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Christianity in the 1st century continued the practice of female Christian headcovering (from the age of puberty onward), with early Christian apologist Tertullian referencing 1 Corinthians 11:2–10 and stating "So, too, did the Corinthians themselves understand [Paul]. In fact, at this day the Corinthians do veil their virgins.
Early Christians gathered in small private homes, [2] known as house churches, but a city's whole Christian community would also be called a "church"—the Greek noun ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) literally means "assembly", "gathering", or "congregation" [3] [4] but is translated as "church" in most English translations of the New Testament.
In the early centuries of Christian history, the majority of Christians who followed doctrines represented in Nicene Creed were bound by one common and undivided Catholicity that united the Latin-speaking Christians of the west and the Greek-speaking Christians of the east. In those days, the terms "eastern Catholic" and "western Catholic" had ...
The Jews of Alexandria had produced a Greek translation of their Hebrew Bible between the third and first centuries BC which the apostles and early Christians used. [36] [37] Unlike Judaism, Christianity has no sacred language. [38] In the early centuries, the languages most used to spread Christianity were Latin, Greek and Syriac. [39]
Starting quite early, all the hierarchical grades appear in them, from the door-keeper and lector up to the Pope. A number of epitaphs of the early popes (Pontianus, Anterus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Eutychianus, Caius) were found in the so-called "Papal Crypt" in the Catacomb of St. Callistus on the Via Appia, rediscovered by De Rossi.
Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) Christianity began as a ...
Critics counter that the criterion of embarrassment wrongly assumes that a scribal interpolator would not intentionally write details critical of his or her religious group, [61] and that a scribe may have found it advantageous and convincing to supply a less embarrassing fact (e.g., that Christians were regarded by the Romans as subscribing to ...
Map of the Roman Empire with the distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries AD. The growth of early Christianity from its obscure origin c. AD 40, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 400, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.