Gnosticism and Earlier Christian Texts
Early Christian polemicists such as Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian all attacked Gnosticism as ‘heresy' and until the 20th Century virtually nothing was known about it except in the distorted texts they had written. Their purpose was to construct the boundaries between what later became ‘orthodox' or ‘catholic' Christianity in opposition to Judaism, paganism and carious Christian ‘heresies'. Until the fourth and fifth centuries, however, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire under "the guiding influence of the Christian emperors" like Constantine and Theodosius, Christian ‘orthodoxy' was still fluid and in dispute. Only because of the power of the Roman state did Christianity become a "monolithic unity" that had not existed before and redefined "manifold ancient religious practices into three mutually exclusive groups: Jews, Christians and pagans (King 22). Early Christian polemicists deliberately exaggerated the differences between these groups and minimized the similarities, although for the first three centuries of Christianity no commonly recognized hierarchy or Scriptural canon existed.
Gender representation in television
Since the advent of the television during the latter part of 1920s, men and women have been portrayed differently in movies, television, radio, music videos, news, and social media.