A History of Heresy (Oxford Paperbacks)

With the changes in Christian orthodoxy over the centuries, the term heretic has come to hold a wide range of meanings. Society condemned the first Christians, themselves, as heretics because they defied the doctrines of Judaism. Focusing specifically on Christian heresy, David Christie-Murray's cogent and lucid study surveys minority believers from the early Judaizers, who believed that salvation depended purely on the observation of Christian versions of "the law," through Gnosticism, Montanism, Monarchianism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Pelagianism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and other movements and minorities, to the bewildering variety of heresies in the twentieth century.
Based on extensive scholarship, and yet compulsively readable, Christie-Murray's book explains the differences between different shades of Christian thought, and also provides an exciting, continuous narrative of the development of Christianity through the ages.