Re: The Early Christians: In Their Own Words

Eusebius re****ts how those men, consumed with burning love and doing what 
Jesus told them, distributed their possessions among the poor and set out 
to proclaim Christ to those who had never heard of him. As soon as they
had 
appointed shepherds in one place, they moved on to people in other lands. 
The world-wide mission of the apostles included everyone. They were
charged 
to found and build up church communities everywhere. Of all the inspired 
bearers of the Word, the apostles were the leaders throughout the earth. 
The work of these first ambassadors of the Messiah was seen as so 
fundamental, so exclusively given by God, so much a part of faith in the 
Spirit, that their work was even included in the Confession of Faith. Only

God and Christ himself could call men to an apostolate of such im****tance.

Through the first apostles, the authority of the Spirit wrought tangible 
miracles and the church was visibly built up everywhere which proved
beyond 
doubt that theirs was a calling from God. It is all the more astounding 
that “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” and Hermas’ The Shepherd use
the 
term “apostle” in a much broader sense than later generations. But God did

call out other, new apostles, even after he had sent out the twelve and 
Paul. Tertullian and Origen confirmed this and gave the name of “apostles”

to the seventy disciples in the Gospels.