History of Early Christianity

The symbolic birth of the Christian church is marked on Pentecost, a festival that celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and the beginning of the church’s mission. According to Acts 2, this event occurred 50 days after the Ascension of Jesus. The members of the early Christian church believed their mission to be nearer its end than its beginning, however. In daily expectation of the imminent Second Coming of Christ, the faithful prepared themselves for his kingdom and, by urgently preaching his gospel, sought to bring others into the redeemed community. In the event, longer perspectives of a “time of the church” opened up. Christians faced the problems of living among a pagan majority, the missionary challenge proved to be far greater than could have been foreseen, and with it came the task of building a Christian social life. It became necessary to determine a new canon of authoritative scriptures (the writings of the apostles and their circle), on this basis to draw out the theological implications of the gospel, and to adopt such institutional forms as would preserve and propagate the inner life in Christ. 

The church spread with astonishing rapidity. Already in the Acts of the Apostles its movement from one headquarters to another can be traced: Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch; the missions of St. Paul to Asia Minor (Tarsus, Iconium, Ephesus, and Cyprus); the crossing to Macedonia (Philippi and Thessalonica) and Achaea (Athens and Corinth); and the beginnings in Rome. Other early evidence tells of more churches in Asia Minor and of Christians in Alexandria. Though Christianity found a springboard in Jewish synagogues, it owed even more to the crucial decision to open the church to gentiles without either circumcision or complete adherence to the Torah. Roman roads and the comparative security they offered also facilitated missionary work.

The church spread with astonishing rapidity. Already in the Acts of the Apostles its movement from one headquarters to another can be traced: Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch; the missions of St. Paul to Asia Minor (Tarsus, Iconium, Ephesus, and Cyprus); the crossing to Macedonia (Philippi and Thessalonica) and Achaea (Athens and Corinth); and the beginnings in Rome. Other early evidence tells of more churches in Asia Minor and of Christians in Alexandria. Though Christianity found a springboard in Jewish synagogues, it owed even more to the crucial decision to open the church to gentiles without either circumcision or complete adherence to the Torah. Roman roads and the comparative security they offered also facilitated missionary work. 

By the end of the 2nd century there were well-established churches in Gaul (Lyon, Vienne, and perhaps Marseille) and Latin Africa (Carthage), with perhaps a start in Britain, Spain and Roman Germany, though little is known of these areas for another century. To the east, Edessa soon became the centre of Syriac Christianity, which spread to Mesopotamia, the borders of Persia, and possibly India. Armenia adopted Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century, by which time there may have been a Christian majority, or near it, in some cities of Asia Minor and Roman Africa, while progress had been substantial in Gaul and Egypt. The faith had demonstrated its appeal to people of different cultures and environments; the church could be catholic, universal.