The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries
The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries

Author: Adolf Von Harnack

Publisher: Palala Press

Published: 2015-12-07

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9781347802366

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, 2 Volumes
The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, 2 Volumes

Author: Adolf Harnack

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 1997-01-09

Total Pages: 1008

ISBN-13: 1579100023

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How did Christianity come to win official recognition from the state in A.D. 325? Why then? Why not until then? Harnack outlines answers to these questions and analysis the causes and courses of this transition. A standard work on the early expansion of the church by one of the greatest students of early Christianity in the last 200 years.

The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries
The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries

Author: Adolf von Harnack

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2009-08

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9781458918222

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, AS BEARING UPON THE CHRISTIAN MISSION. THE EPISCOPATE.1 Christian preaching aimed at winning souls and k bringing individuals to God, that the number of . the elect might be made up, but from the very outset it worked along the lines of a community and proposed to itself the aim of uniting all together who believed in Christ. Primarily this union was one which consisted of the disciples of Jesus. But, as we have already seen, these disciples were conscious of being tlie true Israel and the ccclesia of God. Such they held themselves to be. Hence they appropriated to themselves the form and well-knit frame of Judaism, spiritualizing it and strengthening it, so that by one stroke (we may say) they secured a firm and exclusive organization. But while this organization, embracing all Christians on earth, rested in the first instance solely upon religious ideas, as a purely ideal conception it would hardly have remained effective for any length of 1 Cp. on this 7on Dobschiitz's die urchristlichen Gemeinden (1902) [translated in this library under the title of Christian Life in the Primitive Church]. time, had it not been allied to local organization; and Christianity, at the initiative of the original apostles and the brethren of Jesus, began by borrowing this as well from Judaism, i.e. from the synagogue. Throughout the Diaspora the Christian communities developed at first out of the synagogues with their proselytes or adherents. Designed to be essentially a brotherhood, and springing out of the synagogue, the Christian society developed a local organization which was of double strength, superior to anything achieved by the societies of Judaism.1 One extremely advantageous feature of these local organization...