Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Robin klein (talk | contribs) at 17:35, 19 December 2004 (early christians were largely jewish). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Early Christians is a term used to refer to the early followers of Jesus of Nazareth, before the emergence of established Christian orthodoxy. The term essentially refers to the Jewish Christians of the early period of Christianity, before it was constituted as the official religion of the Roman Empire, by emperor Constantine I, in 312 A.D.

The term has an underlying connotation, that of much of the early christians as being largely Jewish. The term was used by the later Graeco-Roman christians to refers to the early followers of the christ, at a time when what was later called as christianity was largely a Jewish sect. The early christians however mostly refered to themselves as nazarenes (Acts 24:5, New Revised Standard Version). The early Christian-Jewish heritage lingers in the nasrani tradition in South India.

Among those writers commonly referred to as Early Christian are:

• Clement of Rome
• Ignatius of Antioch
• Papias
• Polycarp of Smyrna
• Justin Martyr
• Tatian
• Athenagorus
• Irenaeus
• Clement of Alexandria
• Tertullian
• Hippolytus
• Origen
• Cyprian
• Dionysius of Alexandria
• Arnobius
• Lactantius

The term is less often, but with equal validity, applied to the authors of the books of the New Testament.

• v
• t
• e

• Ancient Roman Christianity
• Christian history