struggle between those who followed Him as the true God-man, and those
who followed the Emperors as the false ones.
This work is a basic introduction designed to study the earliest history of
the Church with a particular view to discovering those outstanding events
and persons who laid the foundations of Christendom for the next 1500
years. We will also see that it is a history thoroughly Catholic from its very
beginnings. Some of the greatest converts to Catholicism over the last five
hundred years attributed their conversion to their study of the early Church,
particularly the writings of the Fathers – e.g., St. Edmund Campion and
John Henry Cardinal Newman. They saw that the Catholic Church was the
Church of the first three centuries and that all its teachings can be found
either explicitly or implicitly in the writings of this period: “The
Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there was a safe truth it
is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so. To be deep in history is to
cease to be a Protestant.” ¹
The years between 30 AD and 476 AD are filled with great adventure,
courage, tragedy and triumph. It opens with the missionary work of the
Apostles, particular the work of Sts. Peter, Paul and Thomas. The
dispersion of the Apostles in 42 AD would see the spreading of Christianity
throughout the Roman and Parthian Empires, across even to India.
Reactions would follow, including the execution of St. James the Greater
and the expulsion of all Christians and Jews from Rome in 49 AD.
The full-scale persecution of Christianity would be started by the
megalomaniac Nero, seeking scapegoats for his insane burning of Rome in
64 AD. This persecution would claim the lives of Sts. Peter and Paul, as
well as thousands of innocent Christian souls. After his assassination, only
one law of Nero’s would remain – the edict outlawing Christianity.
Persecution after persecution would follow: Domitian, Trajan, Marcus
Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Thrax, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian and
Diocletian would over the next 245 years all tread down the same road as
Nero, and all achieve the same vain results. Despite each persecution, the
Church of Christ would continue to grow: “The blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the Church.” Martyrs multiplied, but so did converts, while old
Rome grew tired and desperately tried to regain her former glory. As
1
John Henry Cardinal Newman – An Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine.
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