In the third century, the Roman Empire threatened Christians with torture and death if they did not sacrifice before the Roman gods. The Church thrived under such pressure, for as Tertullian said, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity." Instead, the greatest threat to Christianity was Christianity itself. Divergent theories of God's nature, apostolic tradition, and dissimilar copies of Holy Scriptures caused the early Church to question itself.

Without telephones, printing presses, or a reliable postal system, the 1,800 bishops of that time found themselves in numerous cultures, speaking different languages, and needing someone to gather and consolidate authentic Church doctrine and reliable Scriptures. They found such men in Origen and Jerome. These two men wrote the unifying books that caused the Christian Church to remain "One, Holy, and Universal." This is their story, warts and all.