Written by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
Written by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
- early church Articles
- Web sites
- Bibliography
- Related Content
Alternate title:
primitive church
Written by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
Thank you for helping us expand this topic!
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
The topic
early church is discussed in the following articles:
major reference
-
Christianity began as a movement within Judaism at a period when the Jews had long been dominated culturally and politically by foreign powers and had found in their religion (rather than in their politics or cultural achievements) the linchpin of their community. From Amos (8th century bc) onward the religion of Israel was marked by tension between the concept of monotheism, with its...
art
church and state
-
The attitude of the first generations of Christians toward the existing political order was determined by the imminent expectation of the Kingdom of God, whose miraculous power had begun to be visibly realized in the figure of Jesus Christ. The importance of the political order was, thus, negligible, as Jesus himself asserted when he said, “My kingship is not of this world.”...
church discipline
-
In the early church, discipline concerned four areas in which there arose violations of the demand for holiness: (1) the relationship to the pagan social milieu and the forms of life and culture connected with it (e.g., idolatry, the emperor’s cult, the theatre, and the circus); (2) the relationship of the sexes within the Christian community (e.g., rejection of polygamy, prostitution,...
church unity
-
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between Paul and the enthusiasts. Peter and Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper...
church year
-
Early Christians believed that the new age promised by Jesus had dawned with his Resurrection, on “the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). By this event the Law was fulfilled. Now every day and time were viewed as holy for the celebration and remembrance of Jesus’ triumph over sin and death. Though many of his disciples continued to observe the...
last things
-
The “last things” were the first things, in terms of urgency, for the faithful of the early church. The central content of their faith and their hope was the coming Kingdom of God. They believed that the promises of the Old Testament about the coming bringer of salvation had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but that the fulfillment was not yet complete. Thus, they awaited Christ’s...
liturgy
-
The central focus of the liturgy of the early church was the Eucharist, which was interpreted as a fellowship meal with the resurrected Christ. Most expressions of Judaism at the time of Christ were dominated by an intense expectation, appropriated by the early Christian church, of the Kingdom of God, which would be inaugurated by the Messiah–Son of man. At the centre of Jesus’ preaching...
missionary activity
-
...Alexandrian Jews had translated (250 bce) the Hebrew Bible into koine Greek for dispersed Greek-speaking Jews. The New Testament writers also wrote in koine Greek. In that largely literate empire early Christians used and widely distributed the Hebrew Scriptures.
monasticism
-
...of perfection, have traditionally been traced to the first apostolic community in Jerusalem—which is described in the Acts of the Apostles—and to Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness. In the early church, monasticism was based on the identification of perfection with world-denying asceticism and on the view that the perfect Christian life would be centred on maximum love of God and...
mysticism
-
Although the essence of mysticism is the sense of contact with the transcendent, mysticism in the history of Christianity should not be understood merely in terms of special ecstatic experiences but as part of a religious process lived out within the Christian community. From this perspective mysticism played a vital part in the early church. Early Christianity was a religion of the spirit that...
myth and legend
-
Hellenistic Judaism had already reinterpreted many Gentile motifs and set them within a biblical context. From Jewish sources Christians adopted and adapted some mythical themes: the creation of the world, the end of the paradisal condition and the fall of humankind, the assumption of human form by a god, the saved saviour, the cataclysm at the end of time, and the final judgment. Christians...
patristic literature
-
During the first three centuries of its existence the Christian Church had first to emerge from the Jewish environment that had cradled it and then come to terms with the predominantly Hellenistic (Greek) culture surrounding it. Its legal position at best precarious, it was exposed to outbursts of persecution at the very time when it was working out its distinctive system of beliefs, defining...
Paul’s teaching
-
Although Paul may have converted some Jews, his mission was directed toward the Gentiles, who therefore constituted the vast majority of his converts. The letters sometimes explicitly state that Paul’s converts had been polytheists or idolaters: the Thessalonians had “turned to God from idols” (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and at least some of the Corinthians wished to be allowed to...
philosophy
-
Neoplatonic themes that provided intellectual material for Christian and non-Christian thinkers alike in the early centuries of the Common Era included a hierarchical conception of the universe, with the spiritual on a higher level than the physical; the eternal reality of such values as goodness, truth, and beauty and of the various universals that give specific form to matter; and the...
racial tolerance
-
The Christian church has always urged the overcoming of racism, even though it has generally compromised with prevailing societal values. In the early church, racism was unknown; the Jewish synagogues allowed black proselytes. The first Jewish proselyte mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles was a governmental administrator from Ethiopia, who was baptized by the apostle Philip. Likewise, the...
What made you want to look up early church?