The Early Church

The early church had lots of characteristics. According to Acts 2:42-47, the church was teaching, worshipping, communal, selfless, and growing. This empowered people to join the apostles in their spiritual journey. The modern church still is all these things, but also an institution, a herald, a sacrament, body of christ, servant, and community of disciples. All of these characteristics are important to the church as a whole.

Christianity was frowned upon by the Romans. The Roman Emperor wanted the people to worship him and the Roman Gods. Christians were blamed for many of the misfortunes that happened in Rome. Due to the belief that Christians were to blame they were ostracized, tortured and even killed.

The process by which Scripture has been preserved and compiled is one whose history is worth noting. The early church had many opportunities to share the Good News of Christ via word of mouth, but from the time of Christ’s resurrection until the mid-second century, there had not been a single culmination of writings considered to be essential for the purposes of

While the church was busy trying to maintain its biblical principles while also trying to be evangelistic and counter the culture; it was undergoing persecution within the Roman Empire. In the earlier years of Christianity, as mentioned before, they were not distinguishable from the Jewish religion. Because of the Jewish religion stirring up trouble and the Christian preaching, which sounded to the Roman mindset like the act of rebellion, the church faced

During the middles ages, church was more than just the place you went to worship, it was a place of power. It had a government, courts, a system of taxation, and laws. Teachings of the church influenced everyone in the society. The Christian Church molded the way the culture was during the middle ages. Christianity is the name given to the system of religious belief and practice which was taught by Jesus Christ in the country of Palestine during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Since Christianity was the dominant religion during the Middle Ages, attempts to purify the church and society led to many Christian campaigns against other religions. These campaigns were led by bishops, scholars and warriors who made efforts to make the Christian world free of all the non-Christians.

There were several factors that caused the church to conflict with the Roman officials and with its Jewish forbearers. The Christian community fellowshipped with the Jewish community; therefore, they both worshiped in the same temple and synagogues. That didn’t last long, conflict and tensions among communities began.: “death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr” (Fant437). Many apostles were arrested or suffered a great persecution for preaching the Christian faith. The Jews didn’t believe in Jesus, but the Christians viewed Jesus as: “Jesus of Nazareth, and the messiah” (Fant441). Both communities have different perspectives pertaining to the beliefs, the values and the traditions.

Ancient Rome practiced many religions which had their own rules. Christians had to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. People believed Jesus Christ was the son of God because of his resurrection. Christians had to pray and worship, as well as be a good person. In Ancient Rome Christianity took time to be accepted. Christians as well as Jesus Christ were persecuted for their beliefs. Romulus and Remus are the mythical founders of Rome

What happen next was to change the believers and establish the early church, when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together

When Christianity first emerged it culturally threatened the Greco-Roman social order; they strongly adhered to the belief that Jesus was the messiah and their allegiance was with him, not the Roman Emperor. The emperors were viewed as ‘saviours’, they were not merely human but also divine and at the moment of death their soul would rise to the heavens. Due to them being pedestalized it was a popular tradition to build temples and make sacrifices to the emperor and thus, it also became important that everyone (with the exception of Jews as it was an ancient and already established faith which the Romans respected because of this) did the same. Romans were suspicious of new religions and the proclamation that Christians made deeply offended them. Christians voiced the belief that the person the Jews had sacrificed was the true saviour, the son of God which

Have you ever wondered how Christianity was spread in the early stages? and what influenced it? Rome held a huge part in both of these things. The Roman emperors, culture, and the Roman religion all were things that influenced early Christianity very much.

One of the issues of the Medieval church was that they were worried that their pastorate were not sufficiently concentrating on otherworldly matters and were concentrating a lot on material riches. This was created generally as a result of a development of riches inside of the religious communities and inside of the individual coffers of the church. With this came a rot of general ethical quality, displayed by the ascent of indecencies, for example, insatiability, lack of restraint, and savagery. The Church looked to defeat these indecencies essentially by expulsion and execution. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was not a surprise. Reformers inside of the medieval church, for example, St. Francis of Assisi, Valdes, Jan Hus, and

In the initial decades of the Roman Empire, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, a new religion, Christianity, emerged. Much of the impetus for this new religion rested in issues in the Jewish religion, including a long-standing belief in the coming of a Messiah and rigidities that had developed in the Jewish priesthood. Whether or not Christianity was created by God, as Christians believe, the early stages of the religion focused on cleansing the Jewish religion of stiff rituals and haughty leaders. It had little at first to do with Roman culture. Christianity arose in a remote province and appealed particularly to the poorer classes. It is not easy, as a result, to fit Christianity neatly into the patterns of Roman history: It was deliberately separate, and only gradually had wider impact.(Robert A. Guisepi)

Every king, queen, knight, serf, and soldier lived and died under the influence of the Catholic faith. The Catholic Churches in Rome played a huge part in the Middle Ages because Catholic Churches were the only churches in Europe during that period of time, they had large amounts of help from the Popes, Bishops, Saints, and the Cardinals, as well as the formal structure of the church.

Christianity was inspired by Judaism and was spread throughout Rome. It didn’t start off popular and wasn’t looked at respectfully. Within the 2nd and 3rd centuries it had a rocky start with the Roman Empire and was the “cause” of invasions and internal crises. In Germany throughout the year of 249-250 they made it mandatory to all follow the same religion of the Emperor. They were told to worship only Roman Gods. The christians couldn't make the necessary sacrifices: the result was a series of savage outbursts of violence against them.

Many things happened in the Renaissance such as there was a new idea for the arts and exploration. In the Renaissance many artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo rose because of the contribution they had in the church and government. Michelangelo for example painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel thanks to the contribution of the wealthy, to the church. The church during the Renaissance changed a lot. Some of the change was due to the contribution of Erasmus, the son of a priest, who decided to translate the Bible from Greek into Latin. The translation of the bible was important because it impacted the depiction that the people had of the church. Instead of just viewing the images painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the