Early Christian Church

In his post on this blog yesterday, “Indeed Very Many: Universalism in the Early Church,” Matthew Distafano cites an impressive list of Early Church Fathers who were pro-universal salvation, and connects the switch in Christian theology to exclusivism with the writings of Augustine (in the late fourth and early fifth centuries), the Emperor Justinian, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in the sixth century.
As a student of patristics, I find this timing significant. Almost anyone who has studied the history of the Christian faith knows the name of Constantine as the emperor who made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. Many now mournfully mark this event as a defining moment in the established Church’s abandonment of the teachings of Jesus. For those who led the churches at the time, it seemed a godsend.
This institution was, in turn, used by the powers that be to control the lives and beliefs of the peoples of the empire. This is where the drive to identify the “orthodox” version of Christian faith over against the “heretical” versions gathered its momentum.
In the fourth century, the debates centered around the divinity of Jesus and eventually led to the formation of doctrine of the Trinity. In the fifth century, the debate centered around the relationship between the two natures of Christ (divine and human). These debates took decades to brew and develop as bishops and theologians wrote letters and theses, contradicted and debated with one another, lobbied secular authorities for support, and played politics in an attempt to “win” the debate and get their understanding enshrined in the annals of an ecumenical