Reading the title of Mark Edwards's book, it is hard not to feel reminded of Walter Bauer's groundbreaking work Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum, first published in 1934 (English translation: Orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity, 1972). This similarity is hardly a coincidence. Bauer, in his work, attempted to turn the consensus of his time regarding the relation of heresy and orthodoxy upside down. In a way Edwards has a similar aim.

Nowadays, it is unnecessary to point out that the so-called heretics of the early Church had a substantial influence on the process of ‘making orthodoxy’. Edwards acknowledges this academic consensus, but questions the assumption that the heretical influence was merely indirect, meaning that orthodoxy was formed in simple contrast to the heretical teachings. His scope reaches from the early Gnostics to the Council of Chalcedon and offers a good summary of the theological quarrels of the time. However, due to the complexity of the work, it is probably not suited for a first contact with the subject.

Edwards wishes to demonstrate that in each of these above-mentioned quarrels the heretical party was more than just a catalytic factor whose ideas formed the negative foundation for the victorious catholic group, but that in fact many ideas which were to become part of catholicity originated in heretical circles. Simply to start his analysis with a chapter entitled ‘The Gnostic beginnings of orthodoxy’ is a bold move, but also captures exactly the main thesis of the chapter as well as the book. In this way Edwards manages to offer an unconventional view on the relation between the heretics and their orthodox counterparts, a view worth considering for future scholars. Whether one has to agree with all of his conclusions in detail is, of course, another story. Especially regarding the Gnostics it can be hard to follow his thoughts. Edwards argues that Gnostics in part ‘join with Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels’ (pp. 32–3) and thus offer ‘sound readings of the New Testament’ (p. 33), which were then later accommodated by catholic teachers. This argument is perfectly in line with his main theory. However, if the alleged Gnostic contributions to orthodoxy are already contained in the New Testament, are the Fathers really indebted to the Gnostics for them?

Another question to be considered in Edwards's work is whether all his results are as innovative as he makes them appear. When he claims, for instance, that theologians like Basilides, Valentinus and Marcion ‘are often relegated to the hinterland of ecclesiastical history’ (p. 7), a German scholar would have to disagree. Marcion's influence on the Church has been recognised for almost a century, ever since Adolf von Harnack's impressive monograph (a fact which, strangely enough, Edwards admits himself, p. 32). As for Basilides and Valentinus, it is largely due to the excellent works by Christoph Markschies (Valentinus Gnosticus?, 1992) and Winrich Löhr (Basilides und seine Schule, 1996) that their importance for second-century theology has been properly acknowledged. When Edwards, for instance, remarks that neither Basilides nor Valentinus fit ‘the caricature of the dualist who crudely divorces matter from God’ (p. 32), this is a conclusion already reached by both these scholars.

In this context it is also questionable to doubt the loyal allegiance of the different Christian groups to their respective founders. Regarding the followers of Marcion, for instance, we know – due to Marcionite church inscriptions – that they definitely referred to themselves as Marcionites. Certainly, they would think of themselves as Christians first, and then as Marcionites, just as today Lutherans would think of themselves as Christians first. But one does not exclude the other, which is why it seems incorrect when Edwards ridicules the view that ‘it was not possible for anyone in the first five centuries to be simply a Christian, as there was always a choice to be made [between] hermetic and discordant “Christianities”’ (pp. 174–5). One might also wonder whether we are entitled, as does Edwards, to criticise the Fathers for anathematising their opponents. When Edwards remarks that ‘the canon of rabbinic apophthegms would be slight indeed if all but one pronouncement on any topic had been anathematized’ (p. 175), he fails to acknowledge the difference between disagreeing about the exact meaning of a certain parable and disagreeing about whether the Father of Jesus Christ is also the Creator of the world.

In the last century or two it has been ‘chic’, indeed, almost mandatory for scholars to side with men like Marcion or Arius. Edwards is no exception. If one wanted to be really innovative in this field of scholarship, however, the best approach might be to consider whether the Fathers were not in fact right all along in seeing at least some of these people as self-consciously choosing an alternative path – in other words, in seeing them as heretics.