country folk. Still there was a radiation from the town centres that affected the surrounding regions in various degrees. Thus in writing to the Corinthians St. Paul is able to include "all the saints which are in the whole of Achaia.[1] No reliance can be placed on unauthenticated traditions of the labours of other apostles in various parts of the world,[2] especially as the rivalry among the Churches led to an eager desire to claim apostolic origin—and consequent authority—wherever any pretence of the kind could be put forward. During the later decades of the first century the history of the Church is plunged into obscurity only partially illumined here and there by transient gleams. The Johannine writings throw some light on the district of Ephesus, and indicate that in their early days Hellenistic thought was already affecting the Churches of that part of Asia. The Epistle of Clement (a.d. 95) shows us the Church at Corinth, factious as in the days of St. Paul, rebuked by her sister Church at Rome for unchristian envy and for lack of the grace of love in dismissing her elders. If the Didaché may be assigned to so early a period, we have in this little Church Manual a vivid picture of the life of a small community of Gentile Christians, probably in Syria, severely antagonistic to the Jews, and kept in touch with other Churches by the visits of travelling Christians known as "apostles" and "prophets."
The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (a.d. 70) and the consequent ruin of the Jewish State and power had a mixed effect on the condition of the Christians. On the one hand, it freed them from the persecution of their worst enemies; on the other hand, it revealed to the world the distinction between Christianity and Judaism.
- ↑ 2 Cor. i. 1.
- ↑ Matthew in Ethiopia; Andrew in Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece; Philip in the same wide region, with the addition of Scythia and even Gaul; Matthias in Ethiopia; Simon the Zealot in Egypt, Lybia, and Mauritania; Thaddæus preaching the gospel in the African language; Thomas in Parthia and India. There is much confusion and contradiction among the legends.
