Re: The Early Christians: In Their Own Words

The witness of the original church at Jerusalem and its apostles permeated 
this whole period. Continuity in the original spirit inspired by Christ, 
showed itself in basic elements of the Jerusalem church: the message 
proclaimed by the apostles, the accounts they wrote about their work, the 
ancient Jewish writings, the new book of the New Testament, and above all,

the apostles’ determined stand against the pagan spirit of the existing 
order. The strong influence of the church is all the more striking because

the first church (with its early Jewish Christianity) perished in the two 
merciless wars waged by Rome against the Jews, in A.D. 70 and 135. The 
following persecutions and martyrdoms were initiated by a Jewry turned 
fanatical as a result.