The Apostolic Era

The Apostolic Era (33-100 A.D.) began when the Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, its job was to fill the followers of Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. These people who were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit were known as The Apostles. Throughout this Era the community that existed was sort of like a connected family. But later on when the Patristic Era (100-500 A.D.) began this community began to slowly fall apart. In this paper I'll tell you how about the Apostolic Era, the Patristic Era, and how the Apostolic Era eventually turned into the Patristic Era. The Apostolic Era, can be known as the “golden age” of the Church, was a countercultural Era. In the Apostolic Era worship was known as a community activity where

People began to care about being Roman than Christian. In this Era worship was no longer done as a community of equals, instead the Church separated into two classes. The two classes were the clergy (people seen as “holier") and the laity (common folks and non clergy people). The Eucharist became a sacrifice started by the clergy. The Eucharist also became a highly structured ritual with pomp and ceremony. Scriptures of the Old Testament and Gospels were read and it came from formal instructions offered at the liturgy by the presiding Bishop. There were also monks and hermits. There were people who spent time in cities or the usual life in the empire but struggled to follow the Gospel but on the other hand there were also people who who followed the Essenes like in the Apostolic Era. Those who were in cities or the regular part of the Empire centered their worship around the Cathedral of the Diocese and the Bishop. But those in the deserts or in monasteries centered their worship around the Community of that place, and around the "founder" or leader of the place."Public" and "Private" worship was thus created. The idea of the Church as a community was non existent, it turned more as a government than a family. The administrators of the Church (clergy) were responsible for taking care of those members who were in need. Those who were close to

This meant that being Christian was seen as something ‘illegal” which lead to many tortures or entertainment by the Romans. Many of them would gather Christians and either slowly kill them in many different ways or have them in an arena where everyone was invited to see their deaths. But despite all this each time a Christian was destined to die they would also be happy and sing songs about the Lord or they would praise him. These actions made the Romans confused because they were so happy to be killed. Thus after the Romans saw this the Patristic Era began. One of the main symbols in the Patristic Era was Constantine who signed the Edict of Milan which made it legal to be Christian. All of this started a vast conversion to Christianity, and it initiated Rome being Politically Expedient which meant that everyone who was in the army was required to be Christian. Later on as Constantine was going to die he gave away his spared palace to the Bishop, then he was baptized before he died because they used to think that you only had two chances to enter heaven, by baptism or by reconciliation and he thought that if he got baptized before his death then he would be clean of his sins. This really helps you understand the mentality of the people in Rome.After the reign of Theodosius there was a new rank added to the Christian religion, known as the “Pope.” From then on this formed the