Mark Edwards is Lecturer in Patristics, Christ Church, Oxford and author of the following books: Translation and commentary: Philoponus. Physics of Aristotle, Book 3 (Duckworth, 1994). Three translations with Commentary: Optatus, Against the Gnostics (1997), Neoplatonic Saints (2002), Constantine and Christendom (2003), all for Liverpool University Press (translated; Texts for Historians). Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VIII: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians (Inter-Varsity Press, 1999). Three edited volumes for Clarendon Press: Portraits (with Simon Swain, 1997); Apologetics in the Roman World (with Simon Price, Martin Goodman, 1999); Approaching Late Antiquity (with Simon Swain, 2004). Origen against Plato (Ashgate, 2002). John through the Centuries, Blackwell Bible Commentary series (2003). Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus (Duckworth, 2006).

• Contents: Introduction; The gnostic beginnings of orthodoxy; The catholicity of Irenaeus; The foundations of Catholic teaching in the 3rd century; Origen and orthodoxy; The Nicene Council and its aftermath; Apollinarius and the Chalcedonian definition; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

’...Edwards demonstrates skillful argumentation and a mastery of sources...Recommended.’ Choice ’[Edwards] demonstrates in an elucidating way the diversity and plurality of the theological thinking of early Christianity. [...] Edwards discovers a theological unity in places where it was previously not sought, namely in tenets and thinkers considered as heterodox. This original and intriguing study will certainly evoke much discussion in the research of early Christianity.’ Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses ’Edwards’s scholarship, extending across the whole period under investigation, is truly impressive, as is his theological ’razor’ (if the expression be permitted), which rejects the defeatist modern tendency to split up early Christianity into innumerable ’hermetic and discordant ’’Christianities’’’... Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church can be recommended as a valuable and concise contribution to the study of early Christian doctrine and, more particularly, as a new attempt to appreciate the interrelationship between heresy and orthodoxy...’ Journal of Theological Studies 'Mark Edwards, whose knowledge of early Christian theology is both broad and deep, and which is matched only by his understanding of the philosophical milieu in which this theology developed, offers in this slender but important volume a deeper understanding of the vexed question of the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy in the first centuries of the common era...' Religious Studies Review 'Edwards has done a great service in writing this book, and its power is demonstrated in its ability to provoke reconsiderations of what is too facilely believed about the fascinating world of early Christianity.' The Thomist