Categories: uncategorized
Date: 02 February 2006 02:36:59
Following on from the last entry, those gathered decided they were going to find out what happened after the book af Acts. They were not going to read what other people said about the early church, only what those in the early church wrote themselves. And they wanted to read the earliest possible works. They researched worship, history, doctirne, what early Christians believed about Jesus and what made them so willing to die for him.
When they got together to make their reports they were shocked. The early church used a pattern of worship, a liturgy, they used a set service and set prayers, based on the Jewish services, the first part called the Synaxis, the meeting, and the second part called The Eucharist, the thanksgiving, based on the Jewish service for offering sacrifices, but now offering the blood and body of Christ in the bread and wine. They discovered this reading Saint Justin Martyr writing in 150 A.D., Hippolytus in 200 A.D, and the Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve from 70 A.D.
The early church had bishops. James the brother of Jesus was Bishop of Jeruselem, which is why in Acts 15, he pronounces the final judgement, not any of the apostles, in how to solve a dispute that those in Antioch had asked the council in Jeruselum to help them solve. That was about 48/49 AD. Ignatius was bishop of Antioch from 67A.D., Clement Bishop of Rome from 90A.D. about and Polycarp bishop of Smyrna about 100 A.D, consecrated Bishop by the apostles.