Barnabas, born Joseph (Ἰωσήφ) or Joses (Ἰωσής), was according to tradition an early Christian, one of the prominent Christian disciples in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36, Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Named an apostle in Acts 14:14, he and Paul the Apostle undertook missionary journeys together and defended Gentile converts against the Judaizers. They traveled together making more converts, and participated in the Council of Jerusalem. Barnabas and Paul successfully evangelized among the "God-fearing" Gentiles who attended synagogues in various Hellenized cities of Anatolia.
Ignatius of Antioch, also known as Ignatius Theophorus, was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence forms a central part of a later collection of works by the Apostolic Fathers. He is considered one of the three most important of these, together with Clement of Rome and Polycarp. His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology, and address important topics including ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
Polycarp was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism.
Timothy or Timothy of Ephesus was an early Christian evangelist and the first Christian bishop of Ephesus, who tradition relates died around the year AD 97.
James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord, was a brother of Jesus, according to the New Testament. He was the first leader of the Jerusalem Church of the Apostolic Age. Traditionally, it is believed he was martyred in AD 62 or 69 by being stoned to death by the Pharisees on order of High Priest Ananus ben Ananus. James, Joses, Simon, and Judas are mentioned as the brothers or siblings of Jesus as well as two or more unnamed sisters.
The Church of Antioch was the first of the five major churches of the early pentarchy in Christianity, with its primary seat in the ancient Greek city of Antioch.
An apostolic see is an episcopal see whose foundation is attributed to one or more of the apostles of Jesus or to one of their close associates. In Catholicism, the phrase "The Apostolic See" when capitalized refers specifically to the See of Rome.
The Apostolic Fathers, also known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, were core Christian theologians among the Church Fathers who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles or to have been significantly influenced by them. Their writings, though widely circulated in early Christianity, were not included in the canon of the New Testament. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature which came to be part of the New Testament.
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches generally do not view the New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.
The seventy disciples, known in the Eastern Christian traditions as the seventy apostles, were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The number of those disciples varies between either 70 or 72 depending on the manuscript.
The Apostolic Canons, also called Apostolic canons, Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles, or Canons of the Holy Apostles, is a 4th-century Syrian Christian text. It is an Ancient Church Order, a collection of ancient ecclesiastical canons concerning the government and discipline of the Early Christian Church, allegedly written by the Apostles. This text is an appendix to the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions. Like the other Ancient Church Orders, the Apostolic Canons uses a pseudepigraphic form.
John Mark is named in the Acts of the Apostles as an assistant accompanying Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journeys. Traditionally he is regarded as identical with Mark the Evangelist, the traditional writer of the Gospel of Mark.
The Acts of the Apostles is a genre of early Christian literature, recounting the lives and works of the apostles of Jesus. The Acts are important for many reasons, one of them being the concept of apostolic succession. They also provide insight into the valuation of "missionary activities among the exotic races," since some of them feature missionary work done among, for instance, the Cynocephaly.
Christianity in the ante-Nicene period was the time in Christian history up to the First Council of Nicaea. This article covers the period following the Apostolic Age of the first century, c. 100 AD, to Nicaea in 325 AD.
Acts 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records "the first great controversy in the records of the Christian Church", concerning the necessity of circumcision, Paul and Barnabas traveling to Jerusalem to attend the Council of Jerusalem and the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.
Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish diaspora throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. The first followers of Christianity were Jews who had converted to the faith, i.e. Jewish Christians, as well as Phoenicians, i.e. Lebanese Christians. Early Christianity contains the Apostolic Age and is followed by, and substantially overlaps with, the Patristic era.
In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles, were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and ministry of Jesus in the 1st century AD, the apostles were his closest followers and became the primary teachers of the gospel message of Jesus. There is also an Eastern Christian tradition derived from the Gospel of Luke that there were seventy apostles during the time of Jesus' ministry.
Andrew the Apostle, also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus. The title First-Called stems from the Gospel of John, where Andrew, initially a disciple of John the Baptist, follows Jesus and, recognizing him as the Messiah, introduces his brother Simon Peter to him.
Saint Peter, also known as Peter the Apostle, Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, or Cephas, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and one of the first leaders of the early Christian Church. He appears repeatedly and prominently in all four New Testament gospels as well as the Acts of the Apostles. Catholic tradition accredits Peter as the first bishop of Rome—or pope—and also as the first bishop of Antioch.
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans is an epistle attributed to Ignatius of Antioch, a second-century bishop of Antioch. It was written during his transport from Antioch to his execution in Rome. To the Romans contains Ignatius’ most detailed explanation of his views on martyrdom.
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