The first century of the existence of Gentile Christian communities is particularly characterised by the following features: I. The rapid disappearance of Jewish Christianity. II. The enthusiastic character of the religious temper; the Charismatic teachers and the appeal to the Spirit. III. The strength of the hopes for the future, Chiliasm. IV. The rigorous endeavour to fulfil the moral precepts of Christ, and truly represent the holy and heavenly community of God in abstinence from everything unclean, and in love to God and the brethren here on earth "in these last days." V. The want of a fixed doctrinal form in relation to the abstract statement of the faith, and the corresponding variety and freedom of Christian preaching on the basis of clear formulÆ and an increasingly rich tradition. VI. The want of a clearly defined external authority in the communities, sure in its application, and the corresponding independence and freedom of the individual Christian in relation to the expression of the ideas, beliefs and hopes of faith. VII. The want of a fixed political union of the several communities with each other—every ecclesia is an image complete in itself, and an embodiment of the whole heavenly Church—while the consciousness of the unity of the holy Church of Christ which has the spirit in its midst, found strong expression. VIII. A quite unique literature in which were manufactured facts for the past and for the future, and which did not submit to the usual literary rules and forms, but came forward with the loftiest pretensions. IX. The reproduction of particular sayings and arguments of Apostolic Teachers with an uncertain understanding of them. X. The rise of tendencies which endeavoured to hasten in every respect the inevitable process of fusing the Gospel with the spiritual and religious interests of the time, viz., the Hellenic, as well as attempts to separate the Gospel from its origins and provide for it quite foreign presuppositions. To the latter belongs, above all, the Hellenic idea that knowledge is not a charismatic supplement to the faith, or an outgrowth of faith alongside of others, but that it coincides with the essence of faith itself. The sources for this period are few, as there was not much written, and the following period did not lay itself out for preserving a great part of the literary monuments of that epoch. Still we do possess a considerable number of writings and important fragments, Supplement.—The main features of the message concerning Christ, of the matter of the Evangelic history, were fixed in the first and second generations of believers, and on Palestinian soil. But yet, up to the middle of the second century, this matter was in many ways increased in Gentile Christian regions, revised from new points of view, handed down in very diverse forms, and systematically allegorised by individual teachers. As a whole, the Evangelic history certainly appears to have been completed at the beginning of the second century. But in detail, much that was new was produced at a later period—and not only in Gnostic circles—and the old tradition was recast or rejected.
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