Dramatic
growth of the Early
Church
The
following is a non exhaustive
list of resources which
documents or indicates the presence of the Christian Church in the
first to
early second century.
Israel
and the Middle East
New
Testament
- Acts
3:14,41 – Fellow Jews and all
of you who live in Jerusalem…and
about three thousand were added to their number that day.
- Acts
11::19-22 – and they sent
Barnabus to Antioch.
- Acts
13:4,5 and sailed from there
to Cyprus
Early
Christian Writings:
Hippolytus:
Matthew
wrote the Gospel in the
Hebrew tongue, and published it at Jerusalem,
and fell
asleep at Hierees, a town of Parthia.\224
[Parthia
is near modern day Tehran]
(Ichthus).
Classical
Writings:
Lucian
of Samosata:
...associated
himself with the priests and scribes of the Christians in Palestine.(Van Voorst 2000, pg 59 )
Other
secular writings:
One
of the earliest centers of Christianity in Persia
is said to be Arbel the capital of Adiabene.
It was a small Persian border kingdom. Its capital Arbela was about
fifty miles
east of river Tigris.
There is no doubt that
the early advance of Christianity in eastern Mesopotamia, as was the
case in
western Mesopotamia,
was upon the ground
prepared by the Jews. There was a large concentration of Jews in Arbela
and in
Nisibis in eastern Mesopotamia.
Nisibis which
was situated west of Tigris was the seat of a Jewish Academy of
learning whose
fame was acknowledged in the first century even by the Rabbis in Palestine.
Christianity
spread in these areas in the first century itself. It is of importance
that the
Christian faith spread not only in bigger cities but also in the
villages on
the mountains round about Adiabene. By the end of the Parthian dynasty
(AD
225), Christian communities were seen all the way from Edessa
to Afghanistan.
The Edessian philosopher, Bardaisan in his book: Book of the
Laws of
Countries written about AD 196, speaks of Christians living
as far as Bactria
(Northern Afghanistan).
(Philip 1998)..
Archeaology
1st
Century Palestine:
Burial
cave of first Chirstians. Dated 1st Century AD
Burial
Cave
|
Egypt
The
Coptic Church is based on the
teachings of Saint Mark
who brought Christianity to Egypt
during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero in the first century, a
dozen of years
after the Lord's ascension. He was one of the four evangelists and the
one who
wrote the oldest
canonical gospel. Christianity spread throughout
Egypt within half a
century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria
as is clear
from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa, in Middle Egypt,
which date
around the year 200 A.D., and a fragment of the Gospel of Saint John,
written
using the Coptic
language, which was found in Upper Egypt and can
be dated to the
first half of the second century. (Encyclopedia
Coptica)
Early
Christian Writings:
Eusebius
of Caesarea, the author
of Ecclesiastical History in the fourth century, states that St. Mark
came to
Egypt in the first or third year of the reign of Emperor Claudius, i.e.
41 or
43 A.D. "Two Thousand years of Coptic Christianity" Otto F.A.
Meinardus p28. Coptic
Orthodox Church of Alexandria
Archaeology:
Greece
and Turkey
New Testament
Acts
14:1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas
went as usual into the Jewish synagogue.
There they spoke.. a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed.
Acts
18:18 Paul stayed on in Corinth
for
some time.
Acts
19:1 Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus.
Early
Christian Writings:
Hippolytus:
John,
again, in Asia, was banished
by Domitian the king to the isle of Patmos, in which also he wrote his
Gospel
and saw the apocalyptic vision; and in
Trajan's time he fell asleep at Ephesus
(Ichthus).
Philip
preached in Phrygia, and was crucified in Hierapolis (Ichthus).
Jude,
who is also called Lebbaeus,
preached to the people of Edessa,
and to all Mesopotamia
(Ichthus).
Rome
New
Testament:
Act
28:1 …we found out that the island was Malta.
Acts
28:14 And so we came to Rome.
Early
Christian Writings:
While
Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome,
and laying the foundations of the Church. Irenaeus, "Against
Heresies", Book 3, Chapter 1). (Ichthus).
Classical
writings:
Pliny
the Younger. "They had met regularly before dawn… and sung antiphonally
a
hymn to Christ as if to a god. (Van Voorst 2000, pg 25 )
Suetonius
(dated 49 AD). …expelled the Jews from Rome,
since they were always making disturbances because of the instigator
Chrestus.
(Van Voorst, pg 31)
Tacitus,
(places Christians in Rome
64 AD), "whom the crowd called "Chrestians." (Van Voorst 2000, pg 41
)
Archaeology
Rome
Catacombs
Dated
2nd thru the 5th
Century
Jim Forest
Russia
Early
Christian Writings:
Hippolytus
writes that Andrew
preached to the Scythians
[modern day Georgia]
and
Thracians [modern day Bulgaria],
(Ichthus).
India
Early
Christian Writings:
Hippolytus
and Eusebius:
Bartholomew,
again, preached to the Indians. (Ichthus).
Church
tradition teaches that
Thomas preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hyrcanians,
Bactrians, and
Margians, and was thrust through in the
four members of his body with a pine spear at Calamene,
the city of India.
(Ichthus).
Church
Growth
In summary, the Christian
movement exploded within the lifetimes of the original disciples. Its
epicenter was in Jerusalem
itself and spread "like wildfire" north and northwest, --into Greece, Turkey,
and Rome.
It spread to the south and south west—into Egypt.
Additionally, there are strong indications that the church may have
spread as far north as
modern day Bulgaria
(Russia),
and east into India
and thru Mesopotamia into modern day Afghanistan.
Quickly following up from where the disciples left off, the first
generation church fathers continued the work and the church continued
to expand
into Germany,
France,
and west along the southern Mediterranean into Africa.
For a small group (of people), the message which the original disciples
and evangelists brought was an extremely compelling one which was able
to
transcend cultural barriers. The explosive growth of the early church
is a
testimony to just how compelling their testimony was (and in fact
continues to be)
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![[Fragment of St. John's gospel]](Jesus%20Myth%20rebuttal_files/image040.jpg)
