes
By the mid-second century, a faction of Christians began consolidating power. Later called the proto-orthodox, these leaders built networks of bishops, insisted on “apostolic succession,” and pushed toward uniformity. They were not the majority. They were just louder, more organized, and willing to brand their rivals as “heretics.”
Irenaeus of Lyons, writing around 180, produced Against Heresies. The sheer scale of that work tells you something: rival movements were thriving, not fringe. Montanists had female prophets, Valentinians had rich cosmologies, and Marcionites had their own canon. To counter them, Irenaeus positioned bishops as the only legitimate guardians of truth.
This was a marketing campaign more than a theological consensus. Like the “Moral Majority” of the 1980s, which claimed to speak for all Americans while representing a conservative slice, the proto-orthodox created the illusion that they were the center.
Respectability Politics and the Silencing of Women
One of their main strategies was to sideline women. The evidence is crystal clear. Tertullian, writing in North Africa, rails against women baptizing and preaching — not because no one was doing it, but because women were doing it and his faction wanted it stopped.
Montanism, a prophetic movement led by Priscilla and Maximilla, became a lightning rod. Here were women claiming the Holy Spirit’s voice, shaping communities, and offering visions of the New Jerusalem. Instead of embracing that diversity, proto-orthodox writers smeared them as hysterical and illegitimate.
The Gospel of Mary — a text where Mary Magdalene emerges as Jesus’ most visionary disciple — shows another world that was possible. But proto-orthodox leaders defined “orthodoxy” in part by what women were not allowed to do. Respectable Christianity, in their eyes, had to look like Roman society: male-led, orderly, patriarchal.
Crisis and Persecution: Why Bishops Looked Useful
The third century brought waves of persecution. Roman officials needed someone to negotiate with, and bishops — male, hierarchical, centralized — became the obvious choice.
That visibility gave proto-orthodox leaders credibility. Rival groups that were more visionary, prophetic, or decentralized didn’t have obvious figureheads for the empire to deal with. The very flexibility that made them vibrant in the grassroots made them look unstable to imperial power.
By the early fourth century, proto-orthodox bishops had positioned themselves as the public face of Christianity. They still weren’t the majority. But they were the ones Rome could see and use.
Constantine and the First Council: The Empire Chooses a Partner
Everything shifted with Constantine.
In 313, the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity and restored confiscated property. Suddenly churches had assets, land, and status. A little over a decade later, in 325, Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea.
Who got invited? Bishops. Only MALE bishops. And only those tied into the proto-orthodox networks. Gnostics, Montanists, Marcionites, women leaders, enslaved visionaries — none of them had a seat.
Why the bishops? Because they looked like Rome. One God, one faith, one bishop mapped perfectly onto one emperor, one law, one empire.
Nicaea wasn’t a democratic gathering of all Christians. It was Constantine choosing the faction most legible to imperial administration.
Codifying Exclusion: Locking Women Out
Once imperial favor was secured, proto-orthodox leaders moved to legislate exclusion.
The Synod of Laodicea (c. 360s) ruled in Canon 44: “Women may not approach the altar.”
Constantine and his successors granted bishops tax exemptions, court powers, and control over property.
Eusebius, writing church history, reframed centuries of diversity as a story of unity and progress toward orthodoxy — erasing the women, prophets, and communities that didn’t fit.
This was the moment when the grassroots, majority-female, house-church Christianity of the first century was overwritten by a male episcopal monopoly.
From Catholic to Imperial: When Minority Became Majority
The final step came in 380 with the Edict of Thessalonica. The emperor Theodosius declared Nicene Christianity the official religion of the empire. All rivals were criminalized.
The proto-orthodox, who had started as a noisy minority, were now the only legal Christians. Their canon became the Bible. Their bishops became imperial administrators. Their version of the faith became “orthodoxy.” Their canon also laid the foundations for what would eventually become Christian nationalism. See:
What Christianity Lost, What It Gained
Christianity didn’t start as an empire. It started in kitchens, courtyards, and slums — led by women, fueled by the enslaved, and open to radical diversity. What we call “orthodoxy” was not a natural majority but a faction that mastered politics, narrative, and imperial partnerships.
Like the “Moral Majority” of modern America, the proto-orthodox claimed a center they didn’t actually represent. But because they controlled the microphone and won imperial recognition, their story became the story.
Christianity gained unity, hierarchy, and state support. But going forward, we now know the truth and need to restore the lost voices and dismantle the Christian Nationalistic group mind that grew out of this history — as discussed in The Empire’s Bible:
Sources and Further Reading
Bauer, Walter. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, English translation, 1971.
Brakke, David. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.
DeConick, April D. Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter. New York: Continuum, 2011.
Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Grant, Robert M. The Formation of the New Testament. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
King, Karen L. The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle. Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 2003.
Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
Osiek, Carolyn, and Margaret Y. MacDonald. A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.
Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1996.
Primary Sources
Irenaeus. Against Heresies.
Tertullian. On Baptism.
The Gospel of Mary.
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History; Life of Constantine.
Synod of Laodicea. Canon 44.
Edict of Milan (313 CE).
Council of Nicaea (325 CE).
Edict of Thessalonica (380 CE).
Suggested Online Articles
“Women in Ancient Christianity.” PBS Frontline. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html
King, Karen. “The Roles for Women.” Harvard Divinity School. https://www.hds.harvard.edu/women-resources/articles/roles-women
“Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World.” Livius.org. https://www.livius.org/articles/concept/infanticide/
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Just a holy WOW. I want to shout this from the rooftops as I see everyday in my work with women, the fallout of this. The fear, self-silencing, the pain and illness. I truly believe ti stems from this intergenerational silencing. So much of trauma therapy blames the mother and family dynamics without looking further than that. I can imagine a completely different world.
Thank you for writing this. I often think about what could have been, if not for the empire and the church joining forces.